Menu

Search Results for: index.php

Taste, Tone, and Technique – Open for Discussion

You never know what kind of questions and discussions are going to pop up on the Guitar Noise Forum pages. This one was posted over the past weekend:

Tone, Taste, or Technique – Which is most important?

I know all three are important… but what is the most important? Maybe a better question would be what is the relative importance of each?. Now I’m not talking jazz but something a like blues.

Well, you can always count on Tom Serb for a thoughtful, and thought-provoking answer:

IMO, none of the above.

Rhythm/timing are the single most important element in music – if they’re off, nothing else will save the day.  If you’re dead on in your groove, you could be playing “Row Row Row Your Boat” and most people will dig it.

Once you’ve got that, it depends on who your audience is.  Having great tone and no taste is like reading a novel with great words, but no plot.  It’ll work as background, but it’s not something you pay attention to (or listen to a second time).  So tone is a great focus if you want to be in the background but have nothing to say.

If you’ve got great taste but lousy tone, you can be popular within a niche.  There are fans of old recordings by Leadbelly, etc. where the tone just plain sucks (no doubt due to the technology of the time, but still…. it just sucks).  Great taste with tone will get you a wide audience.

If you’ve got great technique but not much else, you only get fans from folks who play the same instrument.  Go to a concert by Yngwie/Buckethead/Batio/Gilbert/etc. and ask those around you if they play guitar.  I’ll bet at least 90% of them do.  If you want to speak to the masses, they don’t care about technique – they care about the music.  Go to a concert by Jeff Beck/Eric Clapton/John Mayer/etc. and you won’t find nearly as many guitarists in the audience – it’s just the general listening public.  Their technique doesn’t suck, but it’s not best in class.

So if you’re talking about what the average music fan wants, I’d rank the choices:

Taste
Tone
Technique

If you want to chime in on the discussion, head right on over here!

Looking forward to seeing you on the Guitar Noise Forum pages throughout the upcoming year.

Peace

The Musical Margin: Why Technique Equals Musicality

In order to allow your musical feeling to emerge and give life to the notes you play, you must have the technique required to produce those notes in the first place. “Technique” is the conduit through which musical feeling flows.

People are often surprised when they learn that I have continued to practice and improve pieces of music that I have played for decades, including pieces I have often performed or recorded. “Don’t you know it by now?” they say!

Apparently, they are not aware of the dictum I have laid down in “The Principles of Correct Practice For Guitar” for students to follow if they wish to continue to improve and expand their abilities on guitar, and realize their highest potential as guitarists. It is this: always tell yourself “I don’t know how to play the guitar.” After forty years of playing, I tell myself everyday “I don’t know how to play the guitar.”

Why do I tell myself this? Do I just like to remind myself what a slow learner I am?

No, not really, although I know I have had to work a lot harder to get what others found easy. I tell myself “I don’t know how to play the guitar” so that my mind will constantly be open to new ideas and new intuitions about ways to improve my playing. I tell myself this so that I will not become complacent and stale in my ways of thinking and doing things. I tell myself this so that I will never fall into the common rut of operating from assumptions that have never been reexamined, and have actually outlived their usefulness. Because I tell myself this (and thus keep “Beginners Mind”), I now play light years better than I did at any time in my past.

This is why I counsel my students to think in this way – so that they can be the guitar player they are really capable of being.

What Is “Getting Better” And Do I Have To?

Now, someone may say, “well, do I have to keep getting better? Can’t I just stop getting better and enjoy myself? Anyway, what does “getting better mean?” Those are fair questions.

First of all, of course it is okay if you say “I don’t want to get any better, I am happy where I am and I just want to play my guitar.” That is fine. It is not fine for me, but it may be fine for you. I enjoy getting better and better on guitar, and I have discovered the interesting fact that the better I get at playing guitar, the more I enjoy playing guitar! And since I like to have as much fun as possible in my life, I keep working at getting better on guitar. If you don’t want to get better on guitar, I probably won’t run into you, since my job is to make people better and those are the people that come to Guitar Principles. If you are not looking to get better you probably won’t be reading this anyway, you’ll be busy playing your guitar, at whatever level you play it! How much you are actually enjoying it, though, is another question.

As far as what “getting better” means, it means two things:

  1. Becoming able to do things that you could not do before
  2. Being able to do things you can already do, but learning to do them much more easily

Both of these possibilities are very exciting for the guitar player who knows how to make “getting better” happen, and both lead to increased joy in playing guitar, and increased musical quality and power for the music we make.

Learning To Do What You Can Not Do

When someone begins to learn guitar, they, by definition, fall into the category of needing to learn to do things they cannot do, because they cannot yet do anything! So they are not ready to sit on their laurels and enjoy the fruit of their accomplishments. They need to set out on an effective path of learning to do what they cannot do. Some do actually learn the necessary new skills and continue on playing guitar, and many don’t, and stop trying.

