Friday, March 22, 2019

Blog Post Submissions Are Welcome

Want to publish something in one of our blogs?

If you blog about teaching or learning music, or if you have a website about teaching music, learning a musical instrument, or any aspect of music theory, why don't you submit something for publishing in this blog.

It's a great way to get personal exposure as well as free promotion for your blog, website or music-related products or service.

 If you are interested Check It Out Here.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Learning to Read Music - Part 1 - Overview of the Staff

The musical staff is the basic framework for traditional music notation. The staff consists of a series of five parallel lines. The sequence of musical notes that make up a song are then placed along these lines. The two dimensions represented on the staff are pitch and time.



Pitch - whether a note sounds "high" or "low" - is represented by placing notes higher or lower in the series of staff lines.
Each line and space between the lines represents a specific note position. An oval shaped note under line 1 is understood as D. A note on line 1 is E. And so on, until we get to E again in the top space, and F on the top line.










Time - There are actually two different components to the time dimension of music. Every piece of music has a beat which varies from song to song, and sometimes within the same song. This is called the tempo of the music.

 Get the FREE Course on Learning to Read MusicTempo is normally measured in terms of beats per minute (bpm), and is indicated at the very beginning of the first staff line of a composition. In our example the tempo is indicated as 80 beats per minute. And this tempo is maintained unless a different tempo is indicated.
The length or duration of individual notes is  measured with reference to that tempo. If a song has a tempo of 60 bpm, then each beat will be one second long (1/60th of a minute), and in 4/4 time, each quarter note will have a duration of one beat.
The notes placed along the staff therefore tell us three very different things about the sounds they represent. First, they tell us the pitch of the sound. Second, we are told how fast or slow the piece is to be played (its tempo). And third, we know from the shape of each note symbol how long that sound is to be held - the duration of each note or rest.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Sometimes Playing on Fewer Strings is Better

When I work with a new student who is learning guitar from scratch we first play 4 string versions of G, C and D because they are a bit easier to play. The fact is though, that these chords where you don't use all the strings may actually sound better than "full" chords in some cases.

For example a 4 or even 3 string version of D lets you highlight the higher strings. And an A (or even more commonly, a B chord) played on strings 4, 3 and 2 - where you don't play string 1, can sound perfectly adequate when used the right way.

Rock guitarists actually use two string combinations a lot. So-called "power chords" are 2 string chords played on the lower strings like the well known riff from "Smoke on the Water".  And "double stops" are two string combinations played on the higher strings (a la Chuck Berry).

The bottom line is that a "chord" is not always played by strumming across all six strings. To get the best sounding string combinations you need to strike the most appropriate strings.

Thursday, February 7, 2019

How to Hold the Guitar

When seated, hold the guitar so you are not hunched over. The neck should be tilted upwards slightly to make it easier to reach all six strings with your hand that does the fingering (usually your left hand). For more info and simple guitar playing tips see Guitar Coach

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Learning the Most Important Notes

Many "learn the fretboard" exercises begin by suggesting you learn each note (A, B, etc.) on all six strings.

I sincerely doubt this is the way most accomplished guitar players learn the fretboard.

This method may be helpful to give you some initial feel for note positions. But when it is divorced from playing the notes in songs and exercises, you will inevitably forget the positions. And simply being able to recite "A is at D7", for example, will probably not help much when you are in the heat of the battle (i.e., when you're playing.)

Of course, eventually if you repeat "A is at D7" often enough you will look at D7 and think, "That's an A isn't it!" But just think about it for a minute. You have learned that C is at B1, like most guitar players who've gotten past the first month or so, because you've played it a thousand times.

Either you've played it in the kind of simple songs we all begin with (Ode to Joy!), or as the root of the C chord we all learn to play in our first couple of practice sessions.

And, by the same token, when you look at G3 you probably don't automatically think Bb. Why? Because that particular note has not been drummed into you as a point of reference (like G at E3, or C at A3, or C at B1.) And that's because beginning guitar players don't often play in keys that use Bb.

In order to learn them you must play them

So, after many attempts to come up with a "system" for learning the fretboard, I've come to the conclusion that the only lasting way to learn notes is to USE THEM - TO PLAY THEM - either in exercises, and even more effectively, in actual songs.

As I've said in other places, this almost inevitably means you will have to learn to read music. At this stage you shouldn't be surprised to hear that, since the impetus to learn the names of notes comes from the attempt to understand how the fretboard works. You've already pretty much bought into the traditional system by worrying about note names.

The Most Important Notes

The most important notes will be the ones you play the most and the ones that serve as a reference for others you use in your playing. For example, if you do a lot of playing in the keys of C, D and G, (as most beginning players do), those root notes (C, D, G) will be very important.

Chances are you already know them. And if not your first task should be to learn where these notes are in Section 1 of the fretboard (frets 0 -5).

C is at A3, G5 and B1
D is at D0, A5, and B3
G is at E3, G0, D5, and E3

Here are some exercises and songs to help learn these note positions.

Once you learn these note positions you should expand your repertoire of notes to include the rest of Section 1.

You could begin by adding E and A ..... and then F and Bb:


E is at E0, D2 , B5, and E1
A is at E5, A0, G2, and E1

F is at E1, D3, and E1
Bb is at A1 and G3

Here are exercises that focuses on these note positions.

We'll continue this conversation in the next post...