I want to stop screwing around and actually learn to play the guitar

Sometimes I make the same vow as in the thread title. But sometimes I've worked at playing something from tab or whatever, and eventually I've got so I'm, you know, pretty sloppy but at least hitting most of the right notes. And I've felt proud, and I've moved on to a different song or just had a day off, and 2 days later I can't seem to play the first one at all. Muscle memory completely gone already.

Is this a normal stage which can be overcome, or is it a sign that guitars/music are not for me?

(I also totally can't recall how to play a song or even what it sounds like if a different song is in my head, so that's a big sign that playing live is always going to be out of the question, I think, but maybe someone else here can go "I used to be like that and now I am rocking stadia nightly")

My current guitar-improvement strategy is to learn Slayer songs from online tabs. I can't seem to get my head round solos from tabs though, not that I could play Slayer solos anyway.

play w/ a drummmmmer. or someone singing or anything, I just know a drummer. I keep my guitar by the computer and pick it up when I get bored/internet crashes. also benefit from paying close attention to good guitar playing, youtube to infinity. I think focusing on little things and messing around w/ & enjoying things I've already learned, esp changing the rhythm, are key for me. playing everything extremely slowly&excellently.

learn the pentatonic scale. practice it over and over and over and over until your fingers move smoothly and you can do it without looking at the fret board. speed up and try alternating the note order. listen to your favourite song, find the root key, and jam along

Is this a normal stage which can be overcome

Yes, it's a normal phase that nearly everyone who plays an instrument has to go through. For me, the key was practising the instrument (keyboard) every day. Also the skill of remembering which notes/chords to play is transferable between instruments. When I started being more serious about playing guitar, I found that the practice I'd put in memorising songs on keyboards meant that I found learning guitar chord progressions straightforward.

find the root key, and jam along

I guess to me this is where "learning to play the guitar" has actually already happened. Like if a song is just D, G, and C, what key is it in? will any note that's part of these chords or part of the D, G, and C major scales sound "good" if played at any particular point while these three chords are being played by another guitar?

Working out the key a song is in is usually a matter of looking at the chords and figuring out which key fits best. A song that uses just D, G, and C is probably going to be G Major, because those three chords are the Dominant (V), Sub-dominant (IV), and Tonic (I) chords of that key. Improvising a solo on top of those chords means playing notes that are in that key, which for G Major are G, A, B , C, D, E, and F#.

^^^ whoops my grammar is a bit off there.
Also these things are not really strict rules, although they can get you in the ballpark. You can throw in notes that are not in that key. It's a matter of taste and personal preference.

im going to be mr broken record here and say again - get lessons. i know its cooler to teach yerself, but thats what i did, and you know what? i regret not taking lessons at some point, a lot.

fwiw, learning music theory will likely be very helpful for figuring out which notes not in the key you can throw in where without being unnecessarily jarring, or conversely to be purposefully jarring

(xxxpost) arghhh made a mistake!
In G Major, D is the Dominant (V), G is the Tonic (I), and C is the Sub-dominant (IV).

(xpost) I agree with the need for lessons. It's a lot less frustrating to be able to ask a guitar tutor "hey what about this?" and get an answer in a couple of minutes, rather than search on the internet for hours and still not find out. Also having someone who'll give you an objective opinion of your playing is good - your own opinion will vary widely between "I'm great" and "I suck" to be any use.

i will seek lessons... AND SCOTCH.

"I've moved on to a different song or just had a day off, and 2 days later I can't seem to play the first one at all. Muscle memory completely gone already."
How different are these songs? I think there's a certain frame of mind where you notice you're doing the same thing in one song as in another song that really helps you remember how to do that part, and I think it's largely unconscious, so if you're very attentively following a tab, it might not stick?

http://www.halfjapanese.co.uk/how-to-play-guitar.php

but tabs are only good for strumming the basic melody of a rock song, right? they're almost never giving you the individual notes played by the guitarist, or the solo patterns, and so forth . . .

http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/10com.htm

no that is wrong, tabs show finger placement in respect to string and fret instead of musical notation.

I've got a really really shit Yamaha acoustic guitar which is nigh-on impossible to play, which I keep around all the time. It's great. I can barely hold a chord on it and now if I pick up a half-decent guitar I'm always amazed at how fluidly I can play.

