Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

As I announced…

…a while back (see blog post), I decided to “start over” as it were. I felt that my practice wasn’t going anywhere and that I needed to reestablish my learning pattern. In my “re-effort” (is that a word?) I eventually stumbled upon (and blogged several times) about GuitarCardio.com.

This site eventually lead me to start researching scales and that presented the question “what was the most effective scale or group of scales to learn”. I eventually came upon something called “the box position.”

What I learned about the box position, to my surprise, is that it was not a set of scale patterns that one learns. It appears to be a description of playing within a single position. That single position doesn’t necessarily need to be the same pattern nor the same type of scale.

For example, the A Pentatonic Major scale in three different positions would be playing in the box position. Additionally, so would playing the A Pentatonic Major scale in 5th position and then the A Pentatonic Minor scale in 5th position.

The Box Position

I spent time researching and trying to understand what exactly is meant by “The Box Position” (a.k.a “The Box Pattern”). My conclusions is rather simple and straight forward.

There is not a fixed set of scales that make up the box pattern; every source or book can (and will) have their own method and scales. Take, for example, the link I’ve provided before on this topic previously: http://www.myguitarsolo.com/sc_box.htm

Their method of presenting the box position includes learning six scales in a specific order (I’m not yet sure if there is significance to the order); while another source, a book this time, shows the box pattern in all Pentatonic scales in different positions on the neck.

Both seem valid, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. That plus in all my research, I’ve not found consistent presentations of the box pattern. This lead me to the conclusion that there is no fix set of scales to make up the box pattern.

The Box Position using The Pentatonic Scale

I was in a bookstore looking to pick up a reference book on guitar scales. I stumbled upon a book titled “Practical Pentatonics” by Askold Buk. It is a small 44 page book about how flexible the Pentatonic scales can be and what can be done if applied, umm, creatively.

Now, obviously, due to copyright laws ( ) I can’t give away or post any of the examples they have in the book. That isn’t the point of the post, anyway. I want to share, in my own words, what I’ve learned and discovered from this book. Of course, if you become interested in this topic, I’d encourage you to purchase this book or a book like it (though, I’ve not found others like it).

Examples

Below are some basic examples. First, I’m going to start out with a basic Pentatonic Minor Scale in the key of A. [If you can not see the rest of the post, please view the post on UnderstandingGuitar.org. Most RSS readers will not display the following content properly.]

Read the rest of this entry »

As I said in a previous post, for scale practice, I’m working on learning the box pattern.

After going back and forth a little bit with Kenski (The Fillmore Five Project), I think I understand what the “Box Pattern” is. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to try to explain it right now, as I don’t think I could write something that in depth — and its not even a complicated topic…

Anyway, I’ve been learning the Box Pattern as defined here: http://www.myguitarsolo.com/sc_box.htm

I’ve already got the Pentatonic scale down; no problems there but I needed to do some work on the Dorian scale as MyGuitarSolo.com has it defined. I think I have it down, but I created some TuxGuitar files to practice with (for rhythm and timing practice).

I’ve placed the TuxGuitar files for download below:

• A Pentatonic (Minor) TuxGuitar File
• A Dorian TuxGuitar File

The source, MyGuitarSolo.com, has the scales written out in a way to show you which notes on the fret board to play, they do not show an order or direction to play the notes in. The TuxGuitar files are my interpretation of what order to play the notes. (Of course, it doesn’t really matter what order you play the notes in and if you are not familar with what I’m talking about keep an eye out here — much more will be coming about this topic).

Below are images of the TuxGuitar files (click to enlarge):

A Pentatonic (Minor)

A Dorian

As I said in one of my later posts, I’ve taken a new direction - a new focus if you will. I’ve been following along with the book “Mel Bay’s Modern Guitar Method Grade 1,” playing the pieces and learning things in the order the book suggests.