Many of those that do get up and running as guitar players reach a particular point of ability and stay there. There are things they can do, and there are things they cannot do. This is fine if they do not want to do the things they cannot do. It is a problem if they want to do new things, but find they cannot learn to do them. Then, they go through a cycle that begins with struggle, leads to frustration, and finally resignation. But the frustration is always burning underneath, they feel a resentment that they cannot do what they see other, “better” players doing.

Anyone familiar with “The Principles” knows that the entire goal of my teaching work is to enable any guitar player to learn to do what they cannot yet do, and have not been able to learn to do. We have that one covered. We have saved thousands of guitar players who could not even get to first base with guitar from the horrible fate of continuing to live without being able to play the guitar. Because of “The Principles,” no one need any longer suffer silently with the torture of unrequited guitar love!

So, let us turn our attention to the other aspect of “getting better,” which is learning to do the things we can do already, but learning to do them more easily. Why is that important?

Learning To Do Things More Easily

I once saw a video of the legendary classical guitarist John Williams talking about practicing guitar. He remarked that guitar players needed to learn to enjoy practice and to understand what it is. He said “Practicing is sitting with your guitar and saying, ‘Now how can I find an easier way to do this?'” This statement contains a great truth, but unfortunately, for many players that truth will be useless, because they simply do not know how to make anything easier. Like most great truths spoken by great players you have to actually be in the same place they are in before you can see the truth of what they say.

Knowing how to make things easier is what all of my teaching work is about. I show you step by step how to do everything in the best possible way, and in a way that does not prevent continued development. “Skill” is the ability to reconcile opposing dynamics. When we can do something easily, it is because we have found a way to balance the opposing forces that must be applied to the guitar strings in a way that does not create excessive and uncontrolled muscle tension. When we struggle to play, we are suffering from this muscle tension during playing that is resulting from movements that do not apply force to the strings in precisely the correct way. This is always true.

When we are struggling to play, and our body is constantly tensed while trying to make the movements that will make the notes (and there are many, many players in this state even though they are only dimly aware of it) everything that makes music so wonderful begins to degrade. Our rhythm and smoothness in playing, our tone, even the notes themselves begin to be only a pale reflection of what they could and should be. It is no fun for either player or listener.

Now that we have looked at the “what” of playing easily, let’s look at the “why.”

The reason we should always strive to find easier ways of doing things on guitar is quite simple: the easier something is to do, the more our musical feeling can be poured into the music we make. The more developed, ergonomic, and optimized our technique is, the wider the pipeline though which musical feeling can be poured. We must still supply the musical feeling, but it is amazing how much easier it is to feel the music once the physical body is relaxed, comfortable and actually feeling pleasure in its movements to play, and the mind is concomitantly composed, quiet, and able to simply be aware, listen to and enjoy the music even as it creates it in each moment.

The easier something is to do, the more our musical feeling can be poured into the music we make.

Understanding this vital relationship between musicality and technique is extremely important. People often argue about which one is more “important,” musicality or technique. That is an absurd question, like asking which is more important, the chicken or the egg! One gives rise to the other, and each is the “reason” for the existence of the other. Technique is needed so that we can make the music, and without the music we would never need technique. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin, and I don’t think we would ask “which is more “important,” heads or tails? Unless maybe we bet on heads!

The desire to express our musical feeling demands the need for technique with which to do that. The more refined our technique, the more refined our musical feeling is allowed to be. The size of the pipe through which our musical feeling can flow depends on the ease with which we perform the movement process called “playing the guitar.” I call this pipeline our “musical margin.” As we learn to continually surrender ourselves to the music, and increasingly intensify our emotional involvement with the dimension of “sound with meaning” that we call music I believe that we, as players, should be in continual search of widening our musical margin. There should always be as much room and freedom for the flow of musical feeling as possible, but when we struggle to play, the flow of feeling is strangled.

There is a direct relationship between technique and feeling in making music, the more there is of one, the more there can be of the other. We must keep in mind, however, that not all music is equal in its demands for technique. Some things are simply easier to do than other things, and some styles are more demanding of technique than others. People’s attitudes about technique are often fashioned by the particular style they play. The basic rule of thumb is to acquire the technique you need to give life, not death, to the music you wish to play.

One other important benefit of learning to do things more easily is that it increases our consistency during playing. Everyone who performs or records has had the experience of having things go really well in the practice room and fall apart on the stage or in front of the mic! We usually blame “chance” or any number of indeterminate factors for our playing breakdowns. The fact is that these breakdowns have a technical basis. Sure, on a good day when no one is watching we might make the notes three times out of five. But when the pressure is on, the power of every technical weakness is magnified a hundred times. As we learn to do things in better and better ways, using less effort and causing less tension, it is amazing how solid our playing becomes!