Like if a song is just D, G, and C, what key is it in? will any note that's part of these chords or part of the D, G, and C major scales sound "good" if played at any particular point while these three chords are being played by another guitar?

As explained above, this particular example is easy as these three chords all fit into the key of G major. To answer a little more broadly, the way to figure this stuff out is to first learn what notes are in all of the major scales. I can explain that in detail if anyone is interested but it's pretty easy to find lessons on how it works.

Then to figure out which chords correspond to that major scale, you need to harmonize the scale; i.e., stack the notes of the scale on top of each other in thirds. The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished. Now you know all of the triads (three-note chords) that can be built using *only* the notes of a given key. These are the chords that are used most often in simple pieces of music.

So for instance, the A major scale goes A B C# D E F# G#. Applying the formula to that scale we get A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim. Those are all the triads we can make in the key of A major that don't require borrowing any outside notes, aka accidentals. So if a chord progression goes e.g. A F#m Bm E, we could analyze that as a I vi ii V in the key of A.

In terms of playing a solo or writing a melody to fit those chords, the simplest thing to do is just think "I'm in A major" and use those notes in whatever way sounds good. But again to look at it a little more broadly, with any type of chord and melody note, there are two possibilities: the melody is a chord tone, meaning it's one of the notes that's also being played in the chord, or it's a non-chord tone. Chord tones will always be safe to use, generally sound solid and "inside," and can be held out. Non-chord tones are necessary to provide a sense of movement or tension, but generally have to resolve to chord tones.

So for instance, if I'm improvising over the above chord progression, and the current chord is A, C# is a chord tone, so I could hold that note over the chord. D, though, is not a chord tone, despite being a part of the scale. So if I'm playing a D over the A chord, it's not going to sound wrong, but if I hold that D out over the whole chord, as opposed to e.g. moving down to C# or up to E (both of which are in the A chord), it's going to sound dissonant and maybe wrong.

So it's all well and good to just take a scale and play it kind of randomly when you're starting out with improvising. But if you listen to a guitar solo by somebody like David Gilmour, the notes are chosen carefully to go with the chords -- he's moving through non-chord tones, but he lands on the chord tones on certain strong beats, providing resolution and dramatic effect. The solo in "Mother" is a great example of this.

no that is wrong, tabs show finger placement in respect to string and fret instead of musical notation.

yeah, i actually knew that. i meant more along the lines of the tabs you see on websites diagraming rock songs, which seem to me -- like the chords above the lyrics -- more about the basic sound of the song, not the intricate notes being played by the guitarist

The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished.

Whoops, I meant vii is diminished. And if it wasn't clear I'm using roman numerals to correspond to each note in the scale, and major/minor scales have 7 notes.

Daniel: You're right, a lot of tabs are just the chords, but there are also some that do give you "the intricate notes being played by the guitarist."

yeah, i actually knew that. i meant more along the lines of the tabs you see on websites diagraming rock songs, which seem to me -- like the chords above the lyrics -- more about the basic sound of the song, not the intricate notes being played by the guitarist

Technically those aren't tabs, just chord charts, although they're sometimes colloquially referred to by the same name. Guitar tablature is when you have six lines with numbers on them corresponding to the frets. It's just more economical to write out the chord symbols above the lyrics if you can assume your reader knows how to execute the chords or you provide chord fingerings at the bottom or something.

rt. i'm fascinated by what you say above, but i'm having trouble grasping this part of it:

Then to figure out which chords correspond to that major scale, you need to harmonize the scale; i.e., stack the notes of the scale on top of each other in thirds. The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished. Now you know all of the triads (three-note chords) that can be built using *only* the notes of a given key. These are the chords that are used most often in simple pieces of music.

So for instance, the A major scale goes A B C# D E F# G#. Applying the formula to that scale we get A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim. Those are all the triads we can make in the key of A major that don't require borrowing any outside notes, aka accidentals. So if a chord progression goes e.g. A F#m Bm E, we could analyze that as a I vi ii V in the key of A.

i feel like it represents the key to unlocking the door i want to unlock, but i can't quite figure out how to use the key.

