master the guitar

Creative Heart’s dilligence and dedication are inspiring.
Lately I’ve had to diversify my work in order to make ends meet and it’s really eaten into my free-form, near-infinite practice time. Now I need to apply more structure and dicipline to make the shorter hours availible both productive and enjoyable,(since that’s the point). Your prolific posts are helping to keep me motivated, thanks, “cheers”!

In the interest of “flexing” what I’ve learned so far while improving my “spontaneous” repertoire, (or playing something without dragging my laptop or music stand around)I’m doing auto-transposition exercises…taking songs and 1. using the transpose “button” to change key and working one song through all keys, 2. working through different voicings on the chords, 3. working different octavization progressions, 4. playing the tune in one key while reading it in another so I can develop the ability to accomodate any vocal lead, 5. playing along with the recording using complimentary voicings, scalar riffs, and experimenting with harmonizing in complimentary keys, (like the idigo girls do).
(postscript: reading this back it sounds kind of like a verbiose way of saying, “just playing around”, perhaps that’s what Earl Hooker meant by “messing with the blues”)

All the while ruminating on the spectrum between, and the overlapping of precision and improvisation.

Of course this, with me running all over with work, must be taken in small time slots but I wrote it down just so I can sit down and not wonder: “ok what the hell am I doing?”.

I just noticed that this goal doesn’t have the “How I did it thing”. It will be interesting to see who’s the first to feel that they’ve done it. What would be the definitive points to justifying such a claim? I suppose the music would have to speak for itself.

I was just checking notes on different seating positions. I just pulled up the circle of 5ths just to play something and see if I could find my ideal position. Started what I call “bouncing” where you play C(open)C(barre 3)C(barre 8) and the same with the other chords as I went around the circle. Anyway the rhythm to Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again” came to me and I started finger-picking using all C and then Am to C for the last line. Pulled up the audio and figured out it was recorded 5 tones up as F and Dm. It plays well in the C/Am with a capo 5, but then I can’t reach the third C chord because it capos up to be at the 13th fret and I’ve no cutout. (I’ve got no point here, just noting the process).
So drop the capo, do it with F/Dm…but the recording sound higher…sort of mandolin-ish. The picking progression sounds right with C so I wonder if he tuned his guitar up 5 steps?
Anyway that moves me to: Find out what the Chord notation is that distinguishes different intonations of the same chord.

Ok, quick browsing doesn’t answer much except that I see some confusion with (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note )the Numbered system for designating octave because annotation of say, a B5 could mean two different things: either it’s a B chord played in the 880 hz range or its a power chord…and from the chord notation I’ve seen it practically universally means the power chord. “Shorthand” notation using ’ to indicate octave, as in c’’ for the 880 frequency octave is problematic for the automatic transposition engines I’ve seen because they ignore lower case and then how can you differntiate between C’ and c’? Ok…answered my own there with google: C’ and c’ outspan the range of a guitar so it would not be a problem. From what I read at the moment it seems that the four octaves of a guitar (using C) would employ the notation: C, c, c’, and c’’. Again, just now exporing this. So for the song right now:
C c c’
She broke down and let me in

Being the 1st C (032010), the 2nd c [octave wise I see error with my line of thought because the “second” c (335553) uses the same root so it’s NOT and octave higher though it uses three octaves of C notes…....so here I was trying to represent 032010, 335553, and 8,10,10,9,8,8 in the wrong context….

hmmm so if I used C=032010, c=........ugh confused…over analysing…all I want to do is put a C there with something attached to tell me WHICH ONE! and be something standard that is the “acceptable and proper way”...I guess I just gotta dig deeper or just go ahead and switch to standard music notation instead of letter notation. Or just learn the song well enough to go where I go by improvisation? I could just number my chords in colored text to indicate fret? Have the red number in front of the chord like:
1C 3C’ 8C
She broke down and let me in (imagine them red, this field does’t import color)

I dunno. I can see something like 3CMaj7/9 being a bit bulky to show. I’m beginning to think the answer is to not think so much into it. And start to work on standard notation…for which I don’t have any software, (always something to buy)...I could go old school, print the blank scores and use a pen.

Anyway, if you made it this far with me and know the answer, send me a link….this has taken too much practice time for no result.
Dammit! Gotta go to work.

For Practice, fill in the blanks.

Decided just a day ago that I was going to apply myself to the drudgery of learning the fretboard…Made a copy of a diagram and put it on my work clipboard and looked at it from time to time during the day making pencil notes etc. This morning I got up and started picking out note to note while looking at the diagram and the relationship became obvious. I then took a blank fretboard diagram that I had printed for practice and wrote in every note. Now to just train my fingers to jump without looking. Having memorized the major bar chords helped this happen so quickly…knowing the root on the 6th string, and understanding what it means to be tuned in 4ths. Feels like a giant leap. You can hardly see the picture above but you can copy it and enlarge it.

My fingers are learning, it just takes practice. My mind however can look ahead, that way when the fingers reach a new plateau, I’ve already got their next project queued up.

So point being, make a plan. All the info is out there, just a clic away. What’s the plan to get it and apply it?

At first, I just wanted to learn the chords, then scales, then a few techniques, all the while improving my sight reading with chord notation while developing picking patterns mainly by improvising based on melody line or audible rhythm.

At this point, I thought I would have something to bring to the table with lessons…why pay someone to show you the mundane and why bother them with things you can learn yourself.

I can certainly see the benefit of schedule and guidance but I just want to bring what I can in. Well, at this point, I’m discovering that by research, planning, and critical listening I can pretty much get the nuts and bolts of it myself. I still see the advantage of finding a teacher but the fact there are more things obtainable without having the expense of one makes me want to bring as much as I can gather and develop first on my own.

I practice daily, hours…study theory, browse topics in order to find out what comes next…and listen to guitar music attentively and repetitively to get a sense of the progressions, licks, etc. Discovering the ubiquity of Blues. Looking into how a simple tune can become a Hendrix frenzy. Combining Chords with scale walk ups/downs…

Next: Fretboard Knowledge, Fret by Fret, String by String, Scale by scale…Reading notes instead of chord notation…getting better at sight reading tabs, (nice shortcut but not the end game)...and just getting more and more, (incrementally) FLUID at it.

I just added this 43thing because I wasn’t really getting the vibe of mutual support and encouragement from the “Play Guitar” thing…I’d like some interchange with people that are DOING this. Dreaming is a beautiful thing and should be encouraged but I’ve had that dream for 30years and think it would help to share with others who hold the dream actively.

Someone asked for methods to get to know the fretboard, that’s right where I’m getting started. Googled a couple of sites that seem to help define my plan, perhaps it will be of use to some one else:

http://www.guitar-lessons.us/Fretboard.pdf

http://www.absolutefretboard.com/aft/method.htm