Articles, Blog
Major Scale Pattern 1: Basic Improvisation – How to Play Guitar – Stage 2 Guitar Lesson [IM-123]
November 29, 2019
Hi, how you doing? Justin here.
Welcome to IM-123, which we’re going to be starting a look
at major scale improvisation. And we’re going to be using the G Major scale. Which I’m hoping you’ve kind of
got under your fingers now. and you’re okay playing it
up and down from memory. It’s important that you’re there
before we start on doing this. And what we’re going to be doing is looking at using this scale
to make up some little solos. And what I’m going to do is
go through some of the hints with you, and then I’ll kind of demonstrate them
to a backing track. Now, I’ve just mentioned it :
backing track! Very, very important that you practice this stuff
with either a backing track, a jam buddy, or you record yourself playing
some chords and solo over the top. I think, really, using a backing track
is a good idea at this stage. Jamming with your mates
is always a good fun thing but, at this time, I really think
it might be better to be on your own where you’re not afraid of making mistakes
and you can kind of concentrate and kind of figure out the sounds on your own. So using a backing track is a good idea. There’s a free one on the website if you’re already on the website, it’ll be just below
or just about this video thing. And what I want to do
is take you through some tips now. So, the first and most important thing,
when you’re improvising with scales in general, is that you need to stick to the scale notes. Particularly with this kind of major scale soloing. If you hit any notes that aren’t in the major scale, it’s very likely they will sound pretty horrible. Now, occasionally, you might find
one that sounds cool or be able to sneak one
in between two other notes but as an exercise for now,
while you’re learning to improvise with the major scale try and stick only, ONLY to scale tones. Second hint: you mainly want
to stick on the thinnest strings. You can make a great solo
using the thick strings, there’s no problem with doing that, but, just when you’re starting out, it’s usually easier to use the thin strings because they kind of sound
a little bit more like a solo if that makes sense. Less like a riff and more like a lead. They don’t tend to get mixed up in the chords. That’s the problem with the low notes, they tend to get a bit muddily
with the rhythm guitar or the backing track. So if you stick to the thinnest strings, then they seem to set themselves aside
a little bit better. So, generally, thinnest strings. Explore the other ones if you like,
just to check it out, but mainly you want
to be sticking to the thinnest strings. Next thing : use the play/rest approach. And what the play/rest approach is all about is kind of using punctuation when you play because if someone is talking to you, if I’m trying to explain this
and I didn’t stop at all, no little pauses in what I’m saying,
no full stops or commas, it would be really difficult to understand
what I was saying. And it’s the same with improvising. You want to get in the habit
right from the beginning of ‘play a little bit’, ‘stop a little bit’,
‘play a little bit’, ‘stop a little bit’. Now the advantage
when you’re learning, of course, is that it gives you time
to think about what you’re doing. To, you know,
have the picture of the scale in your mind and making sure
that your fingers are there. Maybe even think about what the notes are
that you’re going to play before you play them. That’s cool!
You’re learning, that’s allowed. Later on you want to be all effortless
and free and not thinking about it but right now, if you’re learning it,
think about the scale, think about the notes that you can play
and use them. You know : “What am I going to play?
Oh yeah I might try that.” Do it! “Oh, that didn’t sound very good,
maybe I’ll try this instead.” You know, you’ve got lots of time then
to think about it. There’s no rush with the improvising. You know, it’s all about being relaxed with it and using the idea of play/rest/play/rest/etc
gives you that space. Space in the head and space in the music.
It’s a really, really good idea. Now, leading on from that the next tip
is to stay simple. Don’t try and make things too complicated yet,
you’re just learning. Just be cool with kind of exploring
what the different notes of the scale sound like. How they kind of react with the changes cause if the chords are changing
in the backing track the one note that you’re playing
will sound different so just keep things really simple. Don’t be in a hurry to try and do anything
too flashy or too clever, just look for a nice really simple little melody. That’s the most important thing. And while we’re on that, again, another leading straight between these different points
is repeating licks. Now when people are talking, when they start talking about the same thing
over and over again then it seems to help it sink in better
and it’s the same when you’re improvising. If you have a little idea that you play and then you play the same idea again
while the chords keep changing in the background, it sounds strong, it sounds good. It adds a new color to what you’re doing
and reinforces the idea to the listener. So don’t be afraid of playing
making up a little lick or a little pattern, and then playing it over and over again. You know, here you play it,
have a little rest, play it, have a little rest,
and see what the effect is. Sometimes it can sound cool
to play a little repeating figure that goes over and over again
without stopping while the chords change. That can be an interesting little thing. Now, I mentioned earlier on,
if you’re by yourself a really, really cool thing
that you can do is to explore. You know, you’re on your own,
you’re learning this stuff so there’s no limit here. Try doing solos only on the thick strings. Try jumping from the thinnest strings
to the thickest strings and back again or whatever.
There’s no rules here. So long as you hit the scale ‘dots’, if you like,
the notes of the scale, and you don’t hit other notes,
it’s going to be interesting, right? Notice the word ‘interesting’. It might not be brilliant,
but it will be interesting and it shouldn’t sound, you know,
horrible, like out of tune. It just might not sound maybe the most melodic,
nicest solo you’ve ever heard if you’re jumping from : . . . It might sound a little bit funny but, you know, we’ll get to that cause I’m going to do
some little examples in a second. And the most important thing, I’ve left until last so it stays in your memory,
is to listen. Now what you’re really listening for
is the effect of the note that you’re playing and the backing track. To the whole thing together.
