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 These are a few of my techinques for playing electric guitar sans plectrum

This is an informal demonstration of referencing notes from the chords when soloing. Enjoy!

Guitarists tend to write and play in certain keys.  This has to do with ease of use of open strings. E, A, G, D, seem to be the most common keys for guitarists.  However, before we go guitar player bashing keep in mind that Pianists, and Woodwind players tend to prefer keys such as F, Bb, Eb, and Ab.   This has to do with fingerings required to play in these keys.  Most vocalists also have keys within certain range that they prefer.  If you tend to work in certain keys it doesn’t mean that you aren’t proficient on your instrument.  You are simply sticking to your comfort zone.  Breaking out of “your zone” is a great way to find new sounds and spark creativity.

Here a few tips:

1. Instant key change. Just add Capo!  Place a capo at the first fret and you are instantly in whole new key.  There is really nothing more to it.  Simply play your riffs etc… they way you usually do. This is a great way to accommodate a vocalist’s range and still have access to all your favorite open string riffs and licks.

2. Alternate tunings are another option.  By simply retuning one string you will find a whole new world of sounds, riffs, licks, and songs.  “Drop D” is the most common alternate tuning of this current generation of rock guitarists.

Keep in mind that just because you are playing with the guitar tuned to drop D doesn’t mean that your song/riff has to be in the key of D.  There are other ways to utilize this tuning. Start your Riff or chord changes at the 2^nd fret. This is E…  You now have “room” to move a whole step lower.  This opens up all sorts of new possibilities.  But wait!  Now we’re back to the key of E again.  No problem. Start your riff/chord changes at the third fret.  This makes F your home base.  You can descend an entire step and a half now and that low D note is diatonic to the Key of F.  These waters are definitely less traveled than E or even D for most rock guitarists.

Of course drop D is only one of about a thousand tunings you could use.  Tune the guitar to a power chord. For instance (from low to high) E A E A A E. By doing this you will find all sorts of very useful sounds by simply adding or subtracting one note.

3. If you don’t want to have to think about retuning the guitar or you’re too broke to by a capo, try taking your favorite riffs/songs and playing them up or down one fret.  What you hear my not be pleasing to your ear at first esp. if your riff uses open strings.  That’s okay…we are looking for new sounds.  Take time to listen to the “intervallic” differences you are hearing.  Allow yourself to absorb these sounds.  Once you are comfortable try adjusting your riff by one note.  You may also want to modify the phrasing.  You will have to experiment but there are rewards to this approach.

4. Eliminate open strings completely.  By playing fretted notes only, the key of the riff/song becomes a much less significant factor.  Start by transposing some of your favorite songs and riffs into “fretted only” versions.  You must discipline yourself not to revert to open strings.  This may be difficult at first.  Stick with it.  It will get easier the more you do it.  You will find that very often a certain note may require an impractical finger reach.  In these cases substitute this note with a fretted note in a different octave or if this is not practical pick a note that sounds good.  Doing this may cause you to want to adjust other notes as well. Adjust the entire riff if you like.  Before you know it you will have a killer riff in some key like Bb and it’s all your own.  I think that you can see the benefits here.

Doing just one or two of these exercises will help you to see the neck in a totally new way.  This will lead you to many new sounds that you would not find by sticking to you comfort zone.

Happy Jamming!

Lou

http://www.yourguitarist.com/blog

http://www.LLStrangelove.com

A young guitarist recently asked, “ How important is it to play the change when soloing?”

My Answer:

If you aren’t playing the changes, what would you play?

I’m not asking to be a smart ass.  You should be playing as part of a group which means playing with the other members.  The chord changes, bass line, melody, and percussion line will all be factors in what you play during your solo.  Without this frame work then you are simply playing by yourself.  Music is about communication.  You wouldn’t start talking about politics if some one asked you for the time of day.

You will have more leeway if the changes are quick.  In this case it becomes less of an issue to strongly articulate or outline the notes of a particular chord.  However, if you are resolving a phrase it is mandatory that you resolve with a note from the chord or an implied note (meaning a note that would be part of the extended harmony like a 7th, 9th, 13th etc…)

Most players would say that you sound “more intelligent” if you pronouncedly acknowledge the chord changes.  This can be tricky.  Without total command of your instrument and the song, your solo could sound forced…or “square”.  It’s helpful to practice over annunciating the chord changes at first. Create a short phrase, and practice resolving it on each note of the chord. Do this with a few different phrases.  This is for practice purposes only. 

Hint: Avoid resolving (ending) your phrases on the first beat of each measure.  This is a sure way to bore your audience.

As soon as you can you will want to find or create situations to play solos with other musicians.  You will need opportunities to implement these ideas.  You will learn a lot more from playing in live situations than you will practicing or jamming along to rhythm tracks.

