Scales, Chords, Note Choices, Tunings etc.

[D.o.S.]

I had a couple of guitar lessons when I was really young, but I've always been friends/hung around with pretty sharp musicians, so you pick up things here and there.

[Uncle Grandfather]

did you guys go to some kind of music school or did you have lessons…or did you pick up the theory yourself?

Only reason i ask is because trying to learn by watching youtube or reading online i quite hard for me to understand…a lot of the people teaching theory use that language, and a lot of it sounds very foreign to me.

I'm sure its different for everyone. I started off learning the piano at a young age. by the time i picked up guitar i already had a firm foundation on theory and that made the transition to guitar easy. At some point i stopped lessons and continued study on my own. Also started playing with other musicians, always trying to find better musicians to play with and learn from.

There's a really good book called, Scales and Modes in the beginning. It will give you a basis in the fundamentals. Once you understand and know your scales you know every chord. knowing where every note on the neck is and you know where to find every place to play that chord. that's a very very very basic look at a benefit of learning theory. its not that simple. another really great book is, The Advancing Guitarist. for serious theory, The Jazz Handbook by Mark Levine. these are just a couple useful books, the Jazz Handbook is THE go to book in certain instances.

It might be a good idea to take some formal lessons too. technique is very important, also you'll have someone to bounce your questions off of.

good luck

[samzadgan]

thanks mate…i'll check out some of those books you suggested.

[Barnhard]

Had bass lessons for a few years. Didn't pick up too much theory though, didn't really interest me. Its only now that I've started dabbling in DAW's and whatnot that I've started learning a bit. Theory is overrated anyway, and most of my influences aren't Western, so I don't really have much use for it. Not that it isn't a useful tool. I just prefer learning straight from other people and feeling free with my ideas. Took me 2 years to break free from the idea that you HAVE to use 1 scale to write all the riffs for a song.

[Uncle Grandfather]

Had bass lessons for a few years. Didn't pick up too much theory though, didn't really interest me. Its only now that I've started dabbling in DAW's and whatnot that I've started learning a bit. Theory is overrated anyway, and most of my influences aren't Western, so I don't really have much use for it. Not that it isn't a useful tool. I just prefer learning straight from other people and feeling free with my ideas. Took me 2 years to break free from the idea that you HAVE to use 1 scale to write all the riffs for a song.

you should love jazz, you move through different scales with every chord change and then when you're not soloing and comping, you get to use inversions for different chord voicings and substitutions to keep things interesting.

you might also dig playing outside. but you have to have the foundation to know what works, in order to play notes and intervals outside whatever's going on in the changes.

but theory's not necessary for sure. just another tool to aid in composition and harmony and etc.

[Barnhard]

Believe it or not I actually don't like jazz very much. Whilst I respect the musicianship, jazz in Europe seems to be a weird "music for musicians" scene. Most of my major influences stem from growing up in Israel and Ghana, so I usually use weird altered scales and what people would call "tribal rhythms" though to me they just make more sense than straight on 4/4.

Came up with this last night when I was baked.

C - C# - E - F - G - G$ - A# - C

[samzadgan]

Believe it or not I actually don't like jazz very much. Whilst I respect the musicianship, jazz in Europe seems to be a weird "music for musicians" scene. Most of my major influences stem from growing up in Israel and Ghana, so I usually use weird altered scales and what people would call "tribal rhythms" though to me they just make more sense than straight on 4/4.

Came up with this last night when I was baked.

C - C# - E - F - G - G$ - A# - C

we're kinda similar...i grew up hearing Iranian folk music (as that's my background) and although i don't listen to it much these days, somewhere in my brain its left its mark and instinctively i will go to some notes that don't necessarily meet any western scale...and timing...i can never seem to come up with anything that's 4/4, its just not in my DNA.

[celticelk]

I started off reading guitar magazines (esp. Guitar Player) in my teens, and went on from there. I listen to and read about a fair amount of jazz, and I have access to a really good university library, which helps with building my theoretical knowledge. I know way more about music in theory than I can actually play....

[celticelk]

you should love jazz, you move through different scales with every chord change and then when you're not soloing and comping, you get to use inversions for different chord voicings and substitutions to keep things interesting.

Depends on the jazz. I'm pretty sure Sonny Sharrock wasn't playing changes. BTW, his album Ask the Ages is fairly likely to appeal to doom-minded guitarists, I think.

[crohny]

Hungarian minor and tuning to A standard on Gibson scale guitars. Nothing more ideal.

[Uncle Grandfather]

you should love jazz, you move through different scales with every chord change and then when you're not soloing and comping, you get to use inversions for different chord voicings and substitutions to keep things interesting.

Depends on the jazz. I'm pretty sure Sonny Sharrock wasn't playing changes. BTW, his album Ask the Ages is fairly likely to appeal to doom-minded guitarists, I think.

yeah, sonny was amazing and he did would often state the melody. certainly before peeling your scalp back. i was just sort of making a light hearted joke about his attitude towards theory being overrated when it is in fact the foundaton of music....knowledge? Also his remark about being sick of using one scale to write a song or what ever. i was just generalizing about jazz, not every song is just the changes. and i didn't mean to imply someone needs to know any theory to be an amazing musician. however, and i havn't thought this through....just winging it....i maybe think that at a certain point, when someone reaches their knowledge ceiling they tend to stay at that level regardless of how they got there and rehash. Just like sometimes someone with an amazing grasp on theory can tend to get caught up in being clever and lose sight of the "music"....you know, that band who's music is for musicians, they are musician's musicians. anyways i'm just rambling. i like all forms of music regardless of complexity etc.

sonny was such a force of nature. ask the ages is such a great album that seems like one long movement.

you'll dig this. i posted it awhile back in the what are you listening to thread. just amazing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L01Y8FeOY-s[/youtube]

[Krosis]

What's everyone's favorite drop tuning? I've been playing in Drop C a lot this week, and it's pretty fun. I'm trying to do some Drop B as well, but I'm not sure I have the tunings right. Wouldn't it be BF#BEG#Db? In other words, my Epiphone is already in C# standard so I assume I can just take the E string down to B.

[Barnhard]

Just drop the C# string down a whole step and you'll be fine. I personally don't play in drop tunings. Never made sense to me. Are there any particular advantages?

[kbit]

Easy power chords / different layout for chord voicing. I love doing stacked fifths with drop tunings.


Krosis, I don't know if these are what you meant by "drop tunings" but they are my favs:
DADFAE
DADAAE (which is Aen standard)

I usually have them tuned lower than D but it's just easiest to write them out relative to D.

[Ancient Astronaught]

What's everyone's favorite drop tuning? I've been playing in Drop C a lot this week, and it's pretty fun. I'm trying to do some Drop B as well, but I'm not sure I have the tunings right. Wouldn't it be BF#BEG#Db? In other words, my Epiphone is already in C# standard so I assume I can just take the E string down to B.

Seven string: (Drop F) FCFA#DGC

Six String: (Drop A#) A#FA#D#GC

And yes if your in C# standard you can just drop the low string down a step to B and be good to go. I used that tuning for a long time especially when playing in Ancient Astronaught, but there's something a lil more eerie about A# that i started to prefer.