Guitar 101

Cafe Society
1

There are a number of guitar threads going on now here in Café Society. Most posters seem to be experienced, but there are a few of us who are not. One poster knows somw chords but wants to learn how to play and sing at the same time. Another says he can’t play a lick of guitar but he has a acoustic he’s planning to learn to play. I took a class 20-some years ago and can strum and sing at the same time, but haven’t had any real instruction on playing ‘lead guitar’.

So for those of us here who are just starting out, or got to a certain level and then stalled, I thought I’d start this thread so that the more experienced players might give us some pointers. Basic chords are easy and diagrams can be found easily with google. Here’s one page. Songs with chords are also easily found, and since we all have different tastes I think it’s better to decide on a song you want to learn and seek them out. So unless anyone wants to post ‘How To Tune Your Guitar’ or ‘How To Play Chords’ videos, I’ll just skip those. (But anyone who does want to know that, please post!)

On to scales! In the Beginning Folk Guitar class I took in the mid-'80s at the local college we learned chords and strumming. Then we learned the pentatonic scale. I think it was in the key of E, as the lower note of the scale for each string was played on an open string. We also played in the key of A. But the pentatonic scale was not the primary focus of the class. Since I wanted to play songs and sing along, I pretty much forgot it. Until today. I’ve been playing with my new axe. I also picked up the trust Classical guitar and remembered the scale. Easy in the lower key, but the wide Classical neck makes it harder to play in A. So now I’m using the Tele.

Here is a short video showing how to play the pentatonic scale in the key of A. (Actually, all three vidoes I’m linking here are in the key of A.) It lets you see how it’s done, but there’s no time to try it yourself. Good for a quick look.

This guy tends to put in an extra note from time to time, but I think he explains the scale pretty well. After a couple of minutes on the basic scale he goes into bending the notes, and at the end he plays along with some recorded music. That’s not really useful at the stage I’m at, but I could almost keep up with the basic instruction at the beginning. Still, I had a minor epiphany when he was playing along with the recorded rhythm: He’s just playing scales! Not the whole scales; he mixes it up. But he’s playing the same notes! The Emperor has no clothes! OK, it’s going to be a while before I can do that; but it gives me hope.

Finally, this guy shows it slowly. Painfully slowly. And he breaks up the scale into two parts and omits the last (highest) note. But he does give the viewer time to try what he’s showing. It’s a bit dull, but if you’ve never heard of the pentatonic scale this might be a good place to start.

Come on, Fellow Beginners! Let’s learn together! :slight_smile:

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I’m not sure what you’re asking here. How to play pentatonic scales? There are major and minor forms.
Are you interested in learning patterns, or a more holistic approach to the neck and music in general?
Is this to accompany open forms, sometimes called “folk” chords (where one uses a capo to change keys ) or chords formed anywhere on any three strings, assuming triads for chord composition?

3

No. The purpose of this thread is for we beginners to learn the basics of playing the guitar. I thought that after chords (which is easy enough to pick up) the next thing for people to learn would be the scale. So I thought I’d post links to a few videos so that others can learn it. Just something to get the ball rolling.

The idea is that beginners can come in and learn something from you more experienced types.

4

Theory, as I understand it: for most popular music, lead guitarists are playing scales. They may not start on the first tone of the scale, they may skip tones in the scale, they may play up or down, but they’re essentially sticking to notes in the scale.

One scale is pentatonic—it has 5 tones in it. When you play in this scale, skipping around, up and down, everything comes out sounding Asian. A major scale (Think of the “Do-re-mi” song) has 7, then repeats. Pentatonic is only do re mi sol la, but someone fight my ignorance if I’ve misspoken on that.

Not that I ever mastered them, but a fellow church guitarist gave me a tool for learning scales. He couldn’t read a lick of music but man, that guy could solo—and he’s contributed solos on some old vinyl in fact.

If it wasn’t this, it was similar. http://www.slide-a-scale.com/

Just as chords are like “shapes” where you put your fingers, so are scales…but there are more notes to hit to play the entire thing. The cool thing, though, is that if you can play a G scale you just slide everything up one fret and you can play a G#/Ab scale. One more and you’re playing an A scale, and so on.

One tricky bit is that unlike chords, you don’t use any old finger to play any old fret. With chords, I can play an Em 1-2 or 2-3 (my fave) or 3-4 when barring. Instead, scales are played over a span of not more than four frets because each finger “handles” one fret and there are no open strings.

Clear as mud? Hope it helps.

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I can see how it might sound a little Asian, but to my ear it sounds more ‘Bluesy’. One thing I remembered from my Folk guitar class was how to vary the rhythm. Just going up, going down one note after the high note, then playing it down with a bend before the penultimate note has a very familiar Blues sound to it.