Hearing The Music

Another interesting fact is that the easier it is for us to make the music, the more we are able to actually hear the music as we make it. And the more we hear the music we make, the more we feel the music we make. As I have improved my playing over forty years, I have seen the notes themselves sink deeper and deeper into my bones. Every note is more alive, more vibrant, and carries more meaning to my inner ear. For the listener, who is on the other end of the notes I play, their experience with the music I make is primarily dependent on the experience I am having with the music I make.

This intensification of the musical experience is the primary reason for continuing to widen our musical margin. For those who desire to do so, it is an endless and ever deepening process. When you do it for a long time, you become known as someone who is “great” on guitar. All great players have a wide musical margin. All struggling players have a narrow musical margin. All “non-starters” on guitar have no musical margin, they have no ability to feel the music – because they cannot make music to begin with.

This is the situation of a player who wrote to me recently, wanting to know how to “feel” the music more………..

Hi Jamie

I want to know how I can play the guitar with more expression. My problem is that I can read and play the notes in the song but for some reason I can’t give the music the expression and passion needed to make a good performance. how can I overcome this brick wall ? My profesor tells me that I have the passion inside but I need to let it out. For some reason it hasn’t happened yet. I am very frustrated, I hope you can help me.

Thank you Jamie!!

Ed

I have never met this person, but I have met hundreds of students over the years who say the same things when they first come to me. In all these hundreds of cases I have seen one thing, and one thing only: there is no musical feeling because the person is struggling to play and does not know how to make the music without struggling. Many times, the person was studying with a teacher, often at the university level, and the teacher could do nothing to improve the situation either. I have no doubt this is the case here as well.

For those who wish to widen their musical margin, no matter where you are right now, Guitar Principles is the way to the deeper experience of making music you are seeking.

Copyright 2011 Jamie Andreas. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Get solid results from your guitar practice….learn how to practice correctly!

Visit www.guitarprinciples.com

Going for the Music: From Guitar Student to Guitar Player

,

There are three levels of practice that guitar players must know how to use in order to achieve their full potential on guitar. They are Microscopic Practice, Assimilating, and Shaping. I have covered in detail these three levels, or aspects of practice in Chapter 5 of “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar.”

The first two levels are where we use specific procedures for teaching the fingers how to make the movements required to produce the notes we need. All technical problems are worked out in these two levels, and the music is “input” into the mind and body, at least as far as the mechanical process of playing the music goes.

However, the goal of all our practice is to go beyond the mechanical aspect of playing, and to put our mastery of the physical aspect of playing our music at the service of the ultimate goal: making music, real music. That is the purpose of the third level of practice, Shaping.

Imagine you are in a play, and they hand you your lines. You have to read them, and memorize them, and practice saying them. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with some of the words, you would have to learn the pronunciation, and practice saying the word correctly (Microscopic Practice). Perhaps you had a problem remembering all the lines, and saying them at the right time. You would have to work that out as well (Assimilating). Finally, it would be rehearsal time. You would be expected to have your lines down, and as the opening night came nearer, the director would expect you to be pumping blood into that part, and delivering a real flesh and blood character to the audience. He or she would be trying to help you and guide you to an ultimate vision of that character’s essence. The greater the actor and director, the more powerful that final vision and product will be. That final process is Shaping.

This is what we need to do with our music, to the best of our artistic skills, at any point in our development. Interestingly enough, many guitar students avoid this aspect of practice. They actually avoid putting everything together, and doing what guitar players are meant to do: “play” the guitar. This avoidance also prevents them from developing themselves into something that every guitar player should be, something that is actually more important than becoming a guitarist – becoming a musician.

Why do guitar students avoid this?

Many guitar students are afraid of putting everything together! They are always “trying” to learn a song, solo, or piece of music. They do not know how to do the first two levels of practice, and because of this they make many mistakes during
playing, and breakdown all over the place. If they were to try to put all the music together and play it from beginning to end, they would get so frustrated and depressed at their inability to get through the music that they would feel like they might as well stop fooling themselves, do the world a favor, and give up the guitar!

Every guitar student must learn the first two levels of practice before they are even capable of the third level. We must be able to actually teach our fingers to do what they have to do to make each note we need, and we need to be able to string all those movements together into one continuous flow, so that our music can be given birth.

But like everything other living entity, after being born, our music must be developed. It must “grow,” it must “mature,” and ultimately have a life of its own that nonetheless reflects where it came from. All those who are already musicians know this, and do this. And so must every guitar student if they wish to become guitar players and musicians.

How do we develop the music we play after we have given it birth, or the possibility of existing? How do we turn the results of the mechanical process of learning new finger movements into the wonderful emotional phenomenon we call “music?”

Like so many other things in life, there is only one way to do it, and that is to do it!

We must sit down, or stand up with our guitar, and play the music as if we were on stage performing it, or as if we were recording it. We must play the whole thing through, and on top of that, enjoy the music we are making as we do it. We must develop a relationship to the music itself, as if it were a living being we are getting to know. We must let it soak into us and speak to us. We must discover its meaning, for us, and we must let the music tell us how it wishes to be played. I call this process “going for the music.”

