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 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.

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!

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.

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

I did find is the Musicology Show from Pandora. which is a true instructional show that digs inside the nuances of music it’s styles.  One show will teach you about metric modulation (aka time signature changes) and the next week you will learn about aspects of composition or what a madrigal is.  For some it will be a refresher course and for others, it will expose you to different aspects of music that would otherwise stay unknown to you. 

Give the Musicology Show a listen and tell me what you think.  Are there any good guitar/music instructional podcasts you would recommend?

http://blog.pandora.com/podcast/

He said, “meh”

When I pointed this out, he seemed unimpressed and maybe even lost a bit of interest once I mentioned open tunings.  The first thing he asked was why not just learn/write the song in normal tuning; adjust yourself to the instrument instead forcing the instrument to adjust to you.  Interesting point but I had to disagree and explained that many of these songs would be impossible to replicate in standard tuning and if you could play it in standard tuning the mood or feel of the piece might be adversely affected.  He nodded as if to agree but not totally convinced.  His background is as a progressive metal guitarist and in his experiences, he has witnessed some players tune to an open tuning and just bar everything for every song. To him, that is a shortcut or cheating.  I agreed with him to some extent but that person still needs to have rhythm and a feel for the changes, so there is some sort musicianship going on there.   We went back and forth a bit more and I think he has more respect for alternate tunings but I don’t think I’ll see him playing any open C tunings any time soon.

So are alternate tunings cheating?  I don’t think so.  It’s just another tool at our disposal we can use to enhance our music and to, at times, make it easier for us to play.  If we really want to nitpick, we would have to call capos, effects, amps, computers,etc… cheating as well.  I guess I’m a cheater and glad I have all these resources to cheat with.  How about you?

Links of Interest:

• William Ackerman’s list of alternate tunings
• Michael Hedges alternate tunings