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Advanced Guitar Playing

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300px Guitar 1 Advanced Guitar Playing

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Advanced Guitar Playing must include chords, scales, arpeggios, lead playing, guitar theory, fretboard study and more to a level of high proficiency. The advanced guitar player must have a number of concepts and skills as well as a level of comprehension that will provide him or her with an ability to perform on the instrument to an advanced level. Students of all levels whether they are starting out, or have been playing for years, need to know the essential concepts that will make them advanced like the players they admire. There are a variety of teaching tools, methods and practice suggestions available for advanced guitar playing but they generally fall short in ever leading the guitar playing there.

Most guitarist who have spent time trying to learn the guitar have heard repeatedly the importance of practicing to achieve advanced guitar playing ability. But this is often so misunderstood and unapproachable due to lack guidance and training tools available in the “get rich quick” idea, that have been transposed to the guitar in the form of “become a guitar master fast”, mass information dump throughout the web, that guitar students are at a loss for any real substance in the practice area. You must practice on a regular schedule and often. You must practice various skills and music applications. There is much to the subject of practice that is critical to your success.

The degree to which you understand guitar chords, arpeggios and scales is absolutely a main ingredient that you can not take lightly if you want to raise your playing stature to the advanced level. So often the guitarist does not understand the true nature of the guitar , it’s makeup and composition. How to musically apply the chord in the musical styles and at least the proper musical structure that allows one to play with other musicians, write music, or record in a studio as a contributor to the music, is essential to advanced guitar playing. Applying the chords on the fretboard, understanding the variety of ways to view them and the underlying methods to morphing them and expanding or “tightening them up” is a part of advanced guitar playing.

How about guitar ? Well, surely those are covered pretty easily with a few online diagrams and explanations. If you think that is of any value for the advanced player to make use of guitar scales and apply them in significant tonal and functional ways on the fretboard, then you have no understanding of these. The musical foundations, applications, structures, and adaptations of scale theory and the implications on music usage, fretboard application and modifications are far beyond what a scale is or for example, “how to play a minor pentatonic solo”. Guitar are a whole other area of study and comprehension that again is far more than the typical arpeggiation of a chord. Various simple patterns and cool riffs in no way constitute the melodic reasons, musical theory, and fretboard structure that reflect the world of arpeggios for advanced usage. The advanced guitar player must be able to use the guitar fretboard, to a degree that makes them in charge of the instrument as opposed to the instrument being so available yet so inaccessible.

Any guitar player who can play some chords and some scales, even in the open position make think this isn’t so important, as some great song writers and guitar songs have the music played in one area of the fretboard. And that can be true in regards to song writing and band success, but also this more limited playing is in no way any guarantee at all of success either. In fact advanced guitar playing allows the guitarist to play more “intermediate or basic concepts” better and in more musical ways.

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Advanced Guitar Playing

Easy Guitar Songs

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When learning guitar, a very common problem for most beginners is not knowing where to start from. Every guitar player has been through something like this in the beginning of his career, so don’t get discouraged if you’re feeling the same way. The answer you are looking for is very simple and it is called easy guitar songs.

Easy guitar songs play a key role when learning guitar. Not only they give you a steady foundation of music knowledge to build on, but they also help you build a serious repertoire, which you’ll see will be of great use to you when you make your first steps playing in a band.

Easy guitar songs are also a great way to complement your daily guitar exercises. While exercises help your both hands to get used to the instrument, playing songs puts your guitar skills on a test into a whole new situation, challenging you in a way that you will never experience while exercising.

As your repertoire grows, your technique will improve as well and you’ll start seeing a notable difference in what you can do with your guitar, reaching a point when all these easy guitar songs don’t seem hard anymore. When this moment comes, don’t just abandon them. This is a mistake that way too many aspiring guitarists make. They jump immediately into attempting advanced techniques and playing songs that require a serious amount of guitar playing experience, neglecting or not being aware of the fact that easy guitar songs make an excellent base for learning guitar improvisation and music theory.

Take an easy song and start jamming over it, while trying to build your own melodic lines and solos. Most probably your first attempts won’t be very successful, you won’t know which notes to play, which positions to press or where to place your left hand in general. That’s very good! These are the first steps in learning guitar improvisation.