This is all new to me (I'm music theory illiterate), but I think he's saying:
A major = A B C# D E F# G#

first chord is
A = A C# D (i.e. every other note for three notes)

2nd is
Bm = B D F# (every other note for three notes)

etc...

er A = A C# E i mean

Do you know about triads and major/minor keys/scales? That is the piece of knowledge that will help explain that bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_and_minor

xp: Philip is correct in what is being explained here. The next step is learning a notation convention, where Roman numerals are used to represent the 7 notes in a major scale; the uppercase ones represent a major triad and the lowercase ones represent a minor triad. The triad built off the 7th tone in the scale is special; that is a diminished triad because the interval between the first and second notes is a minor third and the interval between the second and third notes is a minor third. (Note that in major triads, the interval between the first and second notes is a major third and the interval between the second and third notes is a minor third. In minor triads, the interval between the first and second note is a minor third and between the second and third notes is a major third. The interval between the first and third notes for both major and minor triads is a perfect fifth; in diminished triads, that interval is a diminished fifth.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_%28music%29

this should also help

Yeah, it can be tough to explain this stuff in enough detail to be clear but without droning on forever. I left out the explanation of why certain chords are major and others are minor or diminished, but you don't really have to know that in order to understand which chords fit into a certain key.

But like Philip is saying, you build triads by starting on any note in a scale, going up two notes in the scale (we call this interval a third) and adding that note, then going up two more notes (another third) and adding that one as well. If you do this with each note in the major scale you end up with seven different triads. We can then look at the thirds in each triad and decide whether the triad is major, minor, augmented, or diminished by looking at which thirds are major (four half-steps apart) and which are minor (three half-steps apart).

But for every major scale it works out the same way. So to give another example the Eb major scale goes Eb F G Ab Bb C D, and so the chords go Eb Fm Gm Ab Bb Cm Ddim.

If we continue adding thirds we can build chords with four notes in them, which gives us 7th chords. That would look like this: IM7 iim7 iiim7 IVM7 V7 vim7 viim7b5. So I and IV are major 7th chords, ii iii and vi are minor 7th chords, V is a dominant seventh chord, and vii is a half-diminished or minor-7-flat-5 chord. Again, this is what happens when you use only the notes that existed in the original major scale. Additional chords can be generated by borrowing notes from other keys or by utilizing the minor scales.

oh man, this is why i'm music theory illiterate!
(I think you can get by just thinking of music as variable patterns -- things will sound OK so long as you've got patterns that harmonize on occasion)

i know much of that already. this may be a very stupid question (i'm a bit distracted ATM), but why is the second note you mention Bm, instead of B (as B is roman ii in the key of A)?

used here:

first chord is
A = A C# D (i.e. every other note for three notes)

2nd is
Bm = B D F# (every other note for three notes)

i know much of that already.

sorry if that sounded prick-ish. it wasn't meant to.

B major? i think would be B D# F#, which isn't in the Amajor scale? The D# part i mean

It's standard notation when using notes to name chords. If the chord is major, you just use the note represented in uppercase (eg, A). In order to distinguish minor chords, you put an 'm' after them (eg, Bm). An alternate way of doing this is via upper and lowercase (eg, A, b), which is most often used with Roman numeral notation (eg, I, ii).

theory will help you analyze what you or someone else is doing and definitely get yr mind wrapped around what music 'should' be. but i think training yr ear is mad important too. if yr a guitar player the piano is also a chording instrument and has the benefit of music theory making perfect sense on it. i think the guitar can seem strange sometimes in this sense. i would find a piano you can screw around on and try to play a song you know on it.

As explained above, this particular example is easy as these three chords all fit into the key of G major. To answer a little more broadly, the way to figure this stuff out is to first learn what notes are in all of the major scales. I can explain that in detail if anyone is interested but it's pretty easy to find lessons on how it works.

Then to figure out which chords correspond to that major scale, you need to harmonize the scale; i.e., stack the notes of the scale on top of each other in thirds. The result is the same for every major scale, and it looks like this: I ii iii IV V vi viidim. So I IV and V are major, ii iii and vi are minor, and vi is diminished. Now you know all of the triads (three-note chords) that can be built using *only* the notes of a given key. These are the chords that are used most often in simple pieces of music.

So for instance, the A major scale goes A B C# D E F# G#. Applying the formula to that scale we get A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim. Those are all the triads we can make in the key of A major that don't require borrowing any outside notes, aka accidentals. So if a chord progression goes e.g. A F#m Bm E, we could analyze that as a I vi ii V in the key of A.

