Hand jive! Here’s a way to develop fretting-hand finger independence when away from your guitar. Start with the hand position Fig. 1 (above, at right), and slowly work through the movements to Fig. 4, following one move directly with the next. The trick is to do this in tempo, tapping the beat with your foot. Once you’ve mastered the moves with your fretting hand, learn them with your picking hand. The final trick is to use both hands to simultaneously execute the moves while cycling between opposing positions, i.e., pinky versus index split, and inner versus outer split. It’s a real mind-bender.

A major triad is composed of the 1, 3, and 5 of its respective major scale. In a minor triad, the 3 is lowered by a half-step, which results in a formula of 1, b3, and 5. (Appending a lowercase “m” to the root letter indicates a minor chord.) In a suspended chord, the 3 is replaced with either the 2 or 4, yielding a sus2 or sus4 voicing. Applying these formulas to a C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C), we can easily spell four three-note chords—C (C, E, G); Cm (C, Eb, G); Csus2 (C, D, G); and Csus4 (C, F, G). The formulas work identically in all 12 keys.