String give away. (post a tip, help a player).

[imwjl]

Hi,

I have a lot of strings right now so a random winner will be selected Sept. 1, and sent a set of D'Addario EJs. Winner will be chosen by asking one of my kids to pick a number in the range of total responses excluding my #1 post.

Here's the catch: You must post a tip to help inspire or help another player. A song idea, a lesson, music theory, tab, instrument care, guitar fact, video, jam track etc....

This is for beginners and intermediates: I'll start with these that I've posted in the past but they cover the major epiphany I had as far as making music.

Print the graphics here:

1) http://webspace.webring.com/people/pv/vangar/randys_guitar_clinic/EandAMoveableforms.gif
2) http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/stadium/9564/numbersystem.htm

If you know the basic chord shapes and the I, IV and V of of a few different keys you will be ready to play most popular western music and jam with others if you have never done so.

;)

P.S. I'd like to think I'm beyond beginner so I wouldn't complain if there were instrumental song tips my wife would like - yeah, that's probably a tall order.
P.S.S. Don't shoot if this is outside of the rules. I just thought it would be fun to get more going on in the PLAY area.

[paul84]

So here's something I've not heard before - not sure it really counts as a 'tip' as I haven't tried it yet.

I was chatting with a professional guitarist last month who studied music at university. She was taught to learn a new piece backwards. That is learn the last bar first, then then last two etc etc until you have the whole piece.

The logic is that if you get lost its easy and natural to pick it up from anywhere as that is the way you learned it.

I can't say whether this works or not, as I've not tried it myself, but its something I've not heard before.

ps I love the idea of this thread, but don't include me in the draw as the cost of shipping a set of strings to the UK will be significantly more that the cost of the strings !!

Paul.

[Thom Cadger]

So here's something I've not heard before - not sure it really counts as a 'tip' as I haven't tried it yet.

I was chatting with a professional guitarist last month who studied music at university. She was taught to learn a new piece backwards. That is learn the last bar first, then then last two etc etc until you have the whole piece.

The logic is that if you get lost its easy and natural to pick it up from anywhere as that is the way you learned it.

I can't say whether this works or not, as I've not tried it myself, but its something I've not heard before.

ps I love the idea of this thread, but don't include me in the draw as the cost of shipping a set of strings to the UK will be significantly more that the cost of the strings !!

Paul.

Kool Tip and an honest lad as well...

Tips of mine are simple. The first one has to do with comfort. Comfort with your instrument is what seperates the sound and smoothness of folks like Dave Matthews. It's not that he has been studying for years and years... Its that he has spent the time to get used to how the instrument feels, how it moves, and how you feel with it and how it moves you. Mumbo jumbo I know, but in all honest Dave is no better than you, he just has more time under his belt just playin around with his guitar. And I do mean just playin around, I mean if you forget to "PLAY" and yes I mean like fun play like tag youre it kinda stuff, then the guitar or anything else will become a chore and you will lack luster for that. I say for get everything you know about your instrument, and spend a week trying to play it as many differant ways you can. Switch hands, play in differant tunings. Just learn to love foolin around with your guitar. Become one with it.

[Ryler]

I really like this idea.

My tip is to learn your triad shapes early on--on all string sets starting with the top three. This will enable you to move up the fretboard musically and break free of the first 5 fret stranglehold. Important to know what the root of the triad is since that names the chord. Also important to know the third, as flatting that will give you the minor triad.

Ever the fan of Justin, here is his lesson/video on it:

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/CH-008-Triads.php

Also a good treatment of triads is here: http://www.torvund.net/guitar/index.php?page=Fr_triads

Related to that might be figuring out how the B string tuning affects finding notes on that string and thus chord shapes. Getting a good understanding of that helps you know why the chord shapes are as they are when they include the B string and how to alter them when you want to .

[wildbill1962]

Great idea :D Looking for tips to help folks just starting out...lets see....

1) Always check and make sure that your guitar is in tune before starting.
2) Learn a scale and use it to warm up before practice or playing.


Have a great weekend everyone
Bill

[imwjl]

Note: I changed the drawing date to Sept 1 now that some people have responded.

Fingers crossed for a great bunch of helpful tips suitable for all sorts of players.

;)

[mmmaak]

Rather than post a tip of my own, I'll link to a large collection in classical virtuoso Douglas Niedt's website:

http://www.douglasniedt.com/previousmonthstips.html

Granted, these are geared more towards classical players, but we could all use a little classical technique now and then, no matter what style we play :)

(I'm in Malaysia, by the way, so don't even bother putting me in the running for the D'Addarios :p)

[hann]

I would say...

always learn to play as relaxed as possible...

using so much pressure on your fretting hand just wears out the wrist, causes soreness in the fingers and just makes changing chords slower.

Not to mention it wears out the frets prematurely too!

P.S. Mak I emailed you!

[emmonsh]

if your just learning the guitar have the guitar set up by a luthier. its amazing how much more fun and easy it is to learn when a guitar is set up properly and easy to play.

[wildbill1962]

Wow, 243 views and only a handfull of tips, come on guys lets get this rolling. :evilgrin::roll::eek:

[EVANSSS]

I learnt this a while back when learning the song "Down at Cocomo's".

It's a little trick that Martin Taylor (amongst others) uses to change the sound of his guitar.

Tear a small strip of thin card, perhaps half an inch wide, and thread it between your strings at the bridge end of the guitar. this damps the strings and gives a completly different sound to your guitar. It almost sounds like a steel drum!

Play about with the type of card, thickness, width and placment to get all kinds of sounds!

a quick link to the man himself! -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJ7Gq394hk

[shawlie]

Nice idea - hate to be another person to add a tip only to say "the postage would be more than the strings", but I'll post a tip and have to say "the postage would be more than the strings"...

