hi there - i'm learning "o come all ye faithful" and there are a couple of symbols that my teacher has written that i don't understand.
the first is written beside a chord, and it is a vertical squiggly line (picture a backwards 3) with an arrow at the top pointing upwards.
the second is a harmonic that he wants me to do. beside the note, he's got a 3 with a superscript 5 on it (basically 3 to the 5th power). now i know how to do harmonics normally, but this is throwing me off, and also with the guitar capoed at fret 3, i'm not sure what i should be doing. the harmonics don't seem to work on the 12th fret when the guitar is capoed.
any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
paul
The squiggly line means you 'spread' the chord. If playing with a pick, strum it once from low to high (as the direction of the arrow shows) a little more slowly than usual so that each string is heard distinctly - like "triiiiiiiiing", rather than "ching'".
If playing with fingers, you can use your thumb for that strum effect, or you can use thumb and fingers, especially if the notes aren't on adjacent strings.
I don't know about the harmonic symbol from your description. It sounds like his own way of indicating what's required - maybe a fifth fret harmonic (relative to the capo on the 3rd fret). Why not ask your teacher?
thanks fretsource. i certainly will ask him but b/c of the holidays won't be seeing him for a few weeks. just thought it might be something that others are aware of.
for the squiggly line - when you say similar to strumming, is it like "rolling" a chord with fingerstyle? ie instead of doing a block chord (all notes at the same time), you are basically arpeggiating the chord quickly?
thanks,
paul
thanks fretsource. i certainly will ask him but b/c of the holidays won't be seeing him for a few weeks. just thought it might be something that others are aware of.
for the squiggly line - when you say similar to strumming, is it like "rolling" a chord with fingerstyle? ie instead of doing a block chord (all notes at the same time), you are basically arpeggiating the chord quickly?
thanks,
paul
Yes - That's it Paul. Rolling it as in fingerstyle. I edited my post a little before I saw your reply - but we got there in the end. :lol:
thanks a lot. the unfortunate thing is rolling isn't something that i'm even close to getting good at. the nice thing is that i've got about 2-3 weeks to practice it.
when i look at his diagram now for the harmonic, i have a bit more information that i didn't see before. in the area where he shows finger placement, he's got a dot on the 6th string 3rd fret, and an x on the 3rd string 5th fret. beside this diagram, he's written "harm.". he's also got a diamond for the note, which is a very high G (4th ledger line).
not sure if this sheds any more light on it. if not, i'll just wait to talk to him about it. it doesn't sound bad when i play the G on the 1st string.
The 3 with the 5 superscript is just his own notation - 3 for the third string, 5 for the fret. That'll get you the harmonic with a pitch on the fourth ledger line over the staff.
The squiggly line is called a "quasi arpi", which means "like a harp". Just strum it a little more slowly than usual.
You'll have to ask him about the arrow, because there are two ways to interpret it (and he's already using something non-standard for the harmonics). Quasi arpi is usually written without arrows, and it's implied that you start fromt he low notes and go up - that's what a harp would do. Adding an arrow on a guitar chart gives you the stroke direction - an arrow down is a downstroke (the standard quasi arpi); an arrow up is an upstroke.
Whether he's giving you guitar notation (upstroke) or telling you to play the notes from low to high (downstroke) isn't clear to me.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
thanks noteboat. that did the trick. didn't think i could get the harmonic sound on the 5th fret but it worked. with the fretted G on the 6th string, it sounds pretty good.
paul
