music theory

Originally posted by The_Modulus
Boondock: I didn't know GuitarPro had scale charts, thats awesome! I'll definitely check that out. I know the fretboard fairly well in terms of where neatral notes are and flats etc, but scales and stuff... also, how does one tell which key a song is in? And if, for example, a song is in A, how does one know which scale can work with that?

this is where it gets complicated cause it is hard to explain. i post on a guitar forum and there are just so many ways to put things that people get messed up...go take a months worth of lessons. seriously. it will cost you about $60 but it will be invaluable to you. being able to get real time feedback and watching someone too.

if the song is in the key of A, you know, you're bopping along the melody, rythem player is playing some cool chord progression in that key, and then WHAM, you get 16 bars to toss a nice solo in....the song is in the key of A, so, you start melting faces moving within say A major, A pent, etc, depending on what sound you want. thats why you want to learn those scales in every position.

so if you know your notes, you know steps right?
like 6th string(low E), 1st fret(F)
if you hit the first fret, then it the second fret, you are going fron F to F# and you are going a half step. on huitar, 1 fret= a half step.
the pattern for major scale is WWHWWWH

T_M, have you seen this site?

www.wholenote.com...

Good, concise explanations for almost all things Guitar.

What little theory I know came off the www.

Mel Bay didn't do a damn thing for me.

Thanks Boondock, yeah I really get it. I'm just really lazy when it comes to learning this kind of stuff, but I guess it's not really that hard. wholenot.com looks great! Im going to tuck into some lessons soon!
Thanks guys.
I've just spent an hour procrastinating over an exam I have and tabbed out some Smashing Pumpkins songs. Anyone heard the song Slow Dawn from Machina II? It sounds really good on one acoustic guitar.

I agree mel bay books aren't that great in my opinion either. Tab sites are generally inaccurate although if you just need a little hint or help they will at least show you usually what chord the guys using at this place in the song or whatever. Listen to boondock about the lesson stuff he's giving you. he's right. I teach too and that's a good place to start. the material he's giving ya.

I'm teaching similar stuff to another kid regarding the major diatonic system. It's priceless info to know what chord the guy is playing and what mode or notes are available to you when the song goes "there"

I agree with those that say tab sites generally have terrible transcriptions; I have seen more than a few that were just flat out completely wrong. When I transcribe, which is quite often, I use good ol' Powertab (It's free and does what I need), and just the act of writing music can show one quite a bit about theory. I think one of the best methods to learning a style of music is to transcribe works in that particular style. I have learned more about how a certain artist constructs a solo or piece by transcribing it than I could learn from any theory book. A few other things I find to be of utmost importance...learning to read standard notation, learning to play in different tunings, and learning different styles. I mention the "different tunings" because I found it invaluable to see how other instruments fingerings differ. For instance, a guitar is tuned in 4ths with a 3rd added and violins are tuned in 5ths; understanding how other instruments make the sounds they do can be very important in understand the concepts of your own instrument.

Also, I think it is important to explore other styles of music that you would not normally be interested in. I primarily play Jazz, and mainly Swing and Gypsy Jazz at that but I am actively listening to and playing other things as well...Classical, African polyrhythmic, Flamenca, Boleros, Musette, Russian & Eastern European Folk, Arabic...are just a few that interest me. I have always thought it important to be able to communicate with music in various ways and to learn why and how other cultures have developed their sounds and rhythms. This way, you are getting a "crash course" in music history and theory without even knowing it.

holy crap I haven't engaged in coversation like this (other than when giving lessons) since I was at berklee. THis is cool. Finally people who understand music from the inside out.

The tab stuff is generally totally wrong when you go to tab sites. I usually only tab if I'm writting out excercises for students or when trying to teach stuff to people who can't read music (not biased against that BTW. it helps to at least read it a little though. sight reading not neccissary. especially if you have some simply written charts)

As for me I'll personally tab if I've writen something and i want to be absoulutly sure of what notes I was using. For instance was that the 13th frett I played there origionaly or the 14th. 14th was technically in the key, but this could have been a tension note. damn. which one was it? we'll sometimes I'll tab out the fingering of my own stuff to make sure I keep it one way. then I'll go back and write it out in musical notes. Musical notation is so much more articulate. time, phrasing. clues to how the song is supposed to be played, inflections and notes by the author are all there when they aren't expressed so well in tab. + musical notation is visual so you can visualy see where the song is going. pretty cool. worth learning with time.

