Members BG76 Posted October 21, 2014 Members Share Posted October 21, 2014 I always used Bill Leavitt's 5 positions as I was pretty much forced to do things that way while at Berklee. It's a great system because you can easily play anywhere. The most important thing for me is not being forced to play everything in pentatonics because it's boring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AJ6stringsting Posted October 22, 2014 Members Share Posted October 22, 2014 Tommy Tedesco used to teach at the M.I. , and the way he taught us, the way he taught us theory, it was like Shakespeare, he knew how to connect with people and went out of his way to make sure everyone understood his teachings. I heard he passed away and it really saddened me when I heard the news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members papaschtroumpf Posted October 22, 2014 Members Share Posted October 22, 2014 Very instructive post.Being a beginner, I see the neck as notes in the first 5 frets only. I also see notes on the 1st and 6th strings on the entire length of the neck. but ask me what note is the 9th fret on the 3rd string and I'll have to count up from the C on the 5th fret to give you the answer.Because I'm starting to learn the blues, I also see the neck in term of pentatonic scale patterns, roughly all 6 strings within the space of 5 frets or so. Is that what people call boxes? to me a box is even even more restricted, e.g. only a 3 string subset.I'm starting to feel comfortable with interconnecting patterns to switch from one to another, but my mind definitely goes "I'm switching from scale patter 2 down to scale pattern 1) I'm sure it'll eventually be boring, but for now it works for me, because I try to solo with only a handful of notes, playing with rhythm, dynamics, gracenotes and bends to keep it interesting (to my ear admittedly). so I'll noodle with a few notes (say about 5), then pick a different section of the pattern and noodle on those for a while, with the occasional "going up the scale" when switching from one to another. I'm still learning where each relative not is (root, 4th, 5th...) is for each pattern, so I can at least think "here's the blue note" even if i couldn't tell you its name for the current key. When playing rhythm I rely almost exclusively on my knowledge of the 1st/6th string to play the right chord, which means I'm in trouble if the chord doesn't have its root note on that string. For example I have to "compute" before I start playing which frets to place what I think of as an A shape with a barre chord (2,3,and 4th string fretted 2 above the barre). This is a real handicap, and one that I'm trying to rectify, although I don't have a real good "plan" on how to improve at it. Basically I need to learn my notes on the 3rd string since it's where the root is for that shape? Finally I also have a repertoire of "mini chords", usually only 4 strings, and never 6th one (low E) which sound great as soon as I play with a bass player. I usually how to move those relative to each other (almost like a "box" pattern) so I can work a simple chord progression, i.e. I-IV-V. this way I may have to "compute" my starting position based on the key, but after that I know how to change fingering compared to that starting position. So this ability to simply move a pattern up and down the neck depending on the key, is also a bit of a curse for learning notes. Finally, I've recently started playing along with others on songs I don't really know and not necessarily based on a well know pattern ala 12 bar blues. I totally can't play rhythm in that case. But I've discovered that I can be quite decent at playing by... ear? feel? wild guesses? I coudln't really tell you, I "just play" and often most times happen to hit a "right" note, and when it's not "right" I'm learning to disguise it into a gracenote or some other way to resolve it on a "right" note. Sometimes I get cocky and insist on play that "wrong" note till somehow it becomes like it belonged there in the first place. Some days it works great and it's a wonderful experience to no longer care about notes, positions, but "feel" tour way through it. And some days I can't seem to make anything click and it all sounds like a 2 year old hitting random notes... Wow this ended up being a longer post than I intended. Maybe people that recently got out of the beginner stage can tell me how they got to the next step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted October 22, 2014 Members Share Posted October 22, 2014 When playing rhythm I rely almost exclusively on my knowledge of the 1st/6th string to play the right chord, which means I'm in trouble if the chord doesn't have its root note on that string. For example I have to "compute" before I start playing which frets to place what I think of as an A shape with a barre chord (2,3,and 4th string fretted 2 above the barre). This is a real handicap, and one that I'm trying to rectify, although I don't have a real good "plan" on how to improve at it. Basically I need to learn my notes on the 3rd string since it's where the root is for that shape? Since you know where the root is on the sixth and fifth strings it's actually quite easy to find the root on the forth and third strings. The root on the forth is two frets higher than on the sixth and the root on the third is two frets higher than on the fifth. After you do this a few times you will notice that you always find E on the third string at the ninth fret and you no longer need to count up. A good plan is to pick a note, any note, and find it on every string of the guitar (in more than one place if possible). If you do one note a day (including sharps and flats) it will take a little less than two weeks to cover all of the notes. Using E on the third sting again as an example, we know that the twelfth fret is the octave so the note there is G. counting backwards from that G puts E on the ninth fret - which is where we found it last time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Floyd Rosenbomb Posted October 23, 2014 Author Members Share Posted October 23, 2014 Very instructive post... Sounds to me like you are on a good track. You can pick one note each day and spend 5 minutes before each practice just locating that note all over the finger board. In a month or so you will have the finger board memorized. Then you can start building a triad off each one of those notes as you practice locating them. I wouldn't worry about the blues scale becoming boring. There are many pro players that have made a good living soloing out of the blues scale alone. You mentioned the pentatonic scale. The Natural Minor Scale is very similar, it is also called the Aeolian Mode. Do you know the Natural Minor Scale? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MorganB Posted October 23, 2014 Members Share Posted October 23, 2014 You just have to raise your head a little after looking at the Tits ,Silly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mbengs1 Posted October 24, 2014 Members Share Posted October 24, 2014 I play both rhythm and lead. I see mostly major, minor and pentatonic scales. every mode there is I try noodle through. when playing rhythm, I see the pentatonic boxes too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jkater Posted October 25, 2014 Members Share Posted October 25, 2014 Bingo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Burgess Posted October 25, 2014 Members Share Posted October 25, 2014 If they sound good then they ain't bad notes. Even if they sound bad sometimes you can play 'em enough to convince everyone they sound good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tlp123 Posted November 1, 2014 Members Share Posted November 1, 2014 >> How do you see the neck? Limited compared to a keyboard instrument. In my lowly hobbyist perspective. I see lots of triads on the guitar. I love them. I'm always thinking 1, 3, 5. I get LOTS of mileage altering 1, 3, 5. I gave up on lessons years ago. I found numerous teachers were not showing me anything I believed was useful to me. They only want you to come back and PAY them. Practicing scales up and down the neck to a metronome using strict alternate picking is NOT MUSICAL. So I said the hell with it and did my own research and taught myself WHAT I WANTED TO LEARN. TO HELL WITH "JARGON" "SEMANTICS" "TRADITION" CONVENTION". I started with learning the notes on the fretboard. Next, major, minor, augmented, diminished triads. All inversions, all over the neck. I hate pentatonic scales and hardly ever use them. Although sometimes I play out of them without realizing it to get a certain sound. Mind you, I'm just a lowly hobbyist, but I love the guitar. I play everyday. The jargon always annoyed the hell out of me. Not that I couldn't learn that, I didn't want to. At every turn it appeared for my purposes some people take something simple, and make it complex for the sake of making things complex. I knew there was a better way for me and I found it . I have my own system, which could not be anything extraordinary. As for chords and intervals, I listen for the sound. The particular tension between notes. Then I figure out how to build that sound, taking note of the root note and everything ahead. For triads: 1 3 5, 1 b3 b5, 1 b3 5, 1 3 #5 have a distinct sound. Yes, these have names. And, then 9 (2 + 7), 7 or b7 can be added, and so on as a fourth note to imply yet another distinct sound. And then why play a big stupid muddy bar chord ? That's over kill in many instances when playing with other instruments. Oh yes, almost forgot about the root + 5th thing. For single note ideas, notes from the chords work for me. If you can sing them, that's even better ;-) After years of thinking about the neck, in these ways, and putting this to practice playing MUSIC on the guitar, things slowly came together. Probably the most satisfying aspect is listening, and being able to visualize sounds on the guitar neck (if that makes sense?). Works for this lowly hobbyist. Right hand technique.....that's another subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members onelife Posted November 2, 2014 Members Share Posted November 2, 2014 The jargon always annoyed the hell out of me. Mind you, I'm just a lowly hobbyist, but I love the guitar. I play everyday. The "jargon" is very helpful when playing and communicating with other musicians. It is particularly useful in getting something musical happening with players you just met - for example, "it's a one six two five in B flat." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chordite Posted November 2, 2014 Members Share Posted November 2, 2014 >> How do you see the neck? I have my own system, which could not be anything extraordinary. As for chords and intervals, I listen for the sound. The particular tension between notes. Then I figure out how to build that sound, taking note of the root note and everything ahead. For triads: 1 3 5, 1 b3 b5, 1 b3 5, 1 3 #5 have a distinct sound. Yes, these have names. And, then 9 (2 + 7), 7 or b7 can be added, and so on as a fourth note to imply yet another distinct sound. I also invent a lot of my own stuff, Joni Mitchell encouraged that. There is however a danger here and that is that you spend your time reinventing the wheel.Nearly all those emotional pulls and textures you are looking for are already in the book. It's just that you don't feel that when you are just working through a chord book because, for lack of a better phrase "the context makes the emotion". Regarding lessons you need to find the right teacher. It is unlikely to be the guy with his card in the shop window. At your stage you need something like these guys (where I was taught btw ) http://icmp.co.uk/courses/electric-guitar-overview ps Another annoyance of 'internal' creation is that I have tapes from ten years back with some great "invented"chords that I just cannot remember or find the fingering for to play them today. That is a recipe for madness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Paresh Posted November 7, 2014 Members Share Posted November 7, 2014 triads, both vertical & horizontal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.