eclecticism - a guitar player’s resource

I may be a little biased.  I have very fond memories of this book.

Back last summer when I picked up the guitar for the first time, this book was actually recommended to me by a friend that first time I had actually stepped in a guitar store - he was my guide when I first picked up the instrument, and I think it was one of the best days of my life when I took home my Epiphone acoustic and this little book in tow.  I’ll admit, despite having prior music experience, I think I was too intimidated by the thought of heading to the store alone, as I had absolutely no idea what to look for - and I am so deeply in his debt for being my guide that first day.  He knew the right instrument AND the right book to learn from.

Geared towards those without any sense of musical experience or direction, Book I calmly and patiently introduces you to reading music as well as basic music theory such as note lengths, time signatures, key signatures, and so on.  It introduces one string at a time (high to low) and includes several exercises after a demonstration of each string; this process encompasses roughly the first half of the book.  These exercises build upon one another as you go, reinforcing previous lessons and adding in new notes as you go.  You’ll learn about an octave and a half, mostly centered around the top four frets by the time the book is through.

 The second half gets into your rudimentary chords with further demonstrations, and teaches you the basics of strumming; posture, fingering positions, moving between chords.  Given that the examples that they give, I can’t help but feel that the book was written for more of an acoustic audience as opposed to electric, so if that’s your thing, this is the book for you - I myself started on acoustic so it worked well for me.  It just has to do with the kind of exercises that it makes you do, along with the general feel of the practice tracks on the disc.   That’s not to say that you couldn’t play it with an electric; I’ve tried it with both, though, and the songs just have that nice hum on an acoustic that isn’t there otherwise.

There’s a few things about the book that I really say I appreciate though.  The first is that it does not make mention of tabs whatsoever - you will have to read music to make it through this book.  I’m not an anti-tab zealot, but I feel learning right away with tabs, especially if you have no prior music experience will tend to stunt your growth when you want to learn more theory.  It may be easier to use tabs, but to me it’s more rewarding to read music, especially when learning a piece for the first time - plus,, if you should choose to pick up another instrument, it’s good to have that prior knowledge.  But I digress.  (They do get into tabs in Book II, but by then you’ll have a solid musical foundation anyhow.)

The book is also very unassuming.  It’s kind of like an Ikea instruction manual.  It doesn’t go into much depth, and it’s mostly done with pictures.  It kind of just throws the ideas at you and lets you formulate the best way of incorporate them into your playing.  This may be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it - I may have picked up a number of bad habits when left to my own devices with this book that might have been avoided had it gone into a little bit more depth.

 Overall, I’d have to say I can definitely recommend this book for anyone brand new to guitar, or music in general.  If you have any experience at all, even if it’s just a month of serious self-teaching, you may already be beyond this book’s scope, but if you’re picking up your first instrument, I can suggest this one with a hundred percent certainty.

I’ll be referring to intervals a lot in my guides, so I thought it important to give you a quick run down of what they are.

Definition

An interval can be described as the relationship between two notes - both notes and intervals are absolutely atomic and can not be broken down any further than they are, so they serve as the lowest building blocks are all music. I believe out of all the instruments out there, the guitar fretboard is by far the best method for demonstrating the concept, so let’s start there!

 Demonstration

Pick the A string without fretting (open) to start.  Head to the first fret, and then pick the string again.  You’ll then get an A sharp (or B flat), depending on how you look at it - and there you have it.  The distance between the open string and the first fret, or any fret and the fret immediately following it, is one interval.   Move up another fret and then you get a regular B, and so on.  It’s quite simple, really.

However…

There is a monkey wrench here, and it’s certainly not just the guitar - it is based in music itself. 

The distance between B and C, and E and F is one interval.  Or, put another way, there is no such thing as a “B sharp/C flat” or “E sharp/F flat” note.  It’s just B and C, and E and F, and this is the cause for any irregularity you may notice between the various strings of the guitar.  Simply put, the best way of remembering this is through some kind of a mnenomic.   My personal favorite is “bake cake, eat fudge“.

Memorize the fretboard? 

