Archive for the ‘Beginner’ Category
Different Fingerings for an A Chord
Sunday, August 15th, 2010Time
Sunday, April 18th, 2010Joe,
When you play the piece I practiced with me or ask me to play it with your metronome it makes me sound worse.
Dear student,
Most music is meant to be played with a constant even pulse, like the one a metronome creates. At the very least, I believe being able to “grove” to a steady pulse is a skill every student should learn. “When” you play a note is possibly even more important to what note you play.
If I ask you to play with a metronome or with me it may be because I am hearing problems with the evenness with which you are playing the piece. For example, some students play notes too fast & leave space between notes where no space should exist. It is important to make every effort to correct this.
I could, simply offer a verbal suggestion such as, “work on your time.” This is typically unhelpful because chances are you don’t even realize anything is wrong with your time, & you can’t fix something if you don’t understand what’s wrong with it. So I ask you to play with something you already know is the ideal. This shows you where you should be working in a way that a million words could not.
So in short, the metronome is not actually making you sound any worse at all. It is just exposing the problem with your playing that you have not yet been trained to be aware of.
If you are struggling with your sense of time, it can be frustrating. But once you have it figured out, it will open up a lot of abilities & increase your enjoyment. It will also make you sound a lot more like you know what you’re doing to those pesky relatives that keep asking how the guitar lessons are going. Chances are they wouldn’t know the difference between an F & a G, but they do know it sounds bad when you appear to be starting & stopping constantly within one piece of music, & you know they’d love it if you figured out how to play something they could just clumsily bob their head to.
What Color Guitar Should I Get?
Sunday, April 4th, 2010Dear Joe,
“What color guitar should I get?”
Variations:
“Joe, why do you make such a big deal out of guitar colors?”
“Joe, why do guitar manufactures make so many crazy colors & body shapes?”
Dear reader,
Once you’ve determined a price range & narrowed down your search, buy the color you like best. It will sound better. I say this based on the principle that you will like it more & therefore play it more.
Guitars come in far more finish choices than any other instrument. This availability was originally put in place to mimic the marketing strategy of the automotive industry. It makes every customer feel a sense of individuality. Most people don’t like the feeling of having exactly the same guitar as their neighbor. They like choices & a feeling of customization. So asking color questions about guitars you’re interested in is a lot like asking, “what colors does this car come in?” Though it will not affect performance, color is an important, sometimes overlooked, factor that may affect enjoyment.
String Size for Beginners
Sunday, March 14th, 2010A simple way to make any steel string acoustic or electric guitar easier to play is to put thinner strings on it. Thinner strings will not require as much force to hold down.
While changing to a thinner string size may compromise in tone, sustain, intonation & feel, these compromises are irrelevant if a beginner cannot play his or her instrument.
Guitar string thickness is referred to in thousandths of an inch, generally naming the thinnest & thickest strings in the set & referring to any balanced set by the thickness of the thinnest string & the thickest string in the set. For example: if you say “a set of nines” you are referring to a set which would likely be marked 9-42 on the front of the package, indicating that the thinnest string in the set is .009″ & the thickest string in the set is .042″. Labeling strings using words such as “medium” or “super light” is generally confusing & should be ignored as they often mean different things depending on style. For example “jazz light”, “regular light”, “acoustic guitar light” & “custom light” strings, all made by the same manufacturer, are four drastically different physical sizes.
I use D’Addario (Correctly Pronounced: Da-Dairy-O ((anglicized)) or Dahd-DAH-ree-oh ((Italian))) brand strings on all my instruments. They sound good & are consistently strong & free of corrosion in the package. Brand, as well as thickness are both personal preferences. There is no universally accepted best brand or size.
Electrics come strung with 9’s or occasionally 10’s. I recommend 9’s to most players below the college level. I recommend switching to 8’s for small children or anybody who is having an unusually hard time with 9’s.
Steel-string acoustics generally come strung with 12’s, which can be problematic for beginners, especially if the guitar has not been setup properly. If you are a beginner, having trouble pressing down on your acoustic, I recommend you restring it with 10’s.
NOTE: String gauge recommendations do not apply to 3/4 size instruments.