Don’t just listen to what you’re doing cause then you kind of,
you’re not getting the whole picture because somebody that’s listening
is listening to your guitar on the backing track. It’s the effect of those things together
that’s really important. Not just one of the things. So as you’re playing try and let your ears
be listening to the whole thing, the whole sound, the sound of your instrument playing
against the backing track. That’s really what you’re listening out for. And with the major scale
it’s a lot about listening and if you find yourself on a note
that doesn’t sound very good, move to either one note higher
or one note lower and you’re going to end up on a note
that sounds really good. It’s a weird thing with this major scale. You’re only ever one step away
from a good note. So if you choose one note
that doesn’t sound great, move to the next note,
and it’ll probably sound really good. So I’m gonna put on
the G Major backing track now and I’m going to run through these little points
with you again but with a little bit of playing as well
so you can hear what I’m talking about. Okay, let’s try out these ideas
that I’ve just mentioned to you. So first of all we just want scale notes. . . . These are all going to be good
while we’re sticking with the scale. . . . Whoops! . . . Oooops! . . . While you stay on the scale,
it’s all going to be good. . . . Ooops. Whoah, even worse.
Oh, that’s much better. . . . Now you’ll see that I’m mostly staying
on the thinnest three strings. . . . That doesn’t mean you can’t . . . But it sounds better up there. . . . Now, hopefully as well, you can see . . . that I play a bit and rest a bit. . . . Then you can repeat licks. . . . You can also explore! . . . This it the time to do it, now. Just to play around with what you’re gonna play. . . . It’s a really good fun. And of course,
I probably don’t need to remind you, but the big thing that you’re going to do while you’re doing all these exercises is LISTEN! Really, really important. Just keep your ears open
all the time while you’re playing. Make sure that you’re listening
to your own guitar and the backing track
or whoever you’re playing with and you’re listening to the effect that the notes that you play
have on the whole sound. And if you start to play some stuff
that doesn’t sound very good, don’t play it, play something else
and find something that sounds good. Don’t be in a hurry to play fast or anything. Just keep it nice and simple,
explore the notes. Don’t be expecting to be doing
blindingly great solos straight away because you’ve got to let your ears tune up,
you know. After you’ve been doing this a bit,
you start to find, your fingers kind of find where the nice notes are
without you even having to try. It’s almost like it becomes instinctive to find the right notes
rather than having to think about it too much. But right now you don’t have to think,
you’re just learning it. So, don’t be afraid of thinking
about what you’re doing, about looking at the notes,
thinking about the scale. Let all of that other stuff happen
by itself naturally. But in the beginning,
you’ve got to think of it. So I’ll leave you with me having a bit of a muck-around of this tune
or that backing track, you know. Feel free to have a go at nicking some licks
or whatever you feel like and I’ll see you for another lesson
sometime very, very soon. Take care of yourselves.
Bye bye.
Articles, Blog
Body Posture and Finger Placement Exercise (Guitar Lesson BC-106) Guitar for beginners
November 28, 2019
Hi, how are you doing? Justin here! Welcome to BC-106, where we’re going to be talking about body posture and fretting hand position, which would normally be your left hand but for left handed people that would be your right hand. So, first thing I want to talk about is just the general way you’re going to hold your guitar. Now, some of you may have seen classical guitar players, where they put their guitar over like this and have the guitar at an angle. It’s kind of weird because I’m sitting on the floor right now, but if you’re sitting on a seat and you’re sticking the guitar up like that, the neck pokes up in the air, right? Now, that method is not bad, well not bad, it’s very good for playing classical guitar, and it’s actually a very good position when you’re going to keep your hand very square to the neck and when you’re using fingerstyle to pluck the strings. For most rock and poppy sort of style guitar, which is what I’m doing in this course, that type of posture is not really very good. It’s very bad for strumming, it’s next to impossible to get your thumb over in a useful fashion, that’s a little bit more advanced than we’re going to cover in the beginners course, but there are quite a few problems with that as far as your kind of general pop and rock style guitar playing goes. So if you want to play a classical guitar, by all means get it over on that other knee, otherwise, your guitar should be sitting on the leg on the same side as your strumming hand. Right? That’s where it should be. It should be quite tight to your body,
don’t let it be slipping too far forward. Also, don’t be letting the guitar
point forward and falling over. Some people kind of bring the guitar up so they can see it and look at their hand. That’s a really, really bad habit. So make sure you’re keeping the guitar pointing up and down, tucked in at the back so it’s right up at the top of your leg where it joins your hip and it should be tight against your body. Now on an acoustic guitar, the top of your arm here will sit on top of the guitar, right where the elbow is, so the arm is kind of hanging down. I can completely relax like that, and it’s really steady. That’s how it should be. And the combination of the guitar being up against the back there
and your arm resting on it, keeps the guitar neck really steady. Because the one thing that you want to
be making sure you’re doing, whatever way you decide to play the guitar,
is that your fretting hand, the hand that’s going to make the chord shapes and stuff, the fretting hand is not supporting the guitar neck. It’s really, really, really important. The fretting hand does not support the guitar neck.
