Acoustic Guitar Player

The other day I posted about a blues scale that I invented in my very active musical brain about 3 or 4 in the morning.  So now it’s time to dig a fraction deeper and spread it across thre octaves and also add a few guitar lick exercises.  Scales are great to add to the toolbo, but it needs to be done intelligently in a non-robotic manner, else a person can become a great scale player, yes and that’s it a great scale player. The work that I am interested in with music is about supplying things that make guitar players think, feeling first, yes, but let’s think things through to develop our musical chops, instead of just running the fingers up and down the freatboard in a ‘dig me I’m fast style’, having the ablity to play fast is good but it’s something that is just there for when it’s sensible to use it. 

How to Work with This Scale:

It’s been written over 3 octaves, from the low open E to the top E on the 12th fret of the first string. 

I have intentionally included a few open notes, this gives you the breathing space to move to the 4th fret and then the 7th. This method player is different to a lot of players that play a very horizontal stlye, straight up and down the neck.  I like the sound of the open strings, and with a scale like this it will give you some great guitar solo options.  As stated in my previous article it is a good mode / scale to use over the E7th chord in a blues. 

To download the printable version, click the following link E Blues Scale Super Altered Scale

NEW BLUES SCALE BREAKTHROUGH  

The standard blues scale has been around for quite some time, also the country blues scale, the one that is really a C# blues scale played over songs in the key of E. 

I’m reasonably confident that I have invented a new scale that is highly useable, easy to play and is more flexible over a lot of songs.

When you play the standard blues scale, the second one on my TAB and music dots chart, it sometimes sounds too blues too strong.  An alternative is what I personally call the Country Blues Scale, the third one on my TAB and music notation.  The Country Blues Scale is fantastic, sounds great over some tunes but if you look and listen to it closely it is minus the 7th (really flattened 7th) . 

I woke up about five this morning and had a brain wave, a moment of inspiration and I thought ‘ What if I take the Country  Blues Scale, remove the 6th (the C sharp) and replace it with the 7th instead. 

Why oh why have I never thought of it before and why on earth have I never seen it over 38 years of playing guitar?
Is it because we often miss the simple and obvious.

So the notes are E,  F sharp , G natural, G sharp, B and D natural.

Yes we could create hybrids of this but this is a great starting point and I’ll be adding information in the near future on how to use it intelligenty, it comfortably sits over chord one of an E blues, the E7 chord.

 I decided to call it the Super Blues Scale at this point, but may change it later.

To download this scale click: Super Blues Scale in E
 

This guitar tutorial  is for players that can already play to a good basic standard.

I’ve written a guitar TAB and music notation chart that uses triads (three note chords) and have also added a simple bass part.  I’ve used a common chord pattern, it consistts of. 

Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

E7 A7 D7 G7

C Eb7 D7 Db7

The last line is a series of chord substitutions for the Cmaj7 A7 D7 G7

If you study this chord chart very closely you’ll see there’s a lot to work with. There are so many variations that could be used. Often you need to call on different styles to add to your musical skillset, else all your music might end up sounding the same.  This sort of playing is great if you have to accompany a singer in a jazz ballad.  Once you get it inone key and see how it works, with a little thought you’ll be apply to take the basic principles I’ve used here and run with it. 

To download the printable version click on the link:  Jazz Guitar Chord Tutorial

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/

This guitar scale is the final one in may six part series on Pentatonic Scales.  As you my remember from my previous web blog posts, I decided to do a short series because many players have difficulty following through if there is too much information.  To work steadily through a half a dozen scales won’t hurt too much but the benefits will be many because a little self-discipline goes a long way.  And the way I have written most of these scales is a little unusual to try and prevent players monotonusly running their fingers up and down the fretboard, but the fingerings are interesting and I know from experience that they will force you to think a little when you play them.

Most guitar players avoid the flat keys, they stick to C, D , A , G and E, because they are guitar friendly.  So let’s break the habit a little with this one and do a B Flat.  The key of B flat includes the notes B flat, C, D, E flat, F, G A  and B flat. 

