Shop Now You know what? She made learning to play more boring than watching paint dry. And as a six year old, if given the choice, I probably would have chosen the paint!

She tried teaching me music theory, but it was like cutting down a forest with a pocketknife. More on that story in just a minute…



But as I’ve helped other people learn the guitar, I’ve observed that there’s a general lack of understanding as to exactly why we play what we do.

More importantly, I’ve noticed this lack of understanding really slows down progress, and even worse – can make learning the guitar confusing and feel like a lot of hard work!

I-IV-V (that’s 1 – 4 – 5 in English) refers to the root note (I), or tonic, and the two notes in perfect relation to it (IV and V). Because it is a numbering system, it is universal, and applies to every single key.

Simply put – this lesson on I-IV-V will show you how the guitar fretboard is built on patterns of I-IV-V, and once you see the patterns, your guitar will come alive in a whole new way… Read more…