Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

Guitar Exercises @ MadStratter.com – http://madstratter.com/2008/12/finger-exercises-practicing-guitarist/

[See the link...]

My wife and I got back from vacation last weekend.  We had gone to Mexico for 8 days and for the entire 8 days I didn’t touch a guitar. I had a surprising desire to play and fiddle on a guitar. Ultimately, I did make it the entire eight days without going though guitar withdrawal.

Now that the vacation is over, I’ve been trying to get back in to the groove of daily guitar practice. Even though while I was on vacation I wanted to play guitar, it has been a challenge to go back to my guitar routine (not to mention my work and general-life routine).

I started by re-practicing most of my “harder” material. I only had to go back a few pages in my book. I started with a slower tempo and was able to play though the Ode To Joy without a problem. The Ode To Joy was a milestone marker for me. I quickly worked the tempo back to what I was playing it at — 95 BPM.

After Ode To Joy, I picked up where I left off. I progressed further and I’m now in to playing the High E, B, G and D strings while sight reading whole, half, quarter and eighth notes. That is amazing progress for myself. A few weeks ago I had huge trouble with just the High E and B strings (while sight reading)… I was always fumbling either my fretting or picking hand and screwing something up.

I am also suppose to memorize the following pattern as it is suppose to help with finding chords and other musically important information.

A C E G B D F

In upcoming posts, I’m hoping to be able to explain why memorizing this pattern is useful. From what I understand right now, it has to do with chord theory. Keep an eye out for more in this.

It is Friday Night here in Chicago; tomorrow morning I have another guitar lesson. Time in between the lessons elapses quickly.

This week I was to go over the notes on the D string and I was to practice playing the first part of Ode To Joy at 75 BPM. At about Wednesday I was playing it at about 95 BPM which I was very happy with. I hope to fit a few more run-throughs in tonight yet, but we will see what the night brings.

Going back to the D string, I’ve been having trouble with it. Not like the string is breaking or anything, just that for some reason my finger “stumbles” when time to play a note on that string. Just before I sat down to write this, I notice drastic improvement.

Every thing is what it is; eventually i will get it. I just need to practice on it all more.

Most of my practice time has been spent on learning how to read sheet music while playing — not something that is coming easy for me. Thus far, I’ve worked my way up to the D string (from high E). It has taken me about four weeks to get to there. In retrospect, I think that is terrible… I wish I had gotten further faster…

Anyway, tonight after I finished going over about 45 minutes worth of note reading practice and some finger work [this exercise] I spent time looking at barred chords. Right now, as I write this my left hand is hurting me… I really worked the barred chord. I spent about 10 minutes playing a Bm, A, G, Em progression.

After which I started playing a A, G and then a D, C progression. I was playing these using the following chords.

I believe that this is good barred chord practice. Using the A, G progress as an example I was playing:

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4/4 A / / / | / / / / | G / / / | / / / /|
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Repeat that 4 times and then play the same rhythm for D, C progression.

Another simple song you could learn to play is “Hurt” which was originally by Nine Inch Nails, but Johnny Cash re-recorded his own version of the song. I’m with the group that feels that this version is superior — not that I didn’t like the NIN version of the song, I just really like how the guitar goes in this version.

Below are the videos for both versions. First, Cash’s version then Reznor’s. If you’ve never heard this song before, be aware that the song is of a dark nature. The Reznor video is particularly “dark”…

Cash:

Reznor -- Live:

You Play It

Now that you’ve seen the video, below are the links to the internet guitar tabs. I believe these tabs are correct, otherwise I wouldn’t post them. This song does use barred chords during the chorus so it can be a little difficult but it is manageable.

http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/c/cash_johnny/hurt-tab.shtml

http://www.guitarmasta.net/c/cash,_johnny/234354.html

Below are the files that I promised in the Quick Post: Sat. Guitar Lesson post that I created earlier today.

• Open Position 3rds [Skips] in Quarter Notes (TuxGuitar file)
• Open Position 3rds [Skips] in Quarter Notes (PDF file)

The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken Here

My guitar lesson last Saturday went well. Nothing too fantastic; we went over what I was suppose to learn [See here] and then Gary (Guitar Teacher) showed me a new pattern to learn. I believe he called it 3rd skips. My intention is to throw it in TuxGuitar and post it here at a later date, but no promises on that. I’ve been trying to spend my free time with a guitar in my hand…

The aforementioned 3rd skips I should be playing in quarter notes, half notes and 8th notes.

As for the practice itself, I’ve not done nearly as much as I’ve wanted to. Between my pending vacation [Mexico!] and the election I’ve been a little distracted. I’m trying to focus for at least one hour a day but that has been hit or miss. Sometimes I get a half hour in other times the entire hour. I will be trying to improve that…

Also, I’ve been continuing to practice my Bm and other barred chords. They are getting better but nothing significant yet. I’m hoping that it takes time and my improvement since the first post about this has been vast.

Hopefully I’ll have time to post more about this last lesson at a later date.  Until then (and beyond) thanks for reading! Regards!

The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken Here

If you’ve followed this blog last winter, you might have know that I had been taking guitar lessons and at some point, decided to discontinue lessons. At that time, I had decided that for a mix of reasons.

About a week ago, I stumbled upon a music store called “The Music Room.” I was, as my wife will attest, very excited. Why the excitement? Well, because The Music Room is what I consider a real music store. Their retail store isn’t filled with thousands of guitar hanging on the wall with Amps plugged in and turned up. No, no. They, in my opinion, focus on actually playing the instrument (and many more types of instruments).

They have professional music teachers which is what I’ve been looking for. Their teachers have professional education in music from major universities, furthermore this is what they do for a living — teach music to others. (I’m sure they gig and play elsewhere but you get the idea).

I’ve signed up for lessons and am anxiously waiting for my first lesson. My self-teaching method simply doesn’t work. It is too unfocused and I don’t stick to a regular schedule, nor do I know when to push forward or keep practicing something when I’m stuck.

I suspect working with a teacher will solve problems like this.

I must mention that when I stopped in to sign up for lessons, the gentlemen who helped me left me with a great impression of the place. He was patient and answered all my questions. The shop is clean and obviously geared toward learn to play music; not to push gear out the door. Anyway, like I said — So far, I’m very impressed and have high hopes!

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 »

I know I promised more scales related blog entries, but I thought of this and wanted to post it… I promise, those scale entries are coming.

Anyway, are you? Frustrated that is… I recently posted what I thought was a very good article on learning an instrument and frustration. You can view that here. I thought and still thing it is a great article.

But a thought occurred to me and I wanted to make sure i share it.

It is absolutely impossible to practice something over and over and not get better at it. So if you are finding that you can’t play something that you have been trying to play, take a break… wait 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day whatever you need to wait in order to re-relax.

Then try it again. Repeat as nessasary. You will learn it.