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Note reading 3

Here are the locations of the notes in the first position.

guitar notes, diatonic

 

The first thing to do is memorize where these notes are.

 

All you have are 7 notes, but each one exists in more than one place. Because of this, there are 18 note locations (count all the circled letters, including the open strings).

 

A quiz!

 
Quiz yourself.. The quiz question has the same form every time. Where is the (letter name) on the (letter name) string. For example, where is the F on the D string? Or where is the A on the G string?  You don’t need to do this for very long until you know where all the notes are.

 

The next part takes a bit longer, but it’s made easier by the step you’ve just taken by quizzing yourself.

 

Notes are pictures

 
Below are all of the notes on the staff in first position.

 

guitar notes, diatonic on staff

 

Think of these notes as pictures. Relating note names to the pictures is a recognition of location. Where is the C on the second string? On the second space from the top.

 

If you did the quiz, you know that the F on the high E string is on the first fret of that string. Now you just need to remember that the F picture is on the top line. Eventually, you’ll look at that location and think “F.”

 

Repeated note names

 
You may have noticed that there are 3 Fs in the diagram. Looking at the F on the 4th string will make you think of all 3 Fs for a split second. This will make you stumble mentally. This is normal. It will go away soon. After all, the picture/location for each F is completely different, and your brain will recognize that.

 

This isn’t as hard as it seems. But if you don’t have a good reason to do it, you’ll want to stop. You’ll tell yourself that tab will let you learn what you want without this tedium.

 

Find a song

 
Motivate yourself by finding a song melody or a simple solo that you’ve heard. Make sure that it’s in a book without tab. Don’t worry about the rhythm for now. Just figure out where the notes are. Since you already know the song, the rhythm will be in your ear.

This gives you a decent start. Keep working on this. Once you feel confident with what we’ve looked at so far, start looking at notes past first position. My favourite book on note-reading is Music Reading for Guitar: The Complete Method by David Oakes.

 

 

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Note reading 2

Twelve notes

Here are all the notes that exist in Western music:

 

A  A# (or Bb)  B  C  C# (or Db)  D  D# (or Eb)  E  F  F# (or Gb)  G  G# (or Ab)

 

Twelve notes. That’s it.

 

Accidentals (sharps and flats) can be a pain because each one has two possible names. But you’ll get used to that.

 

Where are they on the guitar?

The problem is to locate them on the neck of the guitar.  As it turns out, it’s ridiculously logical.

 

Start with the open strings – E A D G B E.

 

Let’s take the low E string and look at the first fret. All you need to do is count up one from E in that 12 note sequence that I have above. Doing that brings you to an F. The first fret’s name, therefore, is F.

 

Keep going up fret by fret. Every time you get to a new fret, go up one in the 12 note sequence. The second fret’s name is F#, the third fret’s name is G, etc. Do the same thing with every string.

 

Take at look at figure 1.

 

fretboard

 

 

This is where all the notes are on the guitar, up to the 12th fret.  But not every note is created equal. An A on one fret may not be the same A on another fret.

 

Confused? You should be.

 

Here’s what I mean.

 

Too many choices

There are four different A’s on the guitar.  They look like this.

 

4 As

 

There are two places to play the first A; four different places to play the second A; four different places to play the third A; and one place to play the fourth A. This makes the guitar one of the most difficult instruments to read music on. No wonder people use tab.

 

But don’t worry. We’re going to stick to one area of the guitar, and only use one choice for every note we play. In other words, each note we play will always be in the same place.

 

I promise you that it won’t take long before you can look at a note on the page and know where it is on the guitar.

 

For now we’ll boil it down to the notes without accidentals.

 

These are: A  B  C  D  E  F  G

 

I’ve given you some background. The next post will be more specific. It’ll focus on notes in a single position.

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Note reading

Note reading on the guitar has become more rare, killed by tab. Guitar books all have tabs below the notes, but nobody I’ve ever talked to looks at the notes.  Tab is quicker at helping you play the sound.

