Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

I was messing around with my POD 2.0 By Line6 (I just bought it, I’ve not posted about it yet. I will post about it soon) and I came up with a sort of “trippy” (according to my wife) little rhythm piece.

You can listen to it below:

Note: if you can’t see the player, you should view the original post.

The guitar is an amplified acoustic guitar put through a Line6 POD 2.0 with the “9d” setting selected (on the POD) captured with a Zoom H2. All of this combined is creating this sort of delay - reverb - acoustic type sound…

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.

I recently decided to subscribe to Acoustic Guitar magazine. And yesterday, I received my very first issue.

I was incredibility pleased with the issue as they had a wonderful article titled: “Tackling Difficult Chords.” I quickly read the article and I felt that it had some very wonderful tips on how to learn to imprint difficult barre chords in to your memory and fretting hand.

The article uses the F chord and the Bm chord as their example chords. Which is perfect because I’ve been working on the Bm chord. (I recently blogged about it.)

After I read the article I immediately began to apply what it had suggested. I worked with the F chord, the Bm chord and for good measure I threw in the (open) C chord. I’ve been having difficultly with that chord because it is awkward to my hand.

I drilled, and drilled the chords and have done the same thing since I read the article. That was about two days ago. It is probably too early to tell, but I do believe that it has improved my ability to play all three chords. As well as I want? Not quite yet, but it is a work in progress and I’m getting closer.

It is possible that the article just gave me the fuel to drill the chords again… I’m not sure. To any account, I loved the article and it would be worth a read to any one who is still working on memorizing barred chords.

What does the article suggest? I don’t want to give away too much (because I don’t want to plagiarize), but for those who might be interested…

The article starts out by telling you to fret the problem chord.  Play the chord arpeggiated - that is one string at a time. Play the chord twice (I suggest using alternate picking) once going down; from low E to high E then going up, from high E to the low E string.

Once you get to the low E string, release the strings but don’t remove your hand from the current position. Reapply pressure with your fretting hand with the same chord shape and do the arpeggiation again. Repeat until your hand can’t take it (actually, just repeat it a lot). You should pay special attention to whether the strings are ringing clearly or not. Don’t proceed until the strings all ring clearly - consistently.

The article then suggests you strum the chord, doing the same fretting hand pressure release as before. Repeat this a lot.

The article then suggests that you do a two-chord chord progression. One chord is the one you are learning, the other chord being a chord that you are very comfortable with. Repeat that progression. (yes, a lot.)

You may not get to this last step on your first or second day. I think that is fine. Take your time and be patient.

Buy the magazine and read the article. It has a lot more important information than what I’ve just given you.

You may also be able to read the article here: http://www.acousticguitar.com/article/default.aspx?articleid=22034

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…

As some might know, I’ve been slowly working on a song for my wife. It is something I’ve always wanted to do and so I decided to start sooner rather than later. Some might say I’m rushing things, but it helps me learn, so what the heck!

With that said, I’ve written the first chord progression for the song. I figure I’m going to keep building on it and modifying it until I feel it sounds good.

I made three recordings, and I will be honest — each of the recording contains mistakes in one way or another. Originally I was only going to post one of them, but I thought “why not post all of them.”  I’ll just put myself out there.  I’m not really sure which one is the best or closest to what I want but If I had to guess I’d say recording two or three…

Recording 1:

Recording 2:

Recording 3:

So, I wrote a very simple chord progression. It is the “start” of a song that I’ve been wanting to write for my wife. Points! Anyway, it is a simple 12 bar blues progression in the Key of G.

At this point, the chords involved (I’ve yet to dress it up at all) include G Major, C Major and D Major. However, I’m experiencing a problem that I think most beginners have or will experience… I’m having trouble switching between the chords quickly enough for the pace I’ve set the progression at – that is, I’m not switching between the chords fast enough.

I’ve been practicing the progression with little improvement and keep in mind that I’ve been playing these chords for at least the last 4 months — almost daily!

To be honest, it started to aggravate and frustrate me… I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. But I’m also very analytical, so I decided to do some research via Google search to find some tips.

I found two tips; the first one more helpful than the second one but the second one is worth looking at.

The first tip to change chords quickly: http://www.cyberfret.com/chords/changing/index.php

What the above article explains is an exercise to learn how to form the chord before you actually place your fingers down. The exercise is basically to form the chord and raise your hand off of the fretboard a 1/4 of an inch or so… Then, put it back (you’d stay on the same chord)… Repeat this process and your hand should (theoretically) learn the new chord’s form.

The article explains that putting the entire chord shape down at once is much quicker than individually positioning your fingers. (That, obviously, makes sense.. In practice, however, it is a lot easier said that done…)

The second tip comes via YouTube:

Update: [5/1/2008]: Acoustic Guitar Magazine published a great article along the same lines as this topic. Check it out!