Beginning Blues and Rock Theory for Guitar: Guitar Book & CD

The journey moves from analyzing individual pieces (intervals, chords) to recognizing how they function together as progressions. By the end, familiar blues and rock sounds snap into focus, and students hear the underlying structure rather than just the surface.

Guitarists working through Beginning Blues Guitar or Beginning Rock Guitar who want to deepen their understanding of why the music works the way it does. Students benefit most when they've already developed basic chord and scale familiarity and are ready to connect those technical skills to harmonic theory and ear training.

• Work through the worksheets in order before moving to the next section. Each one builds on the previous layer of understanding, so skipping ahead creates gaps in ear recognition.
• Use the CD actively during practice sessions. Listen to an example, pause, write down what you hear, then check the answer key. This habit trains your ear faster than passive listening.
• Return to the intervals and chord identification exercises weekly, even after you've completed the book. Consistent review keeps your ear sharp when you're learning new songs.
• Apply what you learn immediately. When you encounter a chord progression in a song you're working on, identify which primary function (tonic, subdominant, dominant) it serves. Theory stays alive when it connects to real music.

Assign worksheets alongside your primary method book, spacing them so theory reinforces what students just learned in their lessons. The CD makes this accessible for independent study, freeing lesson time for playing rather than explanation.

• Identifying diatonic harmony and the major scale across the fretboard
• Recognizing tonic, subdominant, and dominant chord functions by sound and sight
• Building and playing major, minor, pentatonic, and blues scales
• Hearing and naming intervals within chord progressions
• Transcribing chord progressions by ear from recorded examples
• Understanding the harmonic structure of blues and rock songs