Also it's good to know what the tuning was on the origional instument the song was written for. especially for bass palyers who are trying to learn cello stuff. cellos tuned in 5th. Bass in 4ths. fingering will be esiaer in places for the bass palyer than the cellist on the same song. and conversly there will be some big streatched where the cello's tuning allows one to reach parts of the song than over a bass players tuning. Also, useful for arranging parts for other instruments.

this is part of the black page....it's a drum solo...black page #2 was written for guitar...

tab this out and give it a shot...not happening

img441.imageshack.us...

i still say pound that major scale....everything is based off of that. you will learn how to construct different 'voicings' of chords..

also remember, you can learn something today but you won't realize you actually know it till the next practice or 3 practices down the line.....just keep going.
remember, 10 minutes 6 days a week is better than an hour 1 day a week.

damn again boondock. You beat me to the next cool thing I was going to talk about.

I always tell my students that even though it all seems confusing and frustrating. their subconcious is and will be busy working on all the material that they are being shown now. in a few weeks you'll go from one day not being able to play the part to overnigh being able to use the technique. the theory will start to fall in place as your subconcious grasps it better.

Like napolion hills books say. the subconcious works hard for you. And it's like magic. one day it all pops together and makes clear sense to you. same thing with muscle memory. Practice something slowley and perfect as possibel for 20 minutes straight without distractions. I readc some report back in collage that discussed the average time it took for the brain to assign neurological pathways to certain muscular actions. Want to get a real good slap technique on bass. parctice the move as perfectly as possible for 20 minutes and the technique will be locked into your muscle memory.

i forgot, whatever you're doing. wheh practicing up to it, warming up, only do it as fast as you can do correctly....if you are running scales, set a metronome up to a decent speed that you can do correctly.
type in free metronome and you'll get one and guitar pro has one too i think.

a lot of people get ahead of themselves and try to play faster then they really can it while it might be impressive to someone who does not know about music/guitar, you kinda come off looking like a tool you know?
it's all about getting it right. not getting it right now..

say you're practicing a scale run, you don't need to whip the arpeggios out as fast as yngwie(i want doughnuts)malmsteen. it's more important that you get the arps clean. then build up speed...

how are you with chords? open chords?
dude, learn barre chords. that might be the single greatest thing, IMO that you can know......know your barre chords man. they're hard as a mofo when you are just starting but as i said earlier and bassplyer concurre with, keep hitting it and after say a week, you will go to bed on wednesday still not getting the barre, and then the next day, you'll be busting them out...

BARRE CHORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

learn to voice chords in general. if you can picture your finger covering all the correct notes at whatever chord change in the song It will open up a lot of musical ideas, and will just make you more confident that if you did play a little slur or run at one part or the other of the song that at least if not in bad taste the notes weren't jarring and were still harmonically OK. I prefer someone to tell me the song goes from Gsus4(9) to a Bb #11 or some thing as arcane sounding than to have some one tell me as a bass player to just go from G to Bb which doesn't tell me crap about the song or give me much of an understanding of what the song is doing.

So other than just knowing through ear training or just from visual confermation what the guitar player is doing without asking and having to figure out what the heck their doing by watching. it's nice to have some one say it's in this key or this is the chord changes. from their I know exactly whats going on with song and I can take it from there.

The style of music I play does not require knowledge or practice of Barre Chords, in fact, it's reccommended that you do not play Barre Chords and use alternative Chord shapes and voicings that require the use of the thumb to play and the one finger double stop technique.

Also, for any guitar players out there I would advise you to work on right hand technique quite a bit. 99.9% of Guitar players use an Alternate picking technique, however, I and other "Gypsy Jazzers" use the rest-stroke technique which requires around 1 year to develop and even longer for some people. I put and emphasis on right hand technique because it is often neglected by many guitar players (both beginners and experts). Because I use picks that are between 5mm and 7mm thick it requires a completely different attacking style in which you must hold the pick tightly with all your fingers curled into a fist and none of them touching the guitar body or strings, and then bend your wrist at a 45 Degree angle for best attack. You would be suprised with the increase in volume you can get from a different attack and a different picking style like the rest-stroke.

Phrasing is also something that needs to be practiced as believe phrasing can make or break a musician. Knowing when to play the right notes in the right setting is essential to creating beautiful music whether it be Atonal, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Calypso, etc. Quite a few guitarists can blaze away at a million notes a minute in a blur of fingers, but cannot phrase correctly which makes their music uninteresting and repetitive.

