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#16
03-27-2017, 06:35 PM
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There are a few method books out there aimed at fingerstyle.
First of all, it's hard to beat Mark Hanson's stuff for a structured approach for beginners, and he focuses on learning songs. But I think you already know of his material. For the kinds of things you've been asking, I'd especially recommend his video on arranging: https://www.amazon.com/How-Arrange-F.../dp/B004BOGTF6 It's also hard to beat some of the classic beginner classical books for things like learning basic techniques, learning the notes, as well as tunes. Look at Frederick Noad's books. Alex de Grassi has a very complete method book, a bit more advanced. I'm not sure he goes over things like learning the notes, but he covers most other bases: https://www.amazon.com/Grassi-Finger.../dp/1936604213 Another lesser known book is the one by Brian Gore. He's a bit more "modern" with chapters on slapping and tapping, etc and also a bit more advanced in some ways. But also there's a bit of a structured method to what he covers, if I recall. https://www.amazon.com/Fingerstyle-G.../dp/0879308125
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Music: Spotify, Bandcamp Videos: You Tube Channel Books: Hymns for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), Christmas Carols for Fingerstyle Guitar (std tuning), A DADGAD Christmas, Alternate Tunings book Online Course: Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Guitar 
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#18
03-27-2017, 06:58 PM
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It's a bit over the top to take a macro look at the art of playing and shotgun yourself all over it with any sober expectation of achievement.
If I had to lay out a plan for a fingerpicking syllabus it would be to master a few patterns. They will feed upon each other and naturally expand the skills set. The ear, if gainfully employed throughout that plan, will not only be fully engaged it will take the lead and play the hands as it should. Fingerpicking is initially a training of the hand to follow patterns, which the ear follows as well. Then, as the skills and muscle memory for the relationship between the fingers and strings develops, the trained ear creates melodies the fingers follow in a reversal of roles. Learning the patterns is the tail waging the dog, so to speak, where the most important aspect (the ear) learns the sounds they make. Over time, the ear has learned the notes by sound alone on the fretboard and takes command of the hand. That's when the dog properly wags the tail. I've said the same thing three similar ways to hopefully communicate that the hands are not the most important factor in learning. They are mechanically subordinate to the ear. Learning to play guitar is a very simple thing people tend to build walls around that keep them out. I don't understand this. The hands can be trained to drum the fingers on a flat surface. There's no difference between that and drumming them across the strings, in the sense of training. Reduced down to that simplicity, the fingers can be taught to pluck patterns. The muscle memory for that is pretty strong and stable. Once learned, they can be intermixed and the skills begin to grow - mechanically speaking. The ear is just a party to it at this point but it begins to hear beyond the patterns to embellishing notes and then whole melodies. The reason is because it's becoming independent of the hand, so to speak. The brain can play an entire (practiced) melody and concurrently develop other melodies from it. The played melody (influence) prompts the new melody (influenced) and the hands begin to follow out of the one to the other naturally. But, it's all an ear dependence that makes the music. The various mechanical methods of making sound from the strings is the easiest part of playing yet wholly meaningless without the ear.
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#19
03-27-2017, 07:15 PM
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Pitar, that is very helpful. Ear training is something I didn't mention in my original post. I've not done much ear training. The only place where I found anything about it is on Justin Sandercoe's website, where I did just a tiny bit of it. It seems to me that ear training is a missing part of learning.
I just took a break from practicing, using Mark Hanson's The Art of Solo Fingerpicking. I am very early into the book, and in fact am on a page titled "Beyond Pattern Playing." The instructions are to take the four basic patterns (pinch, outside-in, inside-out, and descending arpeggio), and, playing one chord, create my own variations on each of these patterns. I just did that, concentrating on how each variation sounded. Then I took this break, to read your post about ear training. Talk about divine timing! LOL Thanks!
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Carol "We are music fingered by the gods." ~ Mark Nepo
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#20
03-27-2017, 07:38 PM
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Quote:
Tony
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“The guitar is a wonderful thing which is understood by few.” — Franz Schubert "Alexa, where's my stuff?" - Anxiously waiting...
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#21
03-27-2017, 09:38 PM
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A lot of us need a plan, lol.
