Acoustic Guitar Player

It’s always good to see great guitar players interpreting other players work.  This video youtube of Jacques Stotzem plaing the Jimi Hendrix tune Purple Haze is a perfect example of when it works.  Keep in mind the original by Hendrix was on electric, to hear an acoustic version which works well is a treat.  Jacques Stotzem was born in Begium and was inspired by Stefan Grossman at an early age.  He plays a signature guitar build by the Irish Guitar company Avalon Guitars. but in this video he’s playing a Martin with a cutaway  If you are an avid reader of Acoustic Guitar Magazine you’ll already be aware of him

To hear and watch Jimi Hendrix play 12 string acoustic blues guitar click ‘Jimi Hendrix Hear My Train A Comin

Laurence Juber playing playing an acoustic guitar arrangement of While my Guitar Gently Weeps is a great lesson in itself.

Watch his technique and see how much control he has in his bends and his ability to be natural and relaxed throughout this video.  Although the basic theme and chorus of the tune is repetitive, he manages to maintain an interest throught with his variations around them.  The more I hear of Laurence Juber, the more I realise the quality of guitar player that he is.

If you want to here another video of Laurence Juber playing a beautiful slow blues, go to the acoustic guitarist site

These Chords are based around the Key of A.  The Key of A has 3 sharps (#) C sharp, F sharp and G Sharp.   As before in the last article, if you look at the music stave above, you’ll notice that I have numbered each note and also given it an alphabetical name.

I’ll also remind you once again that the way chords are made is generally by taking the 1st, 3rd and 5th of a scale.

If you look at the top line of music above, you’ll see it is A, C# and E, this is called an A major triad.  You could also play a couple of A’s C#’s or E’s  instead of just one, it’s still a A major chord.

If you look at the second line of music above, you’ll see it is A, C natural and E, this is called an A minor triad.  Also, just like the major chord, you could play a couple of A’s C’s  or E’s instead of just one, it’s still aa A minor chord.

The seventh chord consists of the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and also the 7th note, but this is IMPORTANT. Once again, as in previous article, look closely at the note though, in truth what is known as a 7th is really a flattened 7th, it is one note lower than the seventh note of the normal major scaleTo download the Free High Quality Printable version Click the following Link:

To download the Printable ‘How Guitar Chords are Made’ article, click the link:

How Guitar Chords are Made - A pdf notation and TAB

 For the previous article click How Chords are Made - Key of D

Tommy Emmanuel, the brilliant Australian guitar player playing Classical Gas on his Maton acoustic Guitar, quite a good combination.  A couple of days ago I posted about  Tommy Emmanuel’s youtube version of Amazing Grace.   This youtube of Tommy has him playing Classical Gas his style, a dynamic rhythmic intro and then it gets the Emmanuel steel String acoustic.  It’s great to hear different players of Tommy Emmanuels standard versions of such well known tunes.  Common song that we know so well in our heads that we’ve head numerous versions make it easy for us to notice the unexpected.  I love the percussion he creates on the guitar in this version, and the arpeggios around about the 4 minute mark.  This intensity that he expresses when he plays acoustic is rare.  Hats of to to Tommy Emmanuel, he keeps getting better and better.

It’s pretty hard to have an acoustic guitar site or blog without mentioning Tommy Emmanuel at some point.  Over the years I’ve seen him play many times in different settings, both acoustic and electric.  Although I’ve never been fortunate enough to play guitar with him , I did have him play one of my guitars one day in a shop when I was buying a Polytone Amp, he played some George Benson on my Gold Top Les Paul.

I find that solo acoustic guitar is on of the best ways to really hear a player, so I’ve posted this youtube blog article with Tommy playing solo guitar, the reason I chose Amazing Grace is because it’s a very common turn that most peple would know.  When you hear a player play a common tune it’s a great way to hear own personal musical voice.  Enjoy it.

Here is the 3rd article in the series of How Guitar Chords are Made, in this one I am covering D chords. 

Note how in the first article C Chords, the Key of C has no sharps (#)or Flats (b) , wheras the G scale has one sharp.  The key of D, you may or nopt know has 2 sharps, F and C are both sharp..this means one note or fret higher up the fret fretboard.
As before in the last article, if you look at the music stave above, you’ll notice that I have numbered each note and also given it an alphabetical name.

I’ll also remind you that the way chords are made is generally by taking the 1st, 3rd and 5th of a scale.

If you look at the top line of music above, you’ll see it is D, F# and A, this is called a D major triad.  You could also play a couple of D’s F#’s or A’s  instead of just one, it’s still a D major chord.

