The Great Ongoing Guitar Thread

Cafe Society
1342

When I brought the subject up, I was referring mainly to the general concept of numbering notes and chords relative to the root note of the key. I’ve always just called that the Nashville system, but apparently that’s wrong.

Whatever you call that, I’ve always found it a much more natural way to think about music, as a guitar player. In contrast, my mother and my grandmother (who were both good enough musicians to play in public), were taught to play from sheet music written in standard notation. If you took their sheet music away they couldn’t play a thing, because while they knew their notes, scales, and chords, they never really understood how those all fit together to make music.

In that school of thought, “reading” music is good enough for the plebs – understanding music is “composition”, which is taught to the elite at university level. Maybe that’s why nothing much decent ever came out of Australia, until a bunch of British migrants brought rock and roll here.

1343

This is something you should take up with a teacher. A real teacher who is in the same room with you at arm’s length. This is not a question that can be answered in any meaningful way by a DVD, a book, a website or a conversation via Skype. Someone needs to be looking clearly at your fingers, hand, wrist and arm to be able to tell what’s going on, whether it needs fixing and if so, how to go about fixing it.

It is probably not an issue but I can’t tell from here. Nobody’s hand is perfect.

1344

Probably is. I was just struck by the contrast.

1345

I agree - a few minutes of helping you understand where to place your thumb, and how to approach fretting is what you need.

Trying to play Crazy Train, eh? :slight_smile:

1346

Maybe I spoke too soon. Looking at the examples, I see notation that is different than what I expected to see. What I am familiar with is using roman numerals to do harmonic analysis. For example, How High The Moon:



I | I | i IV7 | bVII | bVII | bvii bIII7 
 
where
i-IV7 and bvii-bIII7 act like a ii-V7
1347

… yes.

It’s wayyy beyond my abilities (I have been successfully playing Simple Gift), but I like trying impossible things.

1348

Yep, that’s how I do it too.

And your example shows exactly why knowing your scale degrees/chord numbers/whatever you want to call them is important. (Kim’s point).

Here is what Cooking’s example is saying: i - IV7 and bvii - bIII7 are both cyclic changes (going up a fourth), like a ii - V7 (arguably the most important change in jazz). Furthermore , they are both minor chords changing to a dominant 7.

Notice the i - IV7 resolves to the bVII. The bVII is acting like the I (in a ii - V7 - I). The bvii - bIII7 resolves to a bVI (not shown) which is acting like the I.

BTW, the i & IV7 and the bvii & bIII7 are each played for a full bar. This does not change the harmonic analysis.

| I | I | i | IV7 | bVII | bVII | bvii | bIII7 | bVI |

Anything else to add?

1349

Kinda scary that I knew that, but…we’ve all been there. :wink:

Keep your thumb on the back of the neck. There’s gotta be dozens of youtube lessons on how to play it so you can see examples of correct hand placement and how the fingers move on a person who’s put the time in…

1350

Here we go. A perfect example of oh god my hand hurts. I guess if I keep practicing it, it’ll stretch, but man, I can barely fret this. I don’t think I have small hands, I can palm a basketball.

And yes, this is the current book I’m using. It’s pretty decent and I’ve gotten to page 101 and I feel pretty good about myself.

What I guess I’m asking is if anyone here has any memory of being at this stage, personally, lo those many years ago, and how you handled it? Constant practice? Any specific exercises? It’s clearly got to be doable, but it’s just about the limit of where my fingers go. I’m gonna try, now that I re-read the advice above, moving my hand up a bit.

1351

I’m really not sure I understand your point. I can’t comment on the specific system of teaching that your mother and grandmother went through. In Canada, if you are studying and testing through the Royal Conservatory, you begin ear training (rhythm and melody playback) and sight reading in Grade 1. Theory co-requisites kick in at Grade 5; by Grade 9, you must have Grade 3 History to advance as well. I don’t have the syllabus handy, but the British ‘Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music’ has something similar.

