7th Chords and the Muppets.

So you’ve confused Dominant 7 chords with major 7 chords? You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last and more importantly you are here reading this so you won’t do it again… So lets get our thinking head on and sort out this little problem you have..

Firstly we need to have a look at a scale, this scale is the major scale.

Lets use C because it has no sharps or flats and more importantly I like it.

The scale contains 7 different notes, lets count them in the style of the count from Sesame Street…

C 1.. ya ha ha

D 2 ya ha ha

E 3 ya ha ha

F 4 ya ha ha

G 5 ya ha ha

A 6 ya ha ha

B 7 yah ha ha aha aha

Alright enough of that.

CDEFGAB are our notes. Lets keep the numerical values for them as ably supplied by our puppet friend ( wait til I start doing Swedish chef.. I am ace at him).

A standard major triad consists of the 1, 3, 5 notes.  So in this instance C E G. Play a C chord see which notes you are playing.. if you are playing it correctly you will see those notes.  If you don’t..you need to play it correctly and don’t make me send Oscar the grouch round..

Now if we add the 7th note of the scale, we find we have a B added on.  This note has come from the MAJOR scale and thus is a MAJOR 7. This makes a MAJOR 7 chord.  In order to make a 7 chord, a 7 chord is the short way of saying a Dominant 7 chord.  This chord contains a flattened 7th note, or b7. A B that is flattened is unlikely to make honey, I mean a B that is flattened is a Bb. Add that to your basic C chord and listen to the difference in the sound. To my ear Cmaj7 sounds like of lounge bar jazz, you may have a different image for it, C Dom7 or just C7 as it is known has a dirtier grittier sound to it, sounds like the bluesy rock of a texan bar, or  the kind of girl you like but would never take home to mum..

Now as an exercise try this difference with all the major chords you know. Hopefully there are 12.  To work out the 7th note may take you a little time to begin with but it is an invaluable lesson and information that you will use continually from now on it. It will also help you with soloing, and as we all know, being great at solos will bring top models to your door demanding your body.. and they pay for the privilege. ( ok maybe Miss Piggy.. )

The most important thing here are you understand how you added the note to the basic chord and you can HEAR the difference between the 2 types of chord.  Spend some time just doing that, it will be time well spent in the long run

This blog was brought to by the Letter C and the number 7 …  I’m off for some cookies…

New Rock Guitar Grades Available to be taught

 

 

So the RGT of which I am a long time member have created a series of Rock Guitar Grades.
So lets have a look at what they entail.
Firstly they can be taken in 1 of 2 forms, firstly as a full Grade involving, scales, chord and aural knowledge, plus performance. Alternatively they can just be taken in performance, and these performances can be done in one of 3 ways. Live in an exam, recorded on Video or audio recording.
These last 2 options I like, as I know a lot of students are hesitant to go to an exam centre and to play in public. This is something that they can get round by recording with myself and then submitting. The performance however does have to be of an excellent standard as there is the potential for editing and pasting in this method.

So what are the performance pieces that are recommended?
For Grade 1
Sunshine of your Love
Smoke on the Water
Smells Like Teen Spirit

Grade 2
Day Tripper
Wonderful Tonight
Should I stay or should I go

Grade 3

All Right Now
Paranoid
Pinball wizard

Grade 4

Layla
All Along the Watchtower
Sweet Home Alabama
Walk this way

Grade 5

The boys are back in town
Sweet Child Of mine
Under the Bridge
Always with me, Always with you

Grade 6
Albatross
Parisienne Walkways
Crazy Train
You really got me -Van Halen version
Toxicity
Justin

Grade 7

Stairway to heaven
Samba pa ti
The Trooper
Private Investigations
Seek and Destroy

Grade 8
Savoy
Satch Boogie
Spirit of Radio
Bat Country
Frank

The part I think where most will breathe a sigh of relief is that the riffs and melodies are to be played as per the records but the solos are can be done as the student chooses, in keeping with the tune.

 

 

What do I think?

 

Well, as a number of these tunes I teach as a matter of course I think they are excellent choices. I think the performance grade idea means that few people have any excuse to not try a grade now.  Even if they just do the recording and submit that.

