Musical New Years Resolutions

My posting has been irregular for the holidays everything should be back to normal after new years.

Everyone has made resolutions before, very few people keep them, I gave up on making them quite a few years ago, however, this year I'm going to attempt them again, and hopefully making them public will be extra motivation.

#1 Log Practicing

I've attempted to do this regularly before but always fail, I start and my practicing is much more efficient but then something happens – like leaving my journal at home and practicing in studio, or vice versa. My log is a small $2 notebook that simply lists what I practice then a dot next to that for every 15 minutes spent working on that thing.

#2 That extra hour

I've said before that I pull myself out of bed at 10am to start practicing (except Saturdays I don't start work until 4). I'm going to push that back to 9am to get that extra hour of practice time in.

#3 School

This one I've been planning for awhile, but I've attempted post secondary education before, and failed – mainly due to a total lack of motivation to do the work. So this year – come September I will try going back – this time as a music major instead of a psychology, or computer science student. If I wasn't going to school before so I could play guitar, hopefully going to school to play guitar will work out, and I'll finally get my BA.

#4 Redesign this Blog

Yes sometime soon I'll be overhauling the entire Blog to a nicer design.

So all my loyal readers – if there are any of you out there, what musical resolutions have you made for this coming year?

Guitar Instruction Books

Everyone who has taken formal guitar lessons has probably worked out of an instructional book, these books tend to be boring, but the teachers give them to you for a reason, you learn specific skills and practice the skills you have in them. Even if you're not in lessons they give your playing structure. However, some of these books should never have been published, they're awful. Here's the books I use, note,that I am not earning commission from any of these sales.


Basic Skills:

I love the Zerofret series, they're written locally, and I know the author, the great thing about these books, is not only the complete lack of tab is that you are NOT playing yankee doddle, aura lee, mary had a little lamb, etc. for the duration Almost every tune in the book was written by the author, often specifically for the book, making things far more interesting.

All these books are available in E-book form, quite cheaply.

If you're a beginner obviously start with book one.

If you can't read music but have become a decent player from tabs, skip right on into book two, and deal with second position playing right away.

Book three tends to finish off the basic skills of playing, and book four is focused on getting your chops up there, it's new though, so none of my students have finished zerofret three since book four came out.

Positional Playing:

One of my few disagreements with the zerofret method is that it sticks to second position, so therefore I supplement zerofret three, with Mel Bay's Deluxe Guitar Position Studies book, as soon as they finish the A major exercises, this book moves through all the positions one at a time, (Personally I start in fifth, which is not the beginning).

Past That:

William Leavitt has some great books out, the problem is that they are fast moving, (they were used as testbooks at Berklee.) Traditionally I've started book two after zerofret three is done, I might wait until book four now that it's out, I've taught out of book one before but it moves WAY too fast for any beginner. There is a book three, and if you're past this level you probably have little reason to be reading this blog - although please continue to read, and post opinions if you are.

That being said, anyone who can read music decently can get through these books quickly the trick is playing them fast, about half way through zerofret two, everything is being done with a metronome. The first major exercise in William Leavitt – two pages of straight eight notes in C major all the way up the fretboard my students are doing at 120bpm before they get passed it.

There's More then One Way to Play the Blues

I was sitting in a bar the other day with a blues band on stage, at first I thought “hey this is pretty cool.” but after an hour, I wasn't convinced they had ever changed songs, they just took dramatic pauses every five minutes or so.

Playing the blues doesn't mean you're limited to one twelve bar progression and six notes for lead, chord tones will still give a very strong blues sound if played over that twelve bar progression, however using what we know about chord substitution we can make that twelve bar pattern very different and much more interesting.

Let's do it in C.

C7 | C7 | C7 | C7 |
F7  | F7 | C7 | C7 |
G7 | F7 | C7 |  G7|

Let's start with common substitutions, firstly the IV7 chord (F7) if often placed in the second measure. That IV7 – I7 progression is very dominant in the blues and can be brought out more.

Secondly #IVdim7 is often placed in the second measure of the second line, the only difference between F7 and F#dim7 is the root, and the root is the b5 of C, otherwise known as the “blue note.”

C7      | F7     | C7      | C7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7      | C7      |
G7      | F7     | C7      | G7      |

Now let's throw in some secondary dominance at the end of all the phrases.