Just another 2 cents.

So true Jazzerman!

I too would much rather listen to some kid on a piece of junk guitar that only knows 3 chords, but is still true to the music; than some other kid on a 3k Gibson shredding the stuff he learned in his music lesson.

Don't get me wrong; I do appreciate technique but in context with the piece.

And, Its taken me awhile but I have gotten the gypsy "boom chick" right hand down pretty well but my phrasing sucks. This style of guitar playing makes me happy!!

I hear you whaaa...

Music is a bit like Visual art as I see it. You may see a painting where it looks as though someone just took a brush and threw it across the canvas and called it Abstract Art, or someone paints a couple of squares on a Canvas and calls it Minimalist Art. To many people it may not appear to be "true" art, but I relate what these type of artists do to music in that you don't need to over embellish music with a constant stream of notes just like you don't need to necessarily overdo art by painting a Monet everytime. Sometimes the least amount of something is best...

Point in case, just listen to Django's "Manoir De Mes Reves" or "Improvisation on Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Andate"...very, very few notes and at a very slow tempo. However, they are to me, two of the most beautiful pieces of music ever created by the human mind.

I think a tendancy with today's musicians is that every piece of music be created like they are high on Cocaine. They think dazzling flurries of notes across the fingerboard are what the audience craves when they are missing the entire point that music is based on emotional responces to a series of tones. So, just like the artist that paints only squares on a canvas and calls it minimalist art...music can mirror this aspect in that sometimes the least amount of something can envoke the greatest emotional responce.

Swing Jazz, Django-esque Jazz, Gypsy Jazz...whatever you want to call it, is a very complicated form of music that often combines aspects of Jazz, Classical, Musette, Flamenca, Bolero, Rhumba, Blues, Gypsy, and Folk, but to name a few. It can take years and years of serious study before one becomes familiar with all the nuances of it, but is some of the most exciting and thrilling music there is...if only for the pure improvisational nature of it. I have been playing this style for longer than I can remember and every time I pick up one of my Selmer style guitars or one of my violins I get excited about just learning a new phrase or arpeggio in this style. Like any music it's a great journey and one that, although difficult, will show you an area of music that has much to offer.

Neil Peart the drummer from Rush has some musings on the subject of less.

Some are of the KISS mentality, keep it simple stupid
others say Less is More
Neil says "Less is and always will be less"
lets make MUSIC
Make Up Something Interesting and Complementary

having said that overplaying is one of the seven deadly sins

Jazzerman is into some good stuff. he's right the right hand technique o important. especially when it comes to control over the strings. Even jaco pastorious said that on bass the right hand is more important than the left. he would then go on to proove his point by playing all his songs with his left hand by just freeting the notes. he then would discuss how much that sucked and that the reason why is because the right hand wasn't controllingthe streangth of the attack, the finesse or the note duration let alone the buzzing strings that aren't supposed to be played.

Also as far a simple goes. I think Bach's "Air" is stunningly beautiful and simple. If you want complicated genius study up on Mozart. amthamatically researches have said his music is the most complex as far as mathematical realtionships in the songs. And to think he didn't even know waht he was doing. he just wrote music.

For bass. less is often more. the funkiest stuff is usually around 80-95 BPM and the bassist is conciencious enough to leave space for the drum. notice funky guys often do a 16th note rest on the down beat to let the drums breath and have more effect. The best way to describe this is to repeat the mantra of my bass professor up at berklee Tony Vitti. sick Mo Fo BTW who used to always say "the funk is in between the notes" or "The funk is felt in between the notes. the rests"

He's right.

He also used to say "I've never heard of a simple groove, only a lame one" which is correct too.

Tasteful is tasteful. boring is boring, and too much is too much. a lesson a lot of berklee guys never got. they would often write too complicated. throw in chord changes that although cleaver and technically OK were tasteless. Shredders who wanted to only play sweep picking at 220BPM.



