Acoustic Guitar Player

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
 

Dominic Frasca may not be familiar to a lot of guitar players, but he’s worth checking out.  He’s extremely innovative and is one of the players that is now expanding the possibilities of the guitar.  As guitar players it’s important to be open to new ways of playing.  This youtube is a sample of his work. He’s a serious player, so in the next day or so I’ll post about something that is not as intense.  Credit where it is due, Dominic Frasca is definitely out on his own, redefining how to play a guitar.

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.

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

I’ve always l;oved Joni Mitchells guitar playing.  And as you may know she went on to play with some of the worlds great musicians, such as the late Jaco Pastorias, Pat Metheny and others.  This song Big Yellow Taxi, although simple in structure is rhythmically brilliant and has inspired many players to play.  The following video was recording was recorded in 1970.

This song was environmentally friendly when green was considered hippy and lefty.  Well it took almost 40 years for the community to catch up and it’ll probably take another 40 years for guitar players to recognize Joni’s contribution to the development of the acoustic guitar. Thankyou Canada.

Sometimes it gets a little hard to work out what chords guitarists are playing, especially if they are using open tunings on the guitar, or play chords that are not your standard Minors, Majors or Seventh.  I’ve listed  acouple of song books that are available that includes a lot of Joni’s tunes.  Hits and Misses.  Now don’t be fooled by the one called Misses, they are as good as the Hits.  You will find a lot of her common ones in the Hits book.  Click below for more info.

Hits By Joni Mitchell. Guitar tablature songbook for guitar and voice. 124 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.PG9666) See more info…

Misses By Joni Mitchell. Guitar tablature songbook for guitar and voice. 112 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.PG9667) See more info…

I generally don’t write about clasical guitar as I stick pretty much to steel string. But I think it’s important to be aware of all the different styles and approaches. So I have decided to post about Narciso yepes. Narciso is one of my all time favourite classical guitar players.  This youTube is a standard song called Romance, a song that can be played beuatifully if the player concentrates properly.  Although it is a reasonably simple guitar piece, and has been interpreted by many players of very different skill levels, there is still plenty of room for interpretation.

I first heard Yepes in the seventies playing the music of De Falla and also Rodriguez.  He died in 1997, he was Spanish and played the ten string guitar.

Any piece of music in the hands of the right person can be beautiful

John Butler is one of the great contemporay guitar players that manages to be be cool enough to fit nicely into the contemporay acoustic rock market but is well respected by his peers.  He’s no slouch as a guitarist, is very popular in Australia and bridges the gap between styles. You’ll often find his music categorized in the music shops under roots. He uses technology extremely well and can overdrive an acoustic guitar but it still sounds musical. His years busking has helped him develop a style that has confidence and strength. He uses a number of open tunings on the guitar, for those that are unfamiliar with what that means, quite simply: The guitar is tuned differently, this creates a number of new tonal possibilities that are not physically possible in normal tuning. John was born in California.

This song is called ‘The Ocean’

Andy McKee is definitely one of the most interesting guitar players I’ve heard since Michael Hedges.  There have been quite a few guitar players that have attempted to do the Hedges style of open tuning/ percussive /hammer-on pull off approach but what I like about Andy is his ability to keep it musical.  A good test of music is to close your eyes and see what it sounds like.  There are many flashy guitar players out there but Andy’s guitar playing stands up by itself unaccompanied. 

Hats off to the man. acousticguitarist.wordpress.com

There are also other interesting resources, articles and videos at my other guitar blog that specilaises in acoustic guitar. acousticguitar.wordpress.com

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

Have you ever been to watch a guitarist play and he/she spend so much time frigging around on the stage before they start playing the first song that you are already wishing you hadn’t bothered going to see them? Regardless whether it be blues, classical, rock or whatever style, it’s darn annoying.

Some  players are fantastic at chatting and tuning up before they start, they have got it down so that it’s become part of the act.  This sort of skill you are born with or it comes from years of performing.  If you don’t have this skill, there are a number of things to consider. 

Here’s a list of what you need to think about:

• Are you there early enough?
• Have you checked out the room?
• Do you know where the power points are?
• Are your cables long enough?
• What PA system is available and do you know how to use it?
• Have you done a set list?
• Is there a place you can tune up quickly nearby?
• Do you have spare plectrums and strings?
• Is your guitar in good working order?
• Do you have spare batteries if you need them?
• Do you know the tunes well enough to be performing?
• Is your mobile off?  Unless it’s part of the act

These things listed above are part of a long list of things that need to be considered if you are performing in public.