C7      | F7     | C7  G7  | C7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7  G7  | C7  D7  |
G7      | F7     | C7  D7  | G7      |

Now let's change around some of these chords with some like function substitutions, every 7 chord can operate as a five chord, the F#d7 will operate as a VII chord off the minor scale, so we'll get something like this.

C7      | Am7b5  | C7  G7  | C7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7  G7  |C7 F#m7b5|
G7      | Ad7    | C7  D7  |G7       |

Now lastly let's add some tritone subs into the mix.

C7      | Am7b5  | C7  G7  | F#7      |
F7      | F#d7   | C7  G7  |F#7 F#m7b5|
G7      | Ad7    | C7  Ab7 |G7        |

And we now have a VERY different progression however, you can still here the progression in there, even though this is an extreme example, now I'll list another example, without going through the process, cookie to the first one to get it right.

C7 Em7b5|F7         | C7  C#7   | C7      |
F7 Bm7b5|F#d7 Dm7 G7| C7  Ed7   | C7  Ab7 |
G7 F7   |Dd7  Bm7b5 | C7  Fmaj7 | G7      |

Again an extreme example, that is probably a little too far gone to be used, but the essence of the blues is still there.

I'm not saying all Blues should look like this, just throw in some variation if you have a lot of blues on your set list, it will keep the audience awake.

Preventing Carpal Tunnel

Today at work I had a cancellation, so like always I went into my room and started practicing, and got a sudden sharp pain down my left wrist, I stopped immediately, and was unable to play much for the rest of the night without a dull throbbing pain – it didn't hurt but I knew what it was. My younger days of practicing for hours without a break were coming to bite me in the ass.

In an attempt to get as many people as possible to not make the same mistakes I made when I was young here are some basic guidelines for preventing carpal tunnel.

Proper Technique is key, sit up straight on a chair – not on your couch don't lean on the back either., elevate the neck of the guitar and your right leg (either cross your legs, put one foot on top of the other or use a foot rest). and don't wrap your thumb over top of the neck, all these things minimize the amount of stretching you need to do to play.

If you do stand keep your guitar in the same place it would be if you were sitting, lower positions again lead to more strain on the wrist then necessary.

Warm up before you play, stretch your fingers and message them, this will go a long way, and also improve your playing.

Also, when practicing try not to go over 30minutes or so in one sitting, get up and do something else for a bit, let your hand rest. Gigging is obviously another story though.

If you do experience any pain in your wrist stop playing and give it a couple hours, better be safe then sorry here.

And unfortunately a lot of it comes down to luck, if you follow these guidelines from the start your odds of getting it are low. However some people that take all the care in the world will get it, and someone who breaks all the rules might not get it, luck is a big factor.

The illusion of "Style"

I expect a ton of disagreement on this article, and encourage anyone to voice their disagreements below.

Style doesn't exist.

The building blocks to Jazz are the same building blocks of Punk, and country, and rock, with only a little variation.

Jazz is built on using the full chords – any regular reader has seen that I always use four note chords to explain something – because it's easier to visualize and understand that way, therefore you should learn how these work anyway.

Rock music is based on a simplified version of that, usually triad or dyad chords, but the progressions are the same, and believe it or not the way you should approach improvisation is the same (the Internet is filled with shortcuts that should be ignored.)

Country is built on the same foundation as rock, only without the dyads, and the distortion, the rhythm and bass line is what drives country.

Blues is formed in the way the chord progressions happen, based around the dom7 chords.

So to truly understand music you should be able to play all style, and if you have aspirations of professionalism you'll want to know it all.

A studio guitar player won't be hired if they can only play one style – whoever is hiring you would then have to hire a pile of different musicians depending on the song, they want someone who can play everything.

A freelance guitar player will find way more work if they can be hired for any type of gig.

I tell my students you need four things to become a good guitar player.

Technique/Chops
Music Theory
The ability to read music
Good Ears

All four of these things can be learned forever – with the possible exception of reading music, until your reading can keep up to your chops (ie you can sight read anything you'll ever be able to play.) It can be improved.

The illusion of style is given by how the notes are approached, learn the notes, then learn to approach them from all the angles.

The only exception in this article comes with classical, which is a very different beast from Modern Guitar.

