Pentatonics Strike Back Part 5.

So here we have some more training for you although a trip to Dagobah is not necessary, just pick up your guitar and use the force, or something.

So lets have a looky here at 5 shapes of the pentatonic minor…all in A, why? Do not question Master Yoda, I might be green but I do Vodafone adverts and can buy your ass.

As you can see from the diagram we have 5 shapes.  Each one of these has a referencing chord shape to it.  Try to see those shapes inside the scales.  Use the force if you have to.

Now the eagle eyed amongst you might notice that they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle across the neck.  Those that didn’t… have another look  they do they do I hear you cry, Oh My God, it’s like well epic and dat.

So how are you going to learn this stuff? Magic of course, by magic I mean practice. Think of it as magic practice, yes that’s it., magic practice.   So how will this new magic take its form?  Well clearly we use the force and if we remember correctly Luke Skywalker had to do lots of practice in order to please Master Yoda.  Well I’m the same, except a lot taller and far less green.

So to the practice.  Break this scale down into small sections. Take 1 shape of the 5, and then just take 2 strings of that shape and just play the notes,  bend some, hammer on, pull off, slide back and forth, just play and listen.  Ideally in context, so by this I mean take an A minor chord and play over it, or a backing track that is A minor, just something so you can hear the notes in the real world. Once you are happy with that add another string. Play…. and so on until you have all six strings on the go and feel happy that you can remember the shape and the notes.

Now repeat this for the other 4 shapes.  This may take some time. That is fine, you want to do this properly don’t you? Become a proper guitar wielding Jedi?

So now some time later you have returned and are now armed with 5 shapes, lets see if you can join 2 together.

This putting together of 2 shapes, then another 2 and so on until all 5 are joined will allow you to cover the entire neck.  Trying to do the neck all in one is akin to trying to eat an entire buffet in one mouthful, yes you’ll have a go, but ultimately most of it won’t go in and you’ll end up being fat and very sick, unless you are Jabba of course.

 

So this is your quest for now… unless you want to going back to blasting womp rats.

 

Be aware this exercise is going to expand and expand so keep your eyes peeled here and subscribe to keep up to date.

 

 

 

Pentatonic Scales.

Pentatonic scales are wonderful things. No really they are. Firstly the name alone is cool.. Pent a tonic. Almost sounds like some cool cocktail all the hip dudes drink. “Make mine a Penta Tonic with plenty of rocks.”

So what is it?  Well lets look at the name again.. Penta  meaning five, and tonic meaning tones or notes.  So 5 notes. A 5 note scale. 5 whole notes of deep joy and sexiness.

This is the type of scale that most guitarists start with, for a couple of reasons, firstly, it pretty easy to remember and play the fingering, and it sounds damn good.

Lets examine the minor pentatonic first, why? Cos I said so and I’m writing this.  Most guitar players through the ages have started on the minor pentatonic and it hasn’t hurt or stopped them at all.  In this instance I have put the scale in the key of A , because it’s alphabetically the first and I reckon you might know a 12 bar in A and if you don’t you soon will. An once you do you can join Status Quo.  ( Hides from Quo fans ).

The notes are A C D E G.  Of these 5 notes 4 of them create an A minor 7 chord.  A C E G.  So if we were to play an A minor pentatonic scale over the top of an A minor 7 chord well 4/5 of the notes would be excellent choices.  They would be excellent choices because you can’t really play better notes over a chord than the notes that are in it.  They are as safe as they can be, a notes that is in the chord can’t clash with the chord.   So what we have is a very safe scale. The pattern is pretty straight forward to learn in the shape most people learn to begin with.  Requiring essentially 2 fingers on each string and plenty of potential for bending.  So this is the minor pentatonic.  There are others…

Well there has to be, we have 12 different notes available and many combinations of 5 can be made from those 12, so lets have a look at a few of these.  There are some corking names coming as well.

Next point of call is the A Major Pentatonic scale.  This has a different set of notes from A minor, it has to otherwise why would it have a different name or need to exist?   A B C# E F#.  This gives us an A major chord A C# E.   Again, we can play the notes in the chord and they will sound spot on.   Can you spot a thread running here?

Just a little point at this time… all of these scales you need to play. You need to hear them and then hear them in context.

So play over an A minor chord with the minor pentatonic and an A Major chord for the Major Pentatonic.

