Darrin Koltow

We’re continuing the series of lessons that gets us started playing guitar by ear. Last time, we started talking about why the guitar is not the best instrument to begin learning to play by ear with. And the point of illustrating that is to help you understand that, when you’re struggling to play guitar by [...]

We’re continuing the series of lessons that get us started playing guitar by ear. We’re going to begin looking at playing melodies first. Before we learn a melody by ear, you’ll want to make an observation for yourself about playing by ear on the guitar. As much as I love the guitar, I realize that [...]

We continue our exploration of playing guitar by ear. This time out we’re going to look at reasons for playing by ear. You want to play by ear for this reason above all others: it just feels good. That’s it! That’s why you began playing in the first place, isn’t it? You play because you [...]

Let’s go into playing guitar by ear. I’ll base the content on the series found on Maximum Musician, but it will be revised here and there as inspiration strikes. Just what exactly does it mean to play by ear? When you hear someone say, “He plays by ear” it’s often said with awe, in the [...]

Some quick tips on learning melodies by ear in this issue. First off, learn scales and play them regularly. Most important: the major scale. Learn at least the five CAGED forms. (Get Fretboard Logic is this term confuses you). But the more forms you know, the more insights you get into how melodies work – [...]

We’re going to continue doing what we call “modeling a melody” in this issue. And that just means figuring out some interesting things our favorite melodies do so *we* can do them, to craft our own melodies. We can use this information in improvisation and in composition. We explored the idea of SAMES and DIFFERENTS [...]

Here is a draft of a method I wrote to understand a nifty melody and produce your own nifty melodies. I hope you find it useful. What does “modeling a melody” mean? It means “doing what a particular melody does without duplicating the melody.” So we explore a melody, find out why it goes where [...]

Here’s a letter from a player who’s feeling a bit stuck. I’ve been playing guitar off and on for several years, but I feel stuck; I keep playing the same chords to the same songs every time I play. If you were me and could play only a few chords, what would you choose to [...]

I got the following letter not too long ago. Maybe you can identify yourself in here: Darrin: I can plan out solos just fine but when it comes to improvising I am totally in the dark. What can I do about this? Sincerely, D Hi, D. Thanks for your message. This is a common problem. [...]

This is much more accurately entitled, “the seven-note pattern.” We showed such a pattern in the last issue, toward making scale-playing more interesting. Let’s go over some comments about this 7-note pattern. First, describing it without notation, it goes like this: Play 4 notes of an ascending major scale(*). Descend two notes, then ascend again [...]

Okay, that title is a bit of over kill. We’re not going to revolutionize scale practice with this tip…probably. But we may shed some light on your scale practice. To start with, practicing scale does not have to involve monotonously long strings of ascents and descents; it does not have to put your ear to [...]

Here’s a quick lick to play over these chords: Em, Am, Dm, G7 in C major. In other words, this is a turnaround: the last two bars before returning to the start of the first phrase. You can strum each chord once or twice; record that accompaniment and play this over it: E E E [...]

This is an important tip for guitar players with small hands (or those who think they have small hands).

Last time we looked at some basic melodic patterns used in soloing. We called them the 1 2 3 1 and 1 3 2 1 patterns. Please see the newsletter archives for the tablature. Let’s now look at ways of practicing these patterns. Main ideas in practicing include covering all the basic major scale forms [...]

Here are two pretty common patterns to solo with. There are some more complicated things we can build with these patterns but let’s start with the basics for now. We can call these patterns 1 2 3 1 and 1 3 2 1. These refer to the degrees of the major scale. F is 1, [...]

We’ve been exploring the uses of the min7b5 chord, a chord that doesn’t seem to get a whole lot of play. And that’s a shame, because it’s got a sound all its own. This time out we’ll use the min7b5 in a ii V I going toward a minor key center. Time for a little [...]

We’re looking again at the often over-looked min7b5 chord. Last time we saw how it can replace a dom 7 chord. This time we’ll see how it replaces a tonic minor chord. The point of doing this substitution is to give ourselves some fresh-sounding options to play, rather than trudging through the same old sounds. [...]

This chord doesn’t get a lot of press, but it’s pretty useful. We’re going to look at the min7b5 chord. First, a pattern for it: |——| |-6—-| |-5—-| |-6—-| |-5—-| |——| That’s the D min7b5. And here’s an arpeggio pattern for the same chord. Use this to solo: |————-4-8-| |———–6—–| |——-5-7——-| |—–6———–| |-5-8————-| |—————–| Where [...]

We covered the major chord with a sharp 5 last time, and this time we’ll cover its “sister” chord, the #11. Where does the term #11 (pronounced “sharp eleven”) come from? Look at the notes in the G major scale. Yes, that’s not a typo: the G major, not the C major scale: C D [...]

In a previous post we tinkered with a chord’s 9. This time we take a look at a major chord’s 5. Five, Nine? What are these? Quick refresher. Let’s see the notes of a chord and the numbers we refer to them with: C, E, G One, Three, Five Take a look at the bigger [...]