I’ve been practicing scales off-and-on for a couple of hours now. My left fingers are learning where to go, and my right hand is learning where to put the pick. Not smooth yet, but it’s becoming more natural. I’ve half a mind to take my guitar into the office (without the amp, of course) so I can get a half-hour of practice in during the day. But I probably won’t.

Between intervals of practising the scale I strummed I Should Have Known Better, Time Of Your Life, a basic Blues chord progression, some progressions that I made up and a friend taught me, and plucked A’soalin (another memory from the Folk Guitar class).

6

Listen to “China Grove”/Doobies. The bit after they sing:

The sheriff and his buddies with their samurai swords
You can even hear the music at night

That little solo: the notes are F# F# E, C# E C# B A B E F# F# (IIRC)…pentatonic in A, and no accident IMO.

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Absolutely. Generally speaking, most lead parts are comprised of notes in a certain scale. There are exceptions to that, but I wouldn’t worry about them for the time being.

The chords that a song uses are usually based on a certain scale as well. To give an example, think of a song that uses the chords G, C, and D (there are a gajillion songs out there that use these 3 chords). If you spell out each chord, you get the following:

G major - G, B, D
C major - C, E, G
D major - D, F#, A

Now, if you take these notes and list them in order beginning with G, you get:

G, A, B, C, D, E, F#

Lookie there - you just spelled out a major scale. This is why that set of chords sounds good when put together in song format.

Call it a major pentatonic scale, and you’ve got the do/re/mi/etc. exactly right.

In other news, I have a suggestion for those in the process of learning scales. In addition to practicing them on the guitar, try writing them out. Get yourself a blank chord and/or fretboard chart (Google should be able to find you several), pick a scale, and try to fill in the appropriate dots on the chart. Ideally you want to try to do this without referring to the actual guitar, but it may take several attempts before you are able.

Now you are coming at this from two different angles. Practicing the scales on your guitar will help build up your technique and muscle memory, and writing out the scales on paper will help to etch the pattern into your brain.

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IIRC the chord during that little solo is F#m, relative minor of A…I hadn’t really considered whether pentatonics could be major or minor.

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Yep, they can be major and minor. The notes are really the same - what changes is the note that you define as the root. As you mentioned, F#m is the relative minor for A major. So, a A major pentatonic scale has the exact same notes as the F#m pentatonic scale, except that the F#m is considered the root note instead of A.

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So I was goofing around…hope I didn’t goof it up.

On your left hand, paint your index fingernail black, middle red, ring green, and pinky yellow.

Where you start tells you what scale you’re playing. If you start on fret 3 (your red/middle finger, correct?), that pitch is a G…it’s a G major scale. You only play where I’ve marked…leave the uncolored dashes alone.

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That’s a good way to conceptualize that particular scale form. For purposes of the diagram, it may be better to invert what you’ve got there:

  1. Low E string at the bottom, high E at the top, so the lower-pitched notes are below the higher-pitched ones

  2. Index finger to the left, pinky to the right, so they match up with how you see those fingers when your hand is in fretting position

But, that being said, I like it.

(did you really paint your fingernails?)

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I think of it this way b/c as I’m looking down, I first see the bass E.

Paint fingernails? No, I’m strictly rhythm (I don’t wanna make it cry or sing :smiley: ). Just wanted to emphasize that each finger is assigned to a fret. If someone really really hankered to play the scale, they could put little colored dots on the fretboard to get the visual image as well.

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Fair enough - the overarching wisdom is that if you find a way to conceptualize a scale that works for you, then you should go with it.

(Theory purists will probably cringe at me saying that. I myself try to adhere to traditional notation conventions whenever possible, but that’s just me - like I said, go with what works best for you)

Right on. Its like a zone defense in sports. Each finger is assigned to an area (in this case, a particular fret), and when a note falls in their area, it is their job to deal with it.

Now, over time, you will probably encounter other ways to play a major scale. For better or worse, some of them don’t fit nicely with the “one finger for each fret” convention. But, the major scale form that has been described in this thread is a great one to focus on first, and the “zone defense” idea is an excellent way to think about how to set your fingers.

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I was hoping beginning guitarists would post here with their experiences – what they’re doing to learn, what they have learned, what problems they’re having, epiphanies, frustrations, etc. – as well as the (much appreciated!) contributions from people who already play.