I like working on songs and within the songs themselves I get practice with different finger placements that are in an order that I don't do naturally from just everyday playing. I guess pick out 5 songs, try to do ones that are maybe 1 to 2 pages short and play them everyday with the goal of playing along with the original artist's recording. It's tax season for me so I'm working long hours but I like practicing 1 long song and then a few shorter ones. Here's what I've been working on. Long tune : Cincinnati Flow Rag - arrangement by Toby Walker (see his website) Medium: Windy and Warm - various arrangements Shorter: Ragtime Strut - Woody Mann Deep River Blues - arrangement by Toby Walker Ramblin Blues - Woody Mann arrangement Mississippi Blues - Stefan Grossman arrangement Black Cat Blues - Woody Mann Most of these songs are in different keys so I get a good work out. The songs are played all over the neck but with a lot of first position (cowboy chord) stuff. In these songs are triads, full chords and barre chords with single note leads as well, the whole thing. So that's my plan, to play a few different songs and then when busy season is over I can get back to my Truefire lessons (Tommy Emmanuel, etc) as well. That stuff is work. Other than the Truefire, there really is no plan other than to have fun. But. You've been playing for 5 years. What can you do without tab in front of you? Can you improvise for a minute or two and have it sound musical? That should be a goal if you can't. It's okay to "borrow" pieces of songs here and there and expand on them.
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Barry My SoundCloud page Avalon L-320C, Guild D-120, Martin D-16GT, McIlroy A20, Pellerin SJ CW Cordobas - C5, Fusion 12 Orchestra, C12, Stage Traditional Alvarez AP66SB, Seagull Folk Aria {Johann Logy}: Last edited by TBman; 03-27-2017 at 09:46 PM.
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#22
03-28-2017, 07:24 AM
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Since we are all giving advice to a question that is probably of interest to many folks who may be reading (lurking?), maybe it would be a good idea for those of us giving all this advice to make a video of our own arrangement of "Over The Rainbow", and then post here about how we came up with that arrangement.
I am not talking about playing somebody else's arrangement, because that is not what the OP is asking. She is asking how to get started making her own arrangements. I think our advice on that subject will carry much more weight if she can see it is real. I have seen videos from Doug Young on how to arrange "Amazing Grace" and (I think) "First Noel" from his DADGAD Christmas book. I think I can find those links and post them here, so he has already done his part.  Yessir! Here they are: First Noel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srxiFoHtQkk 3 part series on arranging Amazing Grace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_2SYQK-b8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJWQXeDu-og https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7C6gVh8SgY If you follow the links in the signature of Rick Slo's posts, it will quickly become obvious that he is right up there with Doug. So I think he has acquitted himself quite nicely already too. Last night, after posting in this thread, I made a quick arrangement in the key of D. I have not seen other folks do it in this key, so I think folks here will know it is my arrangement and not copping from somebody else. Since we are doing this quickly, rather than taking time to flesh it out and play it as a polished performance, it doesn't have to be that. It needs to be something real, that we did ourselves according to the advice we are giving out here. Right now, my video camera is charging up. I recently bought an open box Zoom Q8 at Guitar Center so I could start making videos of my arrangements for the "Play" sub-forum. I think that dispensing advice to folks here becomes real when they can see that we really do "walk the talk". We don't have to be playing at a professional level, but at least be able to show that we can actually do what we are advising other folks to do. I have never posted a video, and will be learning how to use this video camera, so this part is all new to me. Hopefully, I can get a video on YouTube in the next day or so. I am not a Doug Young or a Rick Slo, but that is not really the point. The point of this is that we can do an arrangement ourselves and explain to the OP how we did it in a way that will help her along. As already mentioned, I think this particular subject is of interest to many more folks than are actively posting in this and similar recent threads. This subject has come up often enough now that it is time that we who know something of the subject give up what we can to help others along. Posting a video will show that we at least are actively engaged so we are speaking from real experience rather than something that we read somewhere that seems right. Tony
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“The guitar is a wonderful thing which is understood by few.” — Franz Schubert "Alexa, where's my stuff?" - Anxiously waiting...
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#23
03-28-2017, 08:03 AM
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It's tough to find an in-person fingerstyle teacher.
