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Private Lessons
If you’re interested in my free online content, then a good place to start is here
I do also teach private guitar lessons in Haverhill, Suffok, UK.
If you are in the surrounding area and looking for a guitar teacher, please go to my information request online form and contact me for more information.
I look forward to hearing from you!
The Guitar Master
Tags: lesson
What is “Alternate Picking”?
Also referred to as “economy picking”, I guess that the most simple definition would read something like: …the use of up and down strokes rather than just down when playing guitar strings with a pick or fingernail.
This is true whether you are
1. Playing the same string repeatedly (usually, but not necessarily, playing different frets on that string with the left hand)
2. Playing different strings
If you are playing different strings, you need to develop a feel for when it is most appropriate, logical and economic to:
1. Play two downstrokes (i.e. moving from a high string to an adjacent lower string)
2. Play two downstrokes (i.e. moving in an upward direction from a low string to an adjacent higher string)
3. Play a combination of up strokes and down strokes (i.e. when changing direction in a sweep, or doing a “tickling”-like motion repeatedly between two strings)
Economy picking is essential to master if you wish to progress in more complicated techniques such as sweep picking.
Back to Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Tags: alternate, economy, lesson, picking, technique
The relative major and minor concept is really useful to learn and understand.
Basically, every major chord has a relative minor chord. The Relative minor chord is the 6th chord in the scale of chords (see the major scale and how to build chords). This can incredibly easily be found when playing bar chords by simply playing a major chord, then playing the same form of bar chord, but this time moving it down 3 frets and making it minor. You now have the relative minor and major pair.
For instance:
Example 1. Play an Emajor chord by barring the 7th fret and playing an Amajor bar chord shape. Then simply move down three frets to the 4th fret and play an Aminor bar chord shape. You have just played C#minor, which is relative to Emajor.
Example 2. Play a C shape by playing an Amajor bar chord on the 3rd fret. Then move down 3 frets and play and Aminor shape. You should just be playing an open Aminor chord, which is relative to Cmajor. This works and you should be able to hear it when swapping between playing a normal Cmajor chord and an Aminor.
Example 3. Play an Amajor chord by use of an Emajor shape on the 5th fret. Then slide down 3 frets to the 2nd fret and play an Eminor chord. This is an F#minor, which is relative to Amajor.
Example 4. Play a G with an Emajor bar chord on the 3rd fret. Slide down 3 frets and you have Eminor. So you can switch between G (open or barred) and Em and you will have a relative major and minor pair.
This works for any major chord and it’s relative minor that can be found 3 frets down.
The minor chord relative to a major chord will always be the 6th step up the major scale.
If you ever wish to know what chords are part of a particular minor key, they are exactly the same chords as it’s relative major!! Now that really does simplify things a little.
What does this all mean? Well amongst many other things:
1. You can be playing in a major key and effortlessly switch to it’s relative minor key to change the feeling of the song.
2. You can also remain in the major key and change the melody or lead break that you are playing between the major and it’s relative minor to switch between a happy / bluesy type feel.
3. You can be playing a major scale or major pentatonic scale and switch between playing over the major chord (or using the major note as the root note) and the minor chord (or using the 6th degree of the major scale as your root note).
Have fun!!!
This article can serve as an introduction to modal playing, an in depth article on this subject will follow. But there are already clues all over this site as to what modal playing is. See the major scale for more hints!
Back to Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Tags: chord, key, relative, scale
Seen the new pictures of guitars on my website? Refreshing this page will change the picture at the top right, or you can look here for more pics.
If you would like to see a custom picture of your own guitar on this site, contact me and I will create one for you. You can have your own pic as a small thumbnail on the page as you can see at the top right, and the full resolution version will be available for download in the artwork section.
This is a FREE service, as everyone is a winner. I get nice guitar pics on my site, of more than just my own guitars. And you get your guitar on my site, plus a full res version to print, make your desktop wallpaper or have turned into a poster.
Contact me if you are interested, and I will get back to you and ask for your guitar photo.
Lead time is approximately one week at the moment, as this is a personal manual service.
Awesome.
Tags: broken
Videos currently available on this website:
Music
Instructional
Amusement Centre
Inspirational
Tags: video
This is an introduction to the major scale and how to build chords.
The major scale is all important in music, in particular, the c major scale. Practice the tab to get an idea of what it sounds like and how it is played on the guitar.
The major scale is used to build up chords in that particular key. The major chord in that key is built up of the [ 1st, 3rd and 5th ] notes in the scale This produces a c major chord.
