Lesson 30 Tuesday 30th July 2013

As I had been practicing the rhythm for the Sixpence None The Richer song “Kiss Me” a lot this week, I decided to start by playing this.

Last week I had completely lost the rhythm so I had been practicing a bit to get it right. I think I have had some success as some people I know who for some mad reason wanted to hear how I was doing. When I played this rhythm they recognised it straight away so I thought I was on the correct path.

However on playing it my teacher correctly noticed that I had added in some extra ups at the end of the rhythm so to the non-trained ear it would be OK. 

My teacher told me that this was OK and it could be played that way, however I wanted to do it the right way. My thoughts are if I am given a rhythm I need to be able to get it right if I go with a its nearly there or sounds right I will get into bad habits.

After many starts and stops and building it up from the sections I did manage to get it right. The next step was to try the chorus.

This is the same rhythm but with a change of chords half way through each two bar rhythm. I have been trying to practice this but as ever my first few goes where a nightmare with me choosing the wrong D chord and ups where downs should be and visa versa. Once we broke the parts down and I slowed down the tempo I slowly got the hang of the first part. The second part I still struggle on.

The teacher did then show me the next final part to learn on this song. 

This part has a few different rhythms to it and chords. The teacher demonstrated how it goes. Watching how his fingers moved so quick and easy to the right strings and how to rhythm changed it looks so effortless but I know it will not look sound or feel that way. Just looking at what I have to do I can see I will sweat blood and (probably) swear to myself with this bit.

To finish my lesson we went through the rhythm of the Radiohead song “No Surprises”. As I had been focusing on the last rhythm so much it took me ages to get this right. In fact I kept drifting into the last song a few times.

After a while of perseverance and listening to how the teachers version goes I got sort of there.

One part of my playing I now have to focus on is the muting out of the sixth E string on some songs. At the moment I try and mute the sixth string but appear to move my hand in such a way that the first string sometimes gets muted too.

Plenty to look at and keep me out of mischief till my next lesson.

Lesson 29 Tuesday 23rd July 2013

My lesson this week started with the Radiohead song “No Surprises”. I had been trying to practise the intro through the week which I stated to my teacher when he asked me how the week has been with my guitar. 

However playing the intro for the first half a dozen times wrong probably looked like I had done nothing.

I practised this part for a while the part where I play an open string then on fret 3 on string three with finger two I had to practise a bit because I had a habit of rushing it.

After some time the tune sounded OK.

This was the intro played by the Electric lead guitar. The next part was to do the acoustic rhythm part.

For this the teacher adjusted my electric guitar to sound more acoustic. He had only the forward pick-up on and on single rather than double and with the tone on about half way which I think was a five. He also adjusted the Amp in some way which I am not sure. There appears to be so many knobs and switches to adjust at the moment it will take me awhile to get my head around it all.

The rhythm is four downs then one up. The first chord is D for four bars

which then goes to a Bm alt for four bars.

Then and E minor for two bars. 

Then goes to A for two bars bars then back to D. I then had to do a bar chord which is the same shape as the bar chord in Half the world away.

As usual when learning a new rhythm I had trouble. The main problem was coming in too early with the up stroke and it sounding too bouncy. I had several attempts to put this right but the more I focused on it the worse it got. The teacher advised me to try and strum with a stiffer arm so that the bouncy feeling goes. I tried this and it sort of worked. The bar chord a couple of times I got very close to getting it, so more practise required on that.

After practising on “No Surprises” for a while I had a go at the Sixpence None the Richer song “Kiss Me” rhythm. 

I had practised this a lot and had to build it up over chunks. 

I tried now and it was all wrong again and it too was bouncy. I nearly got the rhythm and I will be practising this a bit through the week to try and sort this out.

Lesson 28 Tuesday 16th July 2013

I was looking forward to my lesson today to see how my new (to me) electric guitar had faired. I was not disappointed my teacher had made it look great. The guitar had been cleaned of all the dust and polish up. The pick-ups had been levelled out and the problem of the fret sticking out too much had been corrected. With new shiny strings on it I was very impressed with it. The guitar has a few cosmetic dents in it but for the very low price I paid for it I am very pleased.

This week as well as practising my songs that I have been given I had a look at some TAB on an Radiohead song called “No Surprises”.