The tunes have to be played over the RGT’s backing tracks which is a little bit of a pain as that means purchasing their arrangements, but it’s not the end of the world.

The exam fees are

Preliminary Grade	£34.70
Grade 1	£39.70
Grade 2	£44.70
Grade 3	£48.70
Grade 4	£51.70
Grade 5	£54.70
Grade 6	£59.70
Grade 7	£64.70
Grade 8	£72.70

Realistically these are very good exam prices, as I have taken exams in other subjects and the exam fees are much more.  Grade 8 passed at distinction level is worth 75 UCAS points which is about a C grade A level. So if you needed to boost your points for Uni, well this is a good way.

So all in all, I’m impressed and strongly suggest that you get in touch and we start your journey now.

www.southamptonguitarist.co.uk

 

So,

Still learning.

So I’ve been busy for a while and haven’t blogged here much.
The reason? I’ve recently been rehearsing and doing a tour with 70′s legend Mr Alan Merrill. For those that can’t quite place the name, Alan was the main man in the 70′s band The Arrows.  They had their own TV show and were repeatedly on Top of the Pops and the likes.

and probably the tune you know the best would this one he wrote

 

He has also been in Meatloaf’s band

and Rick Derringer’s band

 

So I have been busy playing with Alan, Dave Glover ex BC Sweet, Slade and various other bands, and my good friend and drummer Kyle Fenton http://kylefenton.co.uk/index.htm

This has been an educational experience for me, getting to play with someone who has played not only with huge stars but has been a huge star himself in this country, the USA and Japan, to name three. Working with top quality musicians is always fun as you learn so much from just being around them.  Even after 30 years of playing I am still learning and picking up on new things to me.

Playing Alan’s material required a different approach from what I have been doing in recent years, where most people will know me for playing heavy rock with rather ostentatious guitar solos. For this short sharp solo’s and lots of rhythm stuff. More of a Keith Richards/Paul Kossoff vibe as opposed to my usual Gary Moore meets Joe Satriani face melting.  A different kind of tone for the guitar. For the tour I played my 1960 Les Paul and A Cornford Mk50 with just a smidge of reverb added. Possibly the driest I have ever played guitar. I am a fan of chorus and wah to accentuate the mids. The amp was pretty much on the cleaner channel most of the time, except for perhaps 2 songs that were more rock driven.  This change of tone, as I often find, requires a different way of playing, my usual legato leads are out of the window and more rock n roll style is required.

A thoroughly enjoyable experience and one that I learnt from and will continue to learn from.

 

 

So here are a couple of live videos from the tour.  Please be kind about my shirt.  I shall be moonlighting as a mobile DJ available for weddings and wakes.

Exercise of the day

Here is the exercise of the day for F# major. Ascending and descending in one position. See if you can add this in to your practice routine.

3rds scale

click link for TAB of exercise.

Weigh things up

So to weigh things you need scales.
So here are a bunch of scales in A for the practice routines.

Bare in mind you need to commit these patterns to memory and be able to play them in anyone of 12 keys.

So to make it a bite size challenge here are 2 scale types.

If you’d like more, well my contact details are easy to find.

Click the pics to enlarge and print off.

Remember the practice routine of playing the shapes ascending and descending.  Then join the shapes together ascending and descending alternatively.

Metronome, cleanly and fluently.

….now go and practice

…..and go and practice. Often heard words falling from an instructors lips. What exactly does that mean?

Well the dictionary defines practice as;

to perform or do habitually or usually: to practice a strict regimen.

to follow or observe habitually or customarily: to practice one’s religion.

to exercise or pursue as a profession, art, or occupation: to practice law.

to perform or do repeatedly in order to acquire skill or proficiency: to practice the violin.

to train or drill (a person, animal, etc.) in something in order to give proficiency.

Well it is easy to form habits for practice, alas for many these are bad habits at worse and ineffective at best.

So here is a way of looking at practice that I have been using for several decades now that may help you to become more efficient and adept.

As with most things in this life, planning is the key.

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”.