Guitar improvisation and music theory are connected. Said simple, music theory is what will teach you which are the right frets to press and why. Don’t get scared, you don’t need to be a music theory expert, neither you need to have a degree in this field. All you need is the desire to learn, the passion to play the guitar and your favorite to support the learning process.

Once again, take any easy guitar song, but before starting to jam over it, analyze its harmony – what are the chords used throughout the song? Knowing the chords, try to figure out what key is the song in. Knowing the key, see the scales you can use in this key. Take the minor pentatonic scale for example and locate the right fingering for the current key. Now start jamming over that easy guitar song you chose, trying to build your own melodies and you will hear the difference.

As a conclusion, learning easy guitar songs is an important aspect of your development as a guitarist. They help you improve your skills, broaden your horizons and grow as a guitar player.

 

Harvey Mosley started developing his passion for music at age of 10. He learned to play guitar songs at age of 13 and pursued his love of music since then. He owns now a music studio and inspires many students to learn to play guitar songs. Visit http://www.bandjammer.com for more guitar song lessons.

 

10 Piano Styles You Can Learn To Play

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When studying the piano, a student encounters a myriad piano styles. To master the instrument, at least several of these styles must be learned, and all if at all possible. Knowledge of various playing styles enables a pianist to enjoy and play in any genre and to cross-polinate styles to create a fusion he or she can call their own.

Many modern piano styles are based on the blues. The blues involve an emphasis on the major and minor pentatonic scales, with an additional note included. The flatted fifth is added to the minor pentatonic to create the blues scale. Many blues songs are based on a simple chord progression, known as 12-bar blues. This uses the I, IV and V chords of a scale to create a foundation for melodies and solos.

For example, rock piano was born out of the blues and then took on a life of it’s own in the stylings of Jerry Lee Lewis, Michael McDonald, Elton John, Billy Joel, and many others.

Cocktail piano is a style generally connected with Liberace, Eddy Duchin, Roger Williams, and others who play popular tunes with lots of great technique — lots of notes, runs, flourishes, and so on. But I hate to categorize and of these great pianists, as many of them play in other styles as well.

Boogie-woogie is a piano style based on the blues. It started as a solo piano style, but has expanded into other genres, such as county-western and gospel. It differs from the blues in that it is considered dance music, while blues music traditionally expresses sadness and frustration.

Rhythm and blues piano is based on blues, jazz, and gospel styles. As the name suggests, the emphasis is on the rhythm of the song. Most R&B has a particular swing to it, with a strong feel of syncopation in the rhythm. Syncopation involves placing the stress on a normally unstressed beat. This often results in an almost off-time feel to the untrained ear.

Ragtime piano also incorporates syncopation. Ragtime uses syncopation in its melodies by placing melodic notes between the stressed beats of the rhythm. Ragtime is often considered the first completely American genre, even predating jazz.

Jazz piano encompasses such a broad palate of styles that it is impossible to describe. Many piano styles incorporate ideas borrowed from jazz, such as improvisation. An emphasis on extended chord forms and chord re-harmonization also stems from jazz piano.

New age piano often involves less chord changes than other styles, instead relying on simpler progressions and poly-chords. It often imitates the sound of nature -babbling brooks, wind, rain, and so on. A poly-chord occurs when two different chords are played at once. This technique is taken from earlier classical works by composers such as Stravinsky.

Gospel piano is often similar to the blues, jazz and R&B. It emphasizes certain extended chords, such as the 11th, and usually has the swinging feel associated with jazz and R&B. The apparent simplicity of gospel songs often hides the fact that they are, indeed, quite musically complex. Syncopation is highly stressed in gospel music, as it contributes to the overall spiritual feel of the music.

Country and western piano has similar roots as blues piano. Both styles stem from earlier folk styles, often developed by the less fortunate people of the era. Many early country songs stem from Appalachian folk songs. Country and western piano is highlighted by very bright playing, with simple chord progressions underneath the melody. One of the greats in this styles is Floyd Cramer.

Traditional sacred piano styles involve the playing of liturgical songs and hymns. These can range from the harmonically and rhythmically complex to simple two and three chord songs. Many hymns stem from folk songs of centuries past. The variety of sacred piano styles is as numerous as the liturgical songs themselves. These piano styles often involve a strict reading of notation, with less of an emphasis on personal interpretation than other styles.

