The Practice Room: Guitar Theory Drills
Theory is not knowledge, it is latency. Two drills for an acoustic player: the notes on strings 6 and 5, and the seven chords of a key by number.
Theory isn’t knowledge, it’s latency. Everyone knows the vi chord is minor; almost nobody can name it in E♭ before the bar has gone past. That gap wants a drill, not a paragraph — so this page is the drill. It runs in the browser, keeps nothing, and works on a phone.
Two to start, chosen because fluency in either changes what you can play tonight.
Notes on the bass strings
Strings 6 and 5 only, frets 0 to 12. These are the two strings barre chords are rooted on, so knowing them turns one shape into all twelve chords. The rest of the fretboard can wait.
Strings 6 and 5, frets 0 to 12. Know these two and one barre shape moves anywhere.
Numbers in a key
The seven chords of a major key, by number, in both directions — chord to numeral and back. This is what lets someone call I–V–vi–IV in D and have your hands already moving, and it’s the same fact that makes transposing and capo arithmetic possible later.
The seven chords of a major key, by number. I ii iii IV V vi vii° never changes — only the key it is poured into does.
Next
Interval shapes from a root, key identification, transposition and capo. Sections here rather than posts of their own.