You may be thinking, “Well, isn’t that obvious? Do you really have to tell guitar players that they need to play the guitar? You don’t have to tell tennis players they need to play tennis do you?” If you are thinking that, and you are a guitar teacher, I guarantee you have many students who are not doing this. To them, it is not obvious, they need to be told to do it, in fact, they often need to be forced to do it.

I require all may students to do this, perhaps not with everything we work on, but I want to see a “body of work” developing over time, a group of pieces that they can play well, from beginning to end, in other words, a repertoire. To help them do this, to learn the hard work of “refining” a piece to performance level, I have made the “Guitar Principles Guitar Improvement Workshop” open to everyone, my personal students as well as all interested parties.

Getting Started

It can be overwhelming to begin this new, improved relationship to music and the guitar if you are one of the many guitar players who has never really taken command of a group of songs, solos, or pieces, and put them together, refined
them, and brought them to “performance level.” Here is how to get started:

1) Pick 3 songs or pieces that you love, and feel are reasonable for you to expect to handle in a technical way.

2) Start with the first one, and begin to practice it with the intention of playing the whole thing from beginning to end.

3) Divide your song or piece into sections. Learn the first section. For a song, you might learn just the intro first, then add
the first verse, then the pre-chorus, then chorus. Divide it into sections that make sense to you.

4) Focus on that first section. Do the necessary technical work at the Level 1 & 2 practice. If you use “The
Principles,” you will know exactly how to do this. Use “The Basic Practice Approach“ to bring the music to a slow but steady tempo. Usually, half of the performance speed is a good first goal.

5) Video yourself playing it. It will probably have various problems and breakdowns. Do not get upset! Instead, make the
decision to find out what is wrong, by educating yourself about how to practice.

Go to my “Guitar Improvement Workshop”. Post the link to your video. You will then be told the nature of your problems and also exactly what you need to do to solve those problems and improve your playing.

You can be a good guitar player, and reach your guitar playing goals. But you have to do what all the rest of us who have become guitar players had to do. You have to “make it real” by going for the music, and when you find that you can’t quite get what you are going for, you have to learn how to remove whatever obstacle stands between you and your vision of the music.

For the ever-evolving guitarist/musician, technical understanding, technical work, and the achievement of greater musical intensity in our playing go hand in hand in each day’s practice.


Copyright 2011 Jamie Andreas. All rights reserved.
Used by permission.

Jamie Andreas is a world renown, highly respected guitar teacher and author. Visit her website, guitarprinciples.com, for a free copy of “The Power of 10,” a PDF download of ten essays that are essential reading for every student of the guitar as well as all guitarists.

Piano Wire

Alternate Tuning

As mentioned in many places here at Guitar Noise, guitar tunings can be broken down into three basic categories: Standard Tuning, Open Tuning and Alternate Tuning.

Technically speaking, any tuning that is not standard tuning is an alternate tuning. For simplicity’s sake, we tend to break down alternate tunings into three categories as well: lowered standard tunings, open tunings and alternate tunings. Open tunings we’ve already covered in another mini-lesson.

Lowered standard tunings are tunings where the intervals of the notes of each string remain the same even though the notes of each string are tuned differently. That’s a bit of a roundabout explanation, no? Think about this – if you were to take your guitar in standard tuning and then lower each note by a half step, your new tuning would be this (and this is called Eb standard, by the way):

Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb

Even though all the strings are now tuned differently, you can still use all the same chord shapes you already know, whether they are open position or barre chords. This is because the strings are still tuned to the same intervals as they are in standard tuning. The interval from E to A is a perfect fourth, as is the interval between Eb and Ab.

The thing is that now since your guitar is tuned a half-step lower, the chords you know will also be a half-step lower. The E chord you play in this new tuning will be Eb, not E.

Lowered standard tunings are used a lot in metal and grunge music. Nirvana’s cover of Where Did You Sleep Last Night, for instance, is played in Eb standard. Guitarists who like to do a lot of bending with their solos also use lower tunings because the looser strings lend themselves to bigger bends.

You can only go so far in lowered standard tunings before the strings get so slack that they can’t stay in tune for long. In addition to Eb standard, you’ll also find D standard:

D G C F A D

C# standard (also called “Db standard”):

C# F# B E G# C#

And C standard:

C F Bb Eb G C

Alternate tunings that fall under the category of alternate tunings (as opposed to lowered standard or open) involve changing the tuning of any strings from standard. It could be a single string or it could be all six or any combination.

Drop D is probably one of the most often used alternate tunings. To change your guitar to Drop D, you lower just the low E (sixth) string down a whole step to D:

D A D G B E

Drop D gives you some interesting options. Putting a D note as the lowest note gives you more powerful D and Dm chords. Plus you now have your three lowest strings set on a power chord configuration. This is why a lot of punk and metal bands use Drop D in order to play super-fast power chord changes.