In other words, an understanding of sight reading, theory, harmony, form, structure and history is built into the curriculum.

So your grandmother and your mother read music well enough to play in public. That’s impressive. I don’t understand why you seem to think it makes them any less impressive that they couldn’t play if you took away the music. What were they playing? Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Messiaen? Sor, Giuliani, Regondi, Tarrega, Villa-Lobos, Brouwer, Britten, Tippet? If you can realize those composers’ specific instructions with just the roman numerals, you go right ahead - I’ll stick to reading the notation, thanks very much. Mind you avoid direct octaves and fifths, parallel octaves and fifths and doubled thirds, except when the composers themselves wrote them.

Please understand, I do not want to deride any system of notation or analysis - I have respect for all of them. They all have advantages and disadvantages, and we all must adapt to our fellow musicians in whatever situation we find ourselves. I can’t really comment on the Nashville numbers - I’ve never used them, nor have I worked with anyone who did. I read notation (Bass and treble clefs, which is a handy thing.), chart, tab and roman numerals, in more or less that order of preference. I have no quarrel with anyone else’s notational preferences, other than I expect the same respect in return.

I’d rate John Williams and Joan Sutherland a lot better than decent. :slight_smile:

1352

Well, there are a few reasons I hate that arrangement. Number one - I understand he wants to keep it all on the top two strings so that you can pick all your double stops without having to worry about your pick control. As a result, the left hand is pointlessly sliding around all over the place.

Look at that first bar - how are you supposed to make any kind of join between the ‘g’ and the ‘c’ in the melody? Same problem with the ‘d’, ‘a’, ‘d’ in bar 2. Bar 3 and 4 are pretty good. Bar 5 has too many frets between your 1st and 4th fingers for no good reason. Barring with your 2nd finger in bar 7 is awkward, especially because you’ve got to shift 2 and lift it so you can play the lower ‘c’ on the third beat. If you have to play that arrangement, try 3rd finger for the ‘d’ on the second beat. Bar 9 - too much stretch in the first part of the bar, and two pointless unequal shifts in the second half of the ninth bar and between bars 9 and 10. The ‘d’, ‘a’, ‘d’ is again crappy. Last two bars are pretty good.

So, you can keep bashing away at it, but there are lots of things there that are pointlessly hard. If I had to play those notes, I’d do it with i, m and a and play it on the top three strings so there’s something ringing over what would then be cross-string melody work. If you’re hell-bent on playing it with a pick on the top two strings, then I’d do a different arrangement. At any rate, don’t beat yourself up over how it’s going - there are a lot of problems with that combination of arrangement and fingering that aren’t doing you any favours at all.

1353

I’ve come to the conclusion that the awkward arrangement is an exercise to stretch the fingers. It’s the only reason I can think of for those constant 12th to 8th fret stretches.

In other news, I discovered that somewhere in this book is tab for House of the Rising Sun, and I think I like it better than some of the other tabs for the song I’ve found.

1354

E-Sabs, I don’t know what to say - you know me: as long as your working on stuff that engages you, go for it.

Stretchy finger positions are a pain. I had some exercises, but ultimately I focused on song riffs that emphasized stretching and played the snot out of them.

  • Chuck Berry riffs using barre chords - Johnny B. Goode in the A position
  • Message in a Bottle - probably a year ahead of you, but a fun riff

Get a couple of riffs and a couple of stretchy/scale exercises and go sit in front of a TV and get your reps in…

And, to be clear: I still do this today. I have a hybrid fingerpicky bit I got off a James Burton lick that is just taking time to settle in. When I pick up my guitar, I work on the riff a bunch of times, then play for fun, then before I put the guitar away, I work on the riff a few more times. I can’t quite get the alternating-string flatpicked bass to line up with the fingerpick stuff I am doing - yet.

