Learn to play the guitar

I’ve mentioned before about how an ipod is a great tool and inspiration to play and it was reinforced by my arm strap breaking and going tuneless at work for a week. There was a notable difference in the motivation to play when I got home and when I got a new one and plugged back in, so to speak, listening all day kept the music at the forefront of my mind and I came to practice time much more motivated, and focused on what it was I wanted to work on.

Maintaining motivation is key. Learning to play takes many many hours; it takes re-affirmation, fresh challenges, incremental goals, and a continual feeding of your love for music.

(warning, analytical BS to follow)

From another angle, it has been determined that:

“Monkeys experience octave equivalency, and its biological basis apparently is an octave mapping of neurons in the auditory thalamus of the mammalian brain [1] and the perception of octave equivalency in self-organizing neural networks can form through exposure to pitched notes, without any tutoring, this being derived from the acoustical structure of those notes (Bharucha 2003, cited in Fineberg 2006).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave

The reason I cite this is back-up for a suggestion that exposure to music with critical listening skills suggests its structure to the mind, laying out the patterns and possibilities of the musical instrument and self organizing….we ARE “self organizing neural networks”. All the complex stuff that blows our minds was at some point made up by human beings,(ostensibly less complex than we have become), in order to describe music. We take for granted the processes by which we have learned speech, typing, driving etc. and somehow feel that the complexities of music are beyond our grasp, when it really surrounds us and permeates our existence. (gettin’ deep in BS now).

ok simply put: Music IS, all the notation and what-not are our tools to describe and communicate what IS. My approach to self instruction began with chords and chord letter notation and I notice that the changes, the movements between the chords is the greater part, the part unwritten,(by chord notation), which leads to scale/chord/octave/inversions/harmonics/improvisation,etc, not to mention a growing fluency with the notes on the fretboard, tab notation, standard notation, chord theory, scale structure. No matter where you begin, each aspect is integral to the rest.
We divide up and annotate the music but that’s just for our point of reference, on a guitar, it’s pretty much modulation of the 440 hertz frequency range. But first, you gotta train your fingers to go where you want them to, to the point where you can think about where the music is going and not your hands. I’m not there yet, but have caught a glimpse and want to go there.

It all begins with listening.

The book is Zen Guitar.
This is not an instruction book but rather a motivational one. It’s been a lot of help to me in getting focused and pressing on. They’ve got a website and a sort of Club thing going on but I didn’t really get much out of the site.

Saw an offer for Sony Music Studio software on Guitar Center’s Christmas catalog, after rebate, it’s FREE.

Guitar Center Catalog:

http://gc.guitarcenter.com/view-our-catalog/guides/guitars_dec08.pdf

Sony Music Studio Site:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/musicstudio

A note about the difference between acoustic and electric. On the left hand, the fret hand, the acoustic is more physical while on the right hand the electric gives me nowhere to rest the pick/right arm is giving me serious inflammation in the forearm. Chalk it up to growing pains. Got over the fret-hand training long ago but the electric is new so working new zone. It could be the 10 hours of practice too…ouch. Heating pad, motrin, wrap…then back to it….well, maybe it’s a good time to study theory.

The farther you get, the more you play, and then you go farther and the more you play. The “warning” here is about friends and family. They will see it as wasted time, or worse, time stolen from them. They will not be able to grasp that “good enough is not good enough”. This takes time, dedication, perseverence, patience…I swear the effort I’ve put toward this in about 3 years has exceeded anything I’ve ever done, college, military, business. I get a sense that many other things are possible from having made the effort and achieved level after level of incremental success. It’s getting to the point that I gotta take it out of the house. Have all along been transposing, editing and compiling and putting together a pretty huge library of songs. Wish I had a warehouse or a studio somewhere but I guess it’s gonna be the park or the beach.