Some bands also combine this idea of “Drop D” with lowered standard tunings they already use. For instance, if you started with D standard tuning and then dropped the low string an additional step lower, you’d have “Drop C” tuning:

C G C F A D

Most alternate tunings don’t have names like “Drop D,” rather they are simply listed by the notes of the re-tuned strings, listed right to left from low to high. Sometimes these newly arranged strings can sound like names, like DADGAD tuning:

D A D G A D

DADGAD is also referred to as “Dsus4” or “D Modal” tuning in that is certainly is a Dsus4 chord. This is why there are often lively discussions as to whether any tuning is meant to be classified as an open or an alternate tuning. While these arguments can certainly be entertaining, it’s easier just to list out the notes, re-tune and play.

Some alternate tunings can involve tuning strings to the same note. For example, the Crosby Stills and Nash song, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes uses this tuning:

E E E E B E

Here the A string is tuned down to the same note as the low E (sixth) string. The D string is tuned up a whole step to E (which is an octave higher than the low E string) while the G string is tuned down to that same E. On their song Carry On, by the way, they use this tuning but with every string tuned down an additional half-step.

C G C E G C

There are many, many, many possible ways to tune a guitar. Guitarists like Joni Mitchell and Ani DiFranco use so many different alternate tunings that you could write volumes on this subject just using their song catalogs.

For a more in-depth look at alternate tunings, first check out our “Alternate Tuning Trilogy” here at Guitar Noise. On the Tuning Awry gives you the basics and lists more than a dozen alternate tunings just to get you started. The second lesson, Cover Story, demonstrates how you can use alternate tunings to create new arrangements for songs you already know. And Alternate Writing Styles wraps things up with a step by step walk through of how to use an alternate tuning to create an original song of your own.

Plus be sure to check out the many song lessons and other Guitar Noise articles that involve alternate tunings, such as Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and our own Drop D Happy Blues (both using Drop D tuning), A Celtic Air (using both Drop D and DADGAD), Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young again, this time using “Double Drop D” or DADGBD tuning), Mark Knopfler’s Sailing to Philadelphia (EADGBD) and the wild DADGAD arrangement of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s All I Can Do Is Write About It.

Peace

Harp Strings

Open Tuning

Guitar tunings can be broken down into three basic categories: Standard tuning, Open Tuning and Alternate Tuning.

In open tuning, the guitar’s six strings are tuned to the notes of a single, easily identified chord, so that when you strum the six open strings, you play that chord. “Easily identified” is important because when you think about it, it’s possible to identify almost any group of notes as a chord. The notes of standard tuning (E, A, D, G and B), for example, could be thought of as an A11 chord (which is made of A, C#, E, G, B and D) or a G 6/9 or an Em11.

But that’s way too complicated for the purpose of simply identifying an open tuning. Typically, open tunings are made of simple major, minor and seventh chords. More often than not you will come across major chords, as open G, open D, open C, open E and open A tend to be the open tunings most frequently used.

Open G (which means that your guitar is going to be playing a G chord when you strum all six open strings) is used a lot by slide guitarists and blues players and it also fairly easy to learn as three of the guitar’s strings – D, G and B – remain the same. Usually a guitarist will use this tuning (low to high) for open G:

D G D G B D

The E strings (low and high) are tuned down one whole step to D. The A string is tuned down a whole step to G. That’s about as easy as it gets! This particular tuning is also a favorite of Keith Richards, who goes a step further and often removes the sixth string of his guitar so that the G (that used to be the A string) is the lowest note. You can get a bit of a tutorial on this tuning in our lesson on the Rolling Stones’ song, Happy.

It’s important to realize that there are often many ways to tune your guitar for any single open tuning. For instance, since the G major chord is made of the notes G, B and D, it’s also possible to create an open G tuning in this fashion:

G B D G B D

Here the low E string is tuned up to G and the A string is tuned up to B, while the high E (first) string is tuned down to D as with the previous open G tuning. This particular open G tuning is used a lot by dobro players, especially those who play bluegrass music.

Open D is probably the second most used open tuning. More often than not, one tunes to open D like this:

D A D F# A D

Again, both E strings are tuned down a whole step to D, the B string is also tuned down a whole step, making it an A. Finally, the G string is tuned down a half-step to F#.

Lowering each of these six strings down a whole step would give you open C tuning:

C G C E G C

Although you could also make a different version of open C by tuning your strings this way:

C G C G C E

One thing to remember about any open or alternate tunings is that it’s always better to tune down than up if you can. For instance, the tuning for both open A:

E A E A C# E

And open E:

E B E G# B E

Involve tuning several string up a full step. That puts a lot of stress on your guitar. You could just as easily get open A by tuning to open G and then placing a capo on your second fret. Likewise, putting a capo on the second fret after you’ve tuned to open D gives you open E tuning.

For a lot more detailed look at open tunings (not to mention some great examples), check out our two-part tutorial here at Guitar Noise. Start with Look Ma No Hands and then move on to Here There Be Monsters.