The classical piano style is probably the most varied of all the styles. Classical music is older than other styles, and is considered to the proper grounds for musical instruction. Many elements of other piano styles come from classical music, and nearly all forms of musical theory are used in classical music. Andre Previn is the classic example of a well-trained classical pianist crossing over into the world of jazz, and with great success. Classical music usually requires intense training to master, though there many simpler pieces designed with the novice player in mind.

Though classical is often considered the high point of music, this “ain’t necessarily so.” For instance, many players who are “classically trained” have trouble adapting to the feel and sincerity of the blues. For this reason, a well-rounded player should be adaptable and learn as much about each of these piano styles as possible. In this way, a pianist is ready for any musical challenge. And besides, who knows where the future of music lies?

 

Duane Shinn is the author of the popular online newsletter on piano chords, available free at “Exciting Piano Chords & Chord Progressions!”

 

Guitar Chords and Their Construction

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Guitar chords and their construction

R6 SUS Chord Guitar Chords and Their Constructionguitar chord diagram

Guitar chords as well as piano chords can be easily figured out by using this handy chart that shows the scale step numbers measured from the Root. For example if I’m in the key of C Major then all the component part of a chord are measured from the C Major Scale. Here is a handy chord chart to help determine the chord tones within the five families of chords. The five families of chords are: Major, minor, dominant, Augmented, diminished.

CHORD Scale Step numbers measured from root
C major 1,3,5
C6 1,3,5,6
C6/9 1,3,5,6,9
C Major7 6/9 1,3,5,6,7,9
C Major 7 1,3,5,7
C Major 9 1,3,5,7,9
C minor 1,b3,5
Cm6 1,b3,5,6
C m 6/9 1,b35,6,9
C m7 1,b3,5,b7
Cm7 sus4 1,b3,4,b7
C m9 1,b3,5,b7,9
Cm11 1,b3,5,b7,9,11
Cm13 1,b3,5,b7,9,11,13
C7 1,3,5,b7
C7 sus4 1,4,5,b7
C9 1,3,5,b7,9
C11 1,3,5,b7,9,11
C13 1,3,5,b7,9,11,13
C Aug. 1,3,#5
C diminished C,b3,b5,bb7 or (6)

All of the notes do not have to be included in the chords the most important chord tones are the 3 and 7 (in whatever family). Note: the 9th is the 2nd step of a scale, the 11th is the 4th step of a scale and the 13th is the 6th step of a scale. If you are playing the chord extensions you can add just the one extension you need for each family. Remember this is good for piano chords as well as guitar chords.

Music Lessons On DVD LOGO Guitar Chords and Their Construction

Cool Chords For Guitar

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I have a new video guitar lesson called cool chords and it shows you how to create your own chords and understand how to construct chords. It builds on the concept of learning a little bit of chords but knowing a lot of chords.
All Chords in this tutorial are movable chord forms.
Using chords built with the ROOT names on the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings.

Chords will be grouped by Root 6,5,4 and also grouped by similar voicings. For example, what note is changed in one chord to create another chord from the same chord structure or voicing.

Cool Chords are also grouped by chord type i.e. Major, minor, dominant 7th, diminished etc. Take the Guitar Lesson Now

How I became aware of Moveable Guitar Chords

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Way back in 1969  (just out of High School), I was learning how to play Bar Chords on guitar. I learned a couple of 3 chord blues patterns at the time and thought I was really cool! I learned these patterns from a book that I can’t remember the title of now but one thing stuck in my brain.

YOU CAN MOVE THESE THINGS AROUND THE NECK AND PLAY IN A DIFFERENT KEY!

WOW, that was exciting so now by just playing the same pattern but moving it to another fret and viola! you have the same thing in another key, way cool I thought.

One day I was in the local Head Shop and saw an ad for a “guitarist wanted”. I tore off the tab containing their phone number and became nervous. The ad said they needed a rhythm guitar player familiar with blues etc.

That evening I called the guy and he said “we’re having auditions tomorrow night, come down and bring your equipment”.

I showed up to the audition and the whole band was set up. “Set up over there he says”. I noticed that they also had a sax player. I never played with a sax player before. The sax dude comes over to me and says “Were going to play a blues in Bb, got it”.

