Jennings Publishing

The Rhythmic Grid – Guitar 1 Start Out Jammin’

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:42:24 +0000

In teaching people strum patterns, the main obstacle I run across is to get out of what I call the “shopping list” mode. I’ll come back to that idea in a second. A lot of beginner books will show “down” and “up” strums for the basic patterns, but somehow manage not to communicate the rhythmic breakdown.

In order to play probably 90 percent of all rhythm patterns, what is needed is a steady down-up motion of the strumming arm. My first step in getting you to understand any pattern is, start by muting all the strings with the left hand. (Lay your fingers across the strings with no pressure.) This gives you a not-so-noisy way to just get the initial motion started. Begin to strum down and up on the strings (in that order). Once you get that started, you can begin to count, “One and two and three and four and”, steadily with the strums. Make sure the beats (one, two, three, four) are all down strums, and the “upbeats” (and, and, and, and,) are all up strums. You will want to actually just practice this step for a while before moving on. You want it to be second nature.

How many times are we flying past the strings in each measure? If you count all the beats and upbeats, that would be eight passes by the strings, right? (It won’t always be eight if we are working with other time signatures or if we are doing 16th notes, which would double it. But let’s keep it simple.) So we have eight even chunks of time. I refer to this as the “grid”, because it provides the background for whatever strum pattern you’re doing.

Think of a picture with low resolution, like in a newspaper. Think black and white. It’s made of a very predictably spaced dots that will either be black or white. Black dots would be the equivalent of passes by the string in which you hit the string. White dots would be the times you miss the string. But the steady movement of the hand never varies. If you were ever to stop your strumming arm and think “let’s see… I just did an up stroke and now it says down…” then you’ve just entered into the “shopping list” mode of thinking. The down and up arm movements HAVE to stay steady.

Try it on a G chord. Decide beforehand which of the eight passes by the strings will actually make contact, and which ones won’t. Here’s a sample:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Notice I underlined the one, the “and of two”, and the four. Those will be the strums that make contact. The others will be misses. In case I didn’t mention it enough, the steadiness of the down and up motions is everything.

In my beginner book, “Guitar One – Start Out Jammin”, I get into a lot more rhythmic patterns. And they are all on the DVD as well, in song examples.

The Missing Ingredient – Lead Guitar Playing

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:46:42 +0000

I started playing guitar in 67, when I was 12. I was steeped in the styles of Clapton, Page, Hendrix, Farner, Blackmore… Later, during the 80s, another generation of guitarists emerged that took the guitar to another level. I was never really sold on the athletic aspect of those players as much as the “feel” players of the 60s and 70s. There was more of a sense of melody. Bends, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs were used, but to enhance a melodic idea.

Fast forward to the 90s, when all the emerging guitarists seemed to want to rebel against quality itself. Don’t get me wrong, the songs were ok, but nobody cared about actual skill on the guitar any more. Well that decade passed and now with the net and everything, people are listening to just about every style. But guitarists are learning from tab a lot. The only problem with that is, if you learn a song from tab written by a 20 year old, and it’s a song from the 70s, he won’t have all the minute details of a player who was actually alive in that era. For me, I’m very picky about some of these details. There’s “doing” it, and then there’s completely understanding where it came from, and nailing every aspect of it. Authenticity is what it is, I think.

After teaching people certain solos by some of the 70s guitarists such as Clapton and Hendrix, I started seeing that some of the hammer-on/pull-off combinations were giving most people trouble. I set up a series of steps to overcome each one of them. Hence the book/DVD Classic Rock Rudiments for Lead Guitar.

What led me to write “The Guitarist’s Link to Sight Reading”

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:45:34 +0000

I just watched a video by Steve Vai, that took me on a trip down memory lane. Vai had gotten his first high profile gig with Zappa after he had successfully transcribed a bunch of Zappa’s twisted melody lines (or so goes the story I heard). In this video, you can see that Vai has a huge passion for the written note. I share that passion and that’s what led me to learn to read music. In the late 70s and early 80s, I would read Zappa’s column in guitar player, and marvel at his easy use of the pencil in laying down his ideas. I wondered, how can a self taught guitar player such as myself, learn this skill? I was heavily influence by Zappa’s composition style, as well as other artists in the fusion vein such as Weather Report, Jeff Beck, Sons of Champlin and Herbie Hancock. Each one of these artists had to possess that skill without a doubt. The music is too complex to just rely on showing the parts to the other players at rehearsal. You have to have a musical system to lay it all out. It wasn’t like knocking out a three chord Bachman Turner Overdrive song.

I had tried in vain with all the books I could find. But the only books that taught reading were either for child beginners, or were very dry and technical. After I had taken all my theory in college, and still didn’t feel like I could sit down and read a music chart. Circling chords in a four part choral helps you learn your way around, but that’s a different skill, even though it’s on the staff.

Eventually, as I was teaching guitar, I began to write out exercises for my students in the 5th position. I was about to explain a page to one student and he started playing what was in front of him, better than I could have. I started to see strengths in limiting yourself to one position to learn to read. Too many choices will slow you down. But if the position you choose is the open position (as with all beginner books), you are hampered by the limitations of that position. It’s not where the guitar is centered on the staff, AND it’s not a moveable position. The 5th position is centered on the staff perfectly, and anything you learn there can be transposed up or down simply by sliding up or down a fret. Those exercises eventually became the first edition of my book, The Guitarist’s Link to Sight Reading.

Another strength of The Guitarist’s Link to Sight Reading is, it’s laid out like a method book for beginners, but it’s not for the day one guitarist. It’s for somebody who at least has started being able to get around the neck and play some songs. It’s also not for a child mentality. It’s not a children’s book. It doesn’t assume that since you’re not a proficient reader that you must be a kid. It’s for guitarists who play– at SOME level– whether you’ve been in one band or playing for 30 years– and want to learn to read.

Additionally, the book contains 9 songs, which are recorded by a live band on the cd which comes with it. You play the melody part you rare reading, along with backing tracks of a live band. If you’re teaching, this can also be used for recitals, where you want the sound of a full band while the student plays the melody. The songs are blues, classic rock, country rock, jazz and latin.

I almost forgot to mention… there are exercises in the book that put you on the writing end of the process also. If you’re a player that wants to read, or a guitar teacher looking for a way to teach your students to read, I really think you’ll have a good time with this book.

Thanks, J