But the Pentatonic I’ve used (penta being 5) is Bb, C, D, F, G .  Note the fingering of the exercise, I jump to the 5th fret after playing the open G and a few of notes later I jump up a fret.  And then decscending I move back to fret one.  Playing this way will force you to think.

To download the printable guitar scale in TAB and music notes click below:

TAB and Music Notes Guitar Scale Pentatonic Major in B Flat

My next set of six short tutorials will cover Chord Construction Made Easy

Todays video youtube post is Lighning Hopkins, the classic acoustic blues guitar player, he has influenced thousands of players across the world.  He was a Texas Blues player and was inspired by Blind Lemon Jefferson. His music holds an important part in Blues Guitar history. There are two songs here, they speak for themself, in it you’ll hear where many of the riffs and guitar lines that are played across the world have come from. Hopkins often included the talking style of vocals. It’s a music lesson in itself.

Enjoy!

It was about 35 years ago when I first purchased a Stefan Grossman guitar book on blues, in those days, very few music books had guitar TAB. That may sound odd to a lot of people now. The books back then were generally arranged for Piano/ Vocal, that means they had little to do with the guitar and were really just a piano arrangement of the tune. Here’s a few Acoustic Blues Guitar Books worth exploring to help you be a better blues player.

Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Mississippi John Hurt Music by Mississippi John Hurt, transcribed by Stefan Grossman. Guitar tablature songbook and examples CD for acoustic guitar. Series: Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar. 96 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.F3176GTA) See more info…

Complete Acoustic Blues Method: Beginning Acoustic Blues Guitar By Lou Manzi. For Guitar. Guitar Method or Supplement. Acoustic; Blues. Book & CD. Published by Alfred Publishing. (22866) See more info…

Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Blind Blake Music by Blind Blake, transcribed by Stefan Grossman. Guitar tablature songbook and examples CD for acoustic guitar. Series: Stefan Grossman’s Early Masters of American Blues Guitar. 96 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.F3432GTA) See more info…

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/

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.

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

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

Flamenco Guitar and Paco de Lucia for most of us are one and the same.  Paco and his guitar have been on the world stage for some years now.  His no nonsense approach has set the benchmark for other players to work towards. Many people became aware of him because of his playing in the trio with John McLaughlin and Al di Meola, or John McLaughlin and Lary Corryell.  I have a magnificent recording of him playing the music of Manuel  De Falla’s Three Cornered Hat.

This video was recorded just over 30 years ago, so keep in mind the standard that Paco is playing to now.  Another player that I also enjoy is Paco Pena, less fiery as de Lucia but still brilliant. 

Paco de Lucia’s music has transcended styles and has added a new dimension to Flamenco guitar by using elements of contemporary jazz.  Although this music is on nylon string guitar it is more than a worthy addition to this acoustic guitar site as many younger players may not be aware of Paco’s brilliance.

For transcriptions of Paco’s music, see below.

Paco de Lucia Scores, Book 1 La fabulosa guitarra de Paco de Lucia. For Guitar (Classical). Transcribed solos. RGB Arte Visual. Flamenco. Level: Intermediate-Advanced. Book. 160 pages. Published by RGB Arte Visual. (20983) See more info…

This site is about Guitar Education,  if you don’t know Norman Blake, his playing is worth exploring, that’s why I’ve posted about him.

Norman Blake is a Bluegrass Folk Country legend.  He is highly respected amongst guitar players and has played back up guitar for Bob Dylan.  He has influenced more guitar players than you imagine.

Have you ever wondered why some guitar players are so good?

Simple, in many cases they have worked through a lot of the old bluegrass / Irish tunes. 

I have noticed that players that play tunes and have avoided hours of scales have a much better sense of melody than those that ’shred’ scales.  In fact I find scale shredding quite horrendous. 

This important: Once you get rid of ideas of being stuck in one particular style your playing will open up. Be open to learning, all the great players are.

