Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

I saw this post on WonderHowTo.com and I thought that it was clever. Now, obviously, it is not practical but it is still a need idea with cool, interesting results.

Check out the Candle Metronome:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-a-metronome-with-a-candle-50393/

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 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

A little bit ago, I posted about the fact that I wanted to go in a new direction; and I have since started.  I got a lot of good recommendations from different people and I appreciate everything everyone suggested.

However, as it turns out I didn’t actually go with any of them… at least not yet. I may revisit other material. For now, I’ve got a book called “Mel Bay’s Modern Guitar Method Grade 1.” I started flipping through it, and decided that this is where I’d start. I have a bunch of books, but for some reason I thought that this one suited me the best for now.

From this book, I’m basically trying to do everything right… I’m going through the exercises, I’m playing everything against a metronome and I’m ensuring that I’m playing the correct notes… Furthermore, this book only presents the material in standard music notations… Reading standard music notation is something else that I wanted to get out of learning guitar; my guitar teacher a while back wasn’t able to help me with that.

I will be focusing on material in this book as well as scales and of course, my quest to nail Bm which has been an “issue” for a while. I can play it better, but still can’t change to it quickly enough (for me).

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…

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!

First, wow – I’m sorry. I hadn’t realize that it had been 5 day since my last post. That is horrible.

For this addition, I’ve decided to write a bit about the gear that a beginner will need. In the following list, my intention was to cover what a beginner would need, keeping in mind two main things. The effectiveness versus the price of the product.

First, I think it is important to note that the only things you absolutely need to begin learning to play the guitar properly is an acoustic guitar, metronome (yes, I think that it is that important) and the Internet or a good book.

Additional items that would be extremely helpful include (in my opinion):

• Electronic Tuner
• Music Stand
• Guitar Stand
• Guitar Case
• Various Gauge Picks
• Any additional educational resources {Good Books, UnderstandingGuitar.org}
• Stool or armless chair
• Foot Stool
• Good Guitar Teacher

Note: the list above is presented in no particular order.

Why do I feel that each of these items are important:

Electronic Tuner

A beginner has enough to worry about, without having to worry about whether the guitar is in tune or not. If the guitar is not in tune, it will be impossible to learn how the different chords or notes are suppose to sounds as you are playing them.

Music Stand

This is one item that I personally resisted buying. Not because I thought the music store was charging too much for them – but because I thought that I truly didn’t need it. Just before I started taking lessons from an actual instructor, I found one on “clearance” at a local Sam Ash and decided to purchase it. Ever since then, I wish I had purchased one straight away!!

Having the music stand hold the music (with little arms that swing out to hold your book open to the exact page) allows you to read while playing. This might not seem important when first learning because most of the things you are learning can easily be memorized. But, here is one trick – what if you accidentally memorize the wrong thing because you only looked at the chord chart once?! Additionally, as you get in to more complex pieces, you won’t be able to continue to memorize them. There are other reasons I could list, but I believe these will suffice for my purposes for now.

Guitar Stand

This is one of those things I’ve had since I got my first guitar – the salesmen tossed a stand in when I bought the guitar. I used to store my guitar (it was a cheapo guitar) on the stand. Now, I strictly use the stand to hold the guitar when doing various things while practicing. Things like reading a paragraph in a lesson book or when getting a different book.

Guitar Case

If you’ve dropped a decent amount of coin on your guitar (especially if it is acoustic), then a hard case is important to store it. A soft case simply can not protect a guitar like a hard case. You may feel that you do not need one – especially if you aren’t taking the guitar out of your home (if you are a beginner why would you – lessons, thats why!) However, why take the risk. You can get a hard guitar case for for around $69. If you spent $250 or more on your guitar, then I think that you’d want to protect it… Consider the possibility of some one bumping in to your un-protected guitar, or a pet some how knocks it over…

Various Gauge Picks

This is another one that didn’t really make sense to me. “My Guitar came with three (same gauge) picks; why do I need more?!” At first, it may or may not be noticeable. However, different gauge picks allows you to “feel” the strings/guitar differently.

I think that you should try a variety of different picks (as well as have them on hand) and maybe even use different picks as you practice. Really see what works for you.

So far, what I’ve found is that I tend to like really, really thin, flexible picks for playing rhythm. The thin picks allow me to strum freely without “over attacking” the strings. When I play lead (usually playing a note or two) or scales I like “medium-heavy”picks. They allow me to feel which string I’ve just plucked which allows me to know where I am among the six different strings.

