This is our last picking etude, and it is the most difficult. We have been doing a piece of music in each of the most common "subdivisions" of time including eighth notes, triplets and now sixteenth notes. This piece starts off with some pretty "scale wise" passages, where we are mostly just going up or down the scale note by note or with small skips. The second section we are skipping strings, and still needing to keep the alternate picking consistent. DO THIS VERY SLOW UNTIL YOU CAN DO THE WHOLE THING CORRECTLY. Then gradually bring it up to speed. If you rush through learning it you will miss the benefit of the etude, which is to get you consistently picking sixteenth notes regardless of the difficulty of the passage.
This weeks lesson is on triplet picking...just one more of our little etudes to build your skills!
A "Triplet" is where we divide the beat into 3 smaller parts or "subdivisions". Count them like this:
ONE trip let TWO trip let THREE trip let FOUR trip let
The count happens on every metronome click. What is most important is that you are alternate picking all of the way through the exercise, like the other lessons in this series. If you are doing it correctly you will be playing down picks on beats "one" and "three" and up picks on beats "two" and "four".
This is the second in our series of lessons preparing us for our alternate picking etude. This lesson we are alternate picking arpeggios. Nothing too difficult but you want to make sure that every note is strictly alternate picked...
This lesson is designed to get your hands working a little better before we start working on our "Alternate Picking Etude". An "Etude" is a technical study....here is part of a definition that I stole from Britannica Online Encyclopedia
in music, originally a
study or technical exercise, later a complete and musically
intelligible composition exploring a particular technical problem in an esthetically satisfying manner.
This is a little snippet of an E minor scale that we are using to sharpen our alternate picking across two or three stings. As I say in the video please be sure to strictly alternate, no matter what note or string you are on!
This is a very (relatively) simple lesson on "Travis Picking", a style of playing guitar popularized by Country musician Merle Travis. Our example is a very repetitive pattern and not too much like a real Merle Travis guitar part but it will get you started with the concept.
One very important element is that we have your right hand thumb playing on each downbeat. It is alternating between the "Root" and the "Fifth" of the chord with the roots on beats "One and "Three" and the 5ths on beats "Two" and "Four". Everything else in the pattern is played by the other fingers and like our other fingerstyle lessons you want to "assign" fingers to specific strings...
This is our second fingerstyle lesson. We are learning a right hand picking pattern that is similar to "Dust in the Wind" by the band Kansas, and applying it to the chords we used in the last lesson. One thing to think about is that the thumb is playing on every downbeat, or where you would tap your foot while you are playing. Notes either happen with the thumb (like on beat one) or in between thumb picks (beats two, three and four).
The pattern stays consistent throughout the example piece, although when we have the F and G chords we move the thumb to the 6th string for the notes on the 1st and 3rd beats.
This is a quick lesson on getting started with finger picking. The first thing we are going to do is name the fingers of your right hand "classical guitar" style. If we were to number them we might get confused about which hand we are talking about...this way I can specify a right hand finger to pick the note and a left hand finger with a number to fret it without too much explanation....
P = Thumb
I = Index finger
M = Middle finger
A = Ring finger
The letters come from the Spanish names for those fingers:
P for pulgar,
I for indicio,
M for medio
A for anular
I pretty much explain everything you need in the video, but the one thing I left out is that we are playing "free strokes" as opposed to "rest strokes", where the picking finger plays through the string and comes to rest on the next string up...we talk about that more in the next lesson but for now here it is!
I am trying a new feature this month and adding a forum to the site. If
it goes well and there is a decent amount of traffic on it I'll
probably upgrade to a nicer forum system.
The first actual use will be for our upcoming "December" solo
contest...I'm still working out the details but here is a little bit of
info:
I thought it would be fun to post a backing track for the solo section
of my song "December" and have you guys post yourselves playing over
it! The track is the same length as the solo that is transcribed in
this lesson and part of the challenge is coming up with something that
gets the point across in just a few measures, just like the solo in a
pop song should!
We will vote by Poll on the forum and I'll give out
free copies of my book "Foundations for Guitar" to the three
submissions that get the most votes.
You can either submit a
Youtube video or a sound clip. If you don't have recording software
there are free programs such as "Audacity" that will allow you to
record over the backing track!
This lesson is just about us using the Dorian mode in a rock solo. I picked a live version of my song "December" from a show we did at a shopping mall, of all places...look down at the bottom of this lesson about the contest for this song....
Here is the recording...its from a video camera but you can everything OK....the solo starts at 2:45 into the song.
The chord progression for the first 3/4 of the solo is just Am for a measure and D for a measure....this is a perfect progression to play A Dorian of because Am is the "i" chord and D major is the "IV" chord in that mode. If we were playing in regular old "A minor" (or" A Aeolian" or "A Natural minor", since all three names mean the same thing) the "iv" chord would be minor instead of major.
I get away with just playing A minor pentatonic over the 7th and 8th measures over the Am Am/G and D/F# chords but when we get to the F major and E major chords I really outline the chord tones...its a very strong sound!
I am trying a new feature this month and adding a forum to the site. If
it goes well and there is a decent amount of traffic on it I'll
probably upgrade to a nicer forum system.
The first actual use will be for our upcoming "December" solo
contest...I'm still working out the details but here is a little bit of
info:
I thought it would be fun to post a backing track for the solo section
of my song "December" and have you guys post yourselves playing over it! The track is the same length as the solo that is transcribed in this lesson and part of the challenge is coming up with something that gets the point across in just a few measures, just like the solo in a pop song should!
We will vote by Poll on the forum and I'll give out
free copies of my book "Foundations for Guitar" to the three
submissions that get the most votes.
You can either submit a
Youtube video or a sound clip. If you don't have recording software
there are free programs such as "Audacity" that will allow you to
record over the backing track!
I am trying a new feature this month and adding a forum to the site. If it goes well and there is a decent amount of traffic on it I'll probably upgrade to a nice forum system.
The first actual use will be for our upcoming "December" solo contest...I'm still working out the details but here is a little bit of info:
I thought it would be fun to post a backing track for the solo section of my song "December" and have you guys post yourselves playing over it!
I am probably going to have some way to vote (either by Poll on my website or I might put up a forum for us to post in) and I'll give out free copies of my book "Foundations for Guitar" to the three submissions that get the most votes.
You can either submit a Youtube video or a sound clip. If you don't have recording software there are free programs such as "Audacity" that will allow you to record over the backing track!
The important thing to remember is that the only difference between the scales is that the Dorian mode adds a Major 2nd and a Major 6th to the Minor Pentatonic scale. The examples below will help you combine the vocabulary you already have with this new sound.
In our next lesson I will have a transcription of a solo using the Dorian Mode/Minor Pentatonic combination that I played on a live recording of the song "December" by my band "Felt". This is from a gig we played in a mall, of all places...not the greatest quality but I think we'll get some good vocabulary from the solo. Check it out here:
