Guitar

In light of the whole drum thing, we now have a new music room that is filled with guitars:

Peavey Fury bass
Celebrity Ovation 6 string acoustic electric
Charvel 6 string
Art & Luthier 6 string acoustic
Fender Squire (mini) 6 string electric
Homemade 6 string electric

(I don’t know why I listed those haha)

So I’ve taken back up playing and am really enjoying my husband’s Charvel. I’m just not sure what I should be doing. I know a few chords (A,C,D,E,G,Am,Em,Cadd) and play a few songs I learned via tab.

Do you guys have any suggestions for sites or lessons or things I should be trying or focusing on?

Can you play “Far far away”?

LOL, I so funny

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Just keep you fingers on the strings. Eventually you’ll make noises that sound good.

Learn your scales and modes, learn the notes all over the fretboard so you know what note you’re playing automatically.

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I once asked my old friend that’s been playing guitar since were kids, one thing he said about learning guitar is the “fingering” which ties into what Billdo said, but the way he explained it it’s also more that notes and chords, it’s getting the right sound at the right time, if that makes sense.

In most western music, the whole song will be based on one of the 7 modal scales, mainly the major and minor scale. If you know the scale/mode the song is written in, every note and every note of every chord in the song will be in that usually 7 note scale…

After awhile you’ll be able to hear a song and recognize that it’s in Mixolydian mode etc… after you learn how to recognize the sound/flavors of the various scales.

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If you take the basic major scale, in those 7 notes, depending on what note you use as the root, are the 7 modes. So in the C major scale you’d have…

C - Ionian - the major scale
D - Dorian - a variant of the minor scale
E - Phrygian - a variant of the minor scale
F - Lydian - a variant of the major scale
G - Mixolydian - a variant of the major scale
A - Aeolian - the minor scale
B - Locrian - a variant of the minor scale

I used to work for Martin

Did you get a free guitar?

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I got a couple free but not Martins - Sigma or some sich - I gave them away

I passed on one of the anniversary ones they would have taken little by little out of my check cause I am a dumfuk around 1976 it was

They are fucking astounding to say the least -

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I know the “Blues Scale” for what that’s worth.

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Some great tips.

Thanks guys!

It’s a start…

Also learn the concept of the relative minor… for example… a C major scale is the same as an A minor scale, a G major scale is the same as an E minor scale… etc.

This is called the Circle of Fifths - G for example is the 5th interval/note of the C major scale… D is the 5th of G, etc. it also shows the corresponding relative minor.

haha I am so fucking confused right now!

Learn your scales. That’s the first thing. Circle of 5ths is good but that gets into music theory, which you ultimately will get the most benefit from if you want to play “well”.

I started as a campfire/strum type, never learned scales, just chords for singalongs. I could play rhythm for yer band, but would (and still do) suck at lead because I am rusty on the scales.

Of course I am much more comfortable on keys or sax anyway

See my husband knows scales so he drills me with them. We play scale songs and such but I thought I should be learning chords and shit. GAH! I’ll go back to scales.

If you know your scales, then for chords I would start learning the theory, starting with the key signatures which leads right to that circle of 5ths. I was assuming you were starting at the bottom, but you are already exposed to some things.

Yeah I know a few things but I have forgotten sooo much of what I previously learned (fucking MS!).

I will go back to learning scales and you’re right about learning how to build chords. That I don’t understand and probably should.

Build yer chords out of the notes in the scale. This is the basic shit, and most music is really basic. I used to play with a keyboard/piano player that knew shit like jazz chord substitution and he’d blow my mind. You gotta learn the rules before ya break em.

Practice your scales and yer chords, chord progressions, etc. Learn some new songs or some you’ve forgot. Iron Man… practice yer picking up and down, learn how to play arpeggios out of the scales and chords, sweep pickin.

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