Any Additional Educational Resources

If you are on UnderstandingGuitar.org then you’ve found one! In all seriousness, additional resource give you different perspective on the same topic. Some times it is easier to understand one resource over another – I’ve always found that I need to read different books or websites to understand certain topics. And sometimes it just helps to ingrain the concept deeper in to my brain.

Stool or armless chair

I find that a stool allows me to sit properly, but you want at least an armless chair (I prefer a stool though). You probably have one around your home. You don’t need anything special. It is just important to not have arms on the chair to allow you to learn to hold and fret the guitar properly.

Foot Stool

This is the latest thing I’ve purchase and I did so because I noticed that my right ankle had started to hurt as I practiced. I believe that this happened because I was propping my foot up on the tips of my toes in order to get the guitar to be just a little higher. It was probably necessary to help with certain chords – I’ve been working on barred chords!

Anyway, I ended up reading (somewhere, I’m sorry I’m not sure where) that you do want to raise the guitar a little higher. It is proper form. Again, this isn’t a necessity however to learn to play with proper form is important.

Good Guitar Teacher

I have done most of my learning for books – Professionally, I’m a software developer and though I did go to college to get my career started, I first learned to program from books. Hours and hours with a book and I created my first piece of software. Granted, it wasn’t very good but it kicked started what has become my career and inherently my life.

I had approached guitar the same way. I purchased a guitar and my wife had a book (from when she was trying learn). I started going through the book and though I learned things, I never could “feel” the music. Nothing seemed right but I could not, no matter what, figure out what it was. Eventually, I decided to start taking lessons from an actual teacher. I’ve seen and heard such vast improvement that this must go on this list.

On November 14^th, I posted a couple of other chord combinations to practice. While having the chords are nice, I wanted to illustrate them via rhythm slashes.

Below are the three rhythm slash combinations. Click on the images to view the entire image.

1. Em Am – rhythm slashes with the chord voicings.

2. Am Dm – rhythm slashes with chord voicings

3. D A – rhythm slashes with chord voicings.

All of these should be excellent rhythm practice and will help you with your chord formation.

As you are going through these, the goal is to play them cleanly – not fast! Right now, speed shouldn’t matter to you. What matters is whether strings ringing clearly/cleanly. I know that this was a big issue for me when I was really first starting – it was downright aggravating at times.

I found, that when I was having trouble with the chords ringing clearly that just playing them over and over did help overall. Also, slow down and really pay attention to what is going on. If you really can never get a chord to come out right; stop and really look at what the problem is. Once you realize what the problem is, correct it and then practice re-forming the chord [playing it cleanly] and just that chord over and over. Once you’ve done that a few times, go back to the patterns above.

Although, as I’ve stressed before, it is important to do these, and any music practice against a metronome. It is very important to develop your ability to track time and I think that it is easier to do that when you are starting then after.

Aside from getting this blog up and running, my all of my guitar practice sessions have included rhythm practice. After about 5 weeks in to playing, I had realized that I hadn’t been practicing rhythm guitar at all! To no fault of my instructor – He was giving me plenty of chord progressions to practice rhythm, however I ended up focusing on chord forms and ignoring the rhythm aspect of my practice.

As a result, I ended up with very little ability to keep time or rhythm. My pace was set by how fast I could change to specific chords; this is not a good method to practice guitar or music in general.

An Exercise

Here is an example of a simple “chord move” exercise which I’ve been using to practice rhythm [I do this exercise with various chords -- please feel free to use chord you are familiar with but do not forget to "push" yourself a little and try new chords]. This exercise is pretty straight forward.

I feel that it is extremely important to play this against a metronome. I feel that this is the best way to ensure that your timing is consistent and even.

I suggest that you start out slowly. There is no need to rush this at all. Get the feel for the chord change and please keep in mind that part of this exercise is to change to the next chord smoothly and without dropping a beat or rushing a beat (strumming before you are suppose to). Then gradually increase your metronome (perhaps in increments of 10 beats?)

Thus far, I’ve been able to successfully (within correct time, no beats missed, or chord-form mistakes) play through this particular exercise at a 80 BPM — I had started at 40 BPM a day ago.

Also, experiment with different chords – perhaps a couple of new chords that you picked up from a book or your instructor.

As always, I hope that this is a useful piece of information that benefits you in some way. Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions, questions, etc!