Some guitar pros will tell you that the only way to really learn the fretboard is to memorize it by rote.  I’ve tried this, it is painful, it does not work, and most importantly, it does not stick.  However, the information above shows you that you do not NEED to memorize it by rote - you can find any note you want by application, not by memory.  Granted, it will be a slow process at first - you may not be able to just identify all of the F notes at a glance, for example - at least not at first.  By far, the best way to learn the fretboard is to take the information above, grab a fretboard chart on Google, and simply just play around fifteen minutes a day on different areas of the board.  Once you look at a chart and you know where a C is, for example, you know the D note is two frets higher, the E note is two frets higher than that, and the F is one fret higher than that.  Work on improvising your own tunes with this knowledge and you’d be surprised how quickly you will pick it up.

Introduction

Recognize the above bit of music?  Strum it out on the guitar and it’ll soon come to mind.

Yes, it’s Taps.  One of the most iconic and American pieces of music ever written and the composer used only ONE triad - the notes of C, E, and G.  It’s hard to believe, but great music can be made with simple, rudimentary concepts and movements.

In this series of articles, I will be looking at triads, which commonly go overlooked by many beginning guitarists.  Once you have a few scales down pat, it’s time to put them to good use - you’ve probably picked up a few of them at this point and can maybe even them through off the top of your head, but if your practice and improvisation sounds a little boring, uncreative or “scale-y”, incorporating triads are a great way to add a little zest to anything you play or write.

Alright, you hooked me.  So what’s a triad anyhow?

Glad you asked!  In music theory terms, it is a combination of three notes: 

• a root - any old note you choose, and this will serve as the name of the triad
• a third - three intervals above the root
• a fifth - three intervals above the third.

If this sounds a bit confusing, feel free to backtrack via the above links to learn what an interval is, as you will want to know before proceeding further.  We will be looking at only major triads for this first lesson, but it is incredibly important to understand the fundamentals before proceeding further.

Example

Let’s take a look at a standard major chord - nothing special about it, and easy to play and remember; first fret on the G string, second fret on the B string, third fret on the D string. This is an F major chord - the root note being an F, with a third (A) two steps above it (F to G to A), and a fifth (C) two steps above the third (A to B to C).  Go ahead and strum this chord.  There’s a nice harmony to it, and you can just tell that all of the notes cooperate well with each other.  For this instance, we will use ONLY these notes and see how many different combinations we can come up with.

You can see from the below excerpt that there’s four combinations in a single triad:

Download Guitar Pro 5 tab - fmajortriad-01012008.gp5

• ascending from the root to the fifth
• descending from the fifth to the root
• ascending from the third to the fifth, and then descending down to the root
• descending from the third to the root, and then ascending to the fifth

Not bad for only three notes!  Go ahead and give it a try.  True, it’s just a rudimentary practice, but you’ll find that it doesn’t sound like a boring old scale.  It actually sounds like.. music!  So much music creativity lies in only a few notes - it’s what you do with those few notes that really makes the song.

 Adding More

Let’s introduce another easy one to the mix.  Let’s throw in a triad for one note higher - a G major triad.   The fingering for this is exactly the same as the previous example, except you will be shifting your fingers two positions to the right.  Try this one on for size - play it as slowly as you feel comfortable with and then gradually increase the tempo.  Notice that both of these practices are in triplet feel - meaning that they are three quarter notes, but played over the span of two quarter note periods.  Think of it as a “one sixth note”, if there were such a thing. :) 

Download Guitar Pro 5 tab - fandgmajortriads-01012008.gp5

When you get in the feel of playing this, it should sound like a nice, arpeggiated harp melody.  Feel free to mix it up a little - play the first triad four times, then the second four times, then go back to the first.  Or alternate.  Or throw in some other forms in there while you’re at it.  Above all though, play at such a pace where you can shift your hands between positions without breaking your stride.   Don’t play the first triad four times, then pause for a rest while you move your hand to the next position.  Consistency is key - if you find yourself doing this, then simply slow down until you can manage it.  Speed will come with time.

In the next lesson, we will look at minor triads and explore some more ways of improvising with what you already know.