Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

Are you able to get enough in? I never feel like I can get enough practice in, but on the other hand I also feel like I can only practice so much at once.

I figure that I probably get, on average, about one hour (perhaps one an a half hours) of guitar practice in per day. Some days, I get more, some days I get less.

I just got back from my weekly lessons. We, as always, went over new material. However, before the new material, we went over an old Ionian scale [I found some here: http://gosk.com/scales/major-scale-for-guitar.php – The particular one I was playing through was “Major, sweep pattern ”]. It was one of the first scales that I learned. I couldn’t remember it right away! Even though I had to have practiced that particular scale literally thousands of time.

The problem was that, though I had practiced it thousands of times, I hadn’t recently practiced it. I’ve been (obviously) practicing the newer material that I’ve been given. But because I never have enough time to practice (so I feel), I can never get back to the early, early material.

When my teacher springs “the old stuff” on me, it catches me off guard and I have trouble remembering exactly how it goes.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions? Perhaps patterns to approach fitting old material in to “short” practice sessions?

First, wow – I’m sorry. I hadn’t realize that it had been 5 day since my last post. That is horrible.

For this addition, I’ve decided to write a bit about the gear that a beginner will need. In the following list, my intention was to cover what a beginner would need, keeping in mind two main things. The effectiveness versus the price of the product.

First, I think it is important to note that the only things you absolutely need to begin learning to play the guitar properly is an acoustic guitar, metronome (yes, I think that it is that important) and the Internet or a good book.

Additional items that would be extremely helpful include (in my opinion):

• Electronic Tuner
• Music Stand
• Guitar Stand
• Guitar Case
• Various Gauge Picks
• Any additional educational resources {Good Books, UnderstandingGuitar.org}
• Stool or armless chair
• Foot Stool
• Good Guitar Teacher

Note: the list above is presented in no particular order.

Why do I feel that each of these items are important:

Electronic Tuner

A beginner has enough to worry about, without having to worry about whether the guitar is in tune or not. If the guitar is not in tune, it will be impossible to learn how the different chords or notes are suppose to sounds as you are playing them.

Music Stand

This is one item that I personally resisted buying. Not because I thought the music store was charging too much for them – but because I thought that I truly didn’t need it. Just before I started taking lessons from an actual instructor, I found one on “clearance” at a local Sam Ash and decided to purchase it. Ever since then, I wish I had purchased one straight away!!

Having the music stand hold the music (with little arms that swing out to hold your book open to the exact page) allows you to read while playing. This might not seem important when first learning because most of the things you are learning can easily be memorized. But, here is one trick – what if you accidentally memorize the wrong thing because you only looked at the chord chart once?! Additionally, as you get in to more complex pieces, you won’t be able to continue to memorize them. There are other reasons I could list, but I believe these will suffice for my purposes for now.

Guitar Stand

This is one of those things I’ve had since I got my first guitar – the salesmen tossed a stand in when I bought the guitar. I used to store my guitar (it was a cheapo guitar) on the stand. Now, I strictly use the stand to hold the guitar when doing various things while practicing. Things like reading a paragraph in a lesson book or when getting a different book.

Guitar Case

If you’ve dropped a decent amount of coin on your guitar (especially if it is acoustic), then a hard case is important to store it. A soft case simply can not protect a guitar like a hard case. You may feel that you do not need one – especially if you aren’t taking the guitar out of your home (if you are a beginner why would you – lessons, thats why!) However, why take the risk. You can get a hard guitar case for for around $69. If you spent $250 or more on your guitar, then I think that you’d want to protect it… Consider the possibility of some one bumping in to your un-protected guitar, or a pet some how knocks it over…

Various Gauge Picks

This is another one that didn’t really make sense to me. “My Guitar came with three (same gauge) picks; why do I need more?!” At first, it may or may not be noticeable. However, different gauge picks allows you to “feel” the strings/guitar differently.

I think that you should try a variety of different picks (as well as have them on hand) and maybe even use different picks as you practice. Really see what works for you.

So far, what I’ve found is that I tend to like really, really thin, flexible picks for playing rhythm. The thin picks allow me to strum freely without “over attacking” the strings. When I play lead (usually playing a note or two) or scales I like “medium-heavy”picks. They allow me to feel which string I’ve just plucked which allows me to know where I am among the six different strings.