If you look at the second line of music above, you’ll see it is D, F natural and A, this is called a D minor triad.  Also, just like the major chord, you could play a couple of D’s F’s  or A’s instead of just one, it’s still a D minor chord.

The seventh chord consists of the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and also the 7th note, but this is IMPORTANT. Look closely at the note though, in truth what is known as a 7th is really a flattened 7th, it is one note lower than the seventh note of the normal major scale. Because of the construction of the guitar fretboard, guitar players often leave out notes of a chord, in the case of the D7, I have omitted the A note, but as before in the previous articles listen and you’ll notice that it still sounds right.

To download the Free High Quality Printable version Click the following Link:

How Guitar Chords Are Made - D Chords

In my previous article I wrote about guitar chords consisting of a 1st , a 3rd, and a 5th. I thought I’d write a short article to reinforce the learning.

The key of C consists of the notes: C D E F G A B and for those that live in Europe, the B is often called H.

We established that a C major chord consists of C, E and G notes, which are the 1st, 3rd and 5th of C. Using that principle,  to create a C6 chord, we would add the 6th note of the scale of C, which is A.

We arrived at that because C = 1, D =2, E = 3, F =4, G =5 and C = 6.

A C6 chord = C E G and A.  The notes don’t necessarily need to be in that order when you play them.

Working out a C6 chord is quite easy, however some of the other chords such as C9, c13 etc gets a little more complex.  Whoever wrote the rules originally didn’t write in a very user friendly manner.  I will be writing more in depth information about chords in the very near future, as I said this is just a short refresher article…with a little more info.

This is part 1 of a 6 Part series on Chord Construction for guitar.

How chords are made is not that difficult to understand.  You will require a tiny bit of patience and the ability to count up to 13 and also know the alphabet from  A to G.

Having a good understanding of how chords are made will help you with your guitar soloing and accompaniment, many guitar players bypass this type of information.  I would encourage you to get on top of the basics of this info and a whole lot of newe areas of your playing will open up.

If you look at the music stave above, you’ll notice that I have numbered each note and also given it an alphabetical name, no big deal, no rocket science here.

Chords are grouped into three basic categories: 

Major, Minor and Sevenths. However I did have a very long discussion once with the great guitar player Ike Isaacs and he was leaving the question open ended about whether there was a fourth type.  But I’ll keep it simple here and agree with most of the planets musicians and say there are three.

Major chords have a strength about them, they are reasonably bright sounding, I could say ‘happy’ sounding but it’s not quite correct. Examples would be C, D, G, A, E with no numbers written after them.

Minor chords are very sad sounding, the saddest of all being the D minor chord.  Many composers for films will write in the key of D minor T evoke sadness in a a film, think tissues and hankies. Examples would be: Dm, Em, Gm, sometimes written with a minus sign D-, E- or Dmin or Emin etc

Seventh chords imply movement.  They are just major chords with an extra note, their sound creates a feeling of wanting to go to another chord. The way that a seventh chord is generally written is:  G7, E7, A7 etc.  They are commonly used in Blues music and variations of 7ths are common in Jazz, they’ll often look like G7b5#9 etc but let’s keep it simple.

The way chords are made is generally by taking the 1st, 3rd and 5th of a scale.

If you look at the top line of music above, you’ll see it is C, E and G, this is called a major triad.  You could play a couple of C’s E’s or G’s in it instead of just one, it’s still a C major chord.

If you look at the second line of music above, you’ll see it is C, E flat ( the little b = flat) and G, this is called a minor triad.  Also, just like the major chord, you could play a couple of C’s Eb’s or G’s in it instead of just one, it’s still a C minor chord.

The seventh chord consists of the 1st, the 3rd, the 5th and also the 7th note, but this is IMPORTANT. Look closely at the note though, in truth what is known as a 7th is really a flattened 7th, it is one note lower than the seventh note of the normal major scale. Because of the construction of the guitar fretboard, guitar players often leave out notes of a chord, in the case of the C7, I have omitted the G note, but listen and you’ll notice that it still sounds right.

In these examples I have used only three note chords, for some situations, using a thrree note chord can be better than a full chord.  Regardless what you use, it’s still valid, three, four, five or six.

To download the Free High QualityPrintable version Click the following Link:

How Guitar Chords Are Made TAB

NOTE: Part 2 will be available within four days.

For Blues Scales go to the following link at my other blog/site:

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/blues-scales-learn-guitar-tab-and-dots/

The John Butler acoustic  twelve string version of Message in a Bottle, what an interesting combination.