So I started thinking “Man I never played blues in Bb before”  but I remembered about moving the same pattern around on guitar using bar chords.

After setting up the sax guy counted out 1,2 – 1,2,3,4 and off we were in blues in Bb. All I did was play the same stuff I knew how to play but on the 6th fret instead of the 3rd fret and we got through the blues no problem.

I was freaking out but it sounded pretty good at the time. You gotta remember at the time if anyone knew 2 or 3 chords on guitar, you were considered a guitar genius.

The keyboard player calls out “How about blues in Ab”. He said that to try and throw me off because guitar players never played in those keys.

OK, I thought I just move the same stuff up 2more frets. 1,2 – 1,2,3,4 and off we go in blues in Ab. Later I found out that these are friendly keys for sax players.

We finished up and they thanked me for showing up. I thought to myself that I was not qualified for this yet. Some days later, the sax dude calls me up and says “we like your stuff man”, my heart was racing, I asked him why they chose me instead of some other guitar players at the time and he says, “Cuz you can play blues in Bb and Ab and all the other guitar players we auditioned only knew how to play in E, A, D and G”. He never told me until later that he only knew how to play in Bb and Ab.

I got hired and found out that in 3 weeks we are taking off on a tour of the East Coast from Massachusetts to Georgia. I got hired because I knew how to play the same stuff in different keys using MOVABLE CHORDS.

So there is power in knowledge. If I didn’t know how to move the same stuff around on the guitar I would have never had the chance to tour with this R&B band.

Off I went into the unknown playing in all the dives around the east coast including stages where they had chicken wire across the front of the stage to protect the band members from flying beer bottles.


The most standard Blues progressions and some variations

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I’m going to use the key of F for this because I think a lot of piano players like blues in F because it lays down on the keyboard real nice. Below is a very standard blues progression that everyone has played. This is the take off point for the other variations to follow.

F7 | Bb7 | F7 | F7 | Bb7 | Bb7 | F7 | F7 | C7 | Bb7 | F7 | C7 | (each chord is played one measure each)

Here is a variation that jazz players might play.

F7 | Bb7| F7 | F7 | Bb7 | Bb7 | F7 | D7 | G7 | C7 | F7 D7 | G7 C7 | (note: the last 2 measures are 2 chords in one bar i.e. 2 beats for each chord).

Here’s another one to check out. This one gets a little more jazzy because of the chord substitutions used extensivley.

F7 | Gb7 | F7 | Cm7 B7 | Bb7 | B dim 7 | F7 E7 | Eb7 D7 | Gm7 Db7 | C7 | F7 D7 | Db7 C7 |

This on coming up is referred to as Parker Blues because it’s the chord progression that Charlie Parker used for the tune “Blues for Alice”

F6 | Em7b5 A7 | Dm7 G7 | Cm7 F7 | Bb7 | Bbm7 Eb7 | Am7 D7 | Abm7 Db7 | Gm7 | C7 | F6 D7 | Gm7 C7| (repeat)

Comparing the Parker blues to the Jazzy progression you’ll notice that both progressions start with a 1 chord and have a 4 chord in bar #5 and a 2 chord in bar #9 both are essentially the same but the Parker blues utilizes the 2-5 progressions down in whole steps to get from the original 1 chord to the 4 chord in bar #5 and the rest of the chords move down in half steps to get from the 4 to the 2 chord in bar #9.

We can also mix and match these progressions. You might want to take the first 4 measures of the Parker blues then add the other progressions from the earlier jazz blues to make a completely new set of chords, then all you have to do is add a melody on top and you have a new Blues tune.



Introduction to Spelling chords

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Introduction to Spelling Chords

By: Dennis St. Germain
In this music lesson I want to show you how to spell chords and understand the component parts of a chord. You don’t have to even read music to learn to spell chords. All you need to know is the first seven letters of the alphabet. In music, chords are classified according to the interval between their tones. This lesson is applicable to all instruments.

Circle%20of%20Fifths Introduction to Spelling chords

Figure 1 the circle of fifths

Figure 1 is the circle of Fifths.  Become familiar with this Circle it will be useful throughout your musical life. The numbers near the keynote names represent the number of sharps or flats within that key. If you divide the circle in half down the middle, the right side is the sharp side and the left side is for flats. There are 2 keys at 6 o’clock or F# or Gb and also Db or C# these keys are called enharmonic or they share the same number of flats and/or sharps for example F# has 6 sharps and Gb has 6 flats etc. They also sound the same but have a different name.

