No, not yet. Don’t even know what they are right now. I signed up for the Justin Guitar course, so slowly working through that. I promised myself this learning to play the guitar was never going to become a chore, as that’s when I’d give up, but that relaxed attitude means I’m not practicing anything like as much as I need to. I should be far more competent than I am by now. I still don’t feel comfortable or relaxed holding the thing yet, and aches in my fretting hand / arm mean I don’t practice for long when I do practice.
All the best with your guitar lessons. The basic Barre Chords are built around 4 types (shapes): E, E minor, A and A minor. There are other Barre Chords as well. With these 4 types you can play 48 chords just by holding and moving the chord up the fret board.
I've got a few different songs I'm juggling for guitar class. This is one is Lullaby of the Leaves by Billy Bauer. Great song. Most of it is tolerable but I've been practicing measures 49 - 52 for a solid week now. It's at 1:30 of the video if you want to check it out. It's no much that it's fast but it's really muddy in a good jazzy way. Part of it is the older recording and general lack of modern mastering, but that's what makes old jazz tunes sound so great. The musical transcription isn't helping much. I swear I'm hearing sextuplets instead of sixteenths in parts, and the swing rhythm of the piece doesn't always slot the notes in convenient transcriptions. I've spent a LOT of time relearning how to read music so I'm not having any problems there anymore, but the knock on guitar music has always been that the sheet music might tell you the correct pitch but it doesn't tell you which position to play it in or which fingering patterns to use. I'm getting better at that... having a plan before my fingers snap off. But these four measures are kicking my nuts:
Cool. What guitar stuff can we do? I have an acoustic and a classic - my go-to is the classic. I am more of a finger-picking kinda dude. Also - reading music? I can't and my memory is like one of those big metal things with holes in, so I struggle to actually play anything even though I have reasonable technique. Might be nice to find an inspirational kick up the arse though!
I don't know. Whatever we want! Techniques, songs, gear, questions, whatevs.... I like finger picking too. I dabble in classical but my style is much more jazzy. What about tabs?
Oh nice, I will have to watch this thread, and perhaps go through the past posts. These days I am more of a strummer for accompanying my vocals than anything else. I can't read music and can't imagine ever learning, so I just use tabs. "Put your fingers here, dummy." Suits me just fine! Sometimes I have chord questions so I will be sure to post them here. I haven't been playing much lately, which is lame, cause I bought a really cool new guitar last year and should be putting a decent amount of hours into it. Maybe this thread will help.
Yeah, but you write a lot. For me, it's a binary thing: all creative energy into writing or all creative energy into guitar. Can't seem to accommodate both.
Cool - how many fingers do I need to play a blood F?! I can never get my head (hand) around that bastard, which seems to appear everywhere... I find them good for learning, but not "reading to play" I guess I just need to pull my finger out and put more hours in...
Well, all of them if you're playing the big barre chord: 1 3 3 2 1 1 which is still a difficult chord even for many professionals, being so low to the nut where the strings require more pressure. If you're struggling with that big barre chord shape, chop off the lower two notes (F, C) and try revoicing it like this: x x 3 2 1 1 That will get you to 3 fingers with just the little barre across the higher two notes (C, F). But because all an F Chord is an F note, an A (the 3rd), and a C (the fifth), you can further revoice those notes anywhere on the neck in any order that feels comfortable. Like this: x x x 5 6 5 (just move your D chord shape up 3 frets) or like this: x x 10 10 10 x Those last two are identical chords played in different positions, but now you're down to one finger with the last one... like magic! Both of those chord shapes are stacked C, F, A from low to high, which is technically known as the second inversion of F. Of course, it's not going to sound like that big, lower barre chord F, but it will still fulfill its harmonic responsibilities.
I've seen the "move the D-shape" variant (or use a capo... but that's not exactly convenient in the middle of a piece!), but, no, it doesn't sound the same. Maybe I just need a bionic finger for the barre version... (or to practise more... I can do it; it just takes about five minutes )
Yeah, good with it down to about the third fret. also done the many-fingered mini-barre version, which is easier to play, but takes longer to position... practice, practice, practice...
Frequency is much more beneficial than duration. 15 minutes a day will get you better than an hour twice a week. Muscle memory can be reordered quickly but requires upkeep to remain so. I've broken 30 year habits in a week before, but they required daily practice for several months to stick semi-permanently. One things I've learned over the last year of lessons is the physical/athletic approach to guitar is HUGE. Your fingers are a very weak muscle group. Your forearms are stronger, your upper arms are stronger still, and your back muscles are even stronger. Shifting certain motions from one muscle group to another dramatically alters the physical load and allows for easier playing across the board.
That was going to be my chord question haha. I hate that freakin F. The only one that sounds "right" to me is the big bar one, but it's always so awkward to transition to and from other common chords like G, C, D. You can kinda cheat with a power chord and it sounds okay, but it's not quite right. I guess it just takes heaps and heaps of practice to get comfortable with it. And I'm into a couple thousand hours at this point (over a couple decades, though).
