Just a bit of background; I am over sixty and have been playing guitar since I was twelve. I can play (fairly well) fingerstyle pieces that (when they are in a book) are described as “advanced”. I had reached that level by the time I was 17 and have not really improved since then. I don’t arrange very much. I play other people’s arrangements and sometimes make alterations to those arrangements. This never bothered me (and doesn’t really bother me now). Playing the guitar made me happy, and being happy was my goal.
I have a bit of time on my hands now and have turned some of that time to learning more about the guitar. One task I have set for myself is to learn every note on the fretboard. There are many methods for doing this (YouTube is littered with them). The method is not my problem (although please feel free to recommend your favorite). Paying attention is my problem. I can pay attention to the process of learning a new piece, but when I set myself to this new task, my focus wavers within seconds. I feel as if I am learning disabled. Perhaps this simply my age (old dog, new tricks, no way), but if you have any suggestions, I would like to hear them.
Then again, I often recall the advice of Shivas Irons, “The fuck wi’ our e’re gettin’ better!”. This has served me well in my golf game, another endeavor in which I have not improved.
ethelbert, I have no answer for you, but sure can empathize.
I have, at best, a beginner’s knowledge of notes and theory. However, I’ve played for decades, gigged semi-pro for a lot of that, and played credibly with people who have platinum records on their walls and who have played with and produced superstars, so I must be able to do a few things right
Whenever I have tried to put my mind to learning theory, music starts to feel like work. That’s what it sounds like you are looking to do: work. If it sounds like work, and feels like work, I drop it. Music is all about the feeling inside the groove to me. If it felt like work, I might get cynical and do less of it - and we can’t have that. And so my knowledge of theory stays stunted.
Now, I just got a great old jazz guitar - I can’t play jazz worth a darn and can’t state chords that have extensions past minor or 7th. But I have monitored youtube and Justin Sandercoe’s guitar site (making a donation ;)), and picked up a few standard jazz chord changes. With those, I have created a few grooves and can spend an hour alternating between chording and lead fills. I am getting muscle memory on the chords, and since jazz lead work is technically very different from rock/blues lead work, I get experience there, too. Most importantly: it’s fun and I can lose myself in it.
Same with fingerstyle - I’ve played mostly flatpick or hybrid flatpick/finger. But lately I’ve been playing my small-body Gibson with straight-up fingerstyle. Very cool to get my neurons firing with all fingers (well, most ;)) engaged. But I can’t follow some notation; I just set up grooves and start moving between the riff and lead fills. Stevie Wonder’s/Jeff Beck’s Superstition is getting a real workout right now. Again - very fun groove; just my thing.
So - how can make what you are trying to do more fun and less work? Or - do you need to modify your objective so that it can be more fun?
ethelbert, I am about your age and have been playing about as long as you. Most of my learning has come about through my efforts to learn individual songs, which I have always found fun and have no trouble focusing on. There have been periods, some of them recent, when I wanted to master some basic knowledge, like you want to do with the fretboard. The only thing that worked to allow me to focus on this boring work was to do it in small does interspersed with fun stuff. So I might spend five minutes finding every F# on the fretboard, then spend five or ten minutes playing a fun song, then find all of the As on the fretboard. Good luck, old dog.
Music theory, for most musicians, is a means to an end. If you don’t have a specific end in mind, it can be hard to see the point of studying it. This tends to be especially true of guitarists, who can play their whole lives without knowing any complex theory–or even how to read traditional music. If you try to teach yourself music theory without a specific goal in mind, I can see why it’s mind-numbing. It could also be an issue that the form in which the information is presented isn’t sufficiently engaging. Private lessons would give you some accountability, and the one-on-one training from an expert certainly doesn’t hurt!
