Guitar Lovers

You Just Have to Play
 When I  started playing the guitar, I  felt it was necessary to sit down and make myself write a song. I had all these ideas about how the song should be written. I would pound my head against the wall trying to come up with something. I would listen to the radio or my CD collection looking for answers on how my song should sound. I tried writing Heavy Metal, Rock, and even Blues. I was so desperate to write a song. When I would sit down to try to write a song, I would get so frustrated that I would actually start to hate playing the guitar. I wanted to throw it aginst the wall. I would put it down and not pick it up for weeks. Don’t get me wrong - I did get plenty of riffs written and even a few lyrics, but something was wrong. It just did not sound right and it surely did not “feel” right for that matter. I was trying so hard to make a great song like the Allman Brothers, or Eric Clapton, or one of the 80’s or 90’s  hits on the radio. I felt hopeless.
If you believe in yourself and the music you create, other people will believe it too.
Then, one day I decided to pick up the guitar, kick on the drum machine, and just play. I put no thought to what I was doing. I just let it happen. It was then that it all came out. The more I just sat and played, the better I felt, and the music just poured out. I did not need to concentrate on one genre or how I wanted to the song to come out. It just did. All my musical influences from early childhood on just poured right out with my individuality. It blew me away. I recorded everything I did. I was writing 3 songs a day. Then, one day I sat back and listened to the music I had created and I started to question it, even though I absolutely loved what I had created. I though to myself This has an awful 80’s ring to it. I do not sound like the music that’s out today. I do not sound as good as Eric Clapton.” My leads are nothing compared to the Allman Brothers. I almost got myself right back in the rut I was originally in - frustrated.

Why? It was because I questioned myself and thought that I had to sound like someone else to write a good song. I came to the realization that what I wrote was from within; it’s what was in my heart. Even if no one else liked the music, it did not matter. I had to be happy with it - not everyone else. Of course I was unable to sound like Eric Clapton. That is because I wasn’t Eric Clapton! Of course my leads were not going to sound like Eric. Eric was Eric and no one else on earth could touch that. It was his heart talking through the music, not mine. Of course I wasn’t going to sound like today’s music; I grew up in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Why would I sound like the 90’s? What I played and the songs I wrote were from within, not from someone else, but from me. They are comprised of all the music I grew up with along with my own individuality. I did not have to work at them - I just sat and played and they came out. I absolutely love the music I have written. I love to play it and get a great feeling from it. To me, that’s the key, no matter what it is you write, what genre, how many chords, full chords, power-chords, or single notes. As long as its what you feel, it’s right. You have to be happy with what you write. Not me, not John Doe, You! To me this is the greatest achievement any musician could strive for. To create music that is from within you, not this group or that group. Of course your influences will come through since this is only natural. But don’t kick yourself for not sounding exactly like them. It’s impossible because you are not your influences.

Strive to be yourself through your music; you cannot go wrong. No one can ever doubt what is in you heart but you. If you believe in yourself and the music you create, other people will believe it too. You do not have to work at it; it’s right there inside of you. Just sit down and play and eventually it will all come out. And it will be beautiful music to your ears.

This Guitar Lovers blog is concerning whether or not it is possible to have relative pitch or perfect pitch or the ability to listen  and accurately call out the chords as they are being played over the radio.
I have talked with friends of mine that have the ability to do this and after practicing this, I would like to share my thoughts.

1. Intervallic Training
One of the first lessons that piano players learn is the ability to distinguish intervals. Piano players that learn from a traditional teacher will play intervals (or seconds), thirds, fourths, etc. (Playing the root note and its second, the root note and its third, the root note and its fourth). This concept is difficult to teach on the guitar because it is tuned in fourths, but turns out to be necessary to hear easily the chords that are being played.

When you think of playing the chord scale diatonically, the shortcut of learning to distinguish intervals will make much more sense. For example, in the key of C, playing the chord scale diatonically will give you C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B dim, and C following the Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished, Octave [MmmMMmDO]. The difference between the C root in C and the E root in Em will always be a third. The difference of a third, or a fourth, or a fifth is something that is very easy to distinguish. Being able to pick these intervals out will help you figure out how to tell which chords are being played on most songs that occur on the radio.

2. Hearing Minor vs. Major
The next step is to be able to distinguish between what has a major tonality versus a minor tonality. Most people will have no problem determining the difference between an E major and an E minor. The problem occurs when you introduce a melody over a chord progression. When you approach soloing from a Modal perspective, there are certain modes that introduce a major tonality, while others introduce a minor tonality. The key is to be able to pick out the root of the chord that is being played (which happens to be what the Bass Guitar is playing) and tuning out the melody to determine what is being played as backing chords.

3. 7ths, 9ths and Other Extensions
Once you have learned to distinguish Major versus Minor tonality, the next step is to be able to pick out the extension. How does adding the 2nd or 9th effect the chord? What effect does adding a 6th or a 7th effect the chord?