So with this in mind, I set about an made myself a schedule and charted out everything I was intending to learn. A teacher will help you with this as they should have already set off down the path you are hoping to tread and will know what is relevant to your journey. For the most part you will need to elements of technique and elements of harmonic and rhythmic understanding. In plain English, the notes in scale and chord forms and how to play them canorously.

Firstly, understand the periods of time you have set aside for practice. At my most intense, I was practicing in the region of 8 hours a day.  This wasn’t solidly and without break. My time was broken down in to bite sized practice zones.  I am aware that my personal attention span hovers around the 8 minute mark. This will fluctuate dependant upon temperature, lighting, environment and motivation. Knowing this allows me to divide my time effectively. How will you know your times? Experience will be the biggest factor, but to start with give yourself 5 mins. Have a timing device, many apps are available for such things. Set the timer for 5 mins, start an exercise and see if you are still concentrating at the end. If your concentration lapses before the 5 mins expires, see what the time elapsed is at that point. This will give you a good indication as where your attention span is at present.

With this now understood, we move on to the areas of practice.

I generally have 6 areas.

• Chords
• Scales
• Rhythms
• Single note Study
• Improvisation
• Reading

For the purposes of this I am going to be practicing over a 1 hour duration.

I divide my hour by 6. That gives me 10 minute blocks. I am going to practice for 7 minutes at a time and give myself a 3 minute interval between each section. This gap is important. It allows you to prepare the next set of materials, have a sip of water/tea/absinthe and reset your timer.

I like to have all my materials to hand and ready to go. Again this harks back to preparation. If at this point you are thinking this is all a bit of a fuss, well possibly you aren’t as determined as I was to improve. As my role here is to educate and show how to improve, this is what I am doing. The motivation has to come from you.

It is important to find somewhere to practice where you are unlikely to be disturbed or distracted, unlike myself whilst writing this article, where I have had my partner trying to retype sections everytime I take a break.

For each of the chord and scale based sections I would randomly choose a key for the day. This was done by having 12 flashcards for each of the keys. I would randomly select one and that would be the key I would practice in for that day. This stops the propensity to only practice in your favourite key.

So lets take a run through to see how this all might pan out.

Key of  day is F#

• So firstly I take 7 minutes to play through F# chord types using the CAGED system.

So Major, minor, Major 7, Minor 7, Dominant 7, Min7b5, Diminished7 in every position available. These are played as fluent and cleanly as possible often to a metronome to insure changes are made in time. Once the 7 minutes has elapsed I stop. I make a note of how much I have done and then move onto the next section. Even if I was really enjoying myself I still stop. I can always come back at the end and do some more.

• Next up are the scales for F#.

Pentatonic minor, Pentatonic major, Blues, Major, Natural Minor, and off through the modes.

Again these are done to a metronome, ascending and descending and as clean and fluently as possible.

7 minutes elapses and on I move to the rhythm section.

• The Rhythm section for me is some chord progressions and changing between the chords in various real situations. These can be exercises I have prepared or actual tunes.
• The Single note section is a technical set of exercises or solo’s /licks to learn.
• Improvisation is where I play over a backing track/chord/drum pattern and try to use the previous bits of practice to make music on the spot.
• Reading, is as the name suggests, reading music, my time with the dots.

So each of these have taken up 7 minutes of my time. I have worked through the material I have prepared for each and have made a note as to how far I have completed the task, and at what tempos. I keep hold of this record as it allows me to know where to continue on from so as not to keep repeating the same material over and over.  Also it works well for having a look back over a couple of months to see the progression.

Here are some of the chords as diagrams to demonstrate the process that you can go through with 3 types of chords in 5 shapes.

Let me know what else you’d like to know about.

Thank you.

This week’s question

What grade am I?

Well there is a question that has been asked a fair few times in my career as a Guitar Teacher.
Well grades are quite involved exams. These days I generally deal with the RGT and Rockschool. I favour the RGT exams purely because I find that the knowledge required to pass one means that the player will be more rounded in my opinion.

Generally the student is asking a question to try and compare themselves against peers. Whilst this is natural for human nature, music is considered art in most quarters and thus is very hard to quantify. If a student was to start at a level and then progress through the grades they could use it as a good yardstick as to their progression as a guitarist.