 

The problem with tabs

But tabs make you a slave to playing music the way the tab tells you to. Most guitar players that use tab exclusively don’t know that you can play the same thing in 3 or 4 different places on the guitar. Tabs don’t make you think. They just say “do it this way.” No choice.

 

But what if you could play it better somewhere else on the guitar?

 

The power of choice

Developing as a musician means making choices. It means being in charge of how you do things. This is difficult to get across to players brought up on tab. After all, you can develop a lot of technical skill using tabs. You can learn to sound great. But you don’t learn to think in a fluid way. Being a guitar player means more than being able to put your fingers in the right place at the right time.

 

Pitch names

Even if you use tabs exclusively, learn the names of the pitches at each fret location. When you’re improvising (as opposed to just playing a solo that you’ve learned), you need to know what note you’re heading for. If that note is in the chord, it will sound one way. If it’s not in the chord, it will sound another way.

 

Good improvisers understand this relationship between notes and chords. Because they understand, they’re able to quickly learn which notes are best for their own tastes.

 

Exploring other music

Aside from that, notes give you access to non-guitar books. Sometimes you want to learn a saxophone solo. Or, like John Petrucci, you might want to use piano music to improve your technique. Knowing your notes allows you to do this.

 

This may not be important to you. That’s ok. But you should know what you’re missing. Players that know their notes can do everything tab players can do. The reverse isn’t true.

 

If I haven’t totally alienated you, move on to the next post. I’ll go over some strategies for reading notes.

 

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5 suggestions for establishing ritual

 

In my last post I talked about using a mind map. If you got a chance to work with it, chances are you’ve got a set of goals and a realistic timeline for completing them. Here are some ideas for having some success.

1. Buy a notebook. Before you go to bed, think about when you have free time the next day. Write in the notebook the specific time that you’ll pick up your guitar, and for how long. For instance, you can write, “ I will pick up my guitar at 1pm tomorrow for 2 minutes.”

Don’t commit to doing anything. Something will happen. It’s the act of picking it up that is most difficult. Once you have it in your hands, it’s usually there

for 10 or 15 minutes even if you only committed to two. It might only be there for two. Doesn’t matter. Success is picking it up every day.

2. Buy an egg timer. After you’ve established a ritual of picking up the instrument, set the timer for 15 minutes. Don’t play past the 15 minutes. You don’t want to run the risk of taking time from other areas of your life that need it. If that happens, you’ll start to view the guitar negatively. If you have more time and your guitar playing isn’t imposing on other priorities, great. Play more if you want.

3. Use visualization. Researchers found that people who engaged in visualizations that included the process of what needed to be done to achieve the goal (ex: fantasizing about learning another language, by visualizing themselves practicing every day after work) were more likely to stay consistent than their peers that visualized themselves speaking French on a trip to Paris. The visualization process worked for two reasons:

  • Planning: visualizing the process helped focus attention on the steps needed to reach the goal.
  • Emotion: visualization of individual steps led to reduced anxiety.

4. Identify resistance. There will come a time when you will be tempted to give up.  When this happens, try to identify what is making this happen. Incorporate an “if-then” scenario once you find the culprit. For instance, if fatigue is stopping you from playing guitar after work, you could set up a system of “If I’m feeling tired after work, then I will take a 20-minute nap and listen to music for five minutes to get myself motivated.” Or leave the guitar out of the case, and make sure it’s in a room where you’ll have privacy. It can be something that simple (not having to open the case) than gets you to pick up the guitar.

5. Creating habits is easier when we make use of our current routines.  Pick a regular part of your schedule and then build guitar playing into it. For instance, instead of “I will play the guitar,” you could say, “When I come home, I’ll have a shower and then play the guitar.” This helps because you use cues from an established routine instead of willpower.

Fifteen minutes a day, patience, and some encouragement once in a while, and you can accomplish what you want.