I have found that in most popular music you rarely worry about anything other than the 2nd/9th, 6th or 7th extensions, so it would be in your best interests to be able to distinguish these.

4. Learning by the Numbers - Some Common Shortcuts
Unless there are any key changes, it turns out to be very easy to find out what key a song is in.

Trick A - See if you can find any 2 majors in the progression that are a whole step apart. If you remember the pattern (MmmMMmDO) the only instance where you will have two majors in succession are for the IV and the V. By counting backwards from the IV you will be able to determine what key you are in, which makes picking out the minors and other chords very easy.

Trick B - Repeat the previous pattern based on two minors and count backwards from the ii.

Trick C - I tend to talk about the MmmMMmDO patters in terms of Roman Numerals I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii*, I - where the upper case Roman numerals are major and the lower case Roman numerals are minor. By calling these by their numbers, you will have an easy way to transpose this to any key.
So, in the beginning you can call out the changes in - say - the key of C. Then when you have your instrument, transpose it to the proper key. With time, you will be able to distinguish an E from an A and really be able to call out the actual keys as they are being played.

Make sure the instrument that you are using is in tune. Be patientand don’t be frustrated. Practice.

Every once in a while, I’ll see the frustration with the progress on their guitar. I hear something like;

“That’s it - I’m quitting. I’ve been practicing guitar for months now and I’m not getting any better. How long is it going to take for me to learn this thing?”

With so many concepts and techniques to learn such as scales, chords, rhythms, strumming, picking, fingerstyle, bending, and slides, it’s only natural to question yourself “what should I learn now?”), or “should it be taking this long for me to learn the guitar?”. It’s hard enough to stay focused enough to learn and absorb a particular concept without continually questioning whether the manner in which you are learning is actually working.

For me, the most effective way to deal with these anxieties is to get back to why you are learning the guitar in the first place: the music. When I say “the music“, I mean the execution of a musical idea. It can be a song, a melody, a riff, a lick, part of a solo, a one-bar phrase, or any other things you can play that feels good and sounds good. When a musical idea fits this, it takes on the characteristics of what I like to call a groove. It doesn’t matter if the groove doesn’t contain scale or chord, or use concept. The only thing that matters is that when you play it, you dig it, other people dig it, and it reinforces why you play music in the first place.

If you begin to feel these type of emotions, try the following steps in order to “lock in” a groove or a musical idea that moves you:

Choose a musical idea for your “groove”. As stated above, it can be a snippet of a song, a rhythm guitar part, a lick, part of a solo, something you saw a friend of yours play, etc. The main thing is to not “bite off more than you can chew”. You want to focus your attention on playing a small amount of music well, and not on playing a lot of music poorly. 

Get a metronome and set it to a tempo that is significantly slower than you would normally try to play your selected groove. This is important because it will reinforce the playing of the groove at a steady tempo. 

Play your selected groove at the given tempo. If you find that you are missing notes or having a hard time playing it, slow the tempo down until you can execute the groove from start to finish with no mistakes. 

When the groove feels comfortable to the point where you can play it in your sleep, increase the tempo by a small amount, and practice your groove at the new tempo. One good run-through at the new tempo is not sufficient. Play it over and over at the new tempo until it’s a permanent part of your brainwaves. 

Repeat the alst step until the tempo has reached the normal tempo at which your groove should be played.

I’m alway looking for new ideas from people and their techniques on playing the guitar. I found this article by Jamey Andreas and wanted to share it with you.

I am going to apply a number of the Principles of Correct Practice to a technical area that is of major concern to players. For beginners, it poses one of the most challenging difficulties, and an incomplete appreciation of it’s difficulties dogs many an advanced player (sometimes without them being aware of it).

Bar chords are what I am referring to. I am going to address the physical, technical aspects of learning these chords in a way that will enable you to avoid the difficulties that attend the learning of them for most players.

I remember when I first learned them. It was the “tough” school, the school of hard knocks. The school of “here is where to put your fingers, I know it feels impossible, you’re not getting most of the notes out, but if you stay with it long enough, you’ll be able to do it.” And that is true. And I did “get” them. After months of lessons where I was forced to keep up a rhythm while my teacher played the lead over a lot of great jazz tunes and standards I am happy to have learned, the pain in my thumb and hand and arm began to subside. I was getting stronger and that was good.

What I didn’t know was that even though I was learning to keep up with these chord changes, I had so much muscle tension in my arms and other parts of my body, that I was locking in tensions that didn’t have to be there, and would come back to haunt me a few years later as I attempted the classical repertoire, where you don’t really get away with things like that. As the years went by, and especially in teaching others, I realized that it doesn’t have to be that way for anybody! There is a way of going about it that doesn’t create or allow this situation. In fact, it makes learning things like bar chords an orderly, if still somewhat demanding process. And the result is a very comfortable feeling while doing them, and the proper basis for more advanced techniques, such as keeping a bar down while the other fingers do all sorts of things that demand great control.