Archive for January, 2010

Why Rock Guitar is the Easiest Form of Guitar to Learn

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As a person who teaches guitar for a living, I get the opportunity to work with hundreds of people who all have a very diverse taste in music.  While I do get asked to teach some pretty interesting styles of music from time to time, there is one genre that always stands out above the rest as being the most popular and sought after and that is Rock Music.

Fortunate for all those who want to learn how to rock on guitar, this is in my opinion the easiest style to get under your fingers.  The biggest reason is because of the very few chords and chords shapes that you need to know how to play to get through a standard rock song.

If you’ve never played guitar before, there are hundreds of different chord types and shapes.  More elaborate styles of music such as Jazz and Classical will make the most use of these different chords.

Rock, however uses only ONE main chord type and shape to sculpt out it’s sound and that is the almighty Power Chord.  Now there are certainly more than just power chords in a standard rock song but even then, you are only going to be using a select few Open Chords shapes. These are usually taught first to students and are quite easy for most people to learn.

The other huge advantage that makes Rock Music so easy to learn is that a Power Chord is a movable shape.  Once you are able to learn and master this shape in one position, all you need to do is play the exact same shape but start it on another fret and your good to go.  Pretty Easy!

Check out this Free Guitar lesson on how to play Power Chords. “So once I know how to play a power chord, how do I learn a song”?  While this might seem like a big mystery to a beginner, the answer is much easier than you think.

The most popular form of written guitar notation is what’s called Guitar Tablature or Guitar Tabs for short.  While not as descriptive as reading actual music, Guitar Tabs are a very easy way for anyone to learn how to play just about any song they want. Here is another free guitar lesson on how to read and understand Tabs.

The only other thing to understand when learning Rock music is to know how the songs are put together.  There are some types of music that use repetitive  forms to sculpt out a songs chord progression.

A good example of this would be how Blues Music uses the 12 Bar Blues form.  Simply put, there are a sequence of 3 different chords that go in a 12 bar cycle and the song will use this form over and over again until it finishes. Jazz also has similar forms.

Rock music is more based on Riffs.  The song itself might use up to three or four different riffs, but usually no more.  You most likely have one for the verse and one for the chorus.  Both of these will usually be between two and eight bars long and repeat over and over again until its time to change to the next section.

The only other thing to look out for in a Rock song is the occasional bridge section, which will have a different riff from the verse and the chorus.  Other than that, a Rock Song is a pretty straightforward and easy thing to understand.

The energy and emotions behind Rock songs are also big factors in why there so much fun to play.  When you have an amp turned up nice and loud and a song that makes you feel like your on top of the world, you can easily see why so many people want to know how to rock out on guitar.

Above all, learning to play rock music on guitar should be fun and exciting.  Spend some time practicing Power chords, learn how to move them around and the rest will come to you very easily.

Writing Music

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In this post I’ve decided to talk about one of the most important things a guitar player/musician should do and that is to WRITE MUSIC!!!!!!

I wanted to talk about what it is to write music and how I personally react to doing it.  In past posts, I’ve talked about the different personalities I see when I teach and how they react to learning guitar.  I see very similar traits in people when it comes to writing and creating their own original music.

I would say that there are 3 general mindsets that I typically work with.  #1, the person who is absolutely clueless on how to write a song and doesn’t even know that it can be done. #2 the person who is not that big on learning other people’s music because they have so much to say and can never get their ideas out quick enough. I.E. all they like to do is write music. And of course, #3, the person somewhere in-between.  They know the principals of writing music and get in and out of doing it when they feel like it.

I personally am a definite #3.  I teach a lot of song writing classes and techniques because I have studied music enough to know how it works and how to go about writing for specific types of genres.

I always introduce the basic principles of song writing to my students when they get to a certain level of proficiency and how to at least understand how songs work.  I’m not going to get into the technical stuff here, but if you are interested to study songwriting more, I highly suggest learning and understanding basic Harmonic Structure and how it relates to any given key signature.

Now with that being said, I will say that I have a complete love/hate relationship with writing music.

I love it because it is the most rewarding, intriguing, and inspirational thing to be able to create music and share it with others (I personally believe that this is the sole reason why most people, mega rock stars included, write in the first place. That is to share it with others. Take away all the money and fame and I assure you that the Beatles will still have written the songs that they did because it’s a basic need for some people to express what they feel through songs and music.).

The reason why I sometimes hate writing music (I don’t actually hate doing it, just couldn’t think of the right word at the moment) is because of how frustrating it can be when nothing is coming out of you OR if you are on to something really amazing and then have to stop because of work, family, or other things that take you away from what your working on.

For me to feel comfortable about writing music, I usually need to clear my calendar, shut all doors, turn off the phone and basically forget that there is even a world going on around me.

I don’t really like this approach because if you make yourself half as busy as I do, then you of course will never have that kind of time and freedom to just let things happen.  It usually takes something very inspirational to MAKE me pick up my instruments and write music until my soul is exhausted.

Now when the stars align, the moon is full and I decide that nothing is more important than for me to write some music, there is no better of a feeling to get your fingers moving and see what comes out of you.

There is something also very important to be said about writing music for you vs. writing music professionally.  When I say professionally, I mean that you are being hired to write for another artist, a film, a video game etc.

One of the reasons why I don’t write nearly enough of my own music, is because it’s usually very hard for me to decide where to take a song and how to develop it’s sound.  One of the things that I have always loved to do on guitar is to study as many different styles of music as possible.

This leaves me with a huge palette to work with when it comes to writing because I know and understand many different styles.  If you’re a teenager and love Heavy Metal music, then it’s going to be pretty easy for you to focus on writing just Heavy Metal.

