Regular Folks Playing Guitar: Parts of the guitar

There are a lot of variations on this!
Basically though: from the top to the bottom:

• the headstock is where one end of the strings terminate, wrapped around
• tuning pegs which are rotated by
• “tuners”. The headstock is attached to the
• neck and right where the strings pass over that spot is the
• nut– usually a white piece of material with notches that the strings fit in. The neck is attached to the
• body and that lovely curve where it flares out at the bottom is called the
• heel. On the front of the neck is a
• fingerboard and that is divided into
• frets which are separated by
• fret wires. On the face of the fingerboard and the side of the neck are
• fret markers– visual cues to orient the guitarist’s hand position. On the front of the body of the guitar is the
• soundboard (or topboard). That has a big opening called a
• sound hole that the strings pass over. Past the soundhole, the strings […]
  

Tuning Your Guitar: first things first

There are plenty of ways to tune your guitar but most guitar players start with what is called “standard” tuning. That means the strings are tuned from the 6th or fattest string to the 1st or skinniest string with the notes like this:

E (6). A(5). D(4). G(3). B(2). E(1)

One magical thing about guitar standard tuning is the way the strings relate to one another, being a 4th apart (except for the B2 string). That means once we know the string names it is super easy to know all the notes at the 5th fret on each string.

Back in the day, guitarists would use that string relationship to tune their guitar… with an actual tuning fork, if you can believe that, tuned to an A. Once that string was tuned, the other strings would be tuned from it. Happily for us, we have technology now and can use a digital tuner for that. Here’s a video on using a clip on snark tuner (my preferred tuner and method)

Sting: “If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make your life worth living. Music is its own reward.”

Next” some common […]

What are the first 10 things I should learn on guitar?

If you’re interested in playing songs on guitar while you accompany yourself singing, here are the first things that come to mind. In this scenario your voice is singing the melody and lyrics of course and your guitar provides the rhythm.

An alternate- and somewhat more challenging- way to do this is to let the guitar “sing” for you and we’ll be looking at that downstream a little way. For now though:

1. C Major scale, first position.
   Everything you need is right there and it’s easy to spell.
2. C Major scale on the the A string,
   ditto- and you can start to see how the neck works (incidentally you’ve just played “Joy to the World” backward so that’s a bonus).
   Joy to the world tablature and notation
3. Hand-friendly C chord (the 1 chord for key of C)
   You’ve heard of 1, 4 and 5 chords; a ton of folk, rock, country and bluegrass tunes use these chords, and the C is a great place to start. Use your 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of A, 2nd finger on the 2nd fret […]

Some common Musical terms for guitar players

One of the things David Newsam at the Berklee school taught me was the advantage of having some common way to describe your musical ideas. When you’re talking to another musician, it saves a lot of time and frustration if you’re speaking the same language! Some of the ideas we’ll be starting out with and some simple definitions:

• Arpeggio: the notes of a chord played ascending or descending.
• Interval: The distance in pitch between two tones. Intervals are labeled by numerical value (degree) which indicates the number of pitches they include, their order in the octave and the name of their note. So, first degree C, a whole step from second degree D and so on.
• Muting: A common technique in guitar playing. “Muting” a guitar means stopping the strings from vibrating. We can mute with either the left or right hand. With the fretting hand, lift the fingers slightly so that the string stops contacting the fret wire. With the strumming hand. Lay the hand across the strings.
• Motifs: A motif is a short musical idea that occurs often in a piece of music. A short melodic idea may also be called a […]
  

Getting Started: what do you want to play?

What kind of music do you want to play?
Well, what kind of music do you listen to?

Is that also the kind you want to play?

Our musical taste often comes first from our parents’ musical interests. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve asked a pre-teen what kind of music they like, and been answered “classic rock!” Which is cool, of course. Just like them, I love plenty of music that was created before I was born.

Generally speaking, unless people study music, have parents that were teens when classic rock was new or are otherwise exposed to different styles and genres, we love the music we grew up with, so we’re really talking about “familiarity” as much as anything else. Familiar music reminds us of who we are.

While classic rock is great, there is so much- a universe- of great music in other genres! Consider opening your ears (and your mind) to other musical ideas. You might surprise yourself by being delighted […]

History of the guitar: where the heck did this thing come from?

There’s a pretty comprehensive article on the history of the guitar: https://www.mi.edu/education/guitar-history-how-the-guitar-has-evolved/

The history of the guitar can be traced back over 4000 years. The first signs of a guitar-like instrument appeared in Asia Minor and the Middle East around 3400 years ago. The oldest known representation of an instrument with the essential features of a guitar is a 3300 year old stone carving of a Hittite guitar found in Turkey.

The first guitars are thought to have originated in Spain during the 15th Century. These early guitars had four “courses” of strings, or sets of two strings tuned to the same note to give the guitar resonance. The instrument was actually called a vihuela, and consisted of four double-strings (paired courses). The world’s oldest guitar is a vihuela, which was created by Belchior Diaz around 1590. It has ten strings and is widely regarded as the predecessor to modern guitars.

The exact origin of the word “guitar” is a mystery, but the […]

Why play guitar?

There’s a pretty good article by Mike Duffy on the Fender website that talks about some of the real benefits of playing music. Fender consulted Daniel Levitin, author of “This is your brain on music” who stated that, “Playing an instrument can… improve a person’s overall well-being. Playing even five minutes a day can lead to a range of physical, mental and emotional benefits.” According to Levitin, after 60, playing an instrument can help you retrain and remap neural circuits that are inclined to atrophy, which sounds to me like it almost certainly helps you to stay sharp! Plus, playing guitar is just plain good fun.

What about guitar lessons for kids?

Well, learning to play an instrument teaches patience, focus,

Goals: short, medium and long-term

We might consider both “entertaining millions” and “knowing how to play any song I want to learn” to be “long-term” goals. We’ll met those some time in the future. Long-term goals are great because they define a possible endpoint of your path, and they’re far enough away that we can move toward them if they change, which they probably will. “Playing any song I want to” could easily morph into “playing finger-style guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt ” as you progress in your ability, understanding and appreciation of your instrument. Of course, it’s also a good idea to have medium and short-term goals too, so you can make sure you are on track to that farther-off goal (of entertaining millions, perhaps?).

One way to look at guitar-playing medium-term goals is to think ahead 6 months or so. Let’s say you found a pretty good guitar teacher and you’ve been studying together for the last 6 months. How does that look, guitar-wise? Do you know how to play maybe a half-dozen songs you couldn’t play before? Do you have […]

Introduction

First I’d like to say that you probably already know quite a bit more about playing guitar than you think you do! Regular Folks Playing Guitar is aimed at a wide range of players from pure beginners to the fairly accomplished guitarist who may be in a rut with their playing and want to break out of it. Whatever level you play at now, if you can hum a tune recognizably – or even a lick from a tune, you already have a sense of timing and melody. We just need to trick your brain into sending musical notes to your hands instead of your mug! I’ll show you how to do that and have some fun at the same time. A lot of what we’ll be doing has to do with ear training which we’ll discuss in some detail.

I once had a student who, when asked the question “why do you want to play guitar?” answered “to entertain millions of people around the world”. Well, that’s not for everybody- or for most of us, in fact. And if that’s your aim, sorry- I don’t really know how to help you with that. Sad face emoji.

It is pretty important […]