In the long run it is much more important to listen than to “think” about what to play.  Listen and play what you hear, and you will NEVER make a mistake!

LL

http://www.yourguitarist.com/blog

http://www.LLStrangelove.com

I was recently approached by a young musician who was having trouble sounding her best when performing in front of others.  While her skill level was more that sufficient she seemed to suffer from a mild form of stage fright.  This is very common among begining performers.  The following are some suggestions for getting used to playing in public situations.

Find opportunities to play in front of people as often as possible. Play for friends, and family.  Tell them that you are struggling with playing in front of people and that they would be helping you a lot by letting you give them an occasional mini performance.  Explain to them that you aren’t looking to have your playing critiqued.  Let them know that this is for the purpose of getting comfortable performing.  This is important.  Having your playing criticized when you are simply trying to learn to perform properly will just make you feel discouraged.  Let them know that you will know if you made a mistake with the song.

Here are a few suggestions:

Consider playing a song before or after dinner each night or maybe a few times per week.  Holidays are also a good opportunity to perform for family. Who knows?  You might start a new family tradition. 

Get a group of your closet friends together one or two days a week at lunch and play a song for them.

If you take lessons ask your teacher to organize a recital.  It wouldn’t have to be anything formal. It could simply be a gathering with your teacher and a few other students.

If you attend a church inquire about playing along with the choir. A lot of churches do a “contemporary” service with modern sounding music performed on guitar bass and drums.  This is often a great way to get regular practice playing in front of a very receptive audience.

It is always best to start out small and with very low pressure situations.  When I started fronting my own band I only booked us in small out of the way clubs until I could develop my “stage legs”.   I am glad that I did.  I learned a lot.  While you may get comfortable playing guitar in front of people there is a lot more to performance than simply playing all the right notes, but that is a  discussion for another time.

Happy Jamming!

Lou Lombardi

www.yourgutiarist.com/bog

www.LLStrangelove.com

The best way to learn chords is to learn lots of songs.

You can get started by getting a good chord book or search “guitar chords” on the internet.  Sites like http://www.chordie.com/chords.php are a good resource.  There are many others as well.  This will help you when learning songs.  When you come across a chord that you don’t know in a song that you are learning you can simply look it up on your chord chart, book or web page. Simply memorizing chords from a chart isn’t going to do you much good.  You need to learn, understand, and practice the application of chords.  The more songs you learn the better your chord playing will get. This is a sort of “quick start” approach. There is a lot more to understanding and playing chords than simply learning songs or using a chord charts.   If you would like to delve into chords a little further read on!

To be able to really make the most of chords you will need an understanding of harmony.  In short harmony is the combining or “stacking” of notes from a scale. For instance, in the key or scale of “C” the notes are C D E F G A B C.  However, more important than the actual notes is their harmonic distance between each other in the sequence.  A major scale is a combination of a sequence of 7 notes arranged in the intervals of whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step.  This is sometimes referred to as the Major Scale Formula.  On the guitar a whole step is when you skip a fret, and a half step is when you play the adjacent fret.  It may help your understanding to see the C major scale laid out on one string. Start with the first fret on the second string and follow the formula.  You will complete the C major scale at the thirteenth fret.

The most common, practically universal, way to create chords is to “stack thirds”.  “Thirds” are created by playing every other note (skip the note in between) in the scale. For example in our C scale we could start with C and E.  These notes played together create a very basic and very familiar harmony.  Adding the next note in the sequence, in this case “G”, creates a “Major” chord.  C E G played together creates the C Major chord.

There a four basic types of chords Major, Minor, Augmented and Diminish.  The two most common are the Major and the Minor. The difference between the two has to do with how the “thirds” are arranged.  In the example of the C Major chord the harmonic distance between the C and the E is called a major third.  That is because the distance is that of two whole steps. C to D is a whole step and D to E is a whole step.  Therefore the distance between C and E is two whole steps or a Major Third. The next note in the C Major chord is the G.  The distance between the E and the G is a step and a half. That is because E to F is a half step and F to G is a whole step. The combination of a whole step with a half step is called a Minor Third.  Therefore the C Major chord is created by combining a Major Third and then a Minor Third. The formula for all major chords is Major Third + Minor Third = Major Chord.

The minor chord is created by reversing the order of the major third and the minor third.  Let’s return to our C scale C D E F G A B C.  This time we will stack thirds starting on the second note of the scale.  The notes will be D F A.  The harmonic distance between D and F is a whole step and half step. As stated above, this combination is called a minor third.  The next notes in our chord are F and A.  The harmonic distance between these two notes is a whole step and a whole step.  Remember two whole steps always equal a major third.  When we put these two thirds together we have a combination that looks like this: Minor Third + Major third.  This equals a Minor chord.  In this case the D minor chord. 

