This page is about practicing notes on the 6th string using actual songs. This is part 3 of 6 about learning the notes on the fretboard:
- Just 12 notes. (Background material)
- Open and E strings
- Practicing with actual songs (this page)
- Fret 5 and String 5
- Octave Shapes
- Whole Fretboard
Everything on this page is completely optional. Feel free to skip ahead to the next lesson in the series if you just want to continue learning the notes. Using real songs is a fun way to practice, however.
You can make a surprising amount of actual music with just the notes on the E strings. In addition to playing simple melodies with notes on the high E string, you can also play chords that have the root on the 6th string.
The simplest of all chords are so-called “power chords” or 5-chords. Here’s the shape for an A5 power chord, for example, with the root on the 6th string (the hollow dot is optional — it’s up to you whether to mute or play that note):
You already KNOW that the fifth fret of the low E string is the note A. Play that shape at the fifth fret as shown in the diagram, and you are playing an A5 power chord. Move it up two frets and you are playing a B5 (because we know that fret 7 is the note B). Guess where you move to play C5?
Exercise 9: Smoke on the Water (click to expand)
The first song kids of my generation learned was often Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple. The song was written in G minor, but we can transpose the main riff to the key of Am so that there are fewer flatted notes. The main riff in Am is as follows:
If, by some miracle, you've never heard the riff, and you don't yet know how to read rhythm notation, it sounds like this in Gm. Using power chords rooted on the sixth string isn't the easiest way to play the riff, but it's not all that hard (it helps to play extremely slowly at first).
That one brief Eb, of course, is just one fret below E, so you find it at the 11th fret, the rest you already KNOW.
If you want to play along with an actual band, YouTube, or the audio file I linked to above, you must move everything down two frets to transpose everything to Gm.
Either way, the exercise is to play this riff while naming the root notes you're playing: "A, C, Dee ... A, C, Eb-dee ....".
Crank it up and have fun, but remember the purpose of the exercise is to cement the location of the notes into your brain and fingers. It's not for ear training or technique. The idea is to find those notes on the fretboard using the chord names above (A5, C5, D5, ...).
That's why I've not included the tablature in this section. If you really can't figure it out for some reason, here is the tab in Gm. The tab is in Gm, but if you shift it up to Am there will be fewer flatted notes to contend with (you'll be playing the notes you've already learned except for that brief Eb).
Power chords have some nice characteristics:
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Power chords are neither major nor minor, so you can play them over (almost) any chord that shares the same root.
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If a song uses the chord progression G / C / D, you can play G5 / C5 / D5. If it’s C / Am / Dm / G7 / C, you can play C5 / A5 / D5 / G5 / C5. If the chart says Em7#9 you can probably get away with just playing E5 (and let someone else in the band take care of all those other notes).
[The only time you can’t substitute a power chord is with altered chords where the fifth is flattened or sharpened. So if you see a chord with a name like Dm7♭5, or anything with “-/+/♭/♯” next to the number 5, a power chord may not sound that great over it.]
Because any note you play on a guitar includes the fifth of that note as an overtone already, playing a note+fifth (a power chord) is basically just playing a “fatter” version of the original note. This means it sounds great with as much distortion as you want to throw at it. You don’t have to worry about the nasty discordant sound you can get when you distort more complicated chords.
So let’s drill with some actual songs. Using real songs to practice has a couple advantages:
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Different songs use some extremely common patterns (you may have heard terms like “a I IV V progression” or a “I vi ii V” progression). Giving your hands and ears practice at finding these common sequences will pay off later.
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Playing along with music forces you to keep time. There is nothing like a steady beat to keep you honest about how well you KNOW the fretboard locations!
At this point we should try to limit ourselves to songs that use as few sharps and flats as possible. Good sources of material are Christmas Carols and Country/Traditional music. Here’s a nice free Hank Williams songbook on archive.org, which is a terrific resource for finding things in the public domain.
Exercise 10: Practice with chord progressions (click to expand)
Find the chords and a recording for any song you like, ideally one with a slow tempo, simple rhythm, and without too many chords or changes or flats and sharps in the chords. For example, search YouTube for "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams. You can find the chords on page 5 of this songbook.
Look through the song and write down the chords in the order they occur. For Cold, Cold Heart, the sequence is D A D G A D in that order, repeated for each verse. Make sure you can find those power chords easily and remember the order.
Play the song all the way through at least once before you pick up your guitar. Tap your foot along with the song to find the downbeats. Try to say out loud the name of chord on each downbeat as it plays. For Cold, Cold Heart, it would be something like this:
Hank sings: I try so hard my dear to show that you're my every dream .... You say: / D D D D / D D D A /
You should be saying "D" right when Hank sings "try," and "A" at the exact instant that Hank sings "dream". Practice this with every line until you're sure you know the order of the chords (root notes). Just say the notes at this point without playing them.
Now repeat the exercise, but this time actually play the power-chord as you say the name. Try to play in time, changing chords right on the downbeat of each chord change. You'll likely find it important to think ahead and plan for the next change.
Understand that this is intended to be practice, not playing. Don't worry about making it sound great (heavy-metal-ish power chords over classic country probably won't!). Also try not to lose focus or start goofing around with other songs/melodies you're reminded of. We are drilling to be able to find notes quickly and in time. We want to test that we truly KNOW the locations, not to have fun making music (at least not yet). Practice should be disciplined and structured.
If you're playing a song with very few chord changes per measure, practice playing the same chord multiple times within each measure, right on the downbeat. See if you can make each change in time to keep up the rhythm. For example, with Cold, Cold Heart, the chords are:
Next, we’ll learn the remaining natural notes at fret 5 and on string 5.