Two things that really appeal to me as a musician are:

1) Restraint and understatement
2) Interpretation of other peoples tunes

The ability to not overplay, even if you have the ability to, is a real art, to hold back and create a little tension and space.  I think many of the reggae musicians have mastered that art,; and the ability to imply music and hold back so the listener unconsciously fills in the gaps.

Interpretation is something that not all players can get their head around because they often wish to repeat what they have heard and not have a second thought that a song may have other possibilities.

I’ve stated before that I like John Butler’s music and when I heard him doing the Police tune, ‘Message in a Bottle’ I was very impressed with the way he made it his own. I like the rhythm part, the brushes as the acoustic bass.

To hear more John Butler click the link John Butler

Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil are both legends in Brazil, I think it’s important to hear the great players from other cultures and not get locked into one style.  I became aware of Milton in the mid seventies when he appeared on a Wayne Shorter ( weather Report) album.   The song Raca, appeared on one the easrlier Milton solo albums.  It’s another way of expressing music with a guitar.  Both these two musicians are known for their songwriting. There rhhym playing is excellent…try playing it.

This Pentatonic Major Scale in D is very useful on acoustic guitar. Note how I’ve used the open E string to create a bit of time to jump up the fretboard to the 7th fret.  This scale is very suitable for improvising over a D chord, it doesn’t include the Blue Note of the Country Blues scales.  The Blue note would be an F at the 3rd fret on the 4th string. 

 The notes of this scale are D E F sharp A B and I’ll include the next D so it sounds complete. Leraning simple scales like these are very usually for acoustic players, a lot of acoustic players when they are jamming will just all play the same chords.  A little aresnal of scales will enable you to create a bit of interest in a tune by using simple improvisation.  When two guitar players play the same thing at the same time,  then tend to squash each other.  Look for ways of creating space, the ‘Less is More’ principle is very useful in music. 

Ok, how to play the scale:  Start in the 2nd position, this means the first finger lines up at the second fret.  Ones you play the open E on the high string, move up to the 7th fret.  When descending, once you hit the high E note again on the open E string, move back to the second postion.  

Enjoy it, once you know the scale start to break it up into little melodic musical phrases.

To download the printable version click the link:
Pentatonic Major Scale for Guitar in D

This is part 5 of the 6 part series of Pentatonic scales, Part 6 will be uploaded within the next 5 days

To view part Part 4:
http://the-guitarplayer.com/2008/06/12/pentatonic-major-scale-in-a-part-4-of-6/

It’s always good to hear great electric guitar players on acoustic guitar, it enables the listener to put their music into some sort of manageble, understandable picture where we don’t have to try and decipher what is going on behind the electronics. there is some very good guitar work at about 2 minutes 30 seconds onwards , I like the sound of the guitar very much.  He keeps the whole song going and his timing is great.  Some of the wonderful electric lead guitar players manage to play a little out of time when they are solo.  Enjoy this.

Pierre Bensusan was that good as a guitar player in the mid nineteen eighties that the great (late) Michael Hedges recorded a song in dedication to him on the Aerial Boundaries album, the song was called Bensusan.  After Michael Hedges died, Pierre Bensusan recorded a song in dedication to him called So Long Michael.  Both these players have left an incredible mark on the development of acoustic guitar playing.  Bensusan had some very good early albums, Musiques and Solilai.  My favourite is the Intuite album.

This youtube video features Bensusan doing the traditional tune ‘Merrily Kissed the Quaker’.   Bensusan plays predominantly in DADGAD.  In this video he is playing a Lowden Guitar. Fortunately I’ve been enjoying his playing since the mid eighties and is the player that inspired me to play DADGAD tuning back then.

This guy is so darn good it’s scary.

If you love acoustic guitar and also Blues, the chances are you’d like Stevie Ray Vaughan playing acoustic blues.  I saw Stevie Ray play years ago with his trio, sensational.  But I never saw him play acoustic guitar, unfortunate.  I did get to see him play that beautiful white strat, possibly the sweetest slow blues guitar I ever heard. 

On this youTube video he is playing a twelve string with his lazy strum (said in an affectionate way) , it’s in E and is called ‘Pride and Joy’

For some simple Country Blues scales to help you improvise go to: Country Blues Scales

This is the fourth pentatonic Scale in my six part series of Pentatonic scales.  When I write the fingering for these scales I often think about what is suitable for the acoustic guitar.  I’m writing them in a manner that will get you out of the habit of just running your fingers up and down the neck.

This one is in A, use it over a chord pattern that uses A D and E.  The notes of this five note scale are A B C sharp E and F#.  The ascending is quite straight forward, start on an open A but be ready in the second position.  The descending part is great on the acoustic, you move up to the 5th fret and uses a couple of open notes and then moves back to the 2nd fret.

