* The information below refers to the IMP Guitar Card Pack, which comprises five cards, not to the left-handed card or the original IMP Guitar Card.*
IMP Guitar Cards are a guitar theory and music reference tool for beginner and advanced guitarists alike. If you want to know which chords sound good together in all keys, want to learn the notes on the fretboard, what intervals are used to build common chords and how common scales are formed, then IMP Guitar Cards are for you!
Learning the fretboard notes (IMP Guitar Card 1 – Front)
The better you know the notes on the fretboard, the more options you will have in your playing. The front side of IMP Guitar Card 1 shows all the notes on the fretboard, but with the sharp and flat notes removed. This is a good way to learn the fretboard notes, as you can see the repeating patterns of notes more easily. Once you have learnt the positions of these ‘natural’ notes (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), you can fill in the missing sharp/flat notes when needed using the 12 note sequence below –
A – [A#/Bb] – B – C – [C#/Db] – D – [D#/Eb] – E – F – [F#/Gb] – G – [G#/Ab]
(Note – there are no sharp/flat notes between B and C, or between E and F)
Learning the notes on the fretboard is a bit of a memory exercise but there are ways to make the task easier. The best place to start is to learn the notes on the low E string (lowest in pitch, i.e. the thickest string). This will help you to position common barre chords that have their root note on the low E string. Conveniently, the notes on the high E string (the thinnest string) are the same as the notes on the low E string at the same fret, so you learn two strings at once.
The next most useful notes to learn are those on the A string. These will help you to position common barre chords that have their roots on the A string. Beyond that it’s up to you, but you can start working out the notes on other strings by finding the octaves of the notes you know on the low E and A strings.
It’s also useful to remember that B and C are always next to each other with no sharp or flat note inbetween, as are E and F. As you can see from IMP Guitar Card 1 – Front, usually the B-C notes on one string are adjacent to the E-F notes on the next highest (in pitch) string. For example, the notes on the low E string at the 7th and 8th frets are B-C, and the notes on the A string at the 7th and 8th frets are E-F. These four notes form a distinctive ‘square’ pattern, which is repeated in different places over the fretboard. These ‘squares’ are useful landmarks, as once you know the position of one of these four notes, you can quickly work out the position of the other three. The exception to this is on the B string which has its E-F notes shifted along one fret from the B-C notes on the G string.
Common chords in every key (IMP Guitar Card 1 – Back)
The table on the back of IMP Guitar Card 1 shows you the names of the most common chords in all 12 keys. First find the name of the key you want to play in in the leftmost column (the column under the heading ‘I’). Then read along the row for the names of the most common chords in that key. An ‘m’ in a chord name indicates a minor chord.
For the key of C, the chord names are shown along the top row of the table –
C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – B°
Where C, F and G are major chords. D, E and A are minor chords. B° is a diminished chord (more on this below). You will notice for every key, there are three major chords, three minor chords and one diminished chord.
You can just jump straight in and start playing the chords in any key to see how they sound together.
Alternatively, a good starting point is to look at the column headings and play the I, IV and V chords in any key. In the key of C, these are the C, F and G – all major chords. The I, IV and V chords are the basis for a great deal of popular music. These three chords will sound good together in any combination but to give a song a strong C major character try starting on the C major chord, moving to the other chords, then returning to the C major chord to finish. An example of using the I, IV and V chords is the song Wild Thing by The Troggs (The Troggs – Wild Thing). This song uses the chord progression I-IV-V-IV, or C-F-G-F in the key of C.
Once you know a chord progression in its roman numeral format, like I-IV-V-IV, you can play this same chord pattern in any key. So the I-IV-V-IV pattern in the key of E is E-A-B-A, in the key of A it is A-D-E-D. This is the process of transposing or transposition (essentially playing the same thing but in a different key).
Seven chords are shown for each key, these are sometimes referred to as the ‘Scale Tone Chords’ or ‘Scale Tone Triads’ of that key. These seven chords are built from the seven notes of the major scale in that key.
In the key of C, the seven notes of the major scale are C-D-E-F-G-A-B. These scale tone chords are formed by taking each note in turn as the ‘root’ note, then adding the note two places up on the major scale, then adding the note a further two places up on the major scale. So the first scale tone chord has a C note as its root and adds an E note and a G note. This is a C major chord. The second scale tone chord has D as its root note and adds F and A. This is a D minor chord. So this method produces both major and minor chords. Fortunately, the roman numeral system for chords helps to simplify this since the I, IV and V scale tone chords in any key are always major and the II, III and VI scale tone chords are always minor.
The chord built on the seventh note of the major scale is a bit of an oddity. This is a diminished chord, referred to as VII°. In the key of C, this is B° (or Bdim). These diminished chords are useful to know but are less frequently used than the other major and minor chords. There are also additional ‘extended’ chords (seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords) that are not shown on this card, as well as other more exotic chords. But the basic major and minor scale tone chords in each key are the best place to start learning.