Next up something you might not have come across. The Egyptian pentatonic scale.  What is the formula here?  1 2 4 5 b7 .  So neither major or minor, more of a suspended dominant 7 kind of sound.   So find a chord with a b7 and see how this sounds against it.  I like this scale, as it brings some nice extensions to the party and works in a few contexts as it is a bit ambiguous.  To my mind I don’t hear anything Egyptian at all, but you might..

Next please… Man Gong pentatonic scale, yup told ya the names would get good.  You know the drill.. what’s the formula here?  1 b3 4 b6 b7 .  Cool so… is it major or minor? I hope you said minor or I shall have to make you listen to me singing for a week…  No 5th so this could work with min7 b5 chords as well.  Try it.. have a listen. Explore.

Who fancies a Kumoi scale?  Easy on the chilli’s you say?  Something like that.. Formula please nurse..  1 2 b3 5 b6. Well this is a fun one, essentially minor with a 9 or a flat 13 lobbed in.  So you know the drill.. PLAY IT!

 

I’ve popped 2 more scales on the diagram for you to explore, the Indian Pentatonic and the Ritusen scale.  You know what to do now, explore these, have a listen, hear what you can, discover what you think and feel about them.  These offer something different to just major or minor pentatonics but still you are only playing 5 different notes.

 

The joy of only having 5 different notes are you aren’t continually trying to remember lots of notes, although 7 isn’t really that many more is it?

 

Enjoy and feel free to ask as many questions as you like…

 

 

 

Listen (Shhhh) to what the flower people say (Ahhhh) Listen, it’s getting truer every day

The great Spinal Tap with sage advice.

So a while a go a very good guitar player came to me. He had a request to learn something. He was a good jazz based player and was teaching for a well known music tuition group.  His request was to learn to play “rock solos”.  He was proficient at jazz style and clearly loved to do that.   I asked him so who do you listen to ?  He reeled off a list of superb jazz based players and not once was a rock player mentioned.    OK so what rock music do you like? He said well I don’t really like it.

The answer seemed simple listen to some rock.  I gave him a suggested listening list. I find study those that you believe to be excellent, learn from that excellence, try to get into the mindset of those players.

On his return I asked so what did you listen to from the list, the reply being, yeah some of it, but I don’t really like it. They aren’t as good as jazz players.

So the next question is, so why do you want to learn it?  Well I feel I should.

OK well if you aren’t drawn to it and inspired by it, chances are you aren’t going to bother to spend time learning it.

The listening as referred to in the title is a vital component of learning the guitar. Hearing and listening are two different things. I hear things on the radio, I don’t necessarily listen to it.  As you grew up you listened to your parents, family, teachers, and from this you learnt to talk, you developed a vocabulary and what ever accent you have.

If you want to learn a style of music, then that is what you need to listen to, internalising the sounds and then learning the mimicry allows you to absorb the tones and so forth.

An example would be , trying to learn a foreign language without hearing it spoken. Yes you can try to learn it from a book, but does it give you the pronunciation and inflictions? Rarely. They say the best way to learn a language is to live in teh country.

If the language you wish to learn is rock then go live in rock land, if you want to be fluent in country, live in country land, and so on.

This also applies to students starting out.  I have lost count of the number of younger students sent along , who upon being asked what they listen to either list monotone rap or say they don’t really listen to music.  Not really the best starting point, but workable.  Music is sound, it is not guitar hero  and matching coloured buttons to flashing lights on a tv screen.  You need to listen and interact with the sounds.  ( this may explain why I cannot play guitar hero for toffee) The whole premise makes no sense to me at all. My hands move as if synchronised to the sounds.  Notes go up my hands go up. How? These days I don’t know it is autopilot most of the time. The same way that if I asked you how do you breathe or walk, you’d reply I just do. My subconscious takes care of the guitar playing, the same place that is filled with all the music I’ve listened to.   Can you see a pattern here?

When learning sets for bands I make myself a playlist on my ipod and generally listen to nothing but those tunes until I feel I know every note as I listen to it.  This is especially true if it is tunes I had never heard before. This was the case recently when I learnt a set of tunes that I had heard one of before and the rest were completely new to me.  The first stage was listening to the songs until I was recognising all the sections. From then it just flows.  I once read that Steve Vai used to sleep with various tunes on headphones so he could absorb them as he slept.  There is a lot to be said on the power of the mind, but that is my other role in life and for a different blog..

So my answer and suggestion here is to LISTEN, really take time to listen to songs that are in the areas you want to explore and learn.

If you’d like to have a suggested listening guide for various styles please feel free to contact me and I’d be more than happy to make suggestions.

 

I wish you well.

 

Listen up

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.