Mine is about the circle of fifths. I'm not even sure I understand it completely, but trying things out has made a few things clear and it's something I wished I'd have known a long time ago.

I mostly like to play old music (ragtime influenced blues and little songs from the turn of the century). They have a certain flavor to them, usually because they go out of key all the time, only to resolve at the end. The progressions are very common, and having a bit of insight into them really made my writing a lot funner.

Since it's most common in C, I'll use that as an example. The scale is of course C D E F G A B C. To start the cycle, play the first chord (C) and with the second chord, go out of key by playing the third, but a 7th chord instead of the more mellow sounding (and more natural) minor chord (E7 instead of Em).

So now you have C then E7. Then just pretend the E7 chord (and every chord that follows it) is the dominant 7th chord for it's own key signature. E7 is the dominant 7th for A, so the next chord is A7. Followed by D7, which leads into G7 which leads back to C.

There are hundreds (or thousands) of songs based on this, and it's fun to give them your own spin. Often, the second chord will be left out (then you have C, A7, D7, G7).

For fingerpicking, it works great in several keys where you don't have to use full barre chords:

In C: C, E7, A7, D7, G7
in G: G, B7, E7, A7, D7
in A: A, C#7, F#7, B7, E7

The C#7 is just a C7 moved up a fret, the F#7 is a very handy moveable shape: 2x232x.

And you don't have to just stick to that progression - it's fun to use the idea in lots of settings, and try out different things with it. After a C, F G7 type progression, throw in the circle progression for a chorus or bridge, or whatever.

[Bern]

Hi,

I have a lot of strings right now

O.K. keep those in a dry place.:)
Also, before changing and going on to higher or lower strings gauges, compare the tension. It is possible, depending on the guitar construction, that it'll throw off the intonation.
Try to tune to concert pitch at all times...it's good 'muscle training' for your ear. ;)

[imwjl]

9 was the random draw so emmonsh wins a set of EJ-17s. Please send my your address via PM and I'll get them in the mail.

I was hoping we'd have more tips and get more going in the "Play" forum. Let's all think of music, playing, theory etc... and try to make it a rich area of the forum!

Thanks for playing.

P.S. The not so scientific method use to select winner was asking my twins to pick a number.

[shawlie]

I think your method of selection is above all suspision, and congratulations, emmonsh! Good advice, too - once you know it, it seems obvious. But I played 20 years before I realized an acoustic could be made easier to play.

It was a fun thread, hope there will be others with advice, tips, tricks and ideas.

[emmonsh]

tell your twins i said thank you.

harvey

[Ryler]

Congratulations, Harvey.

[Brian W.]

Here’s a tip regarding EQ for editing purposes…

If you’re anything like me, I zone out when I read up on EQ settings. Important stuff, but dry reading imo! Well, I made significant progress with a freeware program called WavePad.

Oddly enough, I was up at 4am recording crickets and frogs outside my window for a multitrack project. Think nature sounds on a hot summer night. Anyhow, I had the mic input gain set too high and thus captured a lot of hiss in the recording. Later I jumped online to research about how to remove the extra noise . . . which eventually led me to WavePad. Here is how it works…

Load your audio clip and then select ‘Equalizer’ from the effects dropdown menu. It brings up a graph from which you can choose a preset filter (high pass, low pass, notch, etc.). The program has a lengthy preview function that allows you to instantly hear the results as the frequency range/curve on the graph is manipulated.

Much to my surprise, I completely cut out the hiss with a notch filter from 0Hz to ----Hz. Further experimenting showed that I could remove certain nature sounds at different frequencies.

It seems that crickets, frogs, cicadas, dogs barking, etc. cover a wide range of frequencies. For example a notch filter 0Hz to -----Hz resulted with no hiss, chirping crickets present, but the frogs were missing. Back off the end frequency to 0Hz to ----Hz and the frogs were back in the recording.

A major breakthrough for a recording novice like me! The nature audio clip really shed some light on EQ that I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered with typical acoustic guitar tracking.

[Ryler]

Shawlie,

I really appreciated your tip, by the way.

[Blindreality]

One of the things I find is that people complain that one of the reasons they stopped trying to learn guitar was because it hurt their fingers to play. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Take you guitar into a reputable shop for a setup. Ask them what goes into a setup. It should include at minimum checking the neck, the saddle height, and the nut height. They should also ask about your playing style as that will affect the setup. Most students just need the guitar setup as low as possible.

Once you’ve started learning and have calluses, I recommend a non-setup guitar to help improve finger strength.

[shawlie]

Lots of people probably already know this tip, but I just learned it a week or two ago and have been having a lot of fun with it. Hope bringing back an older topic doesn't bother anyone, just seemed like a good place for it.

Dropped D tuning is a fun tuning (lowest string tuned down to D), and lots of great songs use it. Another way to get into that tuning without actually tuning down, is to use a capo (like a normal Shubb kind) on the second fret. Turn it around and clamp it down on the top five strings, leave the low E string open.

What's so much fun about it, I thought, was that now you have dropped D, but the G chord is still the same (still uses the third fret on the low E instead of the fifth fret). So you have a really full D chord but not the stretches with the G chord. True, fretting the second fret is a little tricky (for an Em say), but it'll work ok.

Just something I thought was fun and since I'd never known it for all the years I've been playing, maybe someone else finds it useful too.

[selder1977]

I think a really useful thing to understand is the chord types along a certain scale.

So the chords on the Major Scale are -

Major - Minor - Minor - Major - Major - Minor - Diminished

Therefore the chords in the Key of C would be -

CMaj - Dmin - Emin - FMaj - GMaj - AMin - BDim.

And the same pattern repeats for all Keys in the Major Scale.

Good thread.... should be kept going!!

Steve