Any Additional Educational Resources

If you are on UnderstandingGuitar.org then you’ve found one! In all seriousness, additional resource give you different perspective on the same topic. Some times it is easier to understand one resource over another – I’ve always found that I need to read different books or websites to understand certain topics. And sometimes it just helps to ingrain the concept deeper in to my brain.

Stool or armless chair

I find that a stool allows me to sit properly, but you want at least an armless chair (I prefer a stool though). You probably have one around your home. You don’t need anything special. It is just important to not have arms on the chair to allow you to learn to hold and fret the guitar properly.

Foot Stool

This is the latest thing I’ve purchase and I did so because I noticed that my right ankle had started to hurt as I practiced. I believe that this happened because I was propping my foot up on the tips of my toes in order to get the guitar to be just a little higher. It was probably necessary to help with certain chords – I’ve been working on barred chords!

Anyway, I ended up reading (somewhere, I’m sorry I’m not sure where) that you do want to raise the guitar a little higher. It is proper form. Again, this isn’t a necessity however to learn to play with proper form is important.

Good Guitar Teacher

I have done most of my learning for books – Professionally, I’m a software developer and though I did go to college to get my career started, I first learned to program from books. Hours and hours with a book and I created my first piece of software. Granted, it wasn’t very good but it kicked started what has become my career and inherently my life.

I had approached guitar the same way. I purchased a guitar and my wife had a book (from when she was trying learn). I started going through the book and though I learned things, I never could “feel” the music. Nothing seemed right but I could not, no matter what, figure out what it was. Eventually, I decided to start taking lessons from an actual teacher. I’ve seen and heard such vast improvement that this must go on this list.

On November 14^th, I posted a couple of other chord combinations to practice. While having the chords are nice, I wanted to illustrate them via rhythm slashes.

Below are the three rhythm slash combinations. Click on the images to view the entire image.

1. Em Am – rhythm slashes with the chord voicings.

2. Am Dm – rhythm slashes with chord voicings

3. D A – rhythm slashes with chord voicings.

All of these should be excellent rhythm practice and will help you with your chord formation.

As you are going through these, the goal is to play them cleanly – not fast! Right now, speed shouldn’t matter to you. What matters is whether strings ringing clearly/cleanly. I know that this was a big issue for me when I was really first starting – it was downright aggravating at times.

I found, that when I was having trouble with the chords ringing clearly that just playing them over and over did help overall. Also, slow down and really pay attention to what is going on. If you really can never get a chord to come out right; stop and really look at what the problem is. Once you realize what the problem is, correct it and then practice re-forming the chord [playing it cleanly] and just that chord over and over. Once you’ve done that a few times, go back to the patterns above.

Although, as I’ve stressed before, it is important to do these, and any music practice against a metronome. It is very important to develop your ability to track time and I think that it is easier to do that when you are starting then after.

First of all, I want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a safe black Wednesday (party Wednesday) and all will have a safe black Friday!

Do you participate in the black Friday shopping?

I’ve seen lines that wrap around a Best Buy all the way to the back of the store. The line started to form at about 10pm and continued forming until the store opened at 5 or 6am. (I forget which). I was some where in the middle, but towards the front.).

Does this happen at music stores? I’m curious… I honestly would not expect so but I still may drive past one later tonight just to see.

I know that my focus for this site has deviated a little bit – Understanding Guitar from a beginner’s perceptive. To be honest, it has been hard to find time to sit down and generate the content that I want to post. The practice patterns and such. It has even been hard to find an opportunity to practice guitar for more than 10 minutes!

But, nevertheless I will make a solid attempt over today and tomorrow to find time to put together appropriate material to post.

To everyone who reads this blog, thank you! And have a happy, safe and wonderful thanksgiving.

I was wondering around a local mall with my wife and found myself in a Hot Topic. (I blame my wife) – Anyway, they have a small section of “unique” magazines. I found an unwrapped “Tattoo” and started browsing the magazine just looking at the various Tattoos.

Eventually, I came upon a picture of Aaron Lewis towards the front of the magazine in the table of contents. I’m a huge fan of Staind and definitely a big fan of Aaron Lewis… He is the primary reason I decided to learn guitar on an acoustic guitar as opposed to electric (though I own both).

