Guitar 101

Cafe Society
21

I tend not to comment on learning threads since I am 100% self taught and stumbled my way through. But in this case - I have previously commented on a way to do this - practice riffs.

La Bamba - D G A G
What I Like About You - E A D A
Good Love - C F G F
Already Gone (Eagles) - G D A (repeat)

You get the idea. The point is: yeah, you want to get into a groove rhythm wise and NOT STOP - so when you fumble a chord you stay locked into the groove and just go to the next one. Playing these chord riffs is a great way to do this - I would sit in front of a TV with an unplugged electric and strum these rhythms for hours…

As for Barre Chords - well, you can do the same riffs with barre chords - E using an A-shaped barre chord up at the 7th fret, down to A, with an e-shaped barre chord at the 5th fret and D with an A shaped barre at the 5th fret, etc. Same thing - play them for hours.

Two key points with barre chords:

  • focus on the lowest 2 - 3 strings of the barre. Look, fretting the entire barre is hard - and for most rock songs you simply don’t need to. Play the “power chord portion” of the barre - the lowest note (the “Do” or Tonic note of the chord) and the next couple of strings. So if the bottom part of your index doesn’t fully barre the higher strings - well, fine - keep working at it but you still sound rockin’ with the power chords. Listen to Judas Priest’s Livin’ After Midnight for a boneheadedly simple E D A D riff played on barre/power chords. Or AC/DC’s Sin City (E B D A - then a little Open/3rd fret/Open riff on the low E string) - just play the power chord portion and you can sound good really quickly.
  • muff the strings - when you play barre chords with the goal to play rock, you often need to palm mute - i.e., rest the edge of your picking hand’s palm (the pinky side of the palm - duh!) on the strings right where they cross over the bridge saddles. I.e., use your palm to dampen and muffle the strings. Through a distorted guitar this tightens down the tone - you should hear cool classic rock chugging tones immediately when you try this. When you play a barre chord riff, always try muffing the strings to see if that particular riff sounds more correct playing muted or wide open - since most riffs are actually rhythm guitar parts that other instruments play over and around, it is typically muted - wide open chords create a LOT more sound so there is less room in the mix. I spend well over 50% of my playing time palm-muting if that is any guide to newbies…
22

The following suggestions may not be for everyone- as lobotomyboy63 said, some people don’t want to make that guitar cry or sing (check out Guitar George), but if you want to learn how to play leads, here is some advice that may help:

When practicing scales and chords starts to get frustrating (or even boring), take a break from practicing, and just play the thing! Put on some music you like, and try to play along. It doesn’t matter if you play a sour note, or don’t even know what key they are playing in. Whatever note you play, you are never more than a fret or two from a note that is in the right key. So if you play a bad note, move up or down the neck a fret or two, and you’re playing a good note.

Remember, you’re not trying to impress anyone, or playing in front of an audience, so it’s not a big deal if all the notes don’t sound right. Your ear will tell you when you are playing the right notes, and it will get easier the more you do it.

At this point, I should say that none of these ideas are my own. I learned a lot from a book by Victor Wooten, a phenomenal bass player (here is a video of Victor in action). The book is called The Music Lesson and contains lots of insights, helpful to both aspiring and experienced musicians.

Victor Wooten started playing bass at the age of three, and was playing professionally at five. He learned music as he was learning to speak, and to him music is like language, another way of expressing himself. He points out that no one had to learn the rules of grammar to learn how to talk, we all learned by just doing it. So it’s not necessary to learn music theory when you’re learning to play; just do it. Music theory will be very useful the more you get into it, but when you’re starting out, you learn to play by playing.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t practice scales and chords- you should. I’m just saying you should add in a healthy dose of “jamming” as well. Like I said earlier, put on something you like, and try to play along. Most rock & roll, and blues, is actually not that difficult to play along with. And remember to have fun; you’re making music, after all!