It’s been a while since the site has had some attention. Huge amounts of work in other areas have kept things on the back burner here at the guitar Matrix but that is about to change.

We’re not quite finished with the upgrade, but we wanted to get the info back online ASAP. Because we’re not quite done there are a few things you should be aware of:

- First, the main menu system and structure are going to be reworked, so for now the best way to get around is using the Site Map, which you can access from the Hot Links section or the link on the menu bar.

- Second, some of the images from the previous layout are TOO BIG! You my have to control/right click and select view image to see the whole thing.

These deficiencies will be rectified ASAP. Please let us know what you think and stay tuned for lots more change!

The Guitar Matrix™ Team.

Image mods and other tasks are ongoing. New content will be added as soon as everything is updated.

Thanks for your patience while we improve the site!

The Guitar Matrix™ Team.

When I was learning classical guitar as a young lad my teacher would occasionally smile at me devilishly and say “today we’re going to learn some THEORY! I guess I was supposed to be dumbstruck with awe at the prospect of being ushered into the lofty realm of Musical Wisdom, unfortunately the effect was rather more anesthetizing. THEORY felt like something that was distantly related to guitar playing at best. The presentation focused mainly on wrote memorization of painfully boring historical minutiae and arcane musical terms. In a word, brutal.

Some time later I had the privilege to attend GIT in Hollywood. The school had recently opened and it took a truly unique approach to guitar learning . Beyond the fact that the teachers and players I met there were (are) truly amazing, they built a musical framework that connected all of the musical dots for me. For the first time in my musical life I “got it”. Music theory wasn’t hard at all and I discovered that it was an integral part of playing, not some bizarre after-thought concocted by short people with big glasses in musty office somewhere.

If you’d like to learn more about guitar theoary the Easy Way. Stick around. We’ve got some things in the works that will really be helpful as you work to sort it all out.

The Guitar Matrix™ Team.

The image resizing is coming along slowly but surely. The major and minor triad images are now light-boxed and ready for prime time.

We’d love to hear your comments about the new layout.

The Guitar Matrix™ Team.

In an effort to improve the flow of the information presented here on the Guitar Matrix site we’re keeping the menu system super simple and adding links at the end of lesson that return to the module master page or continue on to the next lesson.

Let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

The Guitar Matrix™ Team.

I’ve posted the first Flash game on the site under the um, Games menu. Seemed appropriate…

You can see it here.

The game is simple: match the pitches!

Future versions will have harder levels that remove the visual cues (the letter names) and harder still, require you to match the silent letter name to the unlabelled pitch.

We’d love to get your feedback because we have other ear training games in the works.

Happy picking,

The Guitar Matrix™ team

The 1st installment of the Fretboard Melodics: Pentatonic Scales is now online.

There are several methods available to ‘create’ these incredibly useful scales. The easiest is to leave out a couple of notes of the diatonic scales you can learn about in the Fretboard Melodics: Diatonic Scales section.

Omitting the 4th and 7th dgree of the diatonic major scale creates an open and decidedly oriental sound. Although you can get a major amount of Chinese flavor from the major pentatonic you can also use them to serenade the hired hands as they round up your cattle or practice for the chuck wagon races at the stampede.

Chinese Country and Western anyone?

Happy picking!

The Guitar Matrix™ team

Ready to roll again. Next up? We’ll carry on with Fretboard Melodics and delve into the pentatonic scale, short on notes but long on possibilities!

Work will continue implementing the Reality Check quizzes throughout the site as well.

Happy picking!

The Guitar Matrix™ team

By popular demand…

The new Download section has a link to a high resolution PDF file of blank guitar tab paper.

You can also get it right here.

Enjoy!

The Guitar Matrix™ team

After viewing the site on a couple of laptops and desktops belonging to friends I can only say – YIKES!

It’s amazing to me that many friends still use very low resolution settings on their computers, but there it is.

This site will appear ‘normal’ to users that have their resolutions set to 1680×1050. It will still be pretty presentable above 1280×800 but below that BAD things start to occur, especially with the menus.

So, the question is what resolution are YOU using? Your feedback will help make the site better so please take a second and leave us a reply to let us know.

Thanks!

The Guitar Matrix™ team