Some chord progressions to try:
I-IV-V-IV
– Wild Thing by The Troggs (A-D-E-D) – link
V-IV-I
– Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd (D-C-G) – link
I-IV-I-IV-I-V-IV-I
– 12-bar blues progression – Sweet Home Chicago by Robert Johnson (F-Bb-F-Bb-F-C-Bb-F) – link
I-V-vi-IV
– ‘optimistic’ progression – Let It Be by The Beatles (C-G-Am-F) – link
vi-IV-I-V
– ‘pessimistic’ progression – Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry (Am-F-C-G) – link
I-vi-IV-V
– ’50s’ progression – Stand By Me by Ben E. King (A-F#m-D-E) – link
I-vi–ii–V
– ‘doo-wop’ progression – Blue Moon, Chris Isaak version (C-Am-Dm-G) – link
I-V-ii-IV
– Closing Time by Semisonic (G-D-Am-C) – link
I-iii-IV-I
– The Weight by The Band (A-C#m-D-A) – link
I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV-V
– ‘Pachelbel’ progression – Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel (D-A-Bm-F#m-G-D-G-A) – link
The major scale and natural minor scale (IMP Guitar Card 2 – Front & Card 4 – Front)
The major scale is a seven note scale, sometimes referred to as the basis of western music. It is a scale you may be familiar with in the form Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti, or from the song ‘Do-Re-Mi’ from The Sound of Music.
What gives this scale (or any scale) its character is the pattern of intervals between the notes. The notes of the major scale in any key follow the interval pattern below.
T – T – S – T – T – T – S
Where T is a whole tone (whole step, or two frets). And S is a semitone (half-step, half-tone or one fret). Whichever note the scale starts on, this pattern of intervals remains the same.
The natural minor scale (sometimes referred to simply as the minor scale) is another seven note scale but it has a different pattern of intervals as shown below.
T – S – T – T – S – T – T
The IMP Guitar Cards let you compare these two scales side by side, so you can see the similarities, as well as the differences. Four notes are the same in both major and natural minor scales (1, 2, 4, 5), and three notes from the major scale (3, 6, 7) are flattened by a semitone to become b3, b6, b7 in the natural minor scales. It is these flattened notes that give the natural minor scale its ‘minor’ sound.
Pentatonic scales (IMP Guitar Card 3 – Front & Card 5 – Front)
The pentatonic scales are a good place to start learning scales on the guitar. Firstly, they are 5 note scales, so there are fewer notes to learn and the patterns are a bit simpler. Secondly, the notes of these scales are ‘safe’, meaning it’s harder to play a note that sounds bad or out of tune.
You can think of the major and minor pentatonic scales as simplified versions of the major and natural minor scales. The major pentatonic is the major scale with the 4th and 7th notes removed. The minor pentatonic is the natural minor scale with the 2nd and b6th removed.
Guitarists often start by learning the minor pentatonic scale as this scale is common in blues and rock music. Looking at the C minor pentatonic scale shown on IMP Guitar Card 5 – Front, you can see how this scale has been split into light blue and dark blue coloured blocks. These blocks are the most common patterns used to learn the pentatonic scales. A starting point would be to first learn the block pattern shown in dark blue between the 8th and 11th frets. This block pattern starts on a C note, the root note of the C minor pentatonic scale. For a bluesy/rocky sound, try playing this C minor pentatonic block pattern over a backing track of C, F and G major chords (the I, IV and V chords of C major).
Although the minor pentatonic scale is arguably more useful to learn, you should be familiar with both the major and minor pentatonic scales and aim to use both to make your playing more varied.
Interval names (IMP Guitar Card 2 – Back)
Learning about intervals can be an aspect of guitar playing that gets overlooked. But intervals can be thought of as the building blocks of chords and scales and can be a route into learning music theory from a different perspective.
Whenever you have two notes there is an interval between them, and different intervals have different musical characteristics.
You can think of chords and scales as being built from different intervals. A major chord includes a ‘major 3rd’ interval (4 semitones) between its root note and the 3rd note from the major scale. A minor chord includes a ‘minor 3rd’ interval (3 semitones) between its root and the b3rd from the natural minor scale. So you can think of using different intervals into your note and chord playing to achieve a particular characteristic sound. If you play a major chord but then change the major 3rd interval into a minor 3rd interval, you change the character from a happy ‘major’ sound to a sad ‘minor’ sound.
The perfect 4th and perfect 5th intervals are both positive ‘major’ sounding intervals but they still have their own particular character. Learning to recognise different intervals will help you learn to play songs by ear and to create the sounds you want.
