Guitar Noise

Hello to all!

Guitar Noise Podcast #15 takes up right on the heels of #14 - we’ll still be using “Handsome Molly” as an exercise to incorporate the various lessons we’ve picked up in our podcasts thus far. The emphasis here will be on combining measures (or half measures) of strumming with measures (or half measures) of crosspicking. Plus, we’ll add a couple of riffs to make the change from our G to D chord a little more interesting.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Let’s go into playing guitar by ear. I’ll base the content on the series found on Maximum Musician, but it will be revised here and there as inspiration strikes.

Just what exactly does it mean to play by ear?

When you hear someone say, “He plays by ear” it’s often said with awe, in the same way you might say, “His car has 10-wheel drive and he can parallel park it with his eyes closed while balancing a guitar pick on his nose.”

Unfortunately, when you hear such talk, you think that you, or the average person, can’t play by ear. Talk like this gets you to believe that you can’t hear a simple melody and play it on the guitar or other instrument. And if you believe this, you believe a lie, because everyone with hearing, a bit of desire and a pinch of persistence can play by ear.

To play by ear means to listen to something, and then play it on an instrument - apart from your voice. Recognize first that singing a melody you’ve heard is actually a form of playing by ear. We’re going to focus on playing guitar by ear, but singing will help you do this.

And we need to amend the above statement a bit: playing by ear does mean to translate what you hear into what you play. But, what you hear is affected by what you understand about music. You don’t have to have a music degree or even have read music theory books to build an understanding of how chords fit with melodies, what chords can substitute for each other, and other topics. But, at some level, you can acquire this understanding, just by applying your passion to play, and asking questions like “Why does this sound so cool? How can I make more of this type of sound?” And this understanding comes out when you listen to a tune or piece you want to play by ear. So, the same sound hitting your ears and a novice’s ears can sound very different, because your musical knowledge changes your hearing.

The first thing we’ll learn how to play by ear is a simple, familiar melody. Although the melody is simple, it will still be effective for building the skill of playing by ear. Lots of melodies in popular songs are simple. Some are so simple that they’re not any fun to sing without strumming some chords to accompany them.

We’ll learn more about playing by ear next time. Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - July 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Some quick tips on learning melodies by ear in this issue.

First off, learn scales and play them regularly. Most important: the major scale. Learn at least the five CAGED forms. (Get Fretboard Logic is this term confuses you). But the more forms you know, the more insights you get into how melodies work - when you take the time to learn melodies on those forms.

Also, doodle, noodle, and play. Scat or sing stuff and try to play what you sing. This is easier when you know a melody well.

Make transcribing melodies a habit. Listen, sing, then fret away.

Last tip for this issue: make a game of finding a melody note over the chords you strum to a song. This is a great way of learning how melodies work with chords.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - May 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Hello to all!

For our fourteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, let’s take stock of the many things we’ve learned so far and, over the course of the next number of GN Podcasts, put them to use in song. After all, that’s why we’re practicing, right? For starters, we’ll use the traditional tune, “Handsome Molly” (also known to many as “I Wish I Was in London”), which has a nice, simple chord progression of G, D and C.

We’re going to continue doing what we call “modeling a melody” in this issue. And that just means figuring out some interesting things our favorite melodies do so *we* can do them, to craft our own melodies. We can use this information in improvisation and in composition.

We explored the idea of SAMES and DIFFERENTS last time. Why are those in capital letters? Isn’t there enough shouting in the world without me shouting at you? The reason for the capitals is to stress the idea. SAMES are things that get repeated in a melody, and you can figure out what DIFFERENTS are based on that.

But melodies in solos, in songs old and new and from every country, use lots of SAMES. They repeat notes. And it’s not because the composer is lazy. It’s because we listeners like lots of SAMEs. Just like we usually don’t prefer waking up in a different house every morning, but want to keep to the SAME home day after day. Same goes for jobs and so many other areas of life.

And the same is true of great art. And movies. Why are there so many super hero movies made? Because we want to see the SAME basic ideas of miraculous powers and happy endings over and over, despite there being different characters involved.

Back to melodies. Just where do we search for SAMES in melodies? Here’s a key observation that will hold true for much of the music you here: many parts of music are organized in units of four and two. Four quarter notes to a measure, for example. If you can get some standard notation of one of your favorite melodies, mark off every four bars to start with. If the notation is busted up with one staff having three bars and the next having five, rewrite or cut and paste so you’re looking at rows of four bars each. Then, even if you can’t read the notation, you can still effectively compare the notes, because standard notation is actually pretty intuitive and visual.

As you look from bar 1 to bar 4, then bar 2 and bar 5, ask yourself “what notes are the same here?” Or, what entire groups of notes are the same? Maybe notes are not duplicated exactly, but the overall *shape* of the line is copied.

We’ll explore melodies more next time. Have fun seeing the SAMES in your favorite melodies. And thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - May 2, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

We’ve already written about that consummate gentleman and guitar great David Gilmour on this blog. (See David Gilmour Signature Guitar Strings). Now there is something else for Gilmour fans and guitar players to get excited about. On September 22, Fender is releasing a David Gilmour Signature ‘Black Strat’. From David Gilmour’s website:

In the two years that the guitar has been in discussion, a number of prototypes have been produced, and the final version was only approved when David was happy that all elements combined to make a sound that was as close as possible to his own guitar’s. The ‘Black Strat’ comes in a hard case (by G&G) stuffed with extras: Phil Taylor’s ‘Black Strat’ book, a set of GHS David Gilmour Boomer strings, a copy of the 3-disc version of Live In Gdańsk, a cable by Evidence Audio, a deluxe Fender leather strap, and a David Gilmour plectrum. The interior of the case is a plush green, including embroidered David Gilmour and Fender Custom Shop logos.