A common comment is ” I can play what grade would that make me?
Well if you were taking the Rockschool Performance grades you could get an approximate answer, but with the established grades it isn’t a very good indicator.

Lets look at some requirements for a Grade 1.
Scales required are
C Major scale – 1 octave.
G Pentatonic Major scale – 1 octave.
E Blues scale – 1 octave.
‘Open’ scales of E Natural Minor, E Blues and G Pentatonic Major – 2 octaves.
‘Fretted’ scales of A Major and A Pentatonic Minor – 2 octaves

Chords

Major chords – C, D, E, G.
Minor chords – Am, Dm, Em.
Dominant 7th chords – A7, B7, E7.

Major chords – A, C, D, E, G.
Minor chords – Am, Dm, Em.
Dominant 7th chords – A7, B7, D7, E7.
Major 7th chords – AMaj7, CMaj7, DMaj7

Rhythm playing

Candidates will be given a chord progression to play containing chords selected
from  above. Time signature, tempo, (and from Grade 1 onwards) dynamics
and other indications may be marked, however the style of the performance will be
left to the candidate’s initiative

Lead Playing

The examiner will play a chord progression similar to that presented above. The candidate will be required to improvise over this, demonstrating the practical application of scales (and, where appropriate, arpeggios) from the scales above.

Spoken tests

Candidates may be asked questions relating to any of the topics listed below.
Knowledge of notes on the fingerboard  is a core requirement – particularly at earlier
grades.
Notes on the fingerboard
Anatomy, mechanism and basic techniques of the instrument.

Aural Tests

Repetition of rhythms.
Repetition of melodic phrases

As you can see this is a bit more involved than playing a tune you like well.  Whilst that is a perfectly legitimate thing to do and is definitely encouraged by myself. The grade takes into account the factor of do you actually understand the tune you are playing. Many students can play tunes parrot fashion verbatim from the tab they have acquired but many lack the ability to name the chords or recognise the scale that the licks are derived from.

A number of students will feel intimidated by the names of chords and scales and feel that they don’t understand “theory”.   Fear of the unknown is a common trait, but really there is nothing to fear and everything to gain from embracing then information and pushing on through to a greater understanding.

See if you can manage the scale and chord requirements above for a grade 1 and I’d be interested to know how many out there can do it without using reference guides for the answer.

 

Have fun.

My Top Guitar Moments.

Here is a list of my favourite guitar moments. Because this is my list it is 100% correct in my belief. If you have a different list, that is great but it can’t mean my list is wrong as it is MY list. Just to make that perfectly clear. My may not agree with my choices, but that does not make them wrong for MY list.

1 The Loner Live

The pinnacle in emotive soloing.

2 If there was a time.

Just adore that solo.

3 Don’t look down

I think I only learnt 1-2 Alan Murphy solo’s but you can hear them in nearly everything I do.

4 Help The Poor

Just love the phrasing and the note choices.

5 Hot Dog and a Shake

I just love the stop part.

6 Party in Simon’s Pants

So good it needs 2 parts. I could pick every Lukather solo, but this is pretty damn good

7 Love welcome Home

Love the opening note of the solo. Sends shivers up my spine. Again I could have picked any Dann Huff moment

8 It was only yesterday

I love the studio version. Have gigged it a few times.

9 2 Rivers

Learnt to play this when it came out. Love it.

10 It’s a monster

This was the lick that got me string skipping.

11 Superstitious

One of the best constructed solos to my mind. I also auditioned for Kee Marcello’s solo band, got damn close as well.

12 Halfway to Heaven

Another great solo from Kee. Damn I wanted that gig.

13 Blood on Blood

Loved playing this one with the Bon Jovi tribute.

14 Nessun Dorma

Its Jeff Beck… of course it’s brilliant.

15 Cry for you

Andy Timmons is just superb

16 Cryin

One of the few Malmsteen tunes I really like.

17 Headed for a Heartbreak

REB!

18 Crying in the Rain

Played this many times and it is a great solo.

19 Black Light Machine

I think Mr Mitchell’s playing on this is great

20 Shapes of Things

My jaw still drops.

Lick of the day