At all. Right? So, part of the combination here is
your arm resting on and kind of shoving the guitar a little bit that way,
kind of pulling it into your body a little bit, the fact that the shape of the guitar has this little area for your leg to go in, it helps keep it really steady
and it should be, not rock hard in this position but solid, because you don’t want the neck wobbling around while you’re trying to change chords. That’s just, that ain’t gonna happen. Right? So, really try and make sure that you’re keeping no support on the neck with your fretting hand and that it stays steady. Don’t let it be moving around too much. If it’s moving around a lot, you’re doing something wrong. So, reexamine your posture a little bit. Now, also make sure that you’re not hunching over like this. Particularly, I call it craning, when people are going like this to look over and see their fingers. You should be able to still tell a bit, even though you can’t see them right on, try not to spend too much time with your neck craned over, you will give yourself a sore neck. I don’t want to be responsible for any mega chiropractor bills and stuff that you get. That would generally suck. Okay, when it comes to wearing a strap, it’s a good idea, particularly if you play an electric guitar,
to use a guitar strap. Let me reach over here and grab an electric guitar. Now, of course you make sure you’ve got strap locks there. Now what I go for with my strap is, that the strap is almost in the same position as if I was standing up. So if I’m sitting up straight, the strap is pretty much tight. And if I go to stand up, the guitar
won’t really move much, right? I’m supporting it now, but it’s roughly in the same place when I’m sitting and when I’m standing. Because what you don’t want if you’re a beginner, you don’t want your guitar kind of
sitting up like this when you’re practicing, and then you go to stand up,
you’ve got your guitar at your knees. So, somebody like Slash say, plays with his guitar real low, right? So it’s halfway between his
groin and his knees, crazy. I don’t know how he plays like that, I can’t. But he obviously does and he plays
guitar awesome with the guitar that low. The danger with that when you’re starting out is that you have to have your wrist kind of bent in a funny way and that’s really not a good idea when you’re starting out. So, my recommendation would be to use a strap, have it at roughly the same height as when you’re sitting or standing. I don’t tend to use a strap too much when I’m actually sitting, but if you’re standing it’s a good idea. If you’ve got back problems,
a really good thing that you might want to try too, is using one of those kneel chairs. Where you’re kind of kneeling down on a little pad and you’re using your guitar with a strap. Forces you to sit up really straight, keeps your neck and your spine in a really good position. So if you’ve got any back problems, get yourself a kneel chair, a guitar strap
would be a really good thing for you. Okay, now I want to go up close and show you, talk about a couple of the left hand things. Most important here with your left hand, make sure your finger nails are short. You cannot practice guitar if you’ve got long finger nails on your fretting hand. Right? It doesn’t work. So you know, I have mine really short. Like, you can’t really see any white kind of nail stuff at the end. But you don’t have to go that short, but they need to be short enough so they don’t touch the wood of the guitar when you’re playing your chords or scales. That’s really important. Now, I’m going to show you now a little exercise, I’m going to jump back on the acoustic guitar, give you a little exercise, to make sure you understand where you should position your left hand fingers.
This is really important. Okay, so what I want you to do in this little exercise here, is I just want you to get your first finger out, and this is the fifth fret here. And I want you to put it right up
next to the fret, alright? Not back here and not in the middle, but right up next to the fret, just not touching it. Right? Now, I want you to play that note . . . which would be the note C, yeah?
And I want you to see how lightly you can play that note and still get the note. So, play it and keep relaxing your finger . . . and eventually it will go dead. Press it back again. Okay, now that’s really light. Right? I’m really hardly having to press
on that to get that note sounding good at all. I can press a lot harder if I want mate, my finger will go white, but generally,
I don’t need a lot of pressure on that to make a nice note. Now if I move my finger right to the back of the fret here, and try this same exercise, that’s about the same pressure as I had on the front. I can get a clear note, but I really have to press. And as soon as I do that, I’m going to get a really big nasty line in my finger. So it’s really important at this stage that as a beginner guitar player you realise that when you get your finger
right up next to the front of kind of where the space is, so if you’re playing a D chord, and I know I’m not on the right frets or whatever, but you see all of my fingers are really close up to the fret see, for each one it’s not like back here, trying to get if you played a D chord like that,
you’d end up with all of this sort of stuff. It’s horrible. So every time you get a finger in a fret, you try and get it right up next to the fret without touching it. That’s the rule.
As close as you can get it to the fret, without touching it. It’s a good exercise. Try it for yourself a few times and get used to the idea that you can really, that you know that putting it too far back is a bad idea and that you got to try and get it up next to the fret. Well, I hope you had a good go at that little exercise there with your left hand finger placement.
Very, very important part of your guitar journey that one. Last little thing, make sure you
stay relaxed while you’re playing. Try not to let your shoulders get all bunched up like this, try and keep them all really loose. When you’re loose, your body will naturally fall into a good posture when you’re playing. So just remember to try and stay being a cool cat and you know, keep your body nice and relaxed, don’t let yourself get too tense. Don’t try and sit funny.
Make sure you get a music stand too, none of this craning around to
look at the sheet music like that, it’s really bad for your neck. Okay, we’re ready for the next lesson. I’ll see you again, some time really soon. Bye bye!
Articles, Blog
Triplet Rhythms (Guitar Lesson BC-155) Guitar for beginners Stage 5
November 23, 2019
Now, what we’re talking about
in this lesson today is ‘triplets.’ And a ‘triplet’ is when we divide a beat
into three instead of two. So far we’ve always been talking about
having this idea of having a beat, which is 1, 2, 3, 4 and we’ve talked about dividing it in half, which gave us our ‘ands.’ So if we had… I’ll tap on the guitar here: Hopefully, you can pick that up clearly. So, here’s your beat: 1, 2, 3, 4. We had: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. That was a pretty nice easy count. And we just divided each beat by half. So, you know: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. But we can also
divide that beat each time into three. So we have: 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. It’s really important
that you get the idea that a beat doesn’t just divide in half, It can divide actually by any number. Very commonly into three,
which is triplets, into four,
which is called sixteenth notes. Fives you can do, sixes and sevens is possible, but they’re a little less common. So, we’re not going to be dealing with them
for quite some time. So, the thing
that I want you to get used to is the idea of a triplet and the count for a triplet. So, with triplets … I’ve seen a few books and stuff trying to get people to count it: Trip-a-let, Trip-a-let, which is just really horrible on the tongue and you lose the count then. It’s really important that, when you’re counting along with music, that you are saying:
1 and 2 and 3 and 4. It’s the 1-2-3-4 that’s really valuable, because it helps you know
where you are in the bar. Especially in the beginner’s stage,
until it becomes instinctive. So, with triplets,
we count them: 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. So, something I just want you to practice. We’re not going to be strumming these triplets, because… they’re kind of awkward to strum, and we don’t tend to use full triplets
for strumming very often. It’s possible, just definitely not on a beginner’s course. So, what we are going to be doing
is just counting it. So what I want you to do
is just strum on 1 and count your triplet. So, if you just pick a G chord, say. I want you to go: 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let, 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. And get used to the count of it
in your mouth. Because we’re going to be using it for some scales and we’re going to use it in our next lesson, for this kind of a blues shuffle rhythm. Which is very cool,
I’m sure you’ll like it. But first of all,
you really need to get this idea of a triplet really clear in your mind. So, make sure the big deal here
is the counting of it. 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. Good exercise,
if you want to do, would be to put your metronome on and practice going like: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. So, practicing dividing each beat just vocally: doing “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” and then:
“1 trip-let, 2 triplet, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let,” but keeping the 1, 2, 3 and the 4
exactly aligned with the beat. It’s quite tricky,
it’s good fun. Have a go at that, practice up speaking your triplets Practice feeling it, tapping it, Just strumming on 1,
don’t even strumming the whole triplet yet. And then I’ll see you for the next lesson, where we’re actually going to turn this triplet into a bit of a blues groovy rhythm. So, I’ll see you for that some time real soon. Bye bye.