The order of flats and sharps


The next thing to remember is the order of sharps and flats. Remembering the order of flats first is easier because it spells the word BEAD then add GCF at the end like this: BEADGCF (I’ll leave it up to you to create some way of remembering this). Then the order of sharps is an EXACT mirror image of the order of flats. Like this: FCGDAEB
I’ll put the together to make some kind of chart.


BEADGCF (the order of flats)
FCGDAEB (the order of sharps)

Are you with me so far? Let’s take it a step further. For example purposes, I will use just the G Major scale for now. Suppose you want to know how many sharps are in the key of G MAJOR. The first thing I would do is go to the circle of fifths and find G, we can see that G is at 1 o’clock (or has one sharp since it’s on the sharp side of the circle). Now count on the order of sharps chart one letter (F) therefore, we have one sharp in the key of G Major and F is sharped in the key of G Major.
Let’s write out the letter names starting on G to the next highest G.
G A B C D E F G
Number the letter names
G A B C D E F# G
1  2  3 4 5  6  7   8
Don’t forget to sharp the F to make the Key of G Major.
All chords are built from its parent major scale and measured from the ROOT.
Here is what you need to know about chord extensions.
Extensions are merely the same scale notes added to a 3 or 4 note chord to change its sound but not its type. If we take the G major scale for example and write it out for 2 octaves i.e.

G A B C D E F# G A  B  C   D   E   F#  G
1  2  3  4  5 6  7   1  2  3  4    5    6   7     8
8  9 10 11 12 13 14   15

We notice that the 9th is the the same as the 2nd step of a scale the 11th is the 4th step of a scale and the 13th is the 6th step of a scale added to the basic chords. You can also sharp (#) or flat (b) each of the extension notes to create even more sounds.

Armed with this knowledge, you can now build chords using the following formula:

Major 7 chords 1-3-5-7Let’s take our G Major Scale and build a G Maj. 7 chord. Take the first, third, fifth and seventh notes and extract them from the scale. You now have the notes G B D F# which forms the G major 7th Chord.
minor 7 chords 1-b3-5-b7For minor chords we now have to do some altering. Extract the 1 3 5 7 from the G Major scale then flat the 3rd and the 7th scale tones. You now have the notes G Bb D F which forms the G minor 7th Chord.
Diminished 7 chords 1-b3-b5-bb7 or 6 (bb7 means double flat the 7th or it is actually the 6th scale step)For diminished chords, extract the 1 3 5 7 from the Major scale then flat the 3rd and the 5th and double flat the 7th (or you can use the 6th tone) so for G dim. 7 We have G Bb Db E
Dominant 7th chord 1-3-5-b7The dominant 7th group is one of the most colorful of the chord groups and many musicians like to add extensions and altered scale tones to this group. Let’s extract the 1 3 5 7 tones from the G Major scale then flat the 7th step of the scale. We now have a G7 chord with the notes G B D F as the component parts of that chord.

Augmented chords 1-3-#5 Augmented chords also have a very unique sound to them having the raised 5th scale tone. Again let’s extract just the 1 3 5 scale tones (G B D) and sharp the 5th tone (D#) and there you have it a G aug. chord.
Recap
Always measure your chords from its parent major scale. If you want to find the spelling of Bb7 then write out a Bb scale in letter names, number each letter then follow the formula for Dominant 7th chords i.e. 1 – 3 -5 – b7 so for example we would have the spelling of Bb7th as Bb D F Ab.

Voicings are merely all the component parts of a chord arranged in some other order like, 3157 or 151351 or virtually any combination you can conjure up. You can double some of the notes you can add extra notes really the sky is the limit.

The steps to greater knowledge come with application. Take all the keys in circle of fifths and work them out in all keys. Use a piece of paper and write them out like we did. You will start to have a huge vocabulary of chord knowledge and eventually, you want to commit this to memory. Remember when you were trying to spell words well now you have the tools to spell chords.


Introduction to Spelling chords

votebutton2 Introduction to Spelling chords