Also be sure to take in our many song lessons that involve open tunings, such as Bob Dylan’s Simple Twist of Fate and Buckets of Rain (both in open D – or open E, depending on if you use a capo or not) and Coldplay’s God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (in open C#, of all things!).

Peace

Standard Tuning (and Tuners)

In order to play guitar, your guitar has to be in tune. Notice I didn’t say to what it had to be in tune with! You can tune your six strings to a wide range of notes, and many people do. But in order to create chords or play with others, you have to be in tune to something that everyone can agree on in order to play. And your guitar’s strings have to be tuned to some real note value or you’re not going to sound like much more than a jumble of noise.

Most people use standard tuning for their guitars. Standard tuning is tuning each string of your guitar to a specific note. Doing so allows you to play the various chords in the same way that other people do.

From your lowest string (that’s the thickest one that should be closest to the ceiling when you hold your guitar properly) to the highest (that’s the thinnest one, which is closest to the floor), the strings are tuned to the following notes:

E A D G B E

There are all sorts of mnemonic sayings to help you remember this (Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good – Bye Eddie is a favorite) but it’s really easy to remember after even just a day.

Having a tuner is the easiest way to get and stay in tune. There are all sorts of tuners out there in the world, including online tuners that you can find at various websites. It used to be that most tuners had small microphones to hear the notes played and then to display the note and how on or out of tune you might be.

Nowadays, many people use tuners, usually clamped to the headstock, that pick up the note’s vibration through the body of the guitar itself. And there are even tuners that use lasers to calculate just how in tune a string is.

While they may look very different, most display their work in similar ways. When you pick an open string, you should see a note name and possibly also a string number (guitar strings are numbered one to six, with one being the thinnest, or highest, string and six being the lowest or thickest string) .

Most tuners will have a display screen where you can see how sharp (higher than the desired tone) or flat (lower than the desired tone) you are in relation to your target note. Simply turn the tuning knob of the string until you are on target for the note in question.

None of this is foolproof! Tuners can be temperamental and pick up vibrations from other strings. If they are microphone-style tuners, they can catch other incidental noise, making it hard to determine which note you’re trying to hit.

And the screens themselves may be tricky. If you’re not careful, you might miss seeing a “#” or “b” sign and inadvertently tune yourself to a higher or lower note than desired.

You also want to check to make sure the tuner is set to 440Hz, which is called concert tuning. It’s possible to knock your tuner’s setting off by accidentally hitting a button.

If you can get a reference note of any type, it’s possible to tune your guitar using relative tuning. The note of your open A (fifth) string is the same note you get if you play the fifth fret of the low E (sixth) string. The fifth fret of the A string is D and the fifth fret of the D is G. On the G string, you use the fourth fret to tune to B and then the fifth fret of the B string is the same note as the high E (first) string.

It’s always a good idea, whether tuning relatively or with a tuner, to make a quick run through of various chords, ideally one using four strings (like D), one using five (like C or A) and one using all six (like E or G). Doing so will give you a chance to immediately hear if any one string is still slightly out of tune, provided you’re not the one making the guitar out of tune by pulling on the strings instead of fretting them smoothly.

Jamie Andreas Video

The Learning Curve of Various Styles of Guitar (Part 4: Jazz and Classical)

, ,

Jazz and Pop Player

The jazz player needs a vast and extensive range of tools, because the music they play is based on sophisticated scales, and those scales are used to generate extremely complex chord structures. There are hundreds if not thousands of chord forms to learn, and a great number of scale forms all over the neck, in every key.

From a musical standpoint, Jazz soloing is about as complex as it gets for improvised styles. A very large number of scales, in all keys, and all positions, must be learned and absorbed into the mind and the fingers. A high level of refined technique, in the left hand and in the pick hand is required to play the scales and all the licks that come from them.

For the jazz player, scales, chords, and arpeggios are all one thing, and all of these tools in their seemingly endless forms are firmly in the head and hands (and heart!) of a great jazz player.

All of this knowledge of the harmonic potential of the fingerboard also gives you the tools for arranging music on and for the guitar, including playing chord melody style. Many players earnestly wish they could do something other than just strum chords, or just play single notes leads. This type of study is the path for them.

Although there is going to be repetition of patterns as we go about learning all this musical material, there is still a tremendous amount of material to study. Many great players have filled large volumes with the material they practice, and have published it for other players to study (i.e. Ted Greene, “Chord Chemistr). You can fill a room with such material, and have a lifetime of study ahead of you, which is very fortunate for you if you love this kind of thing. You will become an awesome player with a very large knowledge base, and never have to worry about having nothing to do!

Of course, we learn to use all these tools as we acquire them, step by step, and song by song. There are a large number of “standards”, songs and pieces that every jazz player knows, and can play and improvise on. All of these must be learned, although there is a “core” of material that you are going to find yourself playing in the majority of professional situations you find yourself in.