To watch Norman Blake flat picking guitar is a guitar lesson in fluency of both left and right hands. This tune starts on an Em shape with a Capo on the 3rd fret, this means it’s a G minor.  The tune is full of guitar fills, guitar breaks full of lines and chords.  Note his use of open strings in his solos and how all of his breaks resolve nicely.  to play to the standard that he does is no small feat, just try it!

This blog/site is updated regularly. Drop back regularly for articles, youTubes, TAB, notation and other material to aid you on your musical journey.

So here’s Norman Blakes youtUbe video live in action. enjoy it!
I also author another blog site. The acousticguitarist, here’s the guitar site link.

Larry Corryell, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia help take guitar improvisation to new heights in the seventies. Many people that are new to guitar and not aware of the standard that these players reached. Paco with his Flamenco background, McLaughlin with his Jazz and Indian, and Coryell with his Jazz, Rock and Fusion explorations. This youtube video is a McLaughlin piece that he recorded with his electric band The Mahvishnu Orchestra. To have one guitar player with the ability to play to this standard is brilliant, but to have three together bouncing of each other is almost unheard of. Not all people may wish to play that fast or in that style but it shows the level that players can aspire to.

John McLaughlin and Shakti came to the fore in the mid seventies, at the time they had John McLaughlin on a guitar with a scalloped fretboard, some drone strings and an Indian gentleman L Shankar on violin both playing at an awesome speed.  John was known for his explorations into electric improvised music with Mahavishnu Orchestra.  John McLaughlan studied Indian music with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, at one point Ali was rated the greatest musician in the world by Yehudi Menhuin (one of the worlds greatest classical viloinists) . 

Unless a person has studied Indian music it could be difficult to miss how complex it is and in a way this playing is a part of guitar history because it took the guitar into new areas and created new possibilities and raised the standard of guitar playing way above what we had considered possible.

My favourite Shakti album was Handful of Beauty

The folowing John McLaughlin youTube was from 1974. The interplay between musicians is of an unbelievably high standard

To show the diversity of this musician I’ve added a youtube of him playing a jazz standard for the fun of it.

By the way he’s still playing.

I first heard of Ralph Towner in the mid seventies when he played with the acoustic ensemble/ band called Oregon.  I rember at the time they .played 72 instruments amongst the four members, Colin Walcott (late), Glen Moore,  Paul MaCandless.  Ralph Towner single handedly opened the door for many players to follow, he played a form of contemporay jazz on the nylon string guitar and also 12 string guitar.  Ralph Towner is also one of my favourite piano players, his chord playing at times reminds me of Bill Evans. His guitar playing is a mix of jazz improvisation and classical (to say the least).  You may hear him play straight jazz tunes at times but his approach makes them unique.  Personally I think he is one of the truly great guitar innovators of our time and his impact on a lot of players has been to think a little differently about the nylon string guitar.

Ihave owned about fifteen albums featuring Ralph Towner, not only with Oregon but with Paul Winter, Chic Correa, John Abercrombie and numerous others  on Manfred Eichers ECM label. The youtube I have posted about is called the Reluctant Bride, it is typical of Towners playing, a cross betwen arranged music and improvisation.  What i like about Ralphs playing is his willingness to take risks and head into harmonic areas that other players don’t dare to go. 

I have been fortunate to see Ralph Towner play a couple of times in my life, once with Gary Peacock in Athens Greece and with the band Oregon in Sydney Australia. If you get the chance to see Ralph Towner live, make the best of the opportunity, it truly is a music lesson on the guitar.

This guitar blog site is updated regularly with quality content to inspire other guitar players and also other guitar teachers

I first became aware of the jazz guitar player Martin Taylor in the early eighties when I was studying withthe brillian  jazz guitar legend Ike Isaacs.  Over a ten year period Ike made it quite clear that ‘Martin Taylor’ was the best.  After hearing what he does and having a good understanding of the technical side of guitar playing, and trusting in Ike Isaacs experience there’s no question about Martins credentials.  If you’ve heard Martin playing jazz ballads solo you’d get what we are discussing here. 

