Tag: analyzing

The Importance of Repertoire

In this short post I want to spend a few words on the importance of knowing tunes, either written by other musicians or by yourself. ‘Repertoire’ is often a fancy word we use to identify ‘all the tunes we know’.

In my experience as teacher I have found to be a divide between the guitarist that is obsessed by theory and scales and that who is just interested in learning songs with no real interest in knowing how this songs are created.  I always wondered why  the second category were happier about their playing…

We spend as musicians most of our time learning theory, techniques and we often wonder how these fit in with ‘real life’….a lot of times we forget that tunes and musical pieces/compositions should be the goal of what we do. All these exercises and music theory studies should be a way to better perform and understand the tunes we know and write.

I always suggest to all my students to always keep an updated list of all the tunes they know (or they can busk), and a folder with all their original material, from the completed tunes to the ‘work in progress’ type material.

Keep writing and learning new tunes: this will give you a sense of purpose  in your studies and also it will be a test for all the techniques and theory you have learnt…

Good luck!

A tool to improve your improvising skills.

It’s not a secret that one of my all time favourite guitar instructional books is The Advancing Guitarist The Advancing Guitarist   by Mick Goodrich   Review by Mick Goodrich. One the exercises explained in this great book is about creating a random sequence of chords by writing every type of chord (major, minor, all the 7th chords and, if you feel more adventurous, chords with extensions and alterations) on small pieces of paper and extracting them at random. This will not only improve your sight reading in terms of chords and chord progressions, but, if you record these sequences to create a backing track, it will greatly improve your improvisation skills.

This is where http://www.thestringery.com/featured/random-chords-generator/ comes into play.

On this site you can easily generate random sequences to improve your chord recognition knowledge and improvisational skill. The default number of chords is 16 but you can easily change that number. I advice to play along to a drum beat or a metronome, so that you are more focused, starting with a chord per bar.

Also you could leave the recording backing track for a few days, so you completely forget what you recorded, and use it to practice your aural recognition skills (ear training). Try and see if you can recognise a major chord from a minor, or what extensions are contained in a chord.

I am also sure you will find some ‘snippets’ that will inspire you…maybe the beginning of your next masterpiece.

Triads Pt 2 Spread Voicings

We have seen in the previous lesson al the major triads in close (or closed) position. As already stated if these notes of the triad (or ‘voices’) are contained within an octave we call it in ‘close’ or ‘closed’ position, as opposite as ‘spread’ position (more than an octave). Just watch the video where I go through all the most popular shapes for the latter.

OTHER TRIADS

Just like for the close position, it is really simple to find other (minor, augmented, diminished) triads from the major triad.

Major triad – R,3,5 – C,E,G

Minor triad – R,m3,5 – C,Eb,G (Lower the 3rd one 1/2 step)

Augmented triad – R, 3, #5 – C,E,G# (Raise the 5th one 1/2 step)

Diminished triad – R,m3,dim5 – C,Eb,Gb (Lower both the 3rd and 5th one 1/2 step)

Download –here– the page with all the triad inversions on a printable PDF file or click the image below (2 pages, both close and spread voicings).

Triads

In this lesson I go through all inversions for the most popular major triad ‘shapes’ on guitar.

The theory behind triads is quite simple: a major triad is basically the 1st, 3rd and 5th note of a major scale. If analysed in intervals:  from the root I will have a first note that is a major 3rd apart and a second note that is a perfect 5th apart. As an example, for the key of C major (C,D,E,F,G,A,B)  my C major triad will be C,E,G (C-E major 3rd, C-G perfect 5th).

If these notes (or ‘voices’) are contained within an octave we call this ‘close’ or ‘closed’ position, as opposite as ‘spread’ position (more than an octave). We will see the triads in Spread Position in another lesson.

INVERSIONS

When the triad is in its Root-3rd-5th configuration we call it ‘root position’ – C,E,G

If we move the root up an octave we have the first inversion – 3rd, 5th, Root – E,G,C

If we then move the 3rd up an octave we have the second inversion – 5th, Root, 3rd – G,C,E

OTHER TRIADS

It is really simple to find other (minor, augmented, diminished) triads from the major triad.

Major triad – R,3,5 – C,E,G

Minor triad – R,m3,5 – C,Eb,G (Lower the 3rd one 1/2 step)

Augmented triad – R, 3, #5 – C,E,G# (Raise the 5th one 1/2 step)

Diminished triad – R,m3,dim5 – C,Eb,Gb (Lower both the 3rd and 5th one 1/2 step)

Download –here– the page with all the inversions on a printable PDF file or click the image below.

Guitar Great Vic Juris: A couple of great video lessons.

I was lucky enough to study with Vic Juris in the early 90’s. Today I stumbled into a couple of great lessons on youtube  and I wanted to share them with you. He is a great jazz guitarist, if you don’t know about him, check out his music: http://www.myspace.com/vicjuris

In this lesson he talks about some very cool (and incredibly easy) applications of the standard box pentatonic shape:

Here he talks introduces his book Modern Chords:
Advanced Harmony for Guitar (Mel Bay’s Private Lessons)

I cannot recommend enough to check out this incredible musician!