For those who do not know, Staind is a 4 man band. Aaron Lewis is the lead singer and sole acoustic guitarist for the band. [You can find more information on Staind here]

Being a big fan of Staind, I scoured the magazine for the article with Aaron Lewis. I finally found it at page 18. The article is titled “Staind’s Aaron Lewis Goes Solo at least for a while.” Aaron Lewis has been on an solo acoustic only tour and although I’ve not found an opportunity to go see it, I understand that people are loving it.

The article is an interview with Aaron; and as this is in a tattoo magazine the interviewer asks about Aaron’s tattoos and they go in to that a little bit.. Additionally, they end up talking about a benefit concert that Aaron did for “…his old high school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts”

Because I do not want to break any copyright laws, I’m not going to scan any of the pictures. I do encourage you to find the magazine and purchase it (it is in cellophane if new) and read the article. Alternatively, you might be able to get a copy of the magazine at a local library however, I’m not sure many libraries would have a copy of “Tattoo“.

The article is in “Tattoo Magazine” in the December 2007 issue (Issue 220) starting on page 18. Note: You can get back issues here.

Yesterday morning, on Q101’s “The Morning Fix” I heard of Acoustic-Chicago – which seems to be a project put together by a record producer which has auditioned unsigned local Chicago bands and then picked out a dozen or so to put on to a commercial compilation CD.

The CD releases this coming Tuesday (November 20^th, 2007). Furthermore, I understand that there is a release party on Wednesday (November 21^st, 2007) at a Joe’s on Weed street in Chicago. (For those of you not familiar “Weed Street – In Chicago” is a big party area – lots of clubs)

Anyway, back to the point of this post – I love local music. Being that I live near Chicago I will go see local bands performing at various bars and such. This is a huge opportunity for both the local bands and listening public of Chicago. I encourage you to check out the CD!

There are also several others cities in the “acoustic” series. Check out the website to see if there is one for your major city.

http://www.acoustic-usa.com/

In my last post, I had promised that I be posting more guitar rhythm exercises. Unfortunately, work has kept be pretty busy, so I’ve not been able to generate the sheet music. Nor write anything in depth.

But in lieu of that, for now, are a couple of chord combinations that you could play using the same strum pattern as previously.

1. Em Am (This is “Minor”)
2. Am Dm (This is “Minor”)
3. D A (This is “Major”)

Aside from getting this blog up and running, my all of my guitar practice sessions have included rhythm practice. After about 5 weeks in to playing, I had realized that I hadn’t been practicing rhythm guitar at all! To no fault of my instructor – He was giving me plenty of chord progressions to practice rhythm, however I ended up focusing on chord forms and ignoring the rhythm aspect of my practice.

As a result, I ended up with very little ability to keep time or rhythm. My pace was set by how fast I could change to specific chords; this is not a good method to practice guitar or music in general.

An Exercise

Here is an example of a simple “chord move” exercise which I’ve been using to practice rhythm [I do this exercise with various chords -- please feel free to use chord you are familiar with but do not forget to "push" yourself a little and try new chords]. This exercise is pretty straight forward.

I feel that it is extremely important to play this against a metronome. I feel that this is the best way to ensure that your timing is consistent and even.

I suggest that you start out slowly. There is no need to rush this at all. Get the feel for the chord change and please keep in mind that part of this exercise is to change to the next chord smoothly and without dropping a beat or rushing a beat (strumming before you are suppose to). Then gradually increase your metronome (perhaps in increments of 10 beats?)

Thus far, I’ve been able to successfully (within correct time, no beats missed, or chord-form mistakes) play through this particular exercise at a 80 BPM — I had started at 40 BPM a day ago.

Also, experiment with different chords – perhaps a couple of new chords that you picked up from a book or your instructor.

As always, I hope that this is a useful piece of information that benefits you in some way. Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, questions, etc!

Welcome – This is the first day that this blog is running. At this point, I have nothing intelligent to share and I don’t want to rush to get something together (that wouldn’t benefit either of us).

I have however, posted new information to the About Me and About UnderstandingGuitar.org pages – feel free to visit those!

Until next time – Hopefully sooner than later,

Frank