Currently, I’m practicing on the the E note, F note and G note on the first string and the B note, C note, D note on the second string. I’m playing a few pieces from the book trying to practice my accuracy as well as my ability to read music (which, to me, is one key in this new quest).

As I was playing the first couple of songs (if I can call them that) from the book, I wasn’t sure if they were sounding like the should. I know that I was following the metronome properly, but I wasn’t sure if I was always hitting the right note at the right time. When you are first learning, so much is going on that it can be hard to ensure it sounds right… How can you tell [if sounds right] when the music is on paper?!

I remembered that I have a tabbing / music notation software called TuxGuitar (The team recently released version 1.0) which will actually play what I tab out. Now, at first, this might seem kind of stupid, but I swear it is working — it is helping.

The computer will always hit the right note at the right time. It is almost liking playing with another guitarist, but one that will never come out of time or make a mistake. Basically, like it is politely correcting you. Furthermore, as I’m playing along with the software I can listen to the notes that are played, and I instantly know via comparison if I’ve just played the correct note or not. When I play the wrong note, I can stop and figure out what the correct note is and work through the mistake.

Below are a couple of the songs that I’ve been playing in the TuxGuitar 1.0 format. You can give it a try.

Frolic - TuxGuitar 1.0 File

E - B - TuxGuitar 1.0 File

Check out this article: http://www.guitarnoise.com/article.php?id=542

The article covers things like Scales, Power Chords and Double stops.

A few days ago, I made some recordings with the intention of posting them here. I came up with a quick chord progression while practicing Bm.

Actually, I didn’t really come up with the progression. The progression is Bm, A, G, Em which are the chords for Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd as written here. It is the strumming that I “created” which I liked quite a bit. So I grabbed my Zoom H2 and recorded it.

I can’t play it perfectly. The reason I came up with it was because I’ve been trying to practice the Bm chord. I can play it, I just need to be able to switch to it faster.

Here are the recordings.

Note: if you read this site from an RSS Reader (such as Google Reader) you many not be able to see the MP3 players above. Please click here to listen to the three recordings.

You can hear the “dead” chords that I’m playing after some of the chord changes. That is when I’m trying to go back to Bm. It doesn’t work always, but I did get a few in there. Just getting a few of those changes was a major accomplishment for me. The recordings aren’t perfect, but I’m still working on it. I will try to post more when I feel the chord transisitions are better.

IG’s latest post was about a study where a scientist found that if one practices something for 2 hours a day for 10 years (including weekends) then you’ll be very good at it.

If we apply this to guitar and if you start today, you should be a guitar superstar by 5/7/2018.

Of course (and I’m sorry) that just isn’t going to happen. A lot more goes in to becoming a superstar than just being a good guitarist. I feel that charisma plus the style of music you enjoy playing as well as many other things factor in to super stardom. However, I would not expect that to deter you from trying. If you don’t try, you will only regret it.

However, I’ve wondered off the point of this post. The question I have to the readers / contributors out there is what is your practice routine?

In my pursuit of learning guitar, I’ve come across many recommendations for practice routines.

Some of the recommendations that I’ve heard include things like “always practice for a set amount of time” and / or “at a specific time in the day”. The goal is to make the practice a routine in your day. And while I have tried to apply the idea, the reality of where my time can go is never cohesive to such a practice schedule… As a kid, that might be possible; however as an adult I do not believe it is.

For me my first goal is to make sure that I at least get some practice in each day. Even as little as 10 minutes before going to bed. (Such as yesterday, in which I spent most of my time trying to fix my wife’s New Dell laptop.)

Aside from the 10 minutes, if I have more time I include chord drills — Currently Bm with rhythm and strumming drills. I’ve not found the time to practice an actual song for a while. I need to find time to work on that.

So again, what is your practice routine? What do you spend time on and do you have any suggestions for the guitar-learning-public out there from your trials and tribulations?

Yesterday, I was practicing playing guitar… and I don’t know why but for some reason I had the most fun practicing in a long time.