Articles, Blog
4:4 all down rhythm (Guitar Lesson BC-116) Guitar for beginners Stage 1
November 16, 2019
Hi, how’re you doing? Justin here again and in this little lesson we’re gonna be starting our discussion of rhythm. We’ve already looked at chords and changing between chords and all sorts of stuff, now it’s time to understand a little bit about
how we play them. Now, the first thing that I wanna talk about
is a thing called a bar and it’s not the place that we all like to go to to get a good beer, it’s a musical bar. And in musical bars you find a thing called beats and the thing that we need to get together first is the idea that all the music we’re gonna look at in this course has four beats in a bar. Really simple, that’s what, all you have to know really for now is that there are four beats in the bar and that four beats are gonna take for us downstrums. And we would count them “1,2,3,4”. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, people like drummers that are beginning their songs like “1,2,3,4” and then the band starts. Now, most music is in 4/4 time which means that we count to 4 in the bar and that there are four beats in it. There are other sorts. The most common one is 3/4 which is where you have three beats in the bar where you would have like “1,2,3, 1,2,3, 1,2,3”. Kinda sounds like a waltz ’cause waltzes are in 3/4. We’re not looking at waltzes – we’re way too cool for that. So, we’re just gonna be looking at kinda pop music, basic music, that’s got four beats in the bar. Really important. So, I want you to have a little look at the diagram for a bar now which is probably gonna appear on the screen somewhere. Probably below my head which shows four beats in a bar. Now, one beat is one of the kinda little notehead with a line on it. and that would be referred to as a beat. and that’s counted “1,2,3 and 4” and we’re gonna use downstrums for all of them. So what we’re after now is, as we’d follow along with that, the one bar, we’re just gonna be playing – I’m gonna play an E chord now and I want you to play an E chord along with me. You’re just gonna…you’d be having kind of… uh…I’m gonna give you what’s called…I need to explain this first, sorry! Rewind a bit… Ok, now I’m gonna explain this little thing about the count-in. So whenever we’re gonna play a little chord progression together, I’m gonna count you “3,4” in. Now, we know there’s four beats in the bar, so after this “3,4” we know we’re back to “1”. So, if we’re gonna just be playing this E chord along together now, I’m gonna go “3,4” and when we do the “1”, we’d all play together. So, get your E chord up, get ready to have a little bit of a play-along. We’re just gonna get used to this idea of the beats-in-a-bar-thing, right? So, we got an E chord, are you ready? Are you holding your pick right? When you’re ready we’re just gonna be doing downstrums on beats 1,2,3 and 4. That’s it. That’s all I want you to do. So, here we go: 3,4,1,2,3,4 next bar: 1,2,3,4 and now we’d be on to the next bar: 2,3,4 and 1,2,3,4 keep it going, nice and even, 2,3,4 et cetera. It’s really straight forward but you need to get used to this idea of counting “1,2,3,4” as you strum along. Really, really important. We are gonna be doing stuff a lot harder than that. We’re gonna be making that rhythm sound really, really cool, but please, right at this early stage, stick to this really, really über-simple strumming. I know it sounds a bit beginnery but I promise you, it’ll mean that your rhythm gets really, really, really good. If you stick to the plan, you stick to the simple strumming, you get your chord changes good, and then suddenly I introduce the cool strumming patterns and you can make those chord changes, it will sound wicked! I promise! So, please stick to this über-simple strumming, counting as you go along “1,2,3,4”. It is really simple, it’s supposed to be. That’s the idea. The other thing that you need to get from this lesson is this idea of me counting a “3, 4” in before we start because the next lesson we’re gonna be checking out common chord sequences and also songs. So we need to be able to go “3, 4” and we start playing at the same time. It’s a really, really common thing. Sometimes people count like “1, 2, 3, 4” and then you start. It’s a little bit long-winded for me. I kinda get bored in between the 1 and the 4. So, for me it’s a little bit easier to go “3,4” and then we start playing at the same time. OK, hopefully, that’ll give you a bit of an understandig of this really basic element of rhythm.
How you doing? It’s Justin,
and we’re ready to rock now. We’re going to check out some powerchords. So, powerchords are very often used in rock guitar. But they also sound wicked on acoustic guitar. If you want some good examples of
acoustic guitar powerchords, then Nirvana Unplugged in New York is a fantastic record with loads of power chords all over, played on an acoustic guitar.
I really like the sound of them. But they totally work on electric guitar with a bit of distortion or just electric guitar clean. And they’re really, really cool sounding chords. It’s the first time that you’re going to
be able to deal with your like F# chords and C# chords and that kind of thing. So, sit tight. It’s gonna be a bit of a rush this one, we’ve got lots of stuff to do, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy playing these little puppies. So, the thing with powerchords that is really interesting is that there is only one chord shape, and we move it around. Because it’s all based through on this idea
called a root note. So, the chord that I gonna show you – we’ll move and go to a close-up in a minute, but the chord, I’ll gonna start off with this, this is chord G powerchord : G5. . . . And it’s really important that you realize this powerchord only has 3 notes
which is the thickest 3 strings … and the other 3 strings . . . are dead. They’re muted. And the reason, well they kind of. i’s like a bar, a kind of thing that we used for an F chord and we’re not pressing down on those strings. We’re just kind of leaving a bit loosely there. So we only have those 3 notes. Now, the cool thing with powerchords is that the one shape moves around. So, we don’t have to learn loads of
different powerchord shapes. In fact, G (plays)
Move it up one (plays) G#. Move it up again (plays) A.