Chord Substitution

Remember harmonizing scales both major and minor? If not review them.

What I didn't mention before is that those chords can also substitute cleanly for each other, therefore if you see an Dmin7 in the key of C you can easily put an Fmaj7 there (this applies to both comping and soloing aspects) since these chords are so similar. This can completely alter a lot of chord progressions, let's take a three chord rock.

C | C | F | G

Change that to:

C | Em | Dm | G

or

Am | C | Dm | Bdim7

the possibilities are huge, your soloing will be coloured up as well by super imposing these chords over top of the base progression.

However it's only one note difference right? Not that big a deal? Now let's combine that with tritone subs and secondary dominance. I'll begin using 4 note chords just to visualize this better, the seventh can easily be stripped to give a more rock based sound.

Cmaj7 | Cmaj7 | Fmaj7 | G7

Now let's put a iii chord into the second measure using like function.

Cmaj7 | Em7 | Fmaj7 | G7

Now let's add ii-V based off that Em7 using secondary dominance.

Cmaj7 / F#m7 B7 | Em7 | Fmaj7 | G7

Now let's use a tritone sub over that new B7

Cmaj7 / F#m7 F7 | Em7 | Fmaj7 | G7

Now let's use a like function sub from that F#m7 – it's currently the ii chord, so let's make it the IV chord of E.

Cmaj7 / Amaj7 F7 | Fmaj7 | G7

Now let's use a like function sub over that Fmaj7 chord

Cmaj7 / Amaj7 F7 | Emin7 | Dm7 | G7

The same type of ideas can turn this simple progression into some really bizarre harmonies, the possibilities are near endless, any attempt to list them all would be pointless, it's necessary to understand the concepts.

Two picking exercises

Click to enlarge images.

For something new today I'm going to give a couple technical exercises, these should be done with a metronome and gradually speed up unless stated otherwise.

The first begins as a simple technique to start cross picking, play the C major scale in open position ascending but hit the high e string between every note. (downstroke scale note, upstroke open e string). The descending version of this exercise changes, downstroke the open note, and upstroke the scale note (putting the open e on the beat and the scale note off the beat.)


Once that's comfortable at a good speed (at least 160), time to make it harder, this time hit that e string twice, changing your picking each time:


And the same thing going down.

The second one is the major seventh stretch, this one is tougher and focuses on finger stretching more then picking, but is good for both, it's hard to explain so I'll just show you, for this one it's really important to sustain every note until it's picked the next time (or you move your finger to a different fret.


Then continue doing that pattern (shifting one finger down at a time all the way done the neck). As you get closer to the first fret the frets become bigger making the exercise harder. Again, get this one up to a good speed (at least 120, preferably more like 180) in small increments. Straight up down picking is critical.

Ear Training Basics

Ear training is something that does develop as you play, however, it's rarely enough.

Put yourself in this situation, you're hired for a gig with a band you've never worked with, a song is called out by request that you've never heard, you don't have charts, you're told the key, style and counted in, what do you do?

Play that major scale? Nope, think of all the possible chord substitutions possible, we've shown that Db7 is a perfectly valid substitute for G7 in the key of C (yet if you played a D natural over that Db7 chord and didn't resolve it properly it would sound awful). This is just one example, there are tons.

I've been in this situation, as have many other freelance musicians I know, this is where ear training is critical, you need to hear how a note sounds against a chord and quickly find a note you can you to resolve that note if it's tense.

Believe it or not ear training requires singing, even if you're a bad singer.

I'm sure most of you sang Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Do in elementary school – this is a major scale, Do being the root, Re being the second, Mi being the third, etc. This technique is called Solfege, and very useful to learn to hear. Sing it slowly, the full duration of a breath for every note with your instrument (electronic keyboard is preferable.) And learn to hit those notes dead on, once your confident, only play every other note, then only play the Do's and check yourself there after singing, you should have landed dead on.

Sing sequences:

Do-Mi-Re-Fa-Mi-Sol etc.
Do-Re-Mi-Re-Mi-Fa etc.

and tons more.

Some people have a great natural ability to hear notes, I wasn't one of them, it took a lot of singing to get to the point I was when I started teaching, and I would still have students with further developed ears then mine come in for their first music lesson outside of elementary school. It's possible to learn, even if you think you are tone deaf, and it will help every aspect of your playing.