The benefit of thinking in numbers
Beginner Guitar Essentials Lesson 9
This series of lessons will set you up for success on the guitar. You’ll learn what to focus on as a beginner, what to ignore, and how to structure your practice so you can start using what you’re learning to play songs as quickly as possible!
Recognising the I IV V in A major
A key is like a family of chords, with each chord having its own specific role in the family.
We give a numerical value to each chord based on its position in the key.
Being able to recognise a chord by its number allows us to know how it should be treated in the context of a chord progression.
The benefit of thinking in numbers
Two different families might each be made up of a mum, a dad, a son and a daughter. The relationship between the dad and the son in one family is relatively the same as the relationship between the dad and the son in the other family. However, the dad in one family is not the same person as the dad in the other family. Each family has different people filling the roles, but the relationships between the people in the families are relatively the same.
If we recognise chord progressions based on their numbers, we are able to substitute those numbers with the appropriate chords from different keys as required. This means that we could play a chord progression we learned in the key of A in the key of G instead. The chords we use will be completely different, but the chord progression will have the same shape because the relationships between the chords in each key will be the same.
Enjoying the lessons?
This series of lessons is test footage from the first part of our upcoming beginner guitar course. These lessons are all from the first of 10 sections that will help you form a rock-solid foundation when you’re starting out as a beginner guitar player.
If you’ve got any feedback on the material, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you think!
And, if you want to be one of the first to hear when the new course drops, make sure you’re signed up for the Guitar Nutrition newsletter.
In the next part of this lesson series, we’ll go over the best exercise to get your fingers moving.
A guitarist who has learned all the notes on the fretboard: Can more effectively learn scales and chords; Has a better understanding of keys, intervals, and scale degrees; Is able to more easily memorise songs; Has a greater capacity to understand music theory; Is more effectively able to develop their aural skills; Gets ‘lost’ far less frequently when they are improvising on the guitar.