Move it up again (plays) Bb. It’s really that simple! And there are so many songs
that use these powerchord shapes. You wouldn’t believe that,
the amount of tunes that you’ve got straight. As soon as you learn this, you’ve got some really really hipsounding
tunes you can play, right away. So, let’s go and have a look,
a close-up look now at this G chord, and I gonna explain a bit to you about
how it moves around the guitar neck. Ok, here we are looking at our G5, a G powerchord. Now, what we’ve got here,we’ve got : our first finger, here, this is the 3rd fret,
and this is the note G. This is where we get the name of our powerchord. This is a G powerchord, because that note, underneath that first finger,
is the note G. And that’s referred to as our root note.
Which is R.O.O.T. by the way, and that is where we get the name of our chord. Very important to realize that. And now, just that the rest of the finger is just laying down. That’s not trying to press down any of the other strings, what so ever. It’s just muting them all, it’s just touching them but without operating hard enough to actually make a note. Next thing we do: 3rd finger ‘s reaching up
to the 5th fret on the 5th string. You would find, or you probably will find,
that a little bit of a stretch, hopefully that’s part of your exercises,
that you’ve been doing, you should have been doing this as part
of your exercise, shouldn’t you? for the little finger stretch. So, if you’ve been doing that,
you shouldn’t have too much trouble going from your 1st finger to your 3rd finger there. And your little finger sneaks underneath your 3rd finger just setting down quite comfortably. Try and get the two of them locked together, so they’re kind of right on top of each other. That will help you move that chord around later on. So, what you’re really looking for there is making sure that you’ve got the 3 notes of the powerchord … and that the other 3 strings … at the top there, they’re muted by your 1st finger, the edge of your 1st finger. So, get that one together, and then let’s go back and look at moving it around the guitar neck. OK, now we’ve checked out our G powerchord. It’s really important that you’ve realized that you could move it right up and down the neck to get any other chord that you want. So the easiest way to do this, if you go to the website and look for this lesson,
which is BC-172 if you look that up on the website come to that page,
you’ll find there’s a big picture of the neck diagram with all of the notes on the 6th string. Because the root note
for our G5 powerchord is on the 6th string. So we had it as G, which was at the 3rd fret, with our first finger sitting on the note G. That’s the root note,
which is where we get the name for our chord. Now, if we wanted to play a G#,
we know the # is just up one fret, so if we move that whole shape up to the 4th fret, so 1st finger sitting in the 4th fret, we would have G# powerchord (plays). If we move it up again,
we’d have A powerchord (plays). If we move it up 2 frets (plays), we’d have B powerchord. And if we move it all way down to the 1st fret (plays). we’d have an F powerchord. So, it’s really, really simple actually
to find any chord that you want. So, I gonna just to explain to a couple
of really kind of cool progressions that you might want to experiment with. One of them – and I’m just gonna play them once – but I want you to go and use that diagram on the website to figure out where the notes are on the 6th string and then find these chords for yourself, that’s why I’m not going to show you a close up of this. But I will explain as I go,
really important knowing the notes on the 6th string, the thickest string,
and the 5th string. That’s like an essential, to finish the beginner’s course,
you need to have that. so you may wanna start on that now,
as you’re learning this stuff, trying to get those notes in your memory. So, just remember the right notes, right? Just remember F, G, A, B and C cause you don’t need to know the sharps and flats, cause they are the notes in between. So, a really good sequence that you might wanna try would be something, say F (plays) and then you might be going to Bb. Now Bb, you would find first of all B, which is on the 7th fret. and then move it down one semi-tone because, you know, flat makes it go lower (plays) See, you’re being on a Bb there then you might go to another chord, say Ab (plays) Now Ab, you would be going from A,
which is at the 5th fret, and then you flatten it and you end up being at Ab (plays) And now you might go to a chord like Db Now, Db, you’ll have to go all the way : there is A at the 5th fret, there is B at the 7th fret thre is C at the 8th fret you’ll have to go all the way to the 10th fret to find D and then Db with, of course, playing the 9th fret. So, nice little progression to work on, you’ll get a lot of practice in finding your flat’s there. we ‘re certainly like going F (plays) Bb (plays)
and then maybe to Ab (plays) and then Db (plays) Really, really nice chord sequence one that you may have heard before, somewhere very, very cool if you if you experiment it with the rhythm of that, you might find some other songs you recognized as well. So, that might be a cool little sequence to get going. Another really good one that’s quite popular
would be A, C, G, D so it’s going like A (plays) to C (plays)
G (plays) to D (plays) you get there and really have to move it around now A … C … G … to D … you can make it sure that you’ve got those top, those 3 thinest strings muted there. Otherwise it’s gonna sound really horrible. That’s the big deal, now. Starting to try to get that powerchord moving up and down, keeping those thinest strings muted so they don’t ring out. And then just experiment in with some different chord sequences. You could even try it playing some songs or chord sequences that you’ve used. They used open chords. So, just, if the original song with say G (plays) D (plays) to C (plays)
the song goes back to D again (plays) but you could go to a powerchord G … D … C … and back to D … You can really experiment a lot with these powerchords Say, it’s quite an interesting sound, you know, A cool thing would be maybe a friend’s playing some open chords strumming and you play some powerchords, that kind of thing. Lots of way of experimenting with it ! We gonna talk a little bit more of that using it later on, but for now,let’s just get you going with
that first powerchord shape, working on the stretch between your
1st finger and you 3rd finger, you know, making sure they get right up next to the fret where they should. Get used to the idea of moving them around, up and down. Just experiment, you know,
you see if you can walk from here to here. And try to remember the notes on the thickest string. That’s the key-task that you try to do. It’s quite a lot, but now, like I said before, we’re trying to progress now and to do some pretty cool stuff on the guitar, so, it might take a little bit more practice than the
other things, but it’s worth it, cause it means that you’re a lot better guitar player. Have fun with that ! I’ll see you for another
lesson very soon. Bye-bye.