I’ve posted about this acoustic guitar youTube because I thought it would be great for you to hear Martin Taylor doing something outside the straight jazz guitar style.  This youTube of Martin is extremely interesting, he was inspired by one of my other all time favourite guitar players Ralph Towner, Towner plays nylon string and 12 string acoustic guitar.  there is a preamble before the tune starts and it is really worth listening to and when he finally starts playing I have no doubt you wil be inspired in some way.  I was fortunate to see my dear friend Ike play duets in concert with Martin Taylor not so long before Ike Isaacs died.  Ike, although a jazz player of the highest standard would always encourage us to be creative and partiucularly like it when I played open tuning guitar, no doubt he would love what Martin is doing these days.

The song is called “Down at Cocomos”, it is  a very lighthearted piece of music, don’t underestimate what you are seeing.

Here is a link to Martin’s Homepage

Pat Metheny came to the fore in the 1970’s playing with the brilliant vibraphone player Gary Burton.  Many music enthusiasts listened to the contemporary jazz that was recorded by producer Manfred Eicher in Europe on the ECM label. 

In this youtube video Pat Metheny is playing a guitar made by Canadian Luthier Linda Manzer, a brilliant luthier that has also built guitars for Bruce Cockburn,  the great Canadian singer guitarist.

Pat Metheny is playing Nora Jones’s Don’t Know Why that he reorded on the solo album One Quiet Night.  Pat Metheny plays various styles of hybrid jazz and other acoustic styles.  He is known for his musicality, meaning it doesn’t just sound lot a lot of notes going nowhere.  There are few guitarists that I have heard in contemporary music that are as musical.  When you listen closely to this song and compare it to the original, you’ll realise how clever Pat is.  He also wrote the song that David Bowie sang in the movie ‘The Falcon and the Snowman’.  Note how he has reharmonized the song at about the 3 minute level.

Pat Metheny and people such as Eberhard Weber, Chic Correa, John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner and Keith Jarrett introduced many people to a style of music that could have easily been ignored. They aded a freshness to music. Thirty years later he is still making new valid musical statements. His recent work with Bass player Charlie Haden is incredibly beautiful, the album Beyond The Missouri Sky recorded in 1997 is essential listening if you are a guitar player that likes chords, melody and guita arrangements.

Guitar players and other musicians get a little musically stale, you know that feeling when you feel absolutely and totally uninspired?

One of the reasons is that it’s easy to be disorganised, sound familiar?

Another is because you’re playing the same thing over and over.

Some weeks ago I started writing a few variations on a a blues scale, things that I use unconsciously, so I thought I’d share them.  G Blues sits very nicely on the acoustic guitar.  Don’t worry if you can’t read music dots, the guitar tab is there as well and is easy to follow.

The G blues Variation that I have done is not a song. It is some scalar (new word…I just made it up) ideas that can be used over a straight blues that consists of G7, C7 and D7. Easy enough.  You’ll notice I haven’t written so the ascend and then descend, I’ve added some little twists to make it more musical.  I know many guitarists that play real hard at scales to get faster and faster and faster and faster…then eventually they play themselves off the map because they are “Great Scale Players” but are musically numb. As I’ve played for so long and have suffer every musical ailment I think a little more about what I put out. 

 The standard Blues scale, what I refer to as a Minor Blues scale is G, B flat, C,  D Flat, F

The things I put on my blogs are very good resources, the other guitar players that can play well realise this and many of the visitors don’t realise what they are getting here for free, there’s years of work offered here.