That definitely sounds like something I’d like to see under my Christmas tree this year. Is it even worth dropping hints?

Hello to all!

In our thirteenth Guitar Noise Podcast, we move into the realm of swing. First, we’ll look at the feel of swing and of how “swing eighths” differ from the “straight eighth” notes that we’ve been using in our strumming up to this point.

And, since swing eighths are the basis of blues shuffles and rhythms, we’ll use our new strumming style in the “twelve bar blues” format as a way to get ourselves comfortable with the use of swing eighths in strumming. Then, as we have in past lessons, we’ll explore this rhythm further by combining it with a very cool walking bass line. You’ll be sounding like a Texas blue legend before you’re done!

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Here is a draft of a method I wrote to understand a nifty melody and produce your own nifty melodies. I hope you find it useful.

What does “modeling a melody” mean? It means “doing what a particular melody does without duplicating the melody.” So we explore a melody, find out why it goes where it goes, and say “how can I do that?” Or, “how can I make more of that stuff? It sounds good.”

Let’s have some steps here, a process.

• Listen to the melody, first of all. Kind of obvious.

What are we listening for? Key idea coming up:

• List the SAMES you hear
• List the DIFFERENTS you hear

Great melodies often use a lot of repetition. For example, what happens in one measure might have been almost exactly what happened in the previous measure, with a few different notes at the end.

• Next step: List Cool Sounds. Especially Cool Sounds that are cool for reasons we don’t yet understand
• Next: Notate (transcribe) the melody. We could write volumes on this. But…not now. Get the melody on paper or your computer. Get a visual representation - in standard notation, not tablature. What’s wrong with tab? Tab does not show (consistently) difference in pitch as immediately as standard notation.
• Print out the melody and repeat above: List the SAMES and DIFFERENTS.

Try the steps just mentioned with a favorite melody, and see if you don’t come up with some insights into how that melody works to sound good. We’ll do more steps to modeling a melody next time.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - April 15, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.

Hello to all!

We’re going to try something a little different with our twelfth Guitar Noise Podcast. I’m not even sure it’s got a “technical” name!

Basically, and for lack of a better way of putting it, we’ll be “stretching out” our downstrum - turning it from a typcial downstroke to something that’s more of a musical punctuation mark. It’s easy to do and allows us to vary a typical strumming pattern in an interesting way while practically changing nothing in what we’re doing.

As before, we’ll examine this technique and then combine it with different patterns as well as with other techniques learned from our previous Guitar Noise Podcasts.

As always, I’ll be walking you step by step through the lesson. And, as always, please let us know what you think.

Peace

Download mp3 (Right-click and “Save as”)

Here’s a letter from a player who’s feeling a bit stuck.

I’ve been playing guitar off and on for several years, but I feel stuck; I keep playing the same chords to the same songs every time I play.

If you were me and could play only a few chords, what would you choose to learn? Riffs? Scales? Any guidance is appreciated.

[Following is my response.]

Thanks for your message. I understand the problem you’re going through. You’re bored with your playing. You’re looking for something fresh. There are lots of ways of finding this.

One thing to keep in mind is this: if you try to tackle something that has little meaning for you, all your effort will be for nothing. So, follow what you like most about playing.

Another idea: consider getting a book on beginning chord melody playing. This type of playing doesn’t require that you be the world’s greatest guitarist. In other words, with a little bit of input you get a lot of output.

Chord melody arrangements give you the complete song: chords plus melody. You said you were bored just playing chords. Chord melody shows you how the chords go along with the melody. It’s very satisfying for the hands and for the ears. And if anyone besides you happens to be listening, it’s satisfying for them, too.

Search on Google or the Hal Leonard sites for “Chord Melody.” Also, Volume 1 of William Leavitt’s Modern Method for Guitar has some very sweet chord melody etudes. And they’re short.

Chord melody arrangements are just one way of beating boredom. I think you also might like to learn some fingerpicking arrangements. Fingerpicking makes the guitar sound like several guitars. Lots of fun. Get a book showing you how Paul Simon played back in his Simon and Garfunkel days.

You might find learning licks fun, but in my experience they don’t satisfy for very long. Because they’re just part of a tune, not the whole thing.

Above all, learn songs: chords, melody. All parts. You mentioned that you are reading the play by ear series on Maximum Musician. If you enjoy this, you can expand on this reading by committing to learning a melody by ear every day. Learn a melody in all the major scale forms that you know. If you don’t play scales yet, don’t spend tons of time learning all the forms at once. Just learn a few strings of one form at a time, and then use what you’ve learned by playing simple melodies on it. Again, Leavitt’s Modern Method is good for this.

These are just a few ideas, R. Keep asking questions, and the answers will come, and your feet will get out of the mud.

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2008 Darrin Koltow

This first appeared in the Guitar Noise News - April 1, 2007 newsletter. Reprinted with permission.