An additional thing that I’ve done with it is to put it into 3/4 time, count 1 2 3 1 2 3 123 etc, placing a slight emphasis on the first beat.  

 For part three click on scale link

 Part five will be added in the very near future.

John Mayer is still very young but in a few short years he’s been able to gain the respect of guitar players across the world.  This youtube video on acoustic guitar is called Heart of Life; he manages to to mantain a a solid vocal part while having rather interesting rhythmic guitar parts.  This is less frantic than some of his other material, it has a reasonably simple underlying chord pattern.  It’s extremely musical.

A few days back I posted about John Mayer playing with Eric Clapton.  A great combo. 
Click the link to see it http://the-guitarplayer.com/?p=185

Jack Johnson, the man that has redifined the word ‘relax’ and Ben Harper, a player that has always managed to player with a maturity way beyond his age.  To have them together is quite a treat.  For quite a few years during the eighties and nineties there wasn’t a lot happening in mainstream music regarding acoustic singer guitar players, YES, there were plenty of people playing acoustic and singing but it seemed very unfashionable for a long time.  In the 70’s we had, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, john Martyn, Nick Drake Seals and Crofts and others but as the other electric styles came to the fore, the great acoustic singer guitarists didn’t really get much of a mention.  Now there’s Jack Johnson and Ben Harper,  John Mayer, John Butler, Ash Grunwwald and others making people take notice of the singer guitar players once again, minus the Marshall stacks, being accepted as household names.  This will no doubt open the doorway for thousands of others to follow and take up the beautiful artform of singer guitarist.

Enjoy this video, it’s a song called ‘gone’ from the’On and On’ album . Sweey, very very Sweet playing.

Check out Harry Manx at my other guitar Blog Site - Harry Manx youtube

This is the 3rd article about guitar scales, this is pentatonic major scale in the Key of E.  It’s very useful for improvising in the Key of E, it’s reasonably ’safe sounding’ and difficult to go wrong with it if you are soloing in E.  The notes are E, F sharp, G sharp, B, C sharp.  It would be useable over a standard sort of chord pattern in E which included E A and B.  Yes it is useable over other chords,  but if you are new to improvisation just get it down so it works over those chords.  You’ll notice there will be strong and weak tones.

As always, when I write scales I write them with a few twists to prevent you from becoming lazy and to help you focus on what you are doing.  The version I have written starts on the second fret, moves to the 4th, then the 7th and briefly to the 9th.

When descending, you’ll notice I’ve added some open notes on the first and second string.  This is a great way to play, because you’ll get a nice ringing tone of the open notes, almost bell like and it gives you a split-second to change frets.  The bluegrass guys are great at this. 

 The printable version is available in pdf, don’t ruin your eyes trying to work off the screen, print them out and create a folder of them all so you can work through them away from the computer, minus the distraction of checking your email

Click below for the Printable PDF TABS and Notation for guitar

Pentatonic Scales for guitar in E Tab and notation

Here is the link for Part 2 of the Pentatonic series http://the-guitarplayer.com/?p=181

Practice slowly

Ani diFranco doing I’m not Angry anymore on youTube was the song that made me stand up and notice how good she was. This recording is the pinnacle of acoustic music, not because of its complexity, more for its ability to state what needs to be said in a a song, I think a lot of people would or will be moved by this song, it’s so emotional and it’s a very daring song in the way that she manages to lare bare her emotions on the public stage, something that very few people dare to do.

This real music.
Ani diFranco doing I’m not Angry anymore on youTube was the song that made me stand up and notice how good she was. This recording is the pinnacle of acoustic music, not because of its complexity, more for its ability to state what needs to be said in a a song, I think a lot of people would or will be moved by this song, it’s so emotional and it’s a very daring song in the way that she manages to lare bare her emotions on the public stage, something that very few people dare to do.

This real music.

John Mayer and Eric Clapton, a nice combination.  It’s always great to see some of the older musicians playing with much younger ones.   It’s a reasonably simple song, John Mayer takes a short guitar break, he has a very nice sensde of melody and Clapton takes over quite seamlessly. It works very well, it’s music, both playing fingerstyle on acoustics, the balance of the two guitars is very good.  The song is called Broken Hearted.

The Pentatonic Major scale is pretty common amongst rock players.  I’ve written it here in the key of G.  It consists of 5 notes,  G A B D E. If someone were to turn those notes into a chord it would be a G6 add9 , some might call it a G6 sus2.  It’s a fairly straight sounding scale, useful if you are reasonably new to guitar playing, it is a good foundation to work from when improvising over a G chord. 