In terms of playing a solo or writing a melody to fit those chords, the simplest thing to do is just think "I'm in A major" and use those notes in whatever way sounds good. But again to look at it a little more broadly, with any type of chord and melody note, there are two possibilities: the melody is a chord tone, meaning it's one of the notes that's also being played in the chord, or it's a non-chord tone. Chord tones will always be safe to use, generally sound solid and "inside," and can be held out. Non-chord tones are necessary to provide a sense of movement or tension, but generally have to resolve to chord tones.

So for instance, if I'm improvising over the above chord progression, and the current chord is A, C# is a chord tone, so I could hold that note over the chord. D, though, is not a chord tone, despite being a part of the scale. So if I'm playing a D over the A chord, it's not going to sound wrong, but if I hold that D out over the whole chord, as opposed to e.g. moving down to C# or up to E (both of which are in the A chord), it's going to sound dissonant and maybe wrong.

So it's all well and good to just take a scale and play it kind of randomly when you're starting out with improvising. But if you listen to a guitar solo by somebody like David Gilmour, the notes are chosen carefully to go with the chords -- he's moving through non-chord tones, but he lands on the chord tones on certain strong beats, providing resolution and dramatic effect. The solo in "Mother" is a great example of this.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, February 4, 2010 12:38 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this was really helpful! i've got a pretty heady jazz piano book at home that i've struggled with on and off for years, and this actually made a ton more sense.

I've read enough to make sense of the above and feel like I know it in theory, but learning what notes are in what keys and and what their associated triads are, so i know them automatically instead of painstakingly working it out every time, seems like a hell of a task.

This is why it helps to have a piano/keyboard. Learning this stuff on that instrument first makes translating the concept to others so much easier.

I have to admit if I didn't take a beginner's music theory class in high school it would've been incredibly difficult for me to piece it all together - and that was after having played music for years and years for school, barely understanding what I was looking at sheet music but able to read and play it.

I have to admit if I didn't take a beginner's music theory class in high school it would've been incredibly difficult for me to piece it all together - and that was after having played music for years and years for school, barely understanding what I was looking at sheet music but able to read and play it.

see, i never learned, and i really think it held me back as a musician, in a big way. in HS i was a pretty good horn player (1st chair from 9th-12th grade yall) but suuuuucked at soloing in jazz band. and while i don't play much anymore, i still played some in college and i was always embarrassed to have played for basically ten years and still not know shit.

Heh. I still feel similarly... like for the amount of time I've been playing music and practicing guitar my general chops and musical knowledge should be way higher than it is. I bet everybody in this thread feels that way to some degree. But you know, the cost of private lessons...

learning what notes are in what keys and and what their associated triads are, so i know them automatically instead of painstakingly working it out every time, seems like a hell of a task.

It is a hell of a task, but don't let that stop you. Take your time and work on it gradually. The more you expose yourself to this stuff the more it starts to sink in and become second nature. In addition to the piano recommendation, I think it can sometimes be very helpful to write things out on staff paper, as old-fashioned as that might sound. Just like on the guitar, lots of musical constructions form visual patterns on the staff. Which makes sense of course, as the staff and musical notation is designed to be clear and easy to read. I used to make my students write out a major scale or two every week, and then when they were done with those I'd have that write out different triads. The more you do this stuff the more you start to see the patterns and connections between them and how simple it really is fundamentally.

Approach it a little like learning a foreign language

Makes sense. I still say there's a big difference between playing this

http://g.sheetmusicplus.com/Look-Inside/large/MB-95689bcdpg98.gif

and playing, say, Rock of Ages or a song by The Clientele.

"I want to know why certain things sound good together, how to play in a particular key, what notes you can and can't play at certain times and so on."

I'm not a great guitar player, or anything, but I can tell you that the bulk of what I do know about answering those questions comes from this:

- find the root key, and jam along
- gradually patterns, particularly movable chord shapes, will begin to emerge

This is really the majority of how I learned guitar: pick it up while listening to music, find an entry point to play along (a root note, the key, a chord), and just work from there. Not necessarily trying to learn the song itself -- just learning what shapes, patterns, and chords fit into the song. It's surely not the best or most efficient way to learn (that'll always be good lessons, right?), but you can't do it for long without starting to sort out what other guitar players are doing, what patterns/shapes on the fretboard you can use to move around the chords and notes you know, which little habits and tricks work for what kinds of songs, etc.