Other chords in the same key (useful to know when composing) are built up of the:
[ 2nd, 4th and 6th ] notes (making a Dm chord)
[ 3rd, 5th and 7th ] (making an Em chord)
[ 4th, 6th and 1st ] (making an Fm chord… notice how we’ve looped around, because the 8th note is the 1st)
[ 5th, 7th and 2nd ] (making a G chord)
[ 6th, 1st and 3rd ] (making an Am chord. This is special…. the 6th chord in any major key is called the relative minor)
[ 7th, 2nd and 4th ] (making a B diminished.. Also special as moving this chord down three frets produces the same chord, with a different root note, hence the chord can be named after any of it’s notes, sounds freeky as well!)
Remember that all of this applies to any major scale / key. All you need to do is adjust your starting point accordingly. And, the chords in the key of a minor key are exactly the same is it’s relative minor. So you could write a song in the key of C, but it could be in Am, depending on the root note of any melodies you are playing. There will be more on this soon, when I talk about modes.
The c major scale is important because it contains no flats or sharps. So if you need to, you can use the c major scale as a means to find the name of any note on the guitar by starting on the nearest C and working up or down the c major scale to find the name of the not you are looking for. If it is not in the c major scale, then you can name it either “sharp” (#) if it is one semitone higher than the c major scale note, or “flat” (b) if it is one semitone lower. I will cover this in more depth when I talk about the chromatic scale.
You can learn the major scale in many different shapes to cover the whole fret-board. But I think it is easier and more fun to begin with the minor pentatonic. This is used in many rock and blues riffs and solos.
You can then discover that the major pentatonic as the same as the minor, but just three frets down. AND THEN you will find out that the major pentatonic scale is in fact the major scale with the half steps omitted. So all you have to do is find out where to slot them back in, and voila! you have the entire major scale covering the whole fretboard.
Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Here are some links to basic (Major and Minor) chord shapes for the guitar. Inversions of these and other chords (sevenths, diminished, etc…) will follow in time.
note: the C major chord is actually a C/G which means that you are playing the top string as well. A normal C major would be with the top string left unplayed.
A
Am
E
Em
D
Dm
G
C
F
B
Bm
Bar Chords
Inversions
There is much to learning any instrument, and each will have it’s own logical path(s) to follow through in order to become proficient in both the playing of the instrument and the theory of music. This is a set of steps, or rather tick boxes that guitarists should aim to practice and master.
You may find that you have completed only some of these steps and in a different order. Well that doesn’t matter. All you need to do is go back and fill in the gaps. Doing so will answer many questions for you and make many things become much more clear.
Some, if not all of these tasks will take you a long time to master (months and years rather than days and weeks) if you are a beginner, unless you are incredibly smart or a true virtuoso. Here they are:
This is another article that will be improved upon over time. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I will expand upon all of the above and create more specific resources for learning as time goes on.
The Guitar Master
The minor pentatonic scale is really good fun and relatively simple to learn. It is used in loads of riffs and lead patterns and also as the basis of writing many songs.
You can learn the first shape and start having fun with it straight away.
I often teach this scale first because there is so much fun to be had with relatively little requirement for practicing scales. And once you have learned the minor pentatonic, it is a very simple and easy jump to learn the major pentatonic. And once you know the major pentatonic, you are only a couple of notes short of learning the entire major scale.
And the major scale is ALL POWERFUL!!!
So let us begin upon this journey with the minor pentatonic:
Why E minor?
The first block of numbers below shows each of the actual shapes. There are five shapes in total (coincidence, eh?), so the last shape is just to demonstrate that when you reach an octave up (12th fret for the E scale) you go back to the first shape again.
The scales that follow simply show you how to play the notes from the first two shapes in ascending order, to help clear up any possible confusion on what to do with the shapes.
A scale like this is the most basic pentatonic scale. What you want to do is to play them in different and changing combinations of runs up and down. You will also want to listen to other lead guitarists use the scales and what they do with them. Only by listening to other musicians use the scales and playing with them yourself will you develop your own lead breaks.
Good luck!
|-0-3-5-7-10-12-15-----------------------0-3---------------------3-5--|
|-0-3-5-8-10-12-15-------------------0-3---------------------3-5------|
|-0-2-4-7--9-12-14---------------0-2---------------------2-4----------|
|-0-2-5-7--9-12-14-----------0-2---------------------2-5--------------|
|-0-2-5-7-10-12-14-------0-2---------------------2-5------------------|
|-0-3-5-7-10-12-15---0-3---------------------3-5----------------------|
Once you have learned these shapes (there are only five in total), you can play the scale in different keys by simply moving your starting point up and down the fret board.
See how you get on.
Stages of Mastering the Guitar
Tags: minor, pentatonic, scale, tabs
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