So here’s where I am: I’ve been a bit lazy. It seems that there’s always some reason why I can’t practice right now. I’m telecommuting and I’ve just spent the last nine hours on a keyboard. Gotta rest my fingers. It’s one of my in-the-office days and I got up early, worked all day, and have just had a 100+ mile drive home. I’m tired. I’ll just read SDMB a little longer…

Still, I have managed to practice the pentatonic scale in A, and play it up and down with moderate speed. Sometimes I’ll Blues it up a little. Instead of da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, I’ll do da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da up and down, with a bend on the penultimate note. OK, not much progress. But I’m getting (a little) faster and am not missing strings as often. I’m also getting better at the A progression when I do the Blues progression in E. (As I’ve mentioned, the narrow Fender neck leaves little room for my pinkie.)

Today I tried the bend as shown in the second link in the OP (about 1:40 in). He doesn’t spend much time on it and I had to back up a few times to see and hear the notes. The bend is a little hard on my ring finger, as it hasn’t toughened up yet. I can see why he uses three fingers on that string to bend it. I’ve only got the first part of his riff, since as I said he doesn’t really get into it.

At this stage I’m really ready to sit down with a patient person for some instruction.

15

Hey, Johnny L.A., I don’t have much insight on beginner’s issue, but I have a question for you, a beginner:

My son has been taking guitar lessons for the past eight weeks or so. He still seems very fixated on his picking hand, always watches it instead of the fingerboard. His teacher and I have been coaxing him to look at his other hand, so he’ll make fewer mistakes, so now he splits his attention, looking from his left hand to his right, back and forth.

I assume all beginners go through something like this – I honestly don’t remember if I did, since I started guitar when dinos walked the earth. Do or did you do something along these lines, needing to split your attention between the hands?

16

In another thread, unstrung, you mentioned exercises for barre chords - care to elaborate?
(I’m job hunting and need something to take my mind off it.)

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I’ve been strumming a long time, so I’m not a complete beginner. (Although when it comes to electric guitar and picking I certainly am.)

When I picked up the acoustic guitar I paid attention to where my left hand was so that I would make the chords correctly. At first, I’d just strum every first downstroke. Once I started getting the chords down I strummed more naturally but I didn’t look at my right hand. As the chords became ingrained I stopped looking at my left hand too. As far as strumming goes, I’m not bad at that.

But now I’m trying to learn the electric guitar. As I’ve said, the neck is narrower. So I find that the chords that are so natural on the Classical need a little more attention on the Fender. When I strum I still don’t look at my right hand, but I do find myself checking my left hand from time to time.

Now the scales: Definitely looking to see where I’m putting my fingers. on the electric guitar scales are pretty much what I’m practicing. Specifically, the pentatonic in A, though I sometimes shift up seven frets. Playing the scale requires single notes, so I need to know what my right hand is doing while at the same time I’m putting my left-hand fingers where they belong. I do find myself looking at my right hand occasionally, but the muscle memory is building to a point where it can find the right strings without looking. Most of the time.

So most of my attention is on my left hand. I suspect this will remain the case as I learn, as I have little experience playing anything – chords or otherwise – very far from the head.

18

Good question! :slight_smile:

I can make a couple, but I’d like to learn more. (It helps if there are songs I know that use them.)

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I bought a Fender acoustic when I was 16 - about 11 years ago and never learned how to play it. I dug it out a few days ago and have been tooling around with it. Guitar came naturally to a lot of my friends but it’s like Chinese arithmetic to me. I practiced for several weeks when I first got it but never could switch smoothly between chords or strum a rhythm or sing while I was playing. I can’t dance, either. I have a theory the two things are related.

Hopefully this time I’ll stick with it and with enough practice I’ll be able to strum and sing some folky and bluesey type stuff. That’s all I want to do.

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People (even me) in that class I took oh, so long ago picked up the one stroke per beat thing easily enough. One of the first songs we did was Proud Mary, which uses a D for a long time. When it came time to change the chord there was time to think about it. When we started strumming more naturally to the beat there was often a pause at the chord change as people thought about where to put their fingers. I think the key to smooth chord changes is to not think about it. (This works for a lot of things in life.)

One thing the instructor said was that if you mess up, keep going. It won’t sound good, but you’ll eventually get the hang of it. Something that might be useful is to not play a song, but just practice the chords. Play a chord, and then choose another one at random and play it. Then choose another one. Since you’re not playing a song you can play the chord you’re playing and then switch when you’re ready. You’ll be strumming the first chord on autopilot so you’ll have time to think. But the goal is to be able to make the chords without thinking ‘OK, this finger goes here and this finger goes here.’ You should develop muscle memory so that your fingers will make the chords automatically. That is, your brain says ‘Play an A,’ and your fingers just do it without your brain telling them how.

This is working for me as I learn to play a scale. It’s a little more difficult since I not only have to move my left-hand fingers for every note, but I also have pick the right strings with my right hand. It’s coming along though.