Articles, Blog
One Minute Changes (Guitar Lesson BC-115) Guitar for beginners Stage 1
November 6, 2019
Hello, Justin here. Welcome now to your first “1 Minute Changes”. Now, this is a little exercise I developed a long time ago when I was teaching in a primary school
and I couldn’t get the kids to practice guitar. So I made up a little exercise that was kind of a competition to see who could make the most chord changes
in one minute and what was really weird was
that they all practiced loads, really enjoyed it and got really good at doing their chord changes. So, I kinda took the idea and applied it
to some older people and found that it worked for them as well and then most…nearly…. …or in fact all of my beginner students
over the last few years have used this technique to get their chord changes faster
because it’s kinda the hardest thing. If you thought maybe, you know,
having a slight pain in your fingers playing these chords was a little bit of a hard uphill battle,
now the changing between the chords, is really gonna cause you a bit of problems
because that’s actually the… …probably the hardest step when you first start
playing the guitar is getting those chord changes.
It’s not that hard, it just takes practice. So you gotta stick with it. Now, what I’m gonna show you is a really,
really kinda tried and tested method for getting your chord changes faster. So, what we’re gonna do is,
we’re gonna pick a pair of chords. We might do first, say, D and A. First, as a first one.
It doesn’t really matter which ones you choose but let’s say D and A chord. And we’re gonna try and make
as many changes between D and A as we can in one minute. So you need some sort of timer device, right? I use the little countdown timer on my iPhone
but you could use things like egg timer or anything else that’s got a countdown timer. I’m sure there are countdown liners…
countdown liners …countdown TIMERS online if you have a look around,
if you did a google search I’m sure you’d find one. So, maybe using something like that and the idea would literally be
that you have a look at your clock or your watch and you go: “Right here, OK, it’s starting…now! (plays) 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12…” …and you just keep going for a whole minute,
trying to make as many possible changes as you can in that time. And when you have arrived at the end of that minute
and you know how many you’ve done, in your practice schedule, you write the number of changes
that you made in the little box. And this is really good now for your motivation because you get to watch yourself improve. Every time you’re practicing you got a target ’cause you know: “Last time I practiced,
well, I got like seven changes in a minute. OK, I’m definitely gonna beat that this time.
Alright, let’s go for eight!” You know, it’s a really good idea
to write it down in your practice schedule and then compete with yourself.
And a lot of it’s kinda mental. You gotta be pushing yourself,
really trying to make it faster, trying everytime. Have the mindset that you’re going really,
really as quick as possible. Now, you can’t make the chords kinda rubbish, right? If the fingers are on the wrong strings,
you know, then it’s kinda not right – or the wrong frets – but if the chord’s not perfect, that’s OK ’cause this exercise is about trying to get your fingers
to move quickly. That’s the point of it. So, if it’s like it’s not quite perfect, that’s OK. You can still count it. Now, counting it: how to count it. There’s been quite a lot of debate about this. I actually intended when I wrote this exercise
in the first time I taught it online that one cycle would be counted as one. So if you went D to A and then back to D, that would be one. And everytime you got back to D you’d count. So you go: (plays) 1,2,3,4,etc. Now, a lot of people kind of misconstrued that little bit
and they thought it was: (plays) 1,2,3,4,5,6… Now, to tell the truth, it doesn’t really matter
which one you choose to use. If you wanna do one whole cycle as counting one
or if you wanna do…you know, count it each time you change chords at all then that’s OK.
It’s up to you. As long as you keep using the same system it’s fine. Now, even though I originally said
one complete cycle is one, I think, probably it’s a bit easier just everytime you change chords
to make your count. So you’re going: (plays) 1,2,3,4,5,6… So that’s probably not a bad way to do it. I reckon that might be slightly better
but it doesn’t really matter. Now , what’s your target? Well, when you first start trying to do
these 1 Minute Changes, you’ll probably find that you get between six and eight or nine,
that’d be pretty damn good actually, eight or nine would be the high end
of how many changes people get in their first 1 Minute Changes. So, have a little go at picking
each one of the combinations now, so it’ll be D and A, D and E and A and E and take each one for one minute, see how many
you can get, write it in you practice routine. The target is 30 complete changes
or if you’re counting everytime you change chords you’re aiming for 60 which is one chord change a second. Now when you get to that sort of speed
you should be able to play your songs fairly comfortably. So, that’s the reason for that. It’s really speed, speed. Trying to get those fingers
moving faster, that’s the whole picture, dudes, and so lots and lots of work on this
and it will lead to good things. I promise you. So, get into that. Practice hard
and I’ll see you for another lesson very soon. There’s one more thing I wanna tell you about which is how to join me
when we’ve gotta play something together and I’ll do that usually by counting in. So normally I’ll just count you a “3,4” and then
we would start together on count 1. That’s the normal way of doing things. Sometimes count a whole bar,
like “1,2,3,4” and then we start. I think that’s a little bit long-winded,
especially in this sort of situation. So, often I’ll just count like – I’ll go: “3,4” (plays)
and then we’d start playing at the same time. So, just watch out for that “3,4” count-along. OK, let’s check out what’s in your practice routine.