Don’t get me wrong, I do — most of the time — enjoy practicing guitar. That is the point after all… To relax!

However, lately practicing hasn’t been as fun as it use to be.  It is possible that I’m not focusing and moving myself forward enough. One must keep moving forward or (1) you will not learn anything new and (2) you bore yourself.

I’m at the boring-myself stage… Though there is probably a lot more I could have learned had I pushed a little harder.

I need to sit down and establish a practice routine for each day that I practice. I think Joe from “From The Woodshed” has done things similar to that… Though, he dedicates a lot more time for his practice…

What was I doing yesterday to have so much fun? Well, I started working through a book I bought called: 10 Minute Guitar Workout by David Mead. 

The book presents a technique for practicing where you practice certain things (chord changes, scales, etc) for 2 minutes each. There a total of 5 exercises for each day.  The goal is to complete x amount of sets within the two minutes. After so many days, you proceed to the next “sets” goal until eventually you proceed to the next set of exercises.

Now I just started with the book, so I can not say whether it is working or not. I can tell you that the tasks are a bit different from what I have been doing and it is (most importantly) a little more focused than what I’ve been doing… Which is why I think it was a bit more fun.

Additionally, the book came with a CD which I was playing with. I used the BestPractice software to slow the tracks down. This allowed me to play the exercises at different tempos with the CD, which allowed me to mix things up a bit.

Have you ever heard of the TASCAM MP-GT1 Portable MP3 Guitar Trainer?  It is basically an iPod (MP3 Player) that has the ability to slow down what it is playing.

Why might this be useful?  When you are learning to play a new song!  The TASCAM MP-GT1 sells for $179.99 to $199.99 at GuitarCenter.com. At some point I had considered purchasing this device; I thought it’d be a wonderful practice aid.

But then I stumbled upon PickStroke.com which in turn referred me to a OpenSource project called “BestPractice.”  It is a software MP3 player which has the flagship feature of slowing down what is playing. It’s Free! You don’t need to spend a penny to use it.

I found BestPractice very easy and intuitive to use and I look forward to utilizing it to learn to properly play Staind’s Excess Baggage. I know how to play it, but I need to get my timing down.

Please see the website for detailed information on BestPractice. I’d encourage you to check it out!  http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/bp/

So, I’m suppose to be going to IG’s CAGED series… But I found right now, that I’m not really in the mood to follow something specific… I’m just in the mood, for now, to bang around on my guitar and make “noise” — Though, I do want that noise to sound good, I’m not really following any sort of specific chord progression or material.

What I’m trying to say is sometimes I just want to bang around on my guitar… Is that a bad thing?  Does that hurt my learning to just not follow any specific material and to just play random chord with random strum patterns… Oh, all of this is done without a metronome…

What do you think? Any guitar teachers out there? I’d love an opinion from you…

This will be a quick post, but a post none-the-less….

IG Blog was actually the first Guitar blog I started to follow… It is actually the inspiration for this blog… On IG Blog, quite a while back I found a series that IG posted about the CAGED chord system; I’ve been meaning to go through the system for quite some time but every-time was deterred by something else in my pursuit of the guitar.

Anyway, I’ve finally “forced” myself to start going through it. So far, I’ve gone through the first and second “pages” and am, thus far, very happy with it. The information on these pages are very valuable to any level of player.

http://igblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/a-good-approach-to-guitar-chords/

http://igblog.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/a-good-approach-to-guitar-chords-part-ii-caged/

Back when I was working with an instructor, he tired to convey this information but unfortunately, wasn’t too good at it.  I want to encourage any beginner or intermediate guitar player looking for solid information on Chords and theory to at least check out these articles that IG posted. I will continue the series either tonight or throughout the rest of the week. Expect more posts on this topic…

It’ll probably take me at least a few months before I’ve got everything pat…

I wonder if IG has posted anything on the Pentatonic Boxes?…