And the BIG one:  Don’t ever practice the song you are about to play on stage before you play it… I’ve seen this so many times.

And do a sound check if humanly possible and tune your instrument properly

Although technology can sometimes get in our way and make some very simple things complex, example you make a phone call and end up speaking to a robot that doesn’t recognise your dialect when you answer a simple ‘yes/no’ question, it can at times surprise you when you least expect it.  And I don’t mean the money machine in the wall that supplies money when you put that little plastic card into it suddenly makes an error in your favour with lots of zeros on the end. 

I’ve had a habit of every now and then recording pieces of music and then forgetting about them.  As I work with computers a lot, like every single day of my life, I’ve got this habit of backing up data.  Now data comes in all shapes and sizes. And when I back up, I find things.

Late last year I had an emergency situation where I needed to get a newacoustic guitar with a reasonable pickup system to record direct to a recorder instead of using microphones.   Of course I had to test it out, whilst testing the guitar out I recorded a solo guitar piece of music with the guitar tuned to C G C G C F, pretty mad tuning really but I studied Indian music and it’s similar to what I used to use with a great Sarod player Ashok Roy.

 Well, I listened to it and it’s pretty beautiful, and beautiful things are to be shared. I haven’t edited it at all.

I named it after the poem by the great Persian poet Rumi, someone dear to me used to carry that poem with her always

 “Come, Come, who ever your are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
it doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times it doesn’t matter
Come, yet again, come”

To download it

 click here acoustic guitar mp3 By Tony Hogan

I’ve uploaded this free DADGAD guitar notation and tab scale for you to download.  For anyone that’s new here DADGAD is another way of tuning the guitar.  It’s been popular for a number of guitar players for about 30 years or so.  This scale is interesting to play because of the fingering.  And a little tip about playing scales, THE END RESULT IS TO MAKE GOOD MUSIC and not to be a great scale player.  Scales are simply something to get your fingers moving, to create flexibility and familiarity with the fingerboard.

Enjoy the DADGAD scale, keep it musical. DADGAD Scale D Major in PDF format

Recently I’ve been working on recording some guitar projects for clients.  And am currently developing some very unique guitar educational material.

CLICK the link to download DADGAD Scale D Major in PDF format

 If you’re not at the stage of plasying open tunings yet, check out the lessons below.

I was sitting around this morning and listening to an album that I haven’t listened to for a few weeks now.  I like acoustic guitar recordings a lot, but I also like to explore other material.  The album that I was listening to was by the Norwegiuan sax player Jan Garbarek, Tunisian Oud player Anouar Brahem and percussionist Shaukat Hussain. I noticed that the first song was a Norwegian folk song that had been turned into an improvisational piece. 

 It got me thinking, maybe I could write a simple guitar arrangement of the tune, the melody was short but quite interesting.  So I sat down and worked out the basic melody and because it was in C, I decided to tune one of my guitars to C, well C with an F on top, instead of the high E, up a semi-tone.  The reason for the F is because the song is built around C minor and I felt that by going up to F you’d have the C on the 7th fret instead of 8, this is much more suitable for improvisation.

An explanation of what I’ve done:  The first 6 bars is the head (melody), the next 4 is an extremely simple arpeggio vamp to play around with and improvise over.  If you can find a melodic instrumentist ( that can improvise) to play with this could be a very suitable piece of music. The arpeggio is to give you something to improvise over.

The tune needs to be played very loosely but in time.   The original that inspired me is on a recording called Madar on the ECM label.  I’m assuming that because it’s a traditional folk song there wouldn’t be an issue with copyright. I’ve just taken the basic idea of a melody and not copied an arrangement.  

Tune the guitar from the lowest bass string:  E down to C, A down to G, D down to C, G stays the same, B up to C, E up to F.  It will take a couple of tunings for the guitar to settle.  

To download the sheetmusic and tab for free

C open tuning arrangement for guitar in pdf

For other great resources check out John Fahey…he may not need an introduction.  And Steve Baughman, a fantastic open tuner.

Fingerstyle & Slide Guitar in Open Tunings Taught by John Fahey. For Guitar (Fingerpicking). Solos. Grossman Audio. All Styles. Book/CD Set. 56 pages. Published by Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. (99801BCD) Level: Intermediate. See more info…

Beginning Open Tunings By Steve Baughman. For Guitar (Fingerpicking). Methods. All Styles. Book/CD Set. 32 pages. Published by Mel Bay Publications, Inc. (20056BCD) Level: Beginning. See more info…