I found there was a few TAB versions and it seemed very confusing to me. The TAB had the guitar place the  capo at the fifteenth fret which did not seem possible and was not on my acoustic guitar.

Once the teacher had a look at the TAB and played a few times he confirmed that the 15^th fret is correct and this was the lead guitar part. By luck with my electric guitar I could get my capo on the 15^th fret.

Once we had the correct TAB it was now a case of working out what fingers go where. Looking on some videos on You Tube there were many different ways to do this including one where someone had bridged some strings which looked very complicated to me. In the end we decided on this approach.

The Circled Numbers are the fingers to use

This is only the intro but this took a long while for me to get the hang of and play, but near the end of my lesson it was starting to sound like the song. Well sort of.

There is another part to the song which is the rhythm that is played by an acoustic guitar. We started to look at this and how the chords are. I could see the chords on the sheet but I could see no clue on what the rhythm is. However my teacher had it bang on within moments. Next week we will look at that part.

A great lesson and the time went so quick. I am already looking forward to next week and getting to grips with the rhythm part.

Lesson 27 Tuesday 9th July 2013

I was looking forward to this lesson as I was taking my new (to me) electric guitar with me to see how it works and how it sounds.

My teacher informed me on what some of the parts do and their names.

1 & 2 It has four pick-ups which work in twos and they are called Humbuckers. I was informed that single pick-ups can have a hum at the end of the note so they put another pick up next to the first and this takes out the hum.

3 There is a switch at the bottom which you can switch from single pickup to the double. This is because the single pickup has a different sound to the Humbucker so you get both sounds in one guitar.

4 The switch at the top has three settings for the pickups. The switch set to the top will play the top pickup’s only (1). The switch set to the bottom will play the bottom pickup’s only (2) and the switch set to the middle will play both.

5 This is the tone and volume control for the top pickup (1).

6 This is the tone and volume control for the bottom pickup (2).

When you have both pickups on you can adjust both pickups independently.

The guitar sounded OK but you could hear some crackle because of dust inside which can be cleaned out.

The neck goes along the whole body with the mahogany sides glued on which I think they call a through neck.

My teacher has agreed to clean up and restring the guitar for me which is great.

Now if it only had the Gibson Min-ETune on it, then it would be perfect for me to learn on. 

I am very pleased with the guitar and have been very lucky to get hold of such an instrument.

For my lesson I used my new electric guitar. I started off playing the Radiohead song “Street Fighting Spirit (Fade Out)”. On the new guitar it sounded more like the real song, well apart from the duff notes or right note played in the wrong order and at a much slower speed. I do think I have improved though and I know it probably only takes me five attempts to sort of get it right rather than ten.

As we were using the electric guitar we looked at lead guitar techniques and what they look like.

The first was the hammer. This can be shown in two different ways on TAB.

This is where I play the third G string on the fifth fret and while the note is still ringing I put my finger on the same string on the seventh fret.

The next was to slide.

This one I have done before and in this example is playing the G string on the fifth fret and keeping the pressure on I slide up (up is going closer to the body of the guitar) to fret seven.

This can also be shown as a slide up to seven then back down to five on the same pluck.

Next we looked at Pull off.

Now this is not a technique for imitating the Jimmy Hendrix simulating masturbating with a guitar.

This is the reverse to a hammer where you play the string on fret seven then as it is still ringing out lift up your finger and the sound comes from the fifth fret.

This can be combined with the hammer and is shown like this.

The last technique was the bend and release.

In this example I am going to bend the string up towards the sixth string so that the sound goes up two frets to the sound of fret nine. This is called full. There is also half which is one fret. One and a Half which is three frets and two which is four frets.

The release will be whatever fret to release off to.

In this example it is back to fret seven.

The teacher showed me how you could incorporate all of these techniques which looked very impressive. I did have an attempt but got myself all twisted in knots.

I asked for advice of what amp to get as an electric guitar without an amp is just a very quiet guitar, which my kids probably would like when I am trying to practice when they are watching “Adventure Time” on the TV.

The one that was advised would be a Marshall MG15R but with the reverb. There were some reasonable priced ones second hand and new. As it is my birthday coming up soon I think I will ask for cash so I can club it together and get myself one of these.

