Building a Maj Scale

As hard as I try, to avoid writing about Music theory, I need to find an easy way to help my students understand the fingerboard as quickly as possible. A Piano keyboard is simple. It goes low-hi, left to right. Notes are never duplicated, sharps and flats are color coded black, there’s no micro-tones (in between notes from bending) and you don’t need to learn how to tune a piano before you can play.

The two  most important points I want to make are; Think of the fingerboard like a piano, 12 frets in a line. When you learn a scale, melody, chord or progression on one string, it’s easy to visualize how the notes relate to each other. Of coarse this only works for Open strings, so learning this one pattern will give you five different scales;E,A,D,G and B.

Secondly, forget about naming notes with letters. Yes you should learn what ALL the notes on the fingerboard are so you can always find your Root note. When you are playing scales or songs,  Numbers are much easier to remember AND visualize. Europeans often learn the Do Re Mi scale instead of notes but neither of these methods work as well as Numbers

Unless you are one of the approximately 10% of N Americans with perfect pitch, you need help visualizing and internalizing the distances between notes. This generally takes weeks or months to understand, so don’t panic and think “oh my god, he’s making me learn more math”. If you can keep the 12 months in a calender straight and remember a 7 digit phone number, you should have no problem.

So here it is without further delay, the Da Vinci code of Western Musical Theory in all it’s advanced mathematical glory; 2 2 1 2 2 2 1.

Add em up, it’s 12. One for each fret. That number again 221 2221, Use the fret markers to help line up their positions on the fingerboard. Once you can clearly visualize a 12 fret section of the fingerboard(again Don’t worry about what all the notes are) and how the 8 notes in an octave are spaced out, you are halfway to understanding the scales, modes and chords in every key. They are ALL based in this same simple formula.

That’s it, 2212221    Wholetone, Wholetone, Semitone, Wholetone, Wholetone, Wholetone, Semitone.

Once you learn the formula, you can build a Major scale in ANY key. Every Octave is exactly the same so you only have to visualize ONE octave, don’t forget the note’s on either end are the same (Root note, Tonic)

Learning to do this on one string is the key to figuring out the grid pattern of 6 courses(strings)

All 6 of the strings are spaces evenly in Fourths (5 fret space) except the space between the 2nd and 3rd string is shorter, a Maj Third interval(4 frets)

Getting to know all the intervals will help you understand how all the notes relate to each other and why Major keys sound very different from minor.

I learned Music theory as a youth (11-16) so it was mostly a matter of memorizing everything I could whether I understood it or not, it was in the memory banks. I wish someone had showed me the importance of learning (and visualizing) intervals as well as notes. It’s important to just visualize the ONE Octave. When you think of the Octaves above and below the one you are using, this triples the amount of info you need to keep straight. Aside from being at a higher or lower pitch/frequency, an A is always an A, a Fifth interval is always a Fifth. Avoid taxing your brain with duplicate notes.

Rhythm works the same way, the spaces are as important as the accents.  It’s natural for Guitarists to use letter notes, but it will limit you. When you learn a song by the Chords eg  a C, F, Dm, G progression. You can only play it in C. If you learned it as a 1, 4, 2, 5 progression (in C), you’ve already done the math. You can transpose easily and you can SEE how the notes relate to each other.

Please comment if you have an easy way to demonstrate or visualize the Major scale.

One of the hardest things about teaching is putting yourself in the position of trying to learn a subject all over again. So please let me know if you find this reasonably easy to follow.

Take time to visualize the fingerboard, without having it in front of you. Can’t sleep? Don’t count sheep. The half hour before you fall asleep is the Best time to learn (and retain) new info. Count frets, visualize the fingerboard and how the different scales chords and progressions would look on one string. Try it, it works great. Don’t think about that new Guitar you can’t afford or how many cool sounds you could make with a phase oscillating wank o tron 2000 pedal with 3 preset modulating “spasm” modes. All that fancy stuff is not going to make you a better Guitar player.

Just one more time 2212221 call today, be a better Guitar player tomorrow. I can’t promise that this will make sense overnight. Take some time and internalize how the Major scale sounds. There are literally thousands of songs built around the Maj scale. Some of my favorite examples are;

the Andy Griffith Show theme, (oops, there’s a min 3 in there too) that’s why it sounds kinda bluesy

Sailors Hornpipe,

Brown Eyed Girl,

Home on the Range,

Candle in the Wind,

Walk on the Wild Side,

Rebel Rouser,

Dixie/Yankee Doodle,

Dueling Banjos

Please send me any suggestions I could add to this list.