[edit on 5-6-2007 by BASSPLYR]

how come when it gets to talking technique and speed, it straight away turns into the same ole 'rather here a crap guitar and 3 chords than a shredder'
in fact i agree but technique and the ability to play fast does not mean you're a shredder. just saying.


just so happens that a lot of the people with deep theory and virtuoso technique, shred...

i mean, gilbert, buckethead, vai, satriani, malmsteen, petrucci...they are 'sherdders'...at least thats what they are known for but they can all play damn near anything, hence the virtuosity..

ever check out the bucket on acoustic? awesome.


for the record my top 3 fav' are zappa, jack white, trey anastasio....in that order.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
Also as far a simple goes. I think Bach's "Air" is stunningly beautiful and simple. If you want complicated genius study up on Mozart. amthamatically researches have said his music is the most complex as far as mathematical realtionships in the songs. And to think he didn't even know waht he was doing. he just wrote music.


[edit on 5-6-2007 by BASSPLYR]

i am too busy studying zappa. talk about a complicate genious...there you go. too bad he is best known for yellow snow and a toilet poster.
self tought...

you see, 'modern' composers don't get much recognition and zappa was pretty much snubbed by the classical community his entire career.
steve vai has said in a recent relix interview that he thinks frank zappa's music is about as hard as it gets and that he feels in 100 years, people will be studying his stuff at conservatory.
he has enough material to keep me going to quite sometime

zappa. up in berklee my room mate played Joe's Garage for weeks straight over and over with out pulling the record off the turntable. He was a genious and I gotta give you credit there too. he was over looked largely by the general community. His stuff is really great though.


In elementry school I was friends with Franks daughter Diva Zappa. haven't talked to her since the 6th grade though. but she was cool. went to her birthday party up at Franks House when I was a kid. they had a whole room dedicated to guitars. you guys would have loved it. didn't see frank there. he hadn't died yet at the time but I didn't see him there. Dweezil was there though. of course franks sruff was ahrd on guitar! why do you think he snagged Steve for guitar? Only steve could pull off franks cutting edge ideas.

Love virtuoso players like Satriani and Vai. I was talking about the shredders up at berklee that sat in their dorm rooms, on the edge of their bed and practiced playing as fast as possible, for no other reason than to be as fast as possible.

Satriani influenced me on bass more than actuall bass players. i spent years figuring out how to play even some of his guitar stuff on the bass. Not his bass lines though which are pretty stiff and blah.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
zappa. up in berklee my room mate played Joe's Garage for weeks straight over and over with out pulling the record off the turntable. He was a genious and I gotta give you credit there too. he was over looked largely by the general community. His stuff is really great though.


In elementry school I was friends with Franks daughter Diva Zappa. haven't talked to her since the 6th grade though. but she was cool. went to her birthday party up at Franks House when I was a kid. they had a whole room dedicated to guitars. you guys would have loved it. didn't see frank there. he hadn't died yet at the time but I didn't see him there. Dweezil was there though. of course franks sruff was ahrd on guitar! why do you think he snagged Steve for guitar? Only steve could pull off franks cutting edge ideas.

Love virtuoso players like Satriani and Vai. I was talking about the shredders up at berklee that sat in their dorm rooms, on the edge of their bed and practiced playing as fast as possible, for no other reason than to be as fast as possible.

Satriani influenced me on bass more than actuall bass players. i spent years figuring out how to play even some of his guitar stuff on the bass. Not his bass lines though which are pretty stiff and blah.

that is so killer that you went to the house. i was talking to my wife about that the other day. like i wonder what it is like at the house. like if i just knocked on the door, could i talk to gail?
my pain doc used to live out there and we got to talking and she said she used to hang out with moon quite a bit.

zappa was a maniac. you're right..well, besides frank i would say vai would have been one of the few that could pull of some of those licks...after all, he was 'stunt guitar'.
also, and i am firm in believeing this. IMO, zappa was the master, the mentor. vai was the student. before frank let vai in teh band(cause of his age) vai spent 3 years transcribing franks stuff. that was vais formitive years and he got to basically study the masters raw stuff for 3 damn years.
one only needs to get past his novelty songs and read his wiki bio to see zappa had the chops. check out my vids in the want to be inspired thread. all zappa improvs.

can you imagine what frank would be doing with broadband internet, things like pro tools and guitar rig. christ it would be amazing.

in the same relix article that vai said he thinks they will be studying frank, gail said that there is enough material in the vault to release a full length cd every month for 3 years.
that is a huge body of material considering what has been oficially released and bootlegged.

i am in awe that you have been to the house.
i am with you on people playing fast just to play fast. thats why i was saying when you are practicing, only practice as fast as you can to do it well. speed will come later. i post on a few other boards and of course youtube and some kid will post his pentatonic run at a blazing speed.....YAWN

you wrap your head around satch's pitch axis theory?