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 »

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.

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

I’ve been looking at the details of the Dorian Scale (also known as the Dorian Mode) because I’m trying to go through the Box Pattern.

I found this video that I thought was interesting and wanted to share. While it isn’t specific to the box pattern, it is related to it. This is something I will need to come back to later (if only for the information on improvising)

I was about to start working on some random scales on GuitarCardio.com, when something that Kenski wrote as a comment a while back. A new comment on that page reminded me about it.

Kenski wrote “As a starting point I would advocate learning the box position for major scale“. I had started looking in to the Box Position, but I never really understood what it was. I looked and looked and never came to any conclusion. I did find a bunch of good material, but I never really understood it…

And I still don’t.  I found this: http://www.myguitarsolo.com/sc_box.htm

And while I understand what it is saying — run through the 6 scales on the same key — it doesn’t completely make sense. The scale patterns don’t match other sources.

Consider my other Google Result: http://www.robinmay.co.uk/index/independent_pages/view_independent_pages/10/

Is there no rule to this? If not, then why is this worth learning? If there is some form of rules, are they loose rules?

Any guidance would be appricated.

I ran through some scales on GuitarCardio.com this morning. I thought that I’d post the TuxGuitar files that I created while running through the scales.

The reason that I’m making the files for these (mostly) is timing. I need to improve my ability to play in time and for some reason, on scales I’m terrible at this. Though, just drilling these scales this morning, I think, have helped a lot.

Hopefully you can find these useful.

F Pentatonic Major (String-6)

C#/Db Pentatonic Minor (String-6)

C#/Db Pentatonic Major (String-6)

A#/Bb Pentatonic Major (6-String) (2 pluck)

I was reading PickStroke.com and on their side bar the author had listed “Guitar Cardio” might be a good place to visit if you need to work on your speed.”

And boy, is PickStroke right!

I think this site (GuitarCardio) is an amazing idea. Kudos to the author for authoring and hosting this.

The site basically will generate a number of scales for you to run though, it give you several options. I hope to use the site to practice scales while working on my new direction.

Give it a try: http://www.guitarcardio.com/

Screen Shot:

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?

I’ve been considering selecting, learning and posting one new scale a week.

I believe that on Sunday, I’d select a scale and start prepping the content to post. I’d be posting the tab and music and a recording my me playing that scale by Monday night — probably at 40 BPM.  At the end of the week on Saturday, I’d post another audio file of me playing it, hopefully faster.

What I’m wondering is if there would be interest in a program like that? Would other beginners (or anyone really) be interested in following along and basically participating?  I’d gladly post any audio or video files that one would submit.

I just want to increase the amount of educational content that I post here, and I feel that scales might be a good place to start.

What do you think?

A while back, when I was first starting out with Guitar, my wife got me a book as a present.  The book is called “The Gig Bag Book of Guitar Complete.” I’m almost sure anyone who has gone past the music isle in a Borders or Barnes and Noble has seen this book.

I see the book all over the place.  The book contains, among other things, scales and Chord diagrams. Both of which I have found useful overtime. I’m very glad my wife purchased the book for me.

However, there is a diagram within the pages that I do not understand. I’m sure that I’m not the only newbie guitarist who is lost when looking at the diagram.

With all respect to the publisher (and I truly hope they don’t mind) I’ve scanned an example of this diagram.  It is below:

Can anyone explain the area that is outlined in Red? Click here for a bigger version of the same image. I’ve included the scale above it in case that is somehow related to the diagram, but I’m not sure it is…

Thank you all!!