I’ve added a little twist to it (as always) because I think it’s important not to become lazy.   The first part is very straight forward. Then once you’ve hit the top note on the high sounding E string, I’ve written it so it doesn’t descend directly, it steps down (lower sounding) by missing a note and then goes back up and down etc.  This exercise, when played like this will help you to learn to play across strings and it will help you to hear intervals (the distance betwen notes). Eventually you’ll play it automatically once your hearing has developed a little.

Here’s a great guitar tip:  Learn to hum your solos (to yourself if you like, not through the front of house PA speakers ). This will help you develop a great sense of melody, what you hear in you head you’ll eventually be able to play. 

Guitar Scales Pentatonic Major in G

Part 3 will be written within 3 days, come back and visit.

Are you feeling a little stuck and having difficulty organizing your practice?

 Well, I’ve decided to do a six part  series on scales to get the old fingers going, READ ON

 This is the first of a six part series on guitar scales. I’ve done them for both TAB and guitar music notation.

The Pentatonic scale is the most basic scale used for improvisation.  It is very useful and at the same time. probably the most boring scale possible. Useful because it’s easy to master

and apply, and boring because it is so easy and useful, it is possible to get stuck on it and not venture too far away from it.

I have named this scale the Pentatonic Minor because it is a five note scale, Penta meaning five and Minor because the relationship between the 1st and second note of the scale is a tone and a half (3 frets) apart, this is a minor 3rd interval.  But lets keep it simple for now.

The guitar lends itself to this type of scale, it’s easy to play, and play it can be played fast without too much sweat because there are only two notes played on each string, this enables the player to pick up and down and then move to the next string.

If you’re just starting out just play the first 3 bars, get it going nice and steady, play in time, relaxed and with feeling.

BUT if you can already play, you’re not getting off that easy.  I’ve created an exercise that moves up the fretboard.  It starts at fret one, then moves to fret four, then seven, then ten.  I prefer to work this way than just move robotically up the fretboard fret by fret.  It will force you to think a little more.

The chords behind each one of these sclaes would be:

F minor for 3 bars,  Ab minor for 3 bars, B minorfor 3 bars, D minor for 3 bars

Practice these scales smoothly.  This is not a race!  Oh yeah, turn the tele off.

To download the 1st of the printable Guitar Scales for Rock Guitar Pentatonic Minor click the link below

 Guitar Scales for Rock, Pentatonic Minor Scale pdf

Paul Gilbert on acoustic guitar, you may remember him from Racer X and Mr Big.  In this youtube video he’s on a nylon string guitar.  He is quite clear about his abilities at playing something that resembles Flamenco.  It’s worth watching his fretting hand closely, I’ve seen very few guitar players with such long fingers. I like to see players take a style or a tune and make it their own, and this is a perfect example of it.  His right hand has a very ‘tight’ sort of technique, unusual but effective.  Watching him play it’s easy to see his dedication and commitment to guitar.  I’m very impressed, his music has a freshness to it.  And the fact that he toured in 2007 with Satriani is no doubt a certification of how good he really is.

Enjoy. If you want to see some contemporay flamenco guitar, check out Paco de Lucia

This Ali Farka Toure youTube also has Boubacar Traore. The musicians from Mali in Africa have a sound that to some of us sounds like the roots of the blues.  Listening and being inspired by musicians of other cultures is a very healthy thing to do., it will help you open up to new ways of exploring the music that is within you waiting to come out.  Blues great Ry Cooder recorded recorded a fantastic album with Ali.  A lot of the riffs these guys play are very hummable and have a nice bounce in them.  This video is well worth a look. This music has an almost trance like feel to it.

You might also like to hear Harry Manx the Canadian guy that mixes Indian music on his Mohan Vina with the Blues, I have posted at my other blog about him.  Click Here to see  Harry Manx youTube

The Kenny Rankin youtube video is from the seventies.  While many other players were playing steel strings in the 70’s Kenny Rankin preferred to play nylon string instead, and realistically it suited his style and complemented his voice.  THe video is a song that he wrote called Peaceful, made famous by Helen Reddy.  A lot of players were turning towards punk while Kenny Rankin was doing his own thing, quite mellow.  I particularly liked his voice and his style was often flavored  with latin rhythms in songs like Haven’t We Met.  Kenny Rankin did covers of songs like no-one else.  I remember him also singing backing vocals on one of the Joni albums.  If you were around and listenening to music at that time and had encountered Kenny Rankins music you might understand why I have posted this youTube, it’s historical. 

I like music of all styles and don’t limit myself.  It’s inspiring to hear different players all expressing their own musical voice in their own personal way.