I like music theory for its own sake, but I’m a huge number theory geek. And I learned to read music in 3rd grade, long before it might have felt like a chore. It’s like another language to me. But I know guitarists (like my uncle) who never learned or needed to learn to read music, because the instrument is so visual and provides its own background accompaniment. If it just doesn’t “click” for you, even after trying a couple lessons, I don’t think there’s any shame in focusing on something else to fill your spare time. Studying theory is more like work, and it’s very mathematical. Whereas grooving with the sound is all about play.
Actually, I was pretty good in high school, although that probably had more to do with the fact that my father was a high school math teacher (I had to be good) than any real ability. I drifted away from it in college (English major). I am neither drawn to it or repelled.
I do know some music theory. What I have not done is to internalize that theory to bring it to bear on my guitar playing. For instance, I know what the circle of fifths is, I just haven’t memorized and practiced it on the guitar.
Thanks, Crotalus, maybe baby steps is the way to go. Maybe I can get my wife to give me a treat for every note I master. That seems to work for some dogs.
I have a suggestion, I am a Bass Player though so it may not be much help. I too have played since my teens but never really learned music theory and finally quit for about ten years, then picked it up again.
Scales, I play them all kinds of weird ways. One of the best methods for me was to play them on a single string ascending and descending(makes you fast too, changing position wise). Single position but start on anything but the tonic.
Those two pretty much made me memorize the fretboard without even trying, just happened.
To keep my focus, if I start to wander I will just try out a Dusty Hill lick or a Chuck Rainey part
Hey - nice guitar! I am only getting into fingerstyle more and don’t do Irish or DADGAD-tuning type stuff, but the Lowdens I’ve played have been impressive.
In terms of learning the fretboard because “I would like to arrange a little more”. Can you expand on that a bit more? To be clear: it sounds like you have an idea of what you want to do, so I don’t want to disrupt that, okay? Just trying to understand.
So, you know a song and you know how to play it a certain way on guitar. By “arranging” - what would happen?
a) You’d play the same song, but figure out different ways to voice the chords up and down the neck?
b) You’d play the same song, and figure out the arranged parts for other instruments to join you?
c) You’d seek out new songs that don’t necessarily have a guitar arranagement and you would create one?
d) Something else?
While thinking about that, I want to ask a different question: if you have such a great fingerstyle Irish guitar (jealous! ;-)), have you done much playing in DADGAD tuning or other alternate tunings? Listen to folks like Pierre Bensusan - ? It is a completely different direction from your OP - one is learning the fingerboard for Standard tuning; the other is changing the notes across the fingerboard by changing the tuning. But from a growth standpoint, it could open a whole new set of doors.
A lot of modern fingerstyle players use DADGAD as their primary tuning - and you could whip out your version of Kashmir! (Jimmy Page plays it in DADGAD…)
Learning new stuff can be hard work but I find it sticks. You only have to learn it once, the notes will be in the same place next time you pick up the guitar (honest).
Learning the fingerboard, how about this? Learn a couple of forms of major scales. Pentatonic scales and cowboy chords don’t really help you see the relations between chords and scales (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th…blah…) In open chords the chord intervals are all over the place and pentatonic scales miss out notes so you don’t see them matching up with chords
After you know a little bit of theory things start to fit together. Say you’ve memorised where all the ‘A’s are, if you also know that the interval between strings is a forth (mostly) and you know that D is a forth up from A then you now also know where all the ‘D’s are.
I think the problem lots of guitar players have with reading (and as a side effect theory generally) is that standard notation is a rubbish fit for rock and blues (which is most people’s way in). Tab works just fine, dots not so much. You can play forever just knowing shapes/boxes and by learning by ear stuff that works, I did for years.
As an example of theory vs. rock. A simple thing like a key signature, which works fine for music by dead Germans and the like. Doesn’t quite work for rock, a lot of which is modal or blues based (where some notes are in the cracks for Pete’s sake).
What theory I know now I learned for a jazz book, not a classical one. ‘Classic’ theory has a lot of stuff that is irrelevant, distracting and won’t ever be any use to a folkie, pop or rock player.