Articles, Blog
C Chord – Guitar For Beginners – Stage 3 Guitar Lesson – JustinGuitar [BC-132]
November 5, 2019
Hi, How you doing Justin here for our lesson: 132 which is the C chord. The last of the big eight which is, the main eight
Open Chord shapes that you learn when you are
starting your guitar journey. And this is the last one, this is the C chord. Now, a lot of people find the C chord
a little awkward. It’s maybe not quite as stretchy
as the G chord. Well, at least not acrosswise but it is lengthwise. It’s a little bit funny. So let’s go to a close up and see if we can sort out
the different ways of getting this stretch. It is just a matter of practising it. I’ve never ever-ever-ever had a student
who’s not been able to do it. I have had students instead
who really struggled and they felt like
they were never going to do it. But, if you persevere you will find that the C chord
is pretty damn easy. Let’s have a look at it. Here we are looking at the C chord. Now, hopefully
it doesn’t look too bad but it is a little bit of a stretch. So, let’s go through the problems
and solutions for this chord. So, first one : first finger : first fret, second string. Nothing on the E string,
and nothing on the G string. There’s nothing on the first string,
and nothing on the third string. Second finger is reaching over here to the second fret, at the fourth string. And then, third finger’s gonna stretch over here, to the third fret of the fifth string. Now, there are a few different tips
we can give you for getting this stretch nice First of all, if you play really square like this, it’s actually quite difficult to do with the fingers parallel to the frets. I can feel that’s stretching my hand
doing that right now. Now, if you look at the way
that I’m doing it, I’m kind of laying the fingers over
a little bit. Now, if I took my hand off, they kind of
that looks like that they are in a line, they’re all kind of touching each other. And you can see that the angle now
is kind of that way a little bit. it’s actually
they’re kind of pointing at my eyes. Whereas that way
they’re pointing at the ceiling. We just turn it round a little bit like that, and you get a bit more of a… It definitely makes it easier to play .
Yeah ? So this way, you really have to stretch
the distance between your fingers. Here, you’re just changing
how far each finger is reaching out. That makes a big difference
for that one. Now, you can probably see
that my thumb is flopping over there. But actually, we want to get
that thumb behind for you now. Later on you can use
your thumb over here, but for you now,
back behind. Now, the other important thing
with the C chord is that we want to make sure that the tip of this third finger is muting, the sixth string. So, it shouldn’t press down on this string. The very tip of the finger
just touches the string and stops it from ringing out. Now, the thing that you’ll find here
with this chord as well, especially when you’re going to do
the strum – pick up – strum, is that there are quite a few places where fingers can lean over
and touch other strings. So, . . . There is the correct sound for it Now, the first note,
which is the fifth string, you’re probably not going to have
too much trouble with it. Pretty straight forward. The next note, here which is the fourth string, it’s very likely here that your third finger
is going to be leaning over and touching that fourth string. So, that’s the first thing
you wanna look out for is making sure that finger is nice and up. Then we have the Open G string, which, of course, this finger,
if it’s leaning over a bit too flat, will mute that G string. First finger
should be ok. Not many people have trouble with that note. But then,
the open E string if the first finger is leaning over
a little bit too much you’ll get the open E string muted. So, really, the trick with C chord is, one : don’t be too squared like this. Allow your fingers to be
a little bit of an angle. And also to make sure that
you’re really on the points with the fingers. Don’t let them lay down too flat or you’ll just always be muting
the strings next to them. Ok, I hope you had fun
stretching out for that C chord. It’s a little bit of a tough one – but it’s not that bad – and it just seems impossible right now, but, after a week or two, your fingers will have all limbered up and it’ll be a lot easier. After a month or two, you’ll wonder why you ever had
a problem with it at all because it’s not that bad
in the grand scheme of guitar chords.
Articles, Blog
Get started on guitar: What guitar should you buy? Guitar Lesson for Complete Beginners (BC-102)
November 5, 2019
Hi, how’re you doin? Justin here. In this lesson today we’re going to be checking out the different types of guitar that exist in the world. Well actually, just three kind of main types, and talking about the pros and cons of each one. If you’re a beginner guitar player, looking to buy your first guitar, what sort of thing you should be looking for. So, there’s three main types of guitar. The one I’m holding in my arms now, is a steel string acoustic guitar. Which is what most people kind of think of, like guitar players think of, when they’re thinking of an acoustic guitar. The other types of guitar are an electric guitar and a classical guitar. And a classical guitar is also a type of an acoustic guitar as well, so we end up in this funny area where things are not quite falling into one of the three categories. But that’s the most important three. Now, when you’re choosing which one of them you’re going to play, there’s a few things that kind of set it off straight away. If want to play rock guitar, get an electric guitar. Full stop, easy, done, sold. If you’ve got not very much money to spend and you’re really looking at as cheap a guitar as possible, get an electric guitar. I know that sounds kind of funny, that you think “oh, it’s an electric guitar, it’s got more fancy stuff in it”, but actually the problem is, with acoustic guitars, especially steel string acoustic guitars, when they’re really cheap, they’re really difficult to play. They’ve got what’s called a high action, which means that the strings are quite far away from the fingerboard, usually, and so they’re really, really difficult to play barre chords on. They tend to not sound very nice as well, cheap acoustic guitars, ’cause they’re made of laminated wood and my general opinion is, that if you’ve got not very much money, an electric guitar is a far better way to go. If you want to play classical guitar, you should definitely buy a classical guitar. Hey, a little bit obvious that one there, Justin, thanks! But it’s true. You don’t want to be trying to play classical music on a steel string guitar or an electric guitar. That said, I’m not really a classical guitar teacher, I don’t cover classical guitar as part of my course. I don’t really think it’s the best, most fun thing to learn guitar on, classical guitar ’cause it’s all like learning to read notes and playing one note at a time and stuff and it’s a bit easier to kind of just get going if you’re playing chords and stuff. Anyway, so, this is a steel string acoustic guitar. The things to look for when you’re checking out an acoustic guitar is: 1: does it sound nice? Now, the best thing you can do when you’re going shopping for a guitar if you’re a beginner is: take somebody who knows what they’re doing. Right? Take somebody who’s played guitar for a bit, can strum a few chords, you can have a listen to it, see if you like the sound of it. If you’re a complete beginner and you know nothing, you kind of have to rely on the sales people and a lot of the time, they’re kind of