Don't know if you're a Guns n Roses fan, but Don't Cry is a good song to practice transitioning in and out of F, mainly with G and A minor. It's good to practice it around a C as well because that's where you're going to find the F lurking more often than not.
'Mer'can politics can be a bit confusing for me, but for some reason this makes me very happy. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has played a rendition of Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World with a local band at a bar called Diktat on his surprise trip to Kyiv (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-69013071) Wouldn't the world be better if we could get a few of its heavyweight politcos jamming in a basement bar over a few brewskies? (man...)
Just got out of class. Guitar teacher was doing his Mr. Miyagi/Yoda shit where he has me turn my back and he plucks notes and I have to guess the string he's playing based on the timbre. Then we flips roles where I pluck the notes and I have to fool him. Basically, you play the same note, like a G, on different strings but alter where you pluck it along the string length to muddle the brightness so they all sound the same. I got him a few times. He got me more. Asshole.
This weeks lesson: Octotonic scales. Also known as the diminished scale (jazz) and the Whole Half scale (classical). Basically you alternate whole steps and half steps all the way into infinity. On one string, it would look like this (you can start anywhere): 2 4 5 7 8 10 11 13 14 8 notes before you hit the octave, unlike the 7 is every other diatonic scale. Not sure how into theory everyone is, but in those intervals are two diminished 7th chords layered next to each other, but the real harmony is over a dominant 7th chord, which essentially holds all musical genres together.
Django Rhinehardt! Warm up your right hand and let her rip! Been trying to learn this for weeks now. Not easy. E flat with a heavy dose of mixolydian. And this dingdong played most of his parts with two fingers, which is just rubbing it in.
Been practicing a new tune. Its a Jazz piece called 'Afternoon in Paris.' It was composed by John Lewis, a famous Jazz pianist way back in 1949. The whole piece is Barre 7th chords. The tune is to be played through three times. I broke the tune down as follows: 15 different chords. Each run through has 45 chords (some passages are repeats). Total of 135 chords My fretting hand is aching beyond belief. How did those old Jazz guitarists do it, week in week out
Also consider triads - basically hitting the three key notes to make up the chord. Eg X X 3 2 1 X for F major. This was a game changer for me in terms of acoustic playing.
More often than not, they weren't playing the full barre chords. That particular song you mentioned, at least the version I found and from what I heard briefly, is a horn and piano tune that was probably arranged for the guitar version you're learning (though I could be wrong). Those are taking multiple instruments playing single notes stacked into an orchestral chord and transposing them into a single guitar chord. The overwhelming majority of the time, the guitars in a jazz band noodle the upper registers of the orchestral chord while the bass and piano supply the bass notes. Yes, yes, and double yes. The triads also apply to the barre chords hurting your fingers. A seventh chord stacks two triads on top of each other. A 9th chord three triads, and a 13th four triads. Take a basic C7 chord: X 3 5 3 5 X, which contains the notes X C G B flat E X. The pitches are out of order when arranged on a guitar neck because our hands have limited reach, but if you arrange them into an arpeggio in order on a piano or a single guitar string, you get C, E, G, B flat. The C, E, G at the beginning form a standard C major triad, but if we start on the E and go E, G, B flat, you get an E diminished triad. Hence, C major + E diminished = C7 chord. A four note chord created by the combination of 2 three note chords that share a pair of notes. If you take that harmony of thirds a note further, you end up with C, E, G, B flat, D... which is C9 chord. We already have the C major and E diminished triads there, but we're adding that extra note D to make another triad at the end of the chord: G, B flat, D... which is a G minor triad. So take that five note arpeggio of C, E, G, B flat, D and break it up its 3 note pieces (all of which share two notes with their neighbor on either end) and you get: C major + E diminished + G minor... a C9 chord. Also known as the James Brown chord, which follows this shape: X 3 2 3 3 3. In jazz music that features guitar as an instrument--rather than an arrangement from horn or piano parts, which I suspect @Rad Scribbler song might be, but maybe not--very often the guitar player is just hitting one of those three triads contained in the master chord. And very often it's the middle diminished triad because guitars love tritones. So all the guitar does is jam on the E, G, and B flat while the rest of the band rounds out the chords. That's where shit starts to get intense and confusing, especially in Jazz, which is mostly improvisational. If the bass player decides he's going to color the guitar player with a C note, the guitar player who thinks he's hitting an E diminished is actually playing 75% of a C7. But if the bass player decides to a play a D instead, the guitar player might be playing 60% of a C9 chord, or 75% of a E minor 7 chord, or 50% of several potential 13th chords. It gets crazy in a hurry. My knowledge is lacking but improving. But all Western music does is stack thirds atop of thirds atop of thirds atop of thirds until the human hearing range taps out.