My Progress after Six Months

As I have been learning to play for six months I decided that I would record my progress so that I could see my progress.

When you see the video you will see my  areas of difficulty which are mostly the chorus.

A lot of the chords also need work on too.

The guitar was tuned before I played it’s just my talent with the instrument that makes it sound like it is out of tune.

Gone Electric

When I started my lessons in January to learn to play the guitar I always had a hidden desire to play the electric guitar.

When I looked around for a guitar to practise on and to start learning on I immediately looked to a cheap acoustic guitar. The guitar was cheap and cheerful and with not much equipment to get hold of. 

For me it seemed a bit silly to go straight for an electric guitar and all the equipment that goes with it. It would be a bit like learning to drive in a sports car. So my plan has always been to be able to play my guitar and then progress onto Electric. I figured I probably need to be practising for eighteen months or so.

With this in mind I had no intentions of buying an electric guitar any time soon. That was until a good friend of mine offered me at a very good price his old electric guitar and hard case. He had got the instrument second hand four years ago which had been given to the person by someone else.

Having no idea really about guitars I had no idea about the instrument. I noticed on the head of the guitar there was the word satellite so I search on that on the Internet to see what I could find. I found this site which informed me that the guitar was a Fender copy from Japan from the 70’s called a Satellite Strat HH Thru Neck.

I sent the images of the guitar to my guitar teacher and he found this you tube video showing the exact same guitar being played.

I am going to take it along to my lesson and see how it plays by handing it over to someone who can play. If I want to practise on it I will need more equipment including an amp. Not sure my local wildlife and neighbours are ready to hear my playing being amplified.

New Guitar Tuner

I have got myself a new guitar tuner which like my guitar is made in China.

It is the ET-31GB by Eno Music.

The tuner is a clip on type and can be used to tune in Chromatic - Guitar or Base Guitar.

The tuning is automatic and it recognised each string that I struck and the dial would go from left to right. When the note is correct it will go green and the dial will be in the centre.

It is powered by one CR2032 cell battery and is so simple to use even I have been able to use it.

The frequency is 440hz and cannot be changed to another frequency which for a novice like me is ideal.

Lesson 26 Tuesday 26th July 2013

Its been a few weeks since my last entry as normal life has been so busy I have not had a chance to write on here.

I went for my 26^th lesson having now started two pieces. The first is the song “Kiss Me” by the band Sixpence None the Richer.

The first thing I had to learn was the rhythm. This one is like none that I have done before with the rhythm going over two bars.

This has taken me a very long time to sort of get the hang of. I had to practise and practise it even playing the rhythm to myself while time at work or in the car which anyone seeing me must of thought I was a loony.  To help me we had to break it down into chunks to learn.

This did help as I could get the rhythm correct on one stage and then build on it bit by bit.

The Intro which was where I have been most of the time is chords C .

Then it goes to C Major 7 

Then to C7 

Then it is C Major 7 and back to C. I have now sort of got the rhythm and the chord change from C Major 7 to C7 needs to be a lot more slicker as there is a bit of a pause while I work out where my fingers need to go.

We then progressed onto the Chorus which is a challenge.

The chords change half way through the complete rhythm that I am learning which I think is after a bar (still getting my head round the music talk). The first two bars go from D Major 

To G.

Then to C and finally Am7. 

This has proved very difficult and the change from D to G I have practised a lot and still have yet to perfect.

Radiohead "Street Fighting Spirit" is the other song I have been learning and practised in my lesson. This is a nice one for me to play at night when the kids are asleep because the plucking is a lot quieter than the rhythm practise. However I am sure my wife can sometimes here the occasional swear word when I get it wrong  for the 100th time in a row. The first part of the song with the A's in them I am starting to strike the correct strings and I do think that this side of my playing has improved. Not much but better than it was.

The other advancement has been that I have been shown how to tune the guitar without breaking the head of the guitar are breaking strings (so far). I learnt how to remember the strings by saying Edward Ate Dynamite Good Bye Edward. By remembering the strings I am now able to see if the tuner is remembering the correct string. I have so far tuned twice with no problems.

Even though I have not added an entry for a few weeks I am still practising and still scaring the local wildlife with the noises that I produce.