This follows on from the previous post....
If anybody is interested in seeing how the range of a guitar compares with the one on a full 88 note piano, it's roughly that the piano can go lower and higher. When you hear a guitar solo right up at the highest end it's perhaps surprising to find out that the piano goes higher, and that even the top notes on piano are still way inside the normal human hearing range.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a simple diagram comparing the range of a piano to a regular guitar, but there's a chart in this article showing all the frequencies of the piano. The column on the right shows where the guitar fits, from low E to high E. That's the open high E string, so you can add another 20+ notes to get the full guitar range (some guitars go higher than others). The guitar I have next to me as I type goes up to a D - the equivalent of key number 66 on that piano chart
As you can see, there's a fair bit of territory on piano that we can't reach on guitar, although you probably wouldn't need it often anyway. It depends on where the pianist was playing the chords, but at least we can get closer to the desired effect by using more of the range of chords that are available to us, rather than just sticking to open ones. :)
Any tips on how to practice this? Thanks.
Ideally, you want all the fingers to land at the same time but getting to that point can sometimes be hard. What you need to do is practice the transition to the chord from some other chord slowly. If at first you can't make all the fingers land at the same time then focus on getting one finger (or a group of fingers) down first and then the others. After a bit of that switch the finger (or group of fingers) that you land first. This will probably be hard since you've gotten used to using the first fingers as a sort of guide to get the other fingers into position. Doing it this way allows you to focus your attention on getting the fingers to move to the right location. Later as you repeat this with focused attention it will become automatic.
Spend 5 to 10 minutes every day as part of your practice session doing this chord switching. After you sort of start to "get it" and you can land the fingers together then start switching chords to a metronome beat. Maybe something like 60 bpm (or maybe even as slow as 40 bpm) and do the start chord for 2 beats and then switch to the F for 2 beats and then back and so on. Once you get that then try changing the chord that you are switching from. Over time you can increase the metronome tempo.
As a more extended chord practice one thing that I used to do was randomly draw 3 "chord cards" and play those to a metronome beat. At first, just in straight on the beat strumming but then I also started to use "rhythm cards" and draw one or more of those to use. The cards were just old business cards (if you don't have those then simple cue cards or flash cards would be fine) on which I wrote down every chord I knew on a card each and as I learned new chords I made new cards. The rhythm cards were similar except instead of chords they had strumming patterns on them. It made an easy way to generate new chord practice drills.
Pop music is about stealing pocket money from children. - Ian Anderson
As a more extended chord practice one thing that I used to do was randomly draw 3 "chord cards" and play those to a metronome beat. At first, just in straight on the beat strumming but then I also started to use "rhythm cards" and draw one or more of those to use. The cards were just old business cards (if you don't have those then simple cue cards or flash cards would be fine) on which I wrote down every chord I knew on a card each and as I learned new chords I made new cards. The rhythm cards were similar except instead of chords they had strumming patterns on them. It made an easy way to generate new chord practice drills.
What a good idea. :)
I had a set of flash cards to help with learning music notation, but I've never tried it quite like that with chords and rhythm. It sounds like it would be a great exercise as well as a fun challenge to see what you can wring out of whatever comes up. I'll definitely give that one one a shot. 8)
Cheers,
Chris