A subset of the jazz player is the “pop player”, and many jazz lovers will make a part of their living by playing in bands where pop music and standards are required. The setting will often be club dates, weddings, and social events.

Five years of study, averaging around 2 or more hours a day (hopefully more!) are required to get up and running as a player in the jazz/pop genre. Then, it takes about ten years of 3+ hours a day to fully acquire the use of these tools, and a lifetime of continuing study and refinement if you want to be among the greats. A high degree of refined technique in both hands must be developed as well.

So, you have to decide – do you want to be a brain surgeon, or a jazz guitarist? Probably becoming a brain surgeon will be a bit less of a commitment!

The Bottom Line on Jazz Guitar Playing:

Time Required: 3-5+ years of 3 – 6+ hours a day

Tools: extensive knowledge of scales and associated modes and arpeggios, advanced ability in special techniques associated with the style. Advanced picking technique.

Recommended Resource:

Our free fingerboard harmony course

Scales and Modes by Arnie Berle

GuitarPrinciples “The 6 Six Essential Major Scales With Modes & Arpeggios”

The Classical Player

People often consider the classical guitar as the most difficult and challenging style to learn and master. I am not sure if that is true, but it is certainly a contender!

The term “classical guitar” is simply the name given to the first and original style of guitar, which began about 200 years ago, when the guitar took its present form as the six string instrument we know today. It had grown out of a long tradition of plucked instruments going back to ancient times, and, whether as the lyre or the lute, always extremely popular in the cultures where it appeared.

Because of its long tradition in so many forms in so many cultures, a very wide range of music from many centuries is played on the “classical guitar”. Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic/Spanish and Modern are the main genres of music played on what is known as the “Classical Guitar”. So, one of the distinguishing features of playing the classical guitar is the fact that our repertoire spans many centuries, rather than the relatively limited time frame encompassed by the repertoire of other styles of guitar.

However, you do not have to love or desire to play classical (or “serious” music as it is sometimes called) in order to desire or benefit from classical training. The study of any style adds something precious to the depth of our artistry, and many people study classical guitar simply for the advanced use of the right hand fingers it gives you, as well as the intimate knowledge of the fingerboard’s musical potential, an asset in any style. Howard Morgen, who I studied with to learn jazz and fingerboard harmony, is such a player, having studied classical guitar so as to apply the right hand abilities to his 7 string Jazz guitar and the jazz standard repertoire.

The classical guitar has always pushed the limits of what is possible on the guitar in a musical way, and the technique required to play its repertoire is precise and unforgiving. You can get away with imperfect or homegrown technique in many styles, but not with the classical guitar.

Because the physical technique required to play the repertoire is extremely precise, getting that technique requires either an intuitive knowledge of how to do correct practice to develop technique, or exposure to an effective pedagogical system that will teach you how to do that.

The highest levels of ability in both hands are required by an advanced player, and even for the beginner and intermediate student a firm foundation is essential, or playing will be a struggle and progress will be impossible. A correct approach to practice and an absolutely relaxed and comfortable technique must be developed from the beginning, and this is very, very often not the case, especially with the adult student.

In my own experience, I never found a teacher who could do much more than give me music to play, and perhaps tell me which fingers to use. There is more information available today, but the real information for how to develop to the highest levels of ability is lacking in every method I know of – most methods are merely collections of pieces and exercises that would sound great if you knew the secrets of mastering them.

That is why I created the “GuitarPrinciples Classical/Fingerstyle Foundation Course”. It contains concepts and methods not found anywhere else, and they have been proven to work for the average student, of any age. You can see students from this course here.

A moderate practice schedule of 30min, 5 times a week can get you on the path of playing classical guitar. You will be playing nice sounding pieces within a few months, and, if you follow my methods, you will continue to develop nicely for as long as play and practice.

To play the classical guitar at a high level, meaning, being able to play the more complex repertoire well, requires 3 to 6 hours a day for about 10 years. However, anyone can enjoy playing the classical guitar as a richly rewarding hobby that they CAN be good at (just like tennis or golf), playing the pieces they have developed with a professional polish IF they learn the methods professionals use.

The Bottom Line On Classical Guitar Playing:

Time Required: Adult Student – 30 min/day, 1 to 2 years to acquire solid foundation and playing ability through beginning level, ready and able to make further progress.

Tools: note reading, a solid foundation of technique in both hands, a firm understanding of how to practice effectively, a developing ability to play in a completely relaxed way.

Professional Level: 3 to 6 hours a day for 10 years.

Recommended Resource:

The priniciples

The classical course

How to master a scale

Video thumbnail for youtube video "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - Performance Notes - Guitar Noise

The Learning Curve of Various Styles of Guitar (Part 2): Strumming & Singing

, , ,

Being a “strum & sing” player is pretty much the entry level for being a guitar player.