Regardless of this frustration, it’s still an amazing thing when you can call a song done and show it to the world.  When I do get around to writing, I prefer to write instrumental rock songs. Lots of solos and lead playing.  I’m not much of a lyricist so I prefer to stick to melody and great grooves.

When it comes to writing music professionally, I find that it’s usually a pretty easy and enjoyable thing for me to do.  The biggest reason is because I’m always more comfortable when I have a certain mood that I need to write for. It gives me direction and allows me to focus on getting things done quickly.

In one year, I was hired to score a short film and then immediately following that, I was hired to write music for a children’s book, kind of like a Peter and the Wolf story.  I really enjoyed both of these projects because I had detailed descriptions of what the music needed to sound like and guidelines as to how long and short it needed to be.

One more thing that I wanted to touch upon is what kind of music you should create.  The answer is pretty simple. Whatever kind interests you most!

If you love hard, heavy rock then find out what makes rock music tic. If you love classical music, then study the forms and learn how to compose for them.  If you don’t write music, but are good at writing lyrics, then please, please, please write lyrics and find someone who is good at writing music and put the two together!

I don’t feel that I’m that good with writing lyrics so I don’t focus on it much, but I do like to write songs, so I have a bunch of people that I go to when I get some chords together that I think could make for a good tune.  Collaborate, share, and work with as many other people as you can because you will learn so much by seeing how other people work with music.

The main thing to do is to WRITE! It might not sound good at first, in fact you’ll probably think that it’s horrible and won’t ever want to hear it again, but you need to get over this.  If your very self conscience, then keep the music to yourself for awhile until you work out the kinks and have more confidence in what your writing.

There will come a time though when it’s crucial for you to play the music you have written for others.  The world NEEDS to hear songs and music.  If you ever come across a person that says that they don’t like some form of music, then you need to report them to the authorities so that they can be shipped off to another planet.

Chances are, they already come from one.  You might not end up writing songs that 40 thousand people will come out to hear you play, but even if one other person gets some enjoyment out of something that you created, then in my opinion, you have done the world a great favor.

Here’s one last piece of advice.  Always have some type of recording device handy to keep track of what you are working on.  I don’t care if it’s only two chords that you come up with.

Record it and label it so that you can come back to work on it at another time.  I personally have a pretty elaborate system for keeping track of all the music I write because I usually don’t finish a song in one sitting, so I label it by the type of music that it is and file it away on my computer.

I can’t tell you how many times I have opened up a song that I haven’t worked on in years and get a completely new interest in working on it and finishing it.

The Different Types Of Guitar Adjustments

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Last post we talked about guitar setup and maintenance.  Now I am going to talk about the various adjustments that are made to guitars to keep them playing well.  Let’s have a look!

Changing Strings:

This is certainly the most basic and common type of adjustment to do to your guitar to keep it playing well.  When setting up a guitar, I will usually put a fresh pair of strings on to keep things consistent.

How often you should change your strings depends on how much you play and how you treat your guitar when you’re not playing it.  The two most important things that you should do is to #1 wash your hands before you play and #2 wipe the strings down after you are done.

All of the oils and bacteria that are found on your fingers are probably the biggest creator of dirt and grim that collects on guitar strings.  If you don’t pay attention to this, your strings will get old and grimy very fast, but if you do take care of them, they should feel and play like they are brand new for quite some time.  I recommend Dr. Stringfellows as a good guitar string cleaner to use.

Adjusting the Truss Rod:

Just about every single type of steel string guitar has what’s know as a Truss Rod.  This is a long metal bar that goes through the middle of the guitar neck.  It is used to keep the neck straight and even.

When a guitar is tuned up, there is a very large amount of stress that is put on the neck.  Sometimes the neck will bow, creating a dip around the middle of the fret board.  This leads to higher action and more tense playing conditions.  The truss rod can be used to correct this bow and keep the neck straight.

It’s usually a matter of preference as to how straight to make it, but most guitar players will keep just a tiny bit of bow in the neck to prevent buzzing.  The adjustment for the truss rod can either be found on the headstock, usually under a little plate, or lower down on the guitar where the neck meets the body.

Setting the action (string height)

The action is the measurement of how high the strings are from the fret board.  This is probably the most important aspect of a guitars setup that a beginning student should check because it can make a huge difference as to how comfortable the guitar is to play.

I have seen and played many guitars in my teaching career and I always start off a new student with checking their guitars action because it’s usually something that they do not know about.

The adjustment for setting the action depends on what type of guitar you are playing and what type of bridge it uses.  You will most likely see either two main adjustment screws to set a general height on all of the strings or an adjustment screw on each saddle to set each string individually.

It’s best to use a ruler to measure this adjustment because most string heights are setup to around 4/64ths. This is a very small increment and it is hard to set this accurately without the proper ruler.

Setting the Intonation:

The intonation is the last step that I do when I am setting up a guitar.  This adjustment sets the actual length of the string from where the string crosses the nut to where it hits the saddle.

When you pluck a string it vibrates.  Having the intonation set correctly is what ensures that the string vibrates at the right frequencies.  If a guitar is not intonated properly you will tune each string perfectly but the strings themselves will be out of tune with each other.

The reason why this is a problem is because anytime you play more than one note at a time, it will sound a little bit out of tune.  If you strum a full chord and the the intonation is off, you will most likely get a few pitches that sound like the guitar was not tuned correctly.

The adjustment for setting the Intonation is usually located at the back of each string saddle or at the end of the string before it gets to the bridge.  Again, it depends on what type of guitar you are playing and what type of bridge system it uses.

These are the most common things to look for when setting up your guitar.  If you are uncomfortable working on your guitar, then take it to a local repair shop and have a qualified technician set it up.  I do offer a full set of videos on guitar setup and maintenance that are free with any purchase of Rock Guitar Power so check that out if you have not already done so!