(And -- to be clear -- I'm certainly not suggesting that as a great alternative or substitute to actually learning the basic music-theory stuff that's being advised here! But improvising-along is useful, I think, and if you don't have other people around, doing it a few times with a song you're liking ... well, it always teaches me stuff, anyway.)

^pretty much how i picked up guitar, though i was (even more) terrible until i started playing with others

i got fairly good fast when i started out. began like most people playing "smoke on the water" on top E, then learnt chords, a couple of songs, then the pentatonic scale. then i became obsessed with the smiths and got really good at learning johnny marr's guitar riffs by ear (this is that time at like 14 when all you do is play guitar). then discovered television and started doing the same. i think this is where my problems began because my favourite guitarist was tom verlaine obvs and though it was alot harder to learn his solos note for note, timbre for timbre, it was also alot easier to improvise solos in a similar manner

(my brothers followed a similar path except instead of the smiths and television, they were copying slayer and pantera. needless to say, they are much better guitarists)

so now i'm at this point where i'm really good at improvising, and really good at creating weird chords and phrases, but my technique is seriously lacking. i'd love to be able to finger pick or play interesting chord sequences and the relevant scales. i've considered lessons but a few people have warned me off, plus i can't afford them anyway. what would you guys recommend for a guitar player who's already competent but wishes to step his game up? is there one good book for example? is there any exercises i should be practicing daily? or should i go the music theory route and learn some shit on piano?

then i became obsessed with the smiths and got really good at learning johnny marr's guitar riffs by ear (this is that time at like 14 when all you do is play guitar)

Oh man: DITTO, and ditto to the rest of it, too. Last year I actually signed up for these cheesy Line 6 guitar-lesson modules, because I felt like I hadn't learned anything new in too long (the fun part is that they all come with guitar-tone patches for whatever you're learning), but I've just wound up going back and forth between relearning simple stuff (fixing bad self-taught technique) and learning tricks of doubtful usefulness (like sweep arpeggios).

^^ hopefully I will soon use some rad sweep arpeggios in an indiepop song and have to eat my words about usefulness

https://youtu.be/_rLZ-LIx09I

I think I just hear one? Buckingham played it solo when I saw them. (Fairly close to this, and similarly, disappointingly slowed down). Based on a scan of Youtube live clips, he's been playing it with one guitar (using the same fingerings that I think ledge and I are using) since at least '92. This live version from '77 seems to be accompanied with acoustic bass, though, but I think it's actually a little fuller-sounding than the record.

2xp

According to recording assistant Cris Morris, this song took a while to record. Said Morris: "It was Lindsey's pet project, just two guitar tracks but he did it over and over again. In the end his vocal didn't quite match the guitar tracks so we had to slow them down a little."

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=15497

Bit weird though, why wouldn't the tracks be recorded at the same speed?

Key was too high for his voice?

he seems to manage when he's doing it live!

Interesting. I had assumed they just stereoized one guitar track on the album.

ahh drop d, no wonder i could never sound it out in standard tuning

Started using a metronome. Good tip! Feels like I'm screwing around just that little bit less.

Glad to hear it!

Are you barreling through the whole tune from beginning to end or looping little sections?

Bit of both, more of the latter. It's good to get a feel for how it all goes together but I know time is better spent focusing on the trickier parts.

I want to stop screwing around and actually learn to play the bass guitar. is it a really bad idea to start with fretless? y/n

it's the style i eventually want to play so in my mind it makes sense to just go for it. i'm quite good at guitar and my playing tends to be more rhythmic than melodic. so even though they're completely different beasts, i'm not going to be a complete n00b when it comes to mechanical fundamentals.

any fretless players here? tips, tricks?

I'm not a bass player, but why fretless? Just because I associate it with more melodic, floaty styles and fretted with more rhythmic bass playing.

idk it's really the only style i've connected with? i really like the long slides and its "round" sound

Seems like you could go a lot faster with a fretted bass, but if you really prefer that sound....

i say go for the fretless if that's what you really want to play.

Just get one of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJDXxKP6Qxk

is there a less cool musical instrument on earth than the chapman stick

the slide whistle maybe? i'm not sure tbh

the master of the chapman stick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc__38ryzZo

hey at least it sounds cool