I have to say that the first time I knew I needed to play the guitar was when a family friend showed up at our house with her guitar. I watched her move her fingers around the neck (chords) and make the sound with her other hand (strum) and it was the most magical thing I had ever seen. I knew I had to learn how to do that. I started teaching myself from a book, and practicing two to three hours a day. I learned it rather quickly.

This ability to strum and sings is what I call “first base” in guitar. Anyone can get to first base, but not everyone can get there by themselves. Many folks do need the guidance of a teacher to learn to strum, sing, and most importantly, change chords smoothly.

However, many students, even though they take lessons, fail to learn how to strum and sing, and changing chords smoothly without losing the beat. This is because of incompetent teachers… teachers that simply do not know how to deal with someone who seems to be completely unable to move their fingers into the necessary shapes of each chord and move them in time with the beat. The problems always has to do with excessive tension generated in the large muscles of the shoulder and upper body from improper attempts to utilize undeveloped finger and hand muscles. “Correct Practice” is the key to eliminating this tension.

Another overlooked problem for beginners is this: it is exceedingly difficult to sing a rhythmically complex melody over chords that are being played to a steady, basic beat. Teachers take this skill for granted and do not appreciate its complexity, and do not break it down in the proper way for students. I do this very thing in my book, “The Path Level One: Chords & Rhythm”.

I want everyone to know that they can learn to strum and sing easily if they practice correctly. The methods I have created in “The Principles” and “The Path” work for everyone who uses them; no exceptions. There is no longer any reason for anyone to not learn to strum and sing well. The only reason for failure now is simply not knowing about, or not properly using these methods.

When we understand how to practice, becoming a “strummer & singer” can be accomplished in about 3 – 6 months with about 20 min to a half hour a day practice time.

If you are having trouble getting to first base with guitar, I strongly suggest you watch these free videos. They will explain to you why you are having trouble getting somewhere with guitar, and what to do about it.

Free Videos to watch:

  • Intro to The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar
  • Your First Perfect Lesson
  • The Secret of Changing Chords

The Bottom Line on Strumming & Singing:

Time Required: 3 – 6 months with about 20 minutes-30 minutes a day of Correct Practice.

Tools Required: the basic first position chords, basic strum patterns

Recommended Resources:

Advanced Strumming & Singing:

After learning the basic chords that are played in the first position on the guitar, many players are happy to just keep learning more songs that use those chords. However, sooner or later they will run into songs that require more complex chords, and many of those will be some type of bar chord played up the neck.

Learning these bar chords presents a new technical challenge that stops the progress of many players. Again, ineffective teaching and practice methods are to blame. The correct and best way of learning bar chords is given in my essay “Easy Bar Chords”, which for many who have read it, has enabled them to do bar chords for the first time in their lives.

If we practice bar chords correctly, we can handle them easily with another 6 to 9 months of reasonably consistent practice, spending 20 min to a half hour a day. After that period of vertical growth, we have the possibility of continuous horizontal growth afterwards, learning more songs and using the same chords and strum patterns. Other techniques such as bass runs and hammers and pulls will make our playing even more attractive.

Whether we stick with the basic chords, or continue on to learn the more complex chord shapes, once we learn them, we’ve got them. Like riding a bike, once you can do them, you do not lose your ability to handle chords as time goes on even if you do not play for awhile.

Oh, one more thing – there are two ways to go about learning the advanced aspects of strumming and singing. You can do it alongside learning to read music, or you can work from tabs. Obviously, working from tabs is quicker, and learning to read will give you more musical understanding as time goes by.

I recommend you do both if you have the time. If not, go with tabs. Just make sure your technique is good as you learn these new and more complex movements. Your left hand should be trained with the Left Hand Foundation from “The Principles” (see video). Once you can do the movements taught here, all bass runs and other types of scale work will become easy.

The Bottom Line on Advanced Strumming & Singing:

Time Required: A year or so beyond the initial start up time to reach “First Base Strumming & Singing”

Tools Required: the basic movable (barre chords) basic strum patterns, bass runs.

Recommended Resources:

Fingerpicking

If we wish to expand our abilities to include fingerpicking as well as strumming our chords, that is much more demanding. Players who have acquired too much tension in the arms and hands from bad practice will find it nearly impossible to control their fingers as they try to learn fingerpicking.

The right hand exercises in “The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar” will give you real control and independence in each finger, which will open the door to real power and speed with the right hand fingers. From there, the “Guitar Principles Classical/Fingerstyle Course” will give you a wonderful foundation in all the basic right hand techniques and patterns you will need. Then, you can easily learn whatever you wish, and will be able to effectively use all the other resources for fingerstyle/classical guitar on the market.

If we know how to practice correctly, wonderful fingerpicking ability can be gained in 6 months to a year with about 45 minutes to an hour a day.

The Bottom Line on FingerPicking:

Time Required: 6 months to a year, 45min -1hr a day

Tools Required: ability to control each finger independently of the others, keeping hand and arm tension to a minimum. Learning a number of standard picking patterns and runs to use between chords.

Recommended Resources:

1 2