Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

If you’ve spent any amount of time reading some of my post here at UnderstandingGuitar.org, you’ve no doubt read that I have a tendency to really push the use of a metronome for a beginner guitarist as a beginning guitarist.

The reason mostly has to do with the fact that when I first picked up a guitar, I didn’t know what a metronome was, and more importantly I didn’t like them and hence didn’t want to buy one and/or “waste time” using one.

I’ve, obviously, since learned what a metronome is, and why a metronome is so vastly important. A very important part of music is that it deeply involves time. A metronome helps you keep track of time accurately. When you listen to a song, you may not think about it but the space (or time) between each note is a characteristic of the song.

When first learning guitar, it is important (in my opinion) to incorporate this in to your practice early on and to simply get used to the aspect of time from the get-go. It sounds easy enough. But to keep a steady beat does take another aspect of attention. Mix this focus with the fact that you are focusing on which strings to hit plus where to fret each string and it gets hard - particularly for a beginner. It all adds up…

The Tool

So now that I’ve given yet another rant on metronomes, here is a neat web site that I found:

http://www.metronomeonline.com/

It is a online, flash-based metronome! The site also explains what a metronome is and how to use it. In addition, it give you details behind the Italian sounding words printed on some metronomes. I think it is all very good information.

Anyway, I thought this was a neat tool in case you don’t already have a metronome. Or perhaps, you just want to try a different metronome.

Enjoy!

My wife and I were watching VH1’s “100 Greatest songs of the 90s” on Christmas Day (don’t ask why, were are boring people) and during a few of the many hours of watching the show they are interviewing MC Hammer, and eventually my wife makes a comment: “MC Hammer is taking himself way to seriously.”She was right; his demeanor was very “I’m so great” (my wife’s and my opinion) and in between the interviews, they are cutting away to his one single (that I know of) “U Can’t Touch this” and he is dancing around in huge-way-to-baggy pants. Additionally, during the interview he was wearing a vary nice suit and sunglasses-very business-like. It was very humorous.

Sometime later, they also had Vanilla Ice. Though, I’m sure many people doesn’t necessarily wants to admit it (and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure why) everyone enjoyed at least one song of his, if not more. (probably more!)

Anyway, Vanilla Ice was very cool and relaxed during the interview. He didn’t act high and mighty. He was dressed as I would expect for a person of his occupation (yes, he is still a writer/rapper). He seemed to enjoy the reminiscing.

I felt that both Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer got in to and out of the spot light in very short times. MC Hammer, quicker than Vanilla Ice, and yet it seems that MC Hammer took his “success” a bit more seriously during that show then he should have. (Perhaps that is just how the interview was cut…)

Anyway, today I was thinking that this probably applies to how you practice guitar. You probably shouldn’t take yourself too seriously. You should definitively correct mistakes and what not (see post: “Call for Public Opinion - Mistakes“), but you are still learning! You have to expect to make mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes you can’t improve!

I think that if you take yourself too seriously, the increased pressure that you are putting on to yourself will only hinder your efforts at learning; this will only frustrate you during your efforts (leading you to eventually give up on it)

This will be an unusually quick post for me — I just want to share two links that I found quickly.

One thing that I need to do to vastly improve is my ability to strum the guitar. I’m very mechanical when I play — I don’t have that “sense of music/rhythm” I guess you’d say and it just doesn’t sound right at all. It been frustrating but it has been getting better, but still, I want to improve. So I decided to look for resources on the internet.

I found this, and I think the teacher/author does a wonderful job giving some example strum patterns. The video (click the person in the rocking chair) is probably the best place to start. The link is: http://www.grouptherapy.guernsey.net/strumming.html. I’ve not gotten in to the MP3s yet, but imagine they’d also be useful.

And the second link is: http://www.guitar-lessons-central.com/guitar-strumming-patterns.html
This has more videos and different patterns, though it looks a bit more complicated.

Enjoy!

Update: Josh, (see the comments) also suggested: http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/WordPressBlog/?p=5

Aside from some strum patterns, the author posts his interpretation of full songs. Such as Pink Floyd’s”Wish You Were Here” – One of my favorite Pink Floyd Songs.

In practicing guitar, I find that I will usually start over immediately upon screwing up what I’m playing. For example, if I’m playing a scale and I completely miss a string with my pick hand, I will start the scale from the top again and keep going from there (looping as many times as possible until I get tired or screw it up again. 99.99% of the time, I screw it up again.The public opinion that I need is whether this is a good practice to have (pun intended).

Should I stop the scale, or song or what ever and start it from the top again or should I push through and try to “correct on the fly?”

What do you think? Leave a comment with your opinion! I really want to know what different guitarist do. Oh, and it will probably help if you include your skill level.