Most of them are focused on beginner's and have a tough time figuring out what to do with intermediate level players There's a ton of "how to" books out there & each one has it's own benefits. It all depends on your skill level and what your expectations are. The dirty little secret is that everyone has a closet full of those guitar "how to" books that we thought would be great or someone on a forum told us it was the best book ever. The majority of them end up collecting dust. Because what works for one person may not work for another.I play strictly solo fingerstyle guitar, because I don't sing very well at all. Call me lazy, but I've never had a burning desire to create my own arrangements of songs from scratch. When I find a song that I want to learn. My personal preference is to search YouTube for someone playing it. Then I'll search Google for any arrangements on the internet. I'll grab several versions and take bits and pieces out of each to create my own arrangement from them. Here's some suggestions to find arrangements of songs that will get some music under your fingers. There was a great magazine called Fingerstyle Guitar that has gone out of business. It had wonderful arrangements and lessons in it. EBAY Check out John Knowles on YouTube. If his fingerstyle playing is of interest to you, John used to publish a quarterly journal called Fingerstyle Quarterly. It was full of his fingerstyle arrangements and awesome lessons. Those old publications are now on his website for purchasing. It'll give you some great insights for arranging. http://www.johnknowles.com/archives01.htm Check out Pete Huttlinger (RIP) on YouTube... Pete's website still has a lot of his solo arrangements for sale along with complete books from his various CD's. good luck and I wish you success
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2003 Froggy Bottom H-12 Deluxe 2019 Cordoba C-12 Cedar 2016 Godin acoustic archtop 2011 Godin Jazz model archtop Last edited by dkstott; 03-28-2017 at 08:17 AM.
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#24
03-28-2017, 08:13 AM
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After rereading your op, this part sticks out at me. If you want to know what you are doing and not just where to put your fingers, you're going to have to learn what things are called and how they lay across the fingerboard... ie THEORY. Theory really starts with knowing the notes up and down the fingerboard. It doesn't do much good to know that an Amin chord is A C E if you can't find those notes on the fingerboard. You could just learn a bunch of chord shapes for all the inversions of Amin, but that takes you right back to "put your fingers here" rather than knowing what you're doing. I know there's been a lot of debate about whether this is even necessary and if so how should you go about it... but the simple fact is that it is just not very difficult once you just get on it and get it done. Now, a basic outline of theory might look something like this:
As far as practicing goes a lot depends on how you learn and how much time you have each session. If possible, I recommend breaking a session into 4 parts
How much time you devote to each is up to you based on what you need to work on. . .
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#25
03-28-2017, 08:26 AM
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Thanks for the compliments Tony. However I did not catch that composing original tunes or arrangements of tunes was the main OP objective.
I will still say just learning tunes is the fastest and more pleasurably way to progress. To get the most out of each tune one should learn it very well technically and emotively, and one should delve to understand the elements of how a tune that is being played is put together - melody, harmony, rhythm, repetition, variation... I'm all for good instruction books as long the elements of playing that the book talks about are rapidly put into example pieces. For example Hanson's Contemporary Travis Picking is reasonable in this regard - not over complicating things and giving example pieces. For reading pleasure a basic music theory book (say from the Dummies series of books) would not be bad thing.
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Derek Coombs Youtube -> Website -> Music -> Tabs Guitars by Mark Blanchard, Albert&Mueller, Paul Woolson, Collings, Composite Acoustics, and Derek Coombs "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Woods hands pick by eye and ear
Made to one with pride and love To be that we hold so dear A voice from heavens above
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#26
03-28-2017, 08:30 AM
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No quarrel with any of the advice so far, but here's my $0.02 on your specific questions:
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Personally, I guess I did know a few chords when I started teaching myself fingerstyle, but really I did it all by copying records (taping them first to slow them down). That was the folk-blues stuff. A couple of years later I bought a book of classical pieces (notation, not tab). All you need - for folk/blues/country style - is the basic cowboy outfit: C, G, D, A, E, Am, Em, maybe Dm, maybe a few easy 7ths. For classical you don't even need that. (For jazz chord melody, you do need more: all kinds of 7ths at least.) It's all about the right hand, really (picking, that is, apologies if you're left handed). It's about taking whatever you know in the fret hand, and using individual fingers in the picking hand instead of pick or thumb alone. Quote:
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So it obviously helps to have the basics of that technique under your fingers - the "independent thumb" in particular. (Although that's really a myth - the thumb is not independent, it just feels that way once you've mastered it.) But there are plenty of fingerstyle instrumentals using more classical styles, or jazz chord melody styles, where the travis technique is not relevant. (The thumb doesn't necessarily keep the beat, although it will play bass lines most of the time.) Quote:
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For classical, there are various right hand exercises involving thumb and 3 fingers - on various chord shapes, or even just on open strings. There are also countless studies designed to take you through the basics while also letting you play actual music (rather than boring exercises). Plenty of books of either, or both, from a long tradition of classical guitar pedagogy. For alternating bass/travis style, it's about taking a simple pattern (thumb and fingers together) and breaking it down into separate beats - slowing it right down, but keeping thumb and fingers co-ordinated from the start. The alternating thumb alone is easy - being able to do that is no guide as to how easy you can add fingers without disturbing its rhythm. So get those fingers involved from the start, while keeping the thumb on the beat. You can (I understand  ) get books on that too, but all you really need is a few common patterns (one page is plenty), and hours and hours (weeks?) of practice.Quote:
Ideally you pick a tune which is just beyond what you can currently do - which contains some parts you can handle OK, and some which you'd need to work on. So you work on those parts (when you get to them). Start at the beginning of the tune, and work your way through: bar by bar, beat by beat. It's only if you really can't find any such tune - where you seem to get stuck on bar 1 of anything, and mastering it all seems years away - only then should you indulge in some basic technical exercises. (Theory?? forget it!) Quote:
 "Just play songs" is the whole thing for me. I mean, I want to be able to hear the melody, supported by chords and/or bass line, and get it all flowing smoothy. I hear a tune I want to play, and I learn how to play it - any way I can. I have zero interest in technique and theory beyond that, for their own sake. Quote:
Do you mean that you can't see a chord sequence or structure to the tune? (Tab often obscures that kind of thing.) Can you not hear structure and form when you play it? Or is it something else you're missing? I can only speak for myself, but I learned to play many classical pieces (from notation) without really "understanding" them in any theoretical sense. I still enjoyed them immensely - the sound of them, the feel under my fingers. I couldn't have explained them to you, although I guess I did spot the occasional chord arpeggio and chord change. (Now, many years later, I have more theoretical insight, but it doesn't improve my appreciation of them, and doesn't make them easier to play.) With the alternating bass pieces, it was a lot easier to see the chord sequences (because essentially they were there in the left hand!), but the challenges were 100% technical, not theoretical in the slightest. Then again - I never worked from tab! I either worked from notation (classical pieces) or from records by ear (via slowed-down tape). And I would often write the latter out in notation, as a memory aid, although I'd usually be playing it enough to embed it in finger memory. I've nothing against tab, but (from my perspective) I don't like not being able to "see" a tune before playing it. Standard notation is like a picture of how the tune will sound (a graphic analogue), while tab is just a bunch of lines and numbers. Even if I know the sound of the tune first, tab feels uncomfortable to me. Sorry if this is not much help...  It may be that you're working too much from existing tabs, books, youtubes, maybe on tunes you're not that concerned about (perhaps because they're presented as good training exercises) - and you need to do more for yourself: find a tune or song you really want to play, and work out for yourself how to tackle it. That's obviously tough if it's (say) an old jazz standard and all you can find is various vocal versions, or jazz versions involving whole bands. Ideally you want to find something that's already a solo guitar piece - but which is not available as tab. Then do what you need to do to learn it! (Warning: you have to really love the tune to do this. But then you should anyway.)
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen. Last edited by JonPR; 03-28-2017 at 08:47 AM.
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#27
03-28-2017, 11:47 AM
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But that's a different thread. EllaMom I don't want to sound like a broken record, but what Joe Pass told Tony is what I heard him say....play melodies (play songs). That piece you shared of Over the Rainbow really works because, even though it's a simple arrangement, it's a beautiful melody. Just playing a melody on the guitar can be beautiful. Here's the approach I strongly suggest. 1. Find very basic sheet music of a simple song with a nice melody that you really like. The music should have just the melody line and simple chords symbols above the melody line. 2. When reading the melody line as written, raise it one whole octave in your head and find all the notes on the top two (or maybe three) strings. Use whatever instructional tools you need to find the notes. Your ear will pretty much find them for you. 3. When you start feeling like just the melody is going somewhere, add one of the chords from the symbols with the melody note on top. To start maybe just do this on the first beat of a measure. Have a chord reference guide on hand to help you find the fingering for the chord you choose given the position on the fretboard. 4. Go as far as you can with the arrangement without looking at the music. Only refer to the music etc when you need to and then, start from the beginning of the song and get through the problem spot until the next problem spot, repeat until you've internalized the song. Then smile because now it's yours!! 5. Repeat that song over and over and over and add it to your list of arrangements. As you grow the arrangement will grow. 6. Go to a new song and repeat. This is how you will learn fingerstyle. This is how you will learn the fretboard. This is how you will learn chord structures and ultimately substitutions and enhancements. This is how you will create on the guitar and, in my opinion derive the highest satisfaction the instrument can deliver.