There are 12 semitones between a note and the same note an octave higher. This is why there are 12 frets between a note on the guitar and its octave on the same string. This gives 13 different intervals between a note and its octave, starting with the unison interval (which is the same note) to the octave interval (which is the same note but an octave higher or lower). IMP Guitar Card 2 – Back shows the names of these intervals and how many semitones each interval comprises. The intervals shown are colour coordinated so that you can then recognise these intervals on the chord, scale and mode construction cards.
It is also useful to learn the intervals between each string on the guitar. For example, in standard tuning, there is an interval of a perfect 4th between the low E string and the A string. If your root note is on the low E string, you can find the 4th note of the major scale on the A string at the same fret. You also then know that a perfect 5th interval is two frets up the fretboard from the perfect 4th, and the major 3rd is one fret down from the perfect 4th. In this way, intervals become another way to navigate the fretboard.
Chord construction (IMP Guitar Card 3 – Back)
Most of the simple chords you first learn on the guitar are built from three notes. A root note that gives the chord its letter name and two more notes that give the chord its character. Most common open chords and barre chords are built from three notes but they include octaves, so the same note is played more than once.
IMP Guitar Card 3 – Back helps you to compare most common chord types side by side, including the various seventh chords. You can, for example, visualise what makes a major chord sound ‘major’ and how to change it to sound ‘minor’. The sometimes confusing differences between major 7th, minor 7th and dominant 7th chords should also become a bit clearer.
One thing that is apparent from the chord construction card is how most common chords can be built by ‘stacking thirds’, that is stacking intervals of either a major third (four semitones – shown as light green) or a minor third (three semitones – shown as dark green). A major triad is built from its root note with a major third and then a minor third. With a minor triad it is the opposite way around, a minor third followed by a major third.
Once you know the chord formula for a type of chord, and combine this with knowledge of the notes on the fretboard, you can play the same chord in many places all over the fretboard, as triads, inverted chords, arpeggios or as a chord-based melody.
Scale construction (IMP Guitar Card 4 – Back)
Much like with chords, it can be quiet confusing trying to understand the similarities and differences between different scales. So IMP Guitar Card 4 – Back gives you a visual way to compare common scales side by side. This lets you see clearly which notes different scales have in common, as well as where they differ.
Each type of scale has a characteristic pattern of intervals no matter what root note the scale begins on. In other words, the pattern of intervals remains the same in all keys. For example, you can see how the intervals between the notes of the major scale follow the characteristic pattern T – T – S – T – T – T – S (where T is a whole tone and S is a semitone). You can see how the minor pentatonic scale has the same notes as the natural minor scale but with the 2nd and b6th notes removed, and how the minor blues scale is a minor pentatonic scale with a ‘blue’ note added between the 4th and 5th.
Mode construction (IMP Guitar Card 5 – Back)
IMP Guitar Card 5 – Back shows the seven modes of the major scale. Each mode is really a scale in its own right, since it has a characteristic pattern of intervals that remains the same in every key. The first mode is the ionian mode, which is also the major scale with interval pattern T – T – S – T – T – T – S. For each subsequent mode, that pattern of intervals is shifted along by one. So the next mode, dorian, has the interval pattern T – S – T – T – T – S – T. It may help to think of the dorian mode as using the notes of a major scale but starting on 2nd note instead of on the 1st.
Each mode has its own sound and personality and you can start to see where these characteristics come from by studying the notes in the mode. You are already familiar with the sound of two modes: ionian, which is the major scale; and aeolian, which is the natural minor scale. Looking at the mode construction card you can see that some modes contain a major third interval and some contain a minor b3 interval. Those with a major third interval (ionian, lydian, mixolydian) are broadly ‘major’ sounding modes. Those with a minor third interval (dorian, phrygian, aeolian) are broadly ‘minor’ sounding modes. The locrian mode is a bit of an odd one as it has a minor third interval but also a flattened 5th, so it has a diminished quality.
The phrygian mode has a dark and exotic sound, particularly from the b2 note. You can therefore emphasise this distinctive sound by emphasising that b2 note. The mixolydian mode is one of the more commonly used modes and it is the same as the major scale but with a b7 note. This mode has a positive ‘major’ sound but is less saccharine sweet than the major scale, so you may choose to use this mode in preference to the major scale. The presence of the b7 note also makes it a good fit to play over dominant 7 chords, which also include a b7 note.
The lydian mode is another major sound sounding mode with only one note different from the major scale. Instead of the 4th in the major scale, the lydian mode has a #4th. This #4th interval is also known as a ‘tritone’ and has a dissonant, tense quality. So the lydian mode has a familiar sound, as it is so close to the major scale, but also an unsettling quality gained from the #4th.
You can see how useful it is to look inside these modes, see the notes in there and start to get an understanding of why each mode sounds the way it does.