To download the printable version click G Blues Scale Variations Free Tab and Notation

Many guitar players that I have met have managed to play at very high standard but due to life’s circumstances they found themselves in situations where they virtually stopped playing guitar.  It could be because family, disillusionment with the music industry, health, substance abuse, or many other scenarios that can leave a musician feeling uninspired. Over the period of time that I have played guitar, even though I have an incredibly deep passion for music, I personally have found that have been times that I have drifted away from music. As a guitar player you often find yourself ‘between jobs’ and this is the time when a lot of life’s challenges and diversion get in the way of music.  Many of the things I discuss in my blog posts, I have never seen addressed in music books or discussed openly by most players. I have decided to write about this because I recently got together with a very good guitar player that I played with just under twenty years ago, he all but stopped playing for a number of years, this for me is a fantastic thing because good players need to play and it is a loss to all of us when they don’t.

So here are a number of things that I think will help some of the players that have stopped playing, ease back into music.

1. Find some recordings that will inspire you to play.  Make sure they are not too complex.
2. Clean up your guitar.  Get rid of any old dirt on the fretboard
3. Change the strings; I recommend going a gauge lighter
4. Make sure your instrument is set up well
5. Allot some time to practice.  Formalise it by writing it down and stick to it

Stay there for the whole session, turn off the mobile, unplug the sign, and put a note on the door

6. Do some simple exercises to get your fretting hand going
7. Do some picking exercises (fingerstyle or plectrum) to get the picking hand going
8. Write a short list of songs that you used to play.  Make sure they are not too complex, if need be get some simple charts just in case your memory is a bit foggy
9. Don’t waste time playing snippets of music that you can’t really remember, this could dishearten you; you may end up getting frustrated
10. Be really focused but keep as relaxed as possible
11. When you finish, make sure you finish on a song that you can play reasonably ok
12. Write a plan for your next session and stick to it

There are many other things that may be useful but the ones listed above include most of the aspects that require attention, these include: 

A good working instrument

A plan

Techniques

Mental attitude

I first became aware of the guitar player Jorge Strunz in 1976 when he played beautiful and blistering speed guitar on the Caldera album, the jazz rock (for lack of words) band from South America.  Some years later I was pleased to hear that he had teamed up with the Iranian born guitar player Ardeshir Farar. The blend of the two styles together worked beauifully.  Flamenco has middle eastern roots, so the combination of the two players was bound to work.  This tune has a hand drum and violin accompaniment.  These guys are ‘as fast as’,  but maintain a sense of melody regardless.  If you haven’t heard them, you are in for a treat if you appreciate magnificent guitar players. 

As guitar players, I think we need to be in awe of these guys, because if you play guitar you would probably realise how good they are. I’m tempted to say ’shred’ hre and there but they are very musical and take the listener through so many phases in this one song.  I own there first few solo albums on vinyl….they are not going anywhere and I consider them irreplacable.

Philip Catherine may be unknown guitarist to many people but he was the guitarist that joined Focus (Hocus Pocus) after the great Jan Akkerman left. The following video shows him in in action on what loks like a Lowden guitar.  Nigel Clark is a superb guitar player from Scotland. Another great Scottish player worth investigating is Martin Taylor.

These guys are serious.  Some of you readers may remember the incredible duets that Philip did with Larry Coryell on the Splendid and Twin House albums of the 70’s. Some of plectrum guitarists greatest in action

This is a brilliant duet that exemplifies how beautiful two guitars of different styles can work together, still play fast and sound musical.  Coryell’s playing in this tune, when he takes a guitar break reminds of the great player from Belgium Philip Catherine.  It’s a very fine line always, playing at a very high technical level but trying to keep musical.  Playing fast is not hard at all, being musical and playing fast is hard.  It requires technique, restraint and the correct use of both speed, space and phrasing.

The late great Joe Pass is a perfect example of someone that has mastered improvisation on the guitar.  Although he didn’t play straight acoustic guitar, he was a master of the semi-acoustic, what’s a few different shaped sound holes amongst friends anyway. I first bought the Joe Pass guitar books over 30 years ago now.  What is really important to recognise is that we don’t necessarily play the same style as a person/guitarist but they can still inspire us, give us a new resource to draw from and help us to develop as guitar players.

 The tune is “All the Things You Are”. 

Some people are intimidated by great players. But I find all good players inspring, regardless of style because they show us a potential that we may not have ever considered.