full of it and don’t really tell you the truth because they’re trying to sell you something, right? So, On the website, there’s a link from the BC-102, which will give you some links to some products and stuff and some stores that I recommend. But the big thing you’re looking for here, on a steel string acoustic guitar, is that that action is not too high. And that’s like the distance here, between the string and the fret. If you press the string down, you know, you probably don’t want it to be more than, I don’t know, three or four millimeters at the twelfth fret. Right? Definitely not five millimeters or more. Because you will get them that high on a cheap guitar. So I wouldn’t be looking at really cheap steel string acoustic guitars, but you can do if you want. You can get a thing called electro-acoustics as well, which is an acoustic guitar with a pickup system, which this is. I’ve got a little volume controls and stuff here. This guitar has actually got a little microphone built into it, you don’t really need that when you’re a beginner. If later on you’re going to do gigs and stuff, you can retrofit it later. You can get the electric system put in afterwards. Or, you can buy yourself a guitar. So, another guitar, a better guitar maybe. So if you’re learning on one guitar, you can get a fairly cheap one to learn on. When you decide that kind of professional now, you want to go and do a gig, then buy another guitar. You know, I’d be more inclined to do that than spending a whole lot of money. Especially on a budget guitar, you don’t want to waste money on an electric system. Because it’s a budget guitar, the electric system’s not going to be very good either and it’s going to take more money away from just having a nice guitar in the first place. So, that’s a steel string guitar. Okay, this is a classical guitar. And these are quite easy to play. I learned on a classical guitar. Also, they’re called a nylon string acoustic because the strings aren’t metal anymore, we’re talking about nylon. Used to be made of cat gut, believe it or not. Definitely glad my cat wans’t around in the days when they did cat gut guitar strings. Anyway, the strings are made of nylon now so you don’t have to worry if you’re an animal lover. These can be quite cheap. I’ve started off on a Yamaha GC-100 I think, or 110. And it was a fanstastic guitar. It didn’t cost very much. Yamaha make really good nylon string acoustics, highly recommend them. I don’t play them anymore, but for beginner’s guitars, they’re really wicked. Don’t worry about getting one with an electric system, you don’t need it. They’re slightly wider in the neck here. The height, or no not the height, the width of the neck can be considerably wider. You know, 10 mils, I suppose, wider, so quite a lot. So a nylon string acoustic guitar can be great for people with big hands as well. That’s a really, really helpful thing there if you’ve got big hands. And the strings are also a little bit further apart. So it can make it a little easier to fret your chords out when you’re starting again if, you know, for a big handed dude. You’ll have a lot of trouble getting further up the fingerboard here, because you don’t have any access to the higher frets which could cause you problems, but probably not. A lot of children learn on these because of the nylon strings and they’re a little bit softer on the fingers. Don’t really recommend it. They’re good for, the one thing they’re good for is people with big hands. Right, a classical guitar is great for that. Or really young children if they’re worried about playing on the metal strings and their fingers, the skin on their fingers is too soft. Generally nice, they just don’t kind of have the same sound. Classical guitars have a very different sound . . . to a steel string acoustic guitar. A lot more suited for . . . that kind of thing, or you know . . . you know, for doing that kind of guitar, more so than kind of strumming along, they don’t tend to sound so good when they’re strummed. So, that’s a classical guitar. Okay, the last type of guitar we’re going to have a look at, is an electric guitar. Now, this is a Fender Stratocaster. Which are a really good, kind of standard electic guitar. You know, they sound good, they’re quite versatile. There are thousands of different types of electric guitar and the one that you choose is really up to what you like and what sort of sound you want to get and what guitar players you think look cool or whatever. You know, there’s not really a big deal about electric guitar. But there is some big deals on electric guitar that are really important when you’re considering buying one as a beginner. In fact, I really recommend getting an electric guitar as a beginner guitar player, for a few reasons. First of all: they’re easier to play. Generally, the strings are closer to the neck, so it’s easier to press down the chords. The neck is a little thinner, which for most people is an advantage when they’re trying to stretch out for the chords. It’s a little bit easier to start off with. They’re a lot quieter. You can still hear an electric guitar without an amplifier. So don’t be under the impression you have to buy an amplifier if you get an electric guitar. You don’t, you can play acoustically. You’re not going to be very loud, right? Which is maybe a good thing for your neighbours when you’re learning guitar. But you’ll hear like . . . it’s perfectly audible for you to hear while you’re playing. You know, no question. So, getting an electric guitar is good for that as well. There’s some really good quality budget electric guitars around. The Yamaha Pacifica is the one that springs to mind. Ibanez do some really good budget electric guitars, Fender Squiers are okay, there’s been a few quality control issues in ones I’ve seen lately and they’re really cheap ones, but definitely like the Pacificas great. I don’t have a deal with Yamaha, it’s just I think they’re really, really good, cheap electric guitar. You know, pretty decent sound, play well. So it’s really, that’ll be the thing that my personal recommendation is that if you’re going to learn guitar, you’re just starting out, you don’t know what sort of guitar to get, get an electric guitar. Simple. Don’t worry about getting an amplifier and stuff yet, save that for a little bit later when you know what you’re doing, what sort of sounds you want to make and stuff. Don’t worry about anything fancy, just standard, you know, Yamaha Pacifia or Squier Stratocaster or, I don’t know what the Ibanez one’s called. Or whatever, you know. Any of those. Again, there’ll be some links on the website for some specific guitars that I recommend and why. And I just wanted to discuss with you the ideas of the pros and cons between the electric, classical and the steel string guitar. Another thing that you might see is a semi-acoustic guitar. Or a hollow body electric guitar. Which are kind of a regular electric guitar, they’re mainly used in jazz. And their bodies are a little bit thicker and they’re actually hollow inside. So they’re kind of somewhere between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar. But definitely, in my opinion, in the electric guitar family. Not a bad thing if that’s what tickles your fancy, then that would be a great thing. Otherwise, just get yourself a nice, simple electric guitar and off you go. And instead of thinking about, or spending too much time thinking about what guitar to get, think a lot about doing loads of practice and getting good real quick. Much better idea. Okay, hope that’s helped you in your dilemma a little and I shall see you for another lesson very soon. Bye bye!