1355

I started guitar about 9 months ago so I think we are roughly at the same stage of learning. I have used this lesson to practice my pick hand. Check out the pick rake technique in the Bonus Chapter.

http://www.rhythmstrummer.com/inside-lesson-page.php?free_products_id=53

1356

Mebbe, but - [Le Ministre climbs stiffly on to Rocinante] if your didactic writing does not combine musical expression with technical exercise, it cannot teach the student how to play music! It is simply massaging wood and wires. I hurl down my gauntlet to thee, Matagoga! [Le Ministre charges down the hillside pell-mell at the ogre, to be trampled in the mud or cast into the stars, as fortune will have it.]

1357

Hold up, Don Quixote :wink: (referring to your horse as Rocinante was my first clue)

I think what you’re saying is: find the music in the exercise to truly learn.

A few points:

  • Totally agree.

  • That’s why I try to find riffs that include the exercise but sound cool.

  • While I ultimately agree, when I am in front of the TV going through guitar motions mainly to burn in the muscle memory, I have the goal of getting to the music, but I am not there yet…

1358

My quarrel here is entirely with Messieurs Fosdick and Poulton, the authors of ‘Guitar for Dummies’. As fingered, notated and tabbed, that arrangement makes it difficult for the student to play the song without breaking the melody.

Try singing the piece, but every time you see ‘*’, completely cover your mouth with your hand and stop the voice.

As * the blackbird in * the * spring,
'neath the willow tree,
sat * and piped, I
heard * him * sing,
sing of Aura Lee.

Aura Lee, Aura Lee
maid of * golden hair *
sunshine * came * a- *
long * with * thee and
swallows in the air.

The ‘*’ is marking everywhere where there is an awkward shift, clumsy change of finger, over large stretch, etc. Singing it with those hiccoughs in it sounds pretty stupid, but that’s what the arrangement sets you up for. This is especially wicked in material which is marketed to the autodidact. I am affronted.

Music for students should be rife with guide fingers, parallels and pivots to discover. It should be easy to play musically. Above all, its technical difficulties ought to be blended into the music seamlessly. I do not ever want to look at a study of any kind for a student and say ‘Well, why the fuck did he write it that way? Oh, he wants to keep it all on the top two strings because he hasn’t talked about fingerstyle or pick control. Why in the name of all that’s holy does he write a major sixth like that? Oh, it’s because of his two string constraint. Wait, you barre with 2, then slide and lift it to catch the ‘c’ with 1 on the first?’ Students should be encouraged to question fingerings, so I suppose on some level it’s useful to have these flaws built into the studies for the students to discover… Nah, I’m just spoiled from working from some better pieces. Christ, I refinger Sagreras from time to time, but his didactic writing is light-years better than these guys.

And WordMan, we’re totally on the same page. Even on the couch, though, I’d encourage you to put the music in the muscle memory. Your guitar is like your lover - always touch it with ardour because you don’t know where it will go. A kiss is never wasted…

These Guitar for Dummies boys, on the other hand, seem to want to go stampeding for the clitoris…

1359

Does it help if I’m singing ‘Love Me Tender’ anyhow?

B major scale.

B,(2) C#(2), D# (1) E (2)F# (2) G# (2) A# (1) B

E Major

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

I should point out, by the way, that while this is the first extended section with double stops, just two songs before, Simple Gifts, goes up and down all of fourth position, across the neck. I think this is expressly designed for double stops up and down the neck and to stress the hand, from context. Painful, though. Fingerstyle is in a while, but Chuck Berry licks are the next chapter, with open chords.

1360

FYI

My oldest music friend was the lead vocalist for a glam/sleaze/hair metal band in the 80’s San Francisco music scene called Head On (yes, I’ve heard the jokes about the commercials; carry on…).

Anyway, a small label has issued a CD; they played a reunion show a few months ago that generated interest, so they remastered the tapes of some tracks they laid down back in the day and put them out. They sound glam-taculous and rocking and fun, so I thought I would share:

http://www.demondollrecords.com/head_on/head_on_washington__battery

1361

Man, it’s amazing. My fingers don’t really hurt when I do this anymore. Still having trouble making the 12-8 stretch sound good, though.