This picture: I suddenly noticed I had 5 guitars in the house.
It’s not really THAT bad:
The classical,(upper on left)is my wife’s, an heirloom that got me started, but I wasn’t allowed to leave it out or spill coffee on it…you get the picture..that one lives in deep storage.
The acoustic, (front left) has been my learning tool for almost three years..Tyler Mountain, $100, nothing fancy, no cut out, no electrics, no frills student guitar.
The white one there is the First Act 222,(whatabargain),my new and current workhorse and introduction to playing electric, note the little amp under the laptop table.
The one I’m holding, my neighbor loaned to me cause he said it was just collecting rust and dust,and someone might as well play it. It’s a Peavy Predator plus SV7, seven string electric…a little weird to play and I’m not quite sure what to do with the extra low string,(?), will figure it out eventually. That one retails new for $300 and I’ve seen em go for $50-$200 used on the web, looks cool, less frets, more bass note.
The one on the right is just a prop, It’s a 197?, made in japan,(no brand), Probably a K-mart or Sears thing with a bent neck, ancient hardware and something that rattles inside…missing whammy bar. Probably belongs in the trash.
And that leaves the rollout keyboard…never gets turned on, it’s just nice to have a keyboard layout for reference.

So I REALLY only have two, both of which get played daily, days which need more hours…been at it about 7 hours today…learning curve going electric…no way through but to wrap the arm and keep picking.

I’ve put in serious time over the last two years with my acoustic and I finally got an electric. It’s just one of those department store kits but I can’t afford a “good one”. I wanted to at least know my way around one when I can get my hands on a good one, and, apparently, I already have a good idea what to do. I brought it home, tuned up, plugged in and jammed some blues and some U2 for a couple of hours. Really enjoying having all the extra frets, the sustain on the scale runs, the bends, the ringing harmonics…

I just wanted to give out some encouragement by saying that you don’t have to be competitive with the quality of your instrument, you just have to PLAY. Don’t get wrapped up in the “best” and the expense of all the bells and whistles and let it hold you back…just PLAY, and LEARN, the rest will come, and if it doesn’t, you haven’t pissed away a lot of money. I remember my first car, my first motorcycle, my first computer…it was enough to drive, to ride, or to surf, and with the guitar, it’s enough for now to PLAY.

I’ll get something more elaborate when it will pay for itself.

I recently discovered “Second Life” and am interested in getting the audio peripherals for my guitar/computer interface in order to play and practice in the VR setting. Why? Well, I thought it might be a good way to play for and with others for mutual encouragement and to help me make the transition to performance. I’m still a bit tethered to reading the music and I feel I need input on putting together a repertoir. Most of all, I would like to connect with others who are learning since my real-world peeps aren’t so into it.

I’ve noticed an improvement in my playing over the last week and I am not sure what the difference is, I’ll just mark it up to practice paying off. Transitions are more smooth and natural, timing improved, fill in automatic.

I was talking to my wife about what I’ve learned and what I have yet to master. Usually she just glazes over and nods or whatever, but I mentioned something critical about my playing being not quite up to average and she said no, it’s sounding better than average now. That was a big compliment for me, as I have pretty much learned in the vacuum of an audience and peer group of just me. We go to bars where there’s the one guy on guitar and listening, I’m not feeling as far away from really being a guitar player. I think I am approaching a point where I can play with other people and not feel inadequate or amateurish. It’s a great sense of acomplishment.
I told my wife that when someone compliments my playing in the future she should always tell them that I worked my ass off to get there…this is my encouragement to those like me who have heard all their life that music is something you’re born with or not. I came from a very work-ethic, pragmatic family where music and the arts were presented as something frivilous that other people did. Barring tone-deafness, I think that these are gross misconceptions, the belief in them deprives both the individual and the world of music. How many are out there who COULD be good who never pick it up because it is made to seem cryptic or esoteric? It takes work, dedication, patience, love and PRACTICE, but it is most certainly LEARNABLE.

Let’s see…know all the chords, can identify every note on the fretboard, have studied chord theory enought to know my way around notation, can read tabs and chord notation and can just enjoy playing while sight reading vs. squinting and figuring-out. I’d say I have learned how. I have integrated it into my life fully…I actually play too much, ask my wife. I will STILL play too much, and I will still continue to learn and grow with it…its a lifetime thing. Cheers!