Guitar Musings

One of the many talents of Leonard Bernstein’s was his ability to explain/have a discussion about the complexities of music to anyone.  You didn’t need to have a degree in music to get what he was saying.  All you needed was the love for music and the desire to learn more. 

Below is a clip from The Unanswered Question – Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein.  In this clip Bernstein discusses what might Beethoven might have been feeling or what story he might want to convey when writing the piece featured on the clip.  After watching this, I had a different/deeper appreciation for the music.  So I ask you, what feeling are you trying to convey when you write a song?  More to that, what feelings do you think a songwriter is sharing when you play his/her song?  Think about that next time you play, you might find a new, maybe better way to approach a song.

I’ve witnessed and participated in many “Tab Vs. Standard Notation” debates.  I’ve heard the “purists” call tab a “crutch” where you will never learn the piece completely without standard notation.  While the the other side will argue that tab opens a door to a ton of music to those who did not get formal training.   The arguments go on and on and there will never be a right or wrong answer.  All I can give you is my testimonial of sorts.

I’ve been working on a piece that I’ve toyed around with for years but was never really comfortable with it.  I learned the it using tab and a recording that came with the songbook.  At first glance, the piece appears to be easy learn but it has to be played at a fairly high tempo (200bpm) so frustration began to kick in.  No matter how much I practiced it never sounded or felt right.

So what did I do?  I decided to look at the standard notation part of the transcription and noticed something that the tab doesn’t show.  I was not separating the melody with the bass line completely.  In short, my index and middle were playing notes my thumb was supposed to be playing.  The result of this mistake was the melody was getting muddied up with notes that weren’t supposed to be there.  So I made my thumb do it’s job and the song began to fell better; there is now a clear separation between melody and the bass line.  Only problem is that I now have to re-learn a bit a of the song to un-learn some of the bad habits I developed.   A small price to pay to get it right.

What’s better? Tab or standard notation?  For me, it’s both.  I can learn a song much faster using tab but the musicality comes out using the standard notation.  The separation of voices, dynamics subtle nuances that only standard notation can provide.  Tab is ideal with the help of standard notation but if you can read music well, then there is no need for tab, theoretically.  So maybe the edge goes to standard but that takes nothing away from tab because I owe of ton of my repertoire to tab.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I broke my nail and was relegated to work on my flatpicking skills until my nail grows back. I thumbed through my Acoustic Guitar Magazine’s and found some great exercises for learning scale patterns and mixing them up to better my soloing.  The only problem is that I wanted more than what the magazine was giving me. 

A couple of nights ago, I came across a site called GuitarCardio.com and I’m loving it.  It’s a scale exercise program where you choose a key (or all keys), select a difficulty level and a starting place for the scale.  A series of scales will then be given for you to work on.  It’s like a workout plan for you fingers, hence the name “cardio”  I’m thinking.  The dynamic nature of this system sings to me because I’m not getting bored with the same scales over and over again. 

This program is still in it’s infancy so there are some drawbacks like the scales don’t cover the entire fingerboard, lack of customizability and no metronome, to name a few.  Brad Heintz, the creator of GuitarCardio.com addresses bugs and feature requests in his blog and  has great plans to extend the features and functionality of this program.  So maybe we’ll see scales over chord changes and modes in upcoming versions.

Check out the site and give it a whirl and let Brad know what you like and would like to see at GuitarCardio.   Brad is open to suggestions and critiques which should make this program the best it can be. 

Keep Practicing!

If you have read Guitar Musings for the past couple of months, you might have noticed that I’ve been on a huge Tommy Emmanuel kick.   When I listen to the “Live One” CD’s, I get inspired/motivated to keep plugging away and keep working hard at guitar and wanted to learn all about him and his playing.  However, you can get too much of a good thing.  What do I mean by this?  I was so focused on T.E. songs, that my playing narrowed to a point where it has been a bit stagnant.  I neglected my theory and exercises that helped me take my playing just a level higher.  This isn’t the first time this has happened.  I have had Bruce Cockburn, Eddie VH and Eric Johnson obsessions as well.    What happened in the past, is that I would stop playing for anywhere from week to many months but not anymore.

So I’m taking step back and pulling out my chord progression book and scales book and remember to work on those more.  I recall reading an interview with studio musicians where they talked about how they didn’t work on learning songs but theory and progressions when practicing.  This was so they were always prepared for any piece of music that was brought to them to play for recording.  This has helped me quite a bit and maybe, just maybe, this will get me a step closer to that elusive YouTube post.

There are a ton of guitar lesson sites available for all of us to use.  Some are invaluable tools that I frequent often and others are completely worthless.  If you don’t have the money to pay for online lessons, your chances of running into a worthless site are even better.   I don’t actively look for site to rate but I have stumbled across this and felt it worth a mention.

A guitarist by the name of Rob Bourassa is giving a “7 week primer” on YouTube which will “..enable the student to learn to play by ear.”  It is a course with a weekly lesson video and 5 minute practice companions to help you stay on task.  The first 3 courses covers scales and and fingerpicking (Travis).  I’m running through the lessons myself because I’m curious on what the lessons will bring and  my daughter is learning the guitar and he has great insight on teaching.  Rob has been playing for 40 years and is an incredible guitarist and is a  frequent contributor to the Acoustic Guitar Magazine Forum.  

So if you are just learning or know someone who is, check it out.  What Rob has done is incredibly generous.  Lessons like these would cost thirty to forty dollars if you wanted to get it on DVD.

Rob’s YouTube Lessons

7 Week Lesson Forum Thread