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#28
03-28-2017, 02:41 PM
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Some great conversation going on here!
Anyway, here is my video on Youtube of my arrangement of "Over The Rainbow": The book I worked from had this tune as lead sheet in the key of Eb. I transposed it down a half step to D so it fit nicer on the guitar and because I have not seen somebody else do it in that key, so you know I didn't "cop" off anybody else. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think that if we are going to give advice that another poster is most likely very serious about following, we really should show that we actually do what we are advising others to do so they can both see that we really can do the thing and so they know whether what we do is really what they are interested in doing. Since the OP specifically pointed to a Youtube video of somebody playing (and doing a really nice job of it) "Over The Rainbow", it makes sense to do that tune. A lead sheet is easy to find and if we are truly doing our own arrangement, we should be able to come up with something quickly, even if not polished. In this arrangement, I did use some chord substitutions because they sounded better to me than what was on the lead sheet and in some cases, were easier to get to on the 12 fret instrument I am playing. I suppose this video also constitutes an NGD, since I used my new Brunton classical guitar. The Zoom Q8 is also new. I just got it at Guitar Center as an open box deal. It is really easy to use. The view screen flips around so that I, as the subject of the video, can see it from where I sit with the guitar so there is no guesswork about fitting the guitar into the frame. If I were to do anything different, I would probably experiment with zooming in so as to minimize the fish eye effect. Anyway, I hope this discussion can continue, and with more folks arranging and putting up videos of themselves playing their arrangement of "Over The Rainbow". We can get into more detail about our respective arrangements and then the OP and anyone else reading this thread would have something solid to dig into. Tony
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“The guitar is a wonderful thing which is understood by few.” — Franz Schubert "Alexa, where's my stuff?" - Anxiously waiting...
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#29
03-28-2017, 02:50 PM
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So now that I have a video up, here is my (quick, I hope) approach to music theory:
I start with the set of 12 notes as used in Western music, the chromatic scale. This is all we have to work with, so everything else comes from it. Next, I have the "template" of intervals from which to extract the major scale. Since I can start on any note in the chromatic scale and apply the template, I have 12 major scales to work with. for me, everything else is derived from the major scale by modifying the intervals. Next, in the major scale, I can stack thirds and get the harmonized major scale, the set of chords that go to a key. Obviously there are more chords (see my video - key of D, but lots of subs). However, this is the starting foundation for me for chords, the 7 chords of the harmonized major scale. Many books and sites say they only use 6 of these chords, leaving out the diminished chord (the 7th element in the scale - not the "7th", but number 7 of the 7 chords). I do use it - all over the place. It is a cheap way to get out of a corner, as you can hear in my arrangement of "Over The Rainbow". Well, that is pretty much what I need to know about theory do my arranging. There really is very little that most of us really need to know about theory. Just as experienced travelers travel light with their luggage, so do experienced musicians travel light when it comes to theory. The musicologists are the folks who drag around big sacks of theory. I have detailed how I start my arrangements in another recent thread on this same subject (I think started by the same OP). I can get into that detail again if the discussion here goes that way. I really am interested in learning how other folks really dig in and make arrangements. there is always more to learn. Tony
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“The guitar is a wonderful thing which is understood by few.” — Franz Schubert "Alexa, where's my stuff?" - Anxiously waiting...
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#30
03-28-2017, 02:56 PM
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Nicely done, Tony! Love the guitar....what a beauty. And looks like you mastered your Zoom Q8 too.
I need to go back and study the video, and then your post that follows. I'm sure I will have questions (I always do!  ).Thanks for this. Means a lot to me. A LOT!
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Carol "We are music fingered by the gods." ~ Mark Nepo
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