Free Stuff

Anyone starting a business, a band or just promoting themselves should know about these 2 great companies. First Vista Print gives away free business cards, post cards, t-shirts, hats, posters. You just pay for shipping. The free offers are halfway down the page to the left.  And You Send It will let you send large files for free (up to 2GB) like movies, Wav files. If anyone  knows of any other useful free stuff or services, please let me know. No free Guitar lessons please.

Musicians Have Better Memory than Non Musicians

An article in Cognitive Daily states that even with non musical info like words and pictures too, Musicians tested were more likely to group information by similarities. The articles says understanding the relationships of the notes is how we remember them. Musicians have no advantage over non musicians in remembering a random sequence of unrelated notes. Here’s the article.

Spider Capo

This looks pretty cool. Anyone that plays in open tunings can see the advantage of a Capo like this. It’s one step beyond the “Partial” Capo. This unit allows Guitarists to decide which strings they want to shorten. Here’s a link to Spider Capo. You can move the individual string pieces while the Capo is attached to your Guitar.

Building a Good Guitar Solo part 2

I think that one of the most important ways to describe the difference between lead and rhythm playing isn’t chord/melody. It’s either playing rhythmically and somewhat predictably, or making use of accents and playing the unexpected.

One of the hardest things to teach, is how to underplay and leave spaces that don’t sound forced or awkward. By underplaying I mean leaving yourself space to “turn it up a notch”. I see many Guitarists that have a great sense of pitch and play tastefully phrased lines but they don’t break it up.  Don’t play a steady stream of notes all the time. Start out a solo playing fragments. Simple 2-5 note phrases that you can build on and flesh out. For me, I would estimate that I’m only going 100%, for less than 1/4 of each Guitar solo.

Balance is very important. The way you balance tonality and dissonance, loud and soft, fast and slow, bass or treble. When I catch myself playing anything too much, I’ll consciously do the opposite. Playing in same range, in a steady, predictable,  pattern is just plain boring.

Tonal gravity is a very interesting concept. Everyone, whether they are musicians or not, has a built in understanding of how pitch and rhythm effect emotions. If you look at the notes as vibrations, the higher the note, the more energy is required to sustain it. A note is a living thing and we expect it to die.  Make the rests of your solos as deliberate as the notes and the accents. Even the speed of vibrato effects how the notes make you feel.

We use it every day in our speech. Pitch and tempo can change the meaning of words or phrases. Cats and dogs don’t understand our language but they can tell what you mean, by the way you say say it.

Different styles of music use the elements of tonal gravity differently. This is what gives different styles of music their own sound. The more styles you are familiar with, the easier it will be for you to control and manipulate tonal gravity to your advantage.

Major and minor are polar opposites. Being familiar with the characteristics and the differences of each, is crucial for creating and releasing tension. Maj chords sound happy, with a rising sensation, minors are sad, with a falling sensation. This only applies to western music, middle eastern music uses “happy” minor themes.

Understanding tonal gravity will help you to balance learned technique, with “feel”. And it will help keep your solos interesting. Try listening to some of your favorite players and pay attention to how they use tonal gravity. If you’d like to read more about how Music effects our brains. have a look at Music Instinct at PBS

WAF Factor

That stands for “wife acceptance factor”. Not sure if I like the look of these or not. Different anyways. They have a tube pre-amp, the tubes are encased in clear polycarbonate cylinders. The cabinet is 1 piece of bent plywood and the the front baffle is custom cut from wood with a CNC machine to the clients specs. So far it’s just a concept, they aren’t available yet. Here’s the original article. This is not an amp one would use for recording or playing live. This is designed to fit in with your Ikea furniture.

Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Picking

Picking is a subject that everybody has their own ideas about. I think teachers tend to glaze over right hand info, so they can concentrate on what the left hand is doing.

One of the best exercises for flat or fingerpicking is to think of a random string number from 1-6 and play it without looking.

The number 1 thing I see students, beginners and pros alike  do wrong, is letting all their picking motion come from their wrist. I know people like to anchor their hand and it seems like you have more control with the wrist but all of my picking speed comes from my elbow. I learned this from watching Jazz cats. You don’t have to completely lock your wrist, just try to get more of the up and down motion coming from the elbow.

Another thing  is letting too much of the pointy end of the pick, stick out past your index finger.  Don’t grip the pick any tighter than necessary. Just like with Barre Chords, you don’t need a deathgrip.  Keep things loose, yes you will drop your pick occasionally. I stick an extra in my pickguard, some people use double-sided tape.