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Use a mind map to make a ritual

Can you establish a ritual of picking up your guitar every day? You’ll need a good reason before you do. What’s the long-term goal aside from knowing a few songs?

Get a piece of paper. We’re going to do some mind-mapping. It’ll only take 5 or 10 minutes. Unless you get into it, in which case it could take a while…

Mind-mapping was developed in the 1970s as a whole brain alternative to linear thinking. It’s essentially a keyword technique.  The idea is to write down a central theme, and then use lines growing out of that central theme to depict your thoughts and associations.

This is not about categories. It’s about whatever is in the mind.

What I’ve got below is a template: a broad category and then stuff coming from it. You absolutely cannot censor yourself when you do this. Judgement is never fun, and this should be fun. You can eliminate stuff later. Dream big right now.

A mind map recipe.

  1. Use “music” as the central theme.
  2. Then use “guitar” as one of the first thoughts coming from that.
  3. Use things that you discover in the music theme that relate to guitar. These will likely be things you haven’t thought of before.
  4. Fill in the squares surrounding the guitar circle. Add squares if you want.
  5. Fill in the empty circles surrounding the music square.
  6. Fill in the boxes surrounding those circles. Again add squares as required

Remember. Don’t censor yourself.

mind map

 

Now you’ve got some ideas for what you want to do. Don’t get rid of anything. Which do you think are most realistic to start with? “Play like Eric Clapton” is possible, but won’t happen right away. Do you know what you need to know in order to do that?

“Learn my favorite song” is possible sooner depending on how hard it is. “Learn a few chords” is easier than both of those.  “Play with other people” is something that could happen as soon as you know a few chords, or after you learn a few song (these are just examples; none of them need to be on your mind map if they don’t feel right to you).

Make a list of all this stuff.

 Teachers are useful

Now find a good teacher. Show her/him the list, and create a learning strategy together. What do you start with? At what point do you start working on playing like Eric Clapton?

Figure out a sequence of learning and a loose timeline for when you might be able to accomplish your goals. Base those goals on 15 minutes, 6 days a week. Be realistic. If you’re not realistic, you’ll get discouraged. If you get discouraged, there’s more likelihood that you’ll quit. I don’t want you to quit.

You don’t have to keep going back for lessons if you don’t want to. You can develop the plan with a teacher, and then go home and work it. When you run into a problem, go for another lesson.

Be aware that some teachers don’t want to teach this way. Many require a monthly cheque for 4 lessons. This is reasonable if teaching is their sole means of income. Others teach part-time and are more flexible, so make sure you let whoever you talk to know up front what you’re looking for. Teachers are great for encouragement, and for giving you a sense of how you’re developing. Use them wisely and according to your budget.

For more techniques on idea generation, check out Michael Michalko’s excellent book, Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius.

 

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Guitar ritual

Before you do anything else, you have to do what you can to establish a habit of picking up your guitar. You have to do this if you want to get better. Without doing this, you’ll quit. Seems obvious. Without a habit of doing the activity, you stop doing the activity. Or you do it haphazardly, don’t get better, and then assume (wrongly) that you don’t have what it takes.

All it takes is the habit of doing it. You’ll get better. It’s just the way it works. This is really important, so I’ve dedicated the next 3 posts to the topic.

Consciousness

Research has shown that the majority of our activities are not consciously directed. As much as 95% of what we do occurs automatically or in response to external stimuli. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to create automatic behaviours that get us what we want instead of going through our days doing things without consciously establishing what those things are.

This where ritual comes in.  Defined as a detailed method of procedure faithfully or regularly followed, ritual allows for success. A ritual might seem too rigid for you, but think about it. You already have rituals in place for things that you think are important. Family dinners, an exercise program, personal hygiene, whatever. There are almost certainly actions in your work life that you have established that enable you to get work done as effectively as possible.

Think about the things you do every day. Which are the ones that you repeat? Where in your life are you most successful? Family? Work? Health? In most cases, where you find success, you’ll find ritual.

Next post: using a mind map to decide what to base your rituals on.

 

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