Understanding Guitar

IG Blog is gone?

Frank — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:23:51 +0000

IG Blog (a very populat guitar blog ran by IG) seems to have been taken down… This has been one of my long time faviorite blogs! Does anyone out there have any knowledge of whether this is down for good, by accident or if it is being moved? I’m sure more than just myself is interested!

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Bm and Barre Chords

Frank — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:36:09 +0000

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:

------------------------------------------
4/4 A / / / | / / / / | G / / / | / / / /|
------------------------------------------

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

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“Hurt” as recorded by Johnny Cash

Frank — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:16:07 +0000

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

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Popular Songs to Play

Frank — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:48:26 +0000

Over at “A Guitar Teacher’s Lesson Notebook” (a blog), Robs interpreted and published chords and rhythms (strum patterns) to a bunch of songs:

http://www.heartwoodguitar.com/WordPressBlog/?p=103

Some of the songs include

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“Foundations for Guitar” author posts about Time and Rhythm

Frank — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:25:27 +0000

It is important, in my opinion for beginning guitar players to properly understand time and rhythm as that is arguably the foundation of music.

A little bit ago, I stumbled upon this blog post and video by Mark Wein, the author of “Foundations for Guitar“. I wanted to share it. If you’ve not spend much (or any!) time studying and learning how time works within the world of music, I’d like to make a friendly suggestion that view the video and check out the post.

http://blog.markwein.com/2008/08/28/time-and-rhythm.aspx

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Let Her Cry - Hootie & The Blowfish

Frank — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:02:34 +0000

A while ago, I started writing a post on Let Her Cry by Hootie and the Blowfish. I never finished it but I decided to re-write and publish it.

I love the Hootie song “Let Her Cry” and it’s actually fairly easy to play. I’ve been able to play every part but I’ve never fully put it together. I just don’t have the confidence to play it. But I wanted to share it with others out there as you might want to give it a try.

Following are web sites that have published the chords and rhythm for the song. Give the song a try:

Update: Here is the Music Video for this song from YouTube

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Re: Quick Post: Sat. Guitar Lesson

Frank — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:01:37 +0000

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

Quick Post: Sat. Guitar Lesson [caption id="attachment_564" align="alignright" width="131" caption="The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken...
“Improve Your Playing” Post By Pickstroke Recently Tim of Pickstroke.com did a post about how he...
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Go Obama!

Frank — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:50:22 +0000

Go Obama! What more can I say?

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Quick Post: Sat. Guitar Lesson

Frank — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:28:31 +0000

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!

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First Lesson at The Music Room [caption id="attachment_564" align="alignleft" width="131" caption="The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken...
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First Lesson at The Music Room

Frank — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:36:52 +0000

The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken Here

I’ve been trying to do this write-up for a while, but have not had time — Work is busy and I’m trying to spend my “guitar-time” with a guitar rather than a keyboard.

However, I have some time now so I thought I’d throw something together. Forgive me for the brevity of this write-up.

In short, the lesson was good. As I told my wife, the instructor didn’t show me anything groundbreaking or awe-inspiring. He gave me some tips on learning to quickly fret the Bm chord. And then, of course, he needed to figure out where I was and where he should pick up.

I highly stressed that I wanted to include lots of music-reading in my guitar education; this was a point of contention with my last instructor as he was not very good at reading music-notation (his admission).

My “homework” was to learn the open-position notes on the guitar without regards to how to read the notes. I’ve just learned which note is which on the guitar neck within the first three frets. Not hard to do, but it did take a little bit of work.

Below is an diagram of those notes:

Notes on the First Three Frets [Guitar

I’ve done a little bit of self-learning on reading music notation. I’ve found that memorizing the notes on the guitar neck has made it easier to learn to read music. I’d have never thought, but it did.

Anyway, that is it for now. I mentioned that the instructor gave me tips on learning the Bm chord. I will post more about that later.

Quick Post: Sat. Guitar Lesson [caption id="attachment_564" align="alignright" width="131" caption="The Music Room, Universal Language Spoken...

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