I learned recently, that Guitarists that use flat picks are more susceptible to tendinitis. This make sense as fingerpicking doesn’t require as much of a pinching type pressure on the pick.

Next variation we have is Hybrid picking. This means using another finger, generally the ring finger combined with the flat pick. I’ve seen Guitarists use a fingerpick with a flatpick, very strange but whatever works for you.

Next, Palming the pick. Setzer is a master of this technique. It’s not too hard to do, you just hold the pick in your palm with the 3rd and 4rth fingers. You can cheat and put the pick in your mouth during a fingerpicking break.

Thumb picks. Dobro, Banjo and Steel players wouldn’t get very far without them. Some players use them by themselves or combined with 1-3 fingerpicks. The first complaint I hear is; ” it feels like my fingers grew an inch”. They may take a while to feel comfortable, be sure it’s not too tight.  You can modify a plastic or nylon thumb pick by cutting and or sanding it down.

Fingerpicks. Some players like to have quite a bit of space between their fingertip and the pick. I think these players generally only play upstrokes. I prefer the fingerpick very close to the tip of my finger so it’s easier to get downstrokes also.

No pick. Some players just use a thumb or fingers(Wes Montgomery, Thumbs Carlisle). You can get an acrylic coating put over the fingernail to give you a built in pick. I’ve tried it a few times. I’ve heard Jeff Beck does this, mainly classical players do it. Anyplace that does manicures should be able to help you. It costs about $20-30 and lasts about a month and a half, but you have to be careful maintaining and sanding it. Of course the whole nail grows longer so you have to file it every week or so.  This method doesn’t let your nail breath so it’s not a good idea to use it continuously for years on end.

So try some different techniques and see what works best for you. The more options available to you, the better. This will help you develop your own sound.

Remember Rhythm is just as important as the notes you play. Use accents, try breaking up patterns and leaving spaces. When you find you are getting comfortable forming chords and playing melodies, try concentrating on the right hand.

One of my new students told me his previous teacher had told Never to keep time by tapping his foot. Bad advice,  I say unless you are playing along with a metronome, always tap your foot, especially if you are playing with another Guitarist.

Home Recording for Guitarists

A reader asked me to post some home recording tips so here it goes. I’ve been recording with bands for quite a while. I’ve actually played on records(as in vinyl), so that kinda dates me. I bought the first 4 track fostex that came out in the 80’s, I studied first year recording arts and I’ve had the pleasure of working with some great producers (Stephen Drake, Marc L’Esperance, Stephan Sigersen, Brian Gobles, Bill Haye). The most important thing I have to say is keep it simple.

Recording/engineering is an art in itself. Due to the prices of digital recording gear, there are plenty of studio owners ready to cut you a deal just to stay busy. As far as home recording goes, I mostly just do live demos with my Zoom H-4 stereo field recorder.

Anything more involved than getting levels and pressing record distracts you from performing. Assuming you are starting with solid material, I would much rather hear a so-so live recording of a great performance, than a pristine studio production of a lackluster performance. Using software like Garage Band is so simple almost anyone can produce a CD at home these days. Unfortunately this produces many good recordings of players with no business being anywhere near a studio.

I was in one of the bigger local studios here in Vancouver recently with a 4 piece band. We layed down 5-6 bed tracks, Drums, Upright Bass, 2 Guitars and Vocal scratch track in about 3 hours. One of the engineers, a guy in his early 20’s said; “Wow, I’ve never seen a band in here, that can record all the beds live”.  I found this somewhat alarming. Putting music together one piece at a time makes it sound sterile.

To me, I think the ideal home studio situation would be: a) equip your studio.

b) hire an experienced engineer/producer and pay him with free studio time. You’ve already paid for it so it’s not costing you anything.

This way you can learn slowly from a pro while concentrating on what you do best.

Performance and material-wise, the recording medium doesn’t make that much of a difference. If your big hit song doesn’t sound any good on a live 2-track recording, what difference will multitracking make?  If you have to “fix it in the mix”, there’s something wrong from the get-go.

My advice would be; don’t spend a ton of money and assume that you will learn how to use all the pro gear. I compare it to someone buying a big fast motorbike when they’ve never ridden before. I’ve seen a lot of new recording gear sit unused because they thought having the equipment around would inspire them. It doesn’t, it can actually hinder creativity.

Make sure you are confidant enough in your playing ability, that learning a new discipline wont be a distraction. Or the the best you can hope for is a really good recording of some mediocre playing! Here’s a link to an article in Guitar Player about recording Rockabilly