One way to motivate yourself is hire a teacher. It is motivating because not focusing will feel like wasting money and it is also rude not to pay attention when someone is giving you lessons. Alternatively, you could find a buddy to practice with and you could keep each other motivated.
The problem might be finding a teacher, someone who is really good at guitar but for some reason needs money. Good luck in your hunt.
First of all, thanks to everybody for their thoughts. You have given me much to think about. One thing that has occurred to me since my OP is that perhaps there is a game out there that teaches notes on the fretboard (something along the lines of those games that teach you type).
Wordman, my answer to your first question is basically a and c. As far as DADGAD and other alternate tunings are concerned, I did experiment with those many years ago and basically let them drop. I found it confusing, though I do like Bensusan. The only other tuning I use now is Drop D (low E string tuned to D). That produces a drone sound that is appropriate to the few Irish pieces I know (All Carolan melodies). There are also a few classics in that tuning (e.g. Embryonic Journey and Living in the Country) that I like to play. It is also a very easy tuning to get in and out of.
Cool. And I hear you about alternate tunings - I find them hugely confusing and disruptive to switch in and out of. However, I love Stones-y songs, blues and slide, so I have opted to throw all of my alt-tuning work behind Open G. Easy to get in and out of, and nothing more fun than playing Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’.
I play a few tunes in Dropped D - but more metalish riffs vs. folkie; but I get the drone approach for that.
If you want to pursue A and C, why can’t you:
Look up YouTube’s for alternate approaches to the same song, and then pick and choose an arrangement?
Play with a friend, find intermeshing guitar parts, using a capo, etc - which you can continue to explore as two guitars, but you can also incorporate those different voicings in your solo playing?
Either way, you have a specific objective of revoicing a song - I bet you’d learn a lot about the fingerboard specifics as you revoiced chords.
One thing I do is pick off pieces of songs - a few chords that I can cycle back through in an endless loop. It is a way of isolating a specific passage and practicing - but also, I can get a groove going with it and then improvise by adding fills. Before long, I evolved the bit into a different voicing and bring some of that back to the original song if it makes sense. That can be really fun.
Ethelbert;
First, thank you for inspiring me to continue with my own studies; I’m in the same rut and have been playing for 30 years. I followed the route most guitarists take by learning the 1st position chords and picking up stuff along the way without bothering to find out anything as boring as musical notation, theory, or basic songwriting skills. I also made my life more complicated by making my primary instrument a 12 string, which isn’t the best animal to harness fingerpicking and solo work to. Although I can do both now, I’m a far cry from Justin Hayward or Leadbelly.
Second, scales practice is going to be boring, but is necessary to understanding, so here’s how I lessened the monotony.
Three books, Musical Theory for Dummies and two from the The Guitar Grimoire series, the Exercise Book and Progressions & Improvisations have helped me to get a grip on the individual notes and how they work together to become chords.
Don’t try to do more than about 20 minutes/day after you warm up, and have a goal in mind. For example, play a C major scale in four places on the neck, now backwards , now in thirds, and call out the notes as you play them. Try playing the do re mi song from Sound of Music, then play it in reverse. Next day, try a minor scale or a pentatonic. If you want to muck about, try substituting a couple of relative minors of the majors in a song you know well and see where it takes you.
Now, reward yourself with a frosty beverage.
+1 on playing with someone else, whether a jamming buddy or a teacher. One of my more humourous co-workers calls it “musical masturbation” when he plays alone. Sure, it’s fun for a while, but it’s a whole lot more fun when others are involved and you’ll probably learn something new! :0)
Oh, I don’t know about that. I have solid technique for rock/blues, but as I have worked on jazz and slide, I have had to think differently about technique in a helpful way. No bends, but rather sliding up to the note, is the way to go in jazz and slide. Changes my approach and my thinking about emotional commitment. Jazz is more melodic for me, so I need to sell each note more fully, not just riff past it.
There’s always room for more technique; the question is whether you can make the learning fun or really need to hunker down and muscle through it…