In every scale or key there are three major chords, three minor chords, and one diminish that occur “naturally”…that is to say these chords use only the notes in the scale.  The word for this is “Diatonic”…

The two less common types of chords are the Diminish and Augmented.  The formula for a Diminish chord is Minor Third plus Minor Third.  The only time that this combination occurs naturally in a major scale is when we stack thirds starting on the seventh note of the scale. For instance in the key of C, the seventh note is B. B diminish would be B D F.  You may see this referred to as a “Minor Minor” chord. Diminish chords are almost always played with extra notes by adding the next third in the scale.  But by the strictest definition Minor third plus Minor third is the Diminish sound/chord.

Augmented chords are created by combining a Major third with another Major Third.  This combination does not occur naturally in any major key.  You will have to raise the last note of the chord one half step to create this combination. For example C Aug. would be C E G#.

By having an understanding of how chords are put together you can create many options for yourself when playing a song.  You aren’t restricted by chord shapes that you find on a chart or in a book.  This is especially handy when playing in groups. It can be difficult to be heard or to “cut through the mix” when playing the traditional full chord voicings.  The best way around this is to use small voicings that you create yourself using your knowledge of how chords are put together.

Happy Jamming!

Lou Lombardi 

 This question was posted on the sputnik music form

(http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/)

I want to increase the volume of my guitar during guitar solos and maybe add or change effects for the solo. What is the best way to do this?  Are there different ways to do this?  I am looking at the Boss ME20.  What is the best unit for this purpose?

Any multi-effects units could do what you want and most will probably give you more than one way to do it.  I have the same need for boost and effect changes for solos.   Typically for solos I want a little more delay, maybe a little compression, and definitely more volume!  You can’t always rely on the sound tech to know when you are going to play a solo. It is often necessary to take matters into your own hands in these situations.  I accomplish this using a very old BOSS GT3.  This is certainly NOT the greatest pedal ever, and I am not a BOSS endorser.  I just happened to have this unit, and therefore it’s what I use.

Like I said there is usually more than one way to do this with an effect unit. First of all the set up is very important to get the desired result of a volume boost and effect change for a solo.  You will want to connect your unit to your amplifiers effects loop.  Connect the input of your device the amplifier’s “Send” jack and the output of the device to the jack marked “Return”.  This provides a more efficient “clean boost” than simply connecting to the front of the amplifier.  This will boost the volume after the distortion or overdrive, yielding a true increase in the sound level. If the unit is connected before the distortion in the signal chain you will just increase the amount of distortion and not the volume.   If your amp does not have an effects loop connect the unit after your distortion pedal.  You will have to be careful when boosting not to overdrive your amp.  This will increase distortion with little or no effect on the volume level. This is not what we want!

Once you have the unit properly connected your amplifier’s loop you will want to program it to do the task of boosting and “effecting” your sound.  First of all program the foot pedal to increase the volume 30 to 50 percent.  This means that even when the pedal is in its lowest position (heel toward the floor) you will still hear your guitar clearly. You will program this position between 50 and 70 or 5 and 7 depending on how your unit measures volume increments.  When you press the pedal to the maximum position (toe to the floor) the volume should go from 5 or 7 up to 10.  You will find this set up to be very convenient for quickly boosting your volume for solos without adding any additional effects or distortion.

To have effect changes happen when you boost you will need to program your unit a little differently.  You will need to create a patch or program with the effects that you like for solos. If your unit does not provide a separate overall volume control for each patch or program you can program an increase in volume using the unit’s pre-amp settings, eq , amp modeling, compressor, or even distortion.  If you use an amp modeler or distortion for boosting be careful to set the distortion settings as low as possible or you may end up with unwanted distortion.  When you want to play a solo press the button on your unit that you have assigned to be your boost patch and you should hear a definite volume increase along with the effect changes that you programmed.  You may have to go back and make adjustments to the eq and volume settings to get the amount of boost that you need.  It is also helpful to name your patches; “

On a final note be aware that what works when you’re programming your unit in your basement or garage may not work when your playing with your band.  Use your full gigging set up for rehearsals until your have any all bugs worked out. Practice pressing the buttons for the patch changes for your solos while you’re playing.  Mastering your effects at rehearsal could save you a lot of embarrassment at the gig.

Happy Jammin’!

Lou

This question was posted on the Harmony Central forum (http://acapella.harmony-central.com) 

I see songwriting courses advertising all over the place and always wonder if you can actually be taught to write good songs or is it something you either can or can’t do. I’m sure none of the great songwriters ever took a course on how to write songs. 

This is a great question!  Songwriting can most certainly be learned.  Most people even, “the great ones” were not born with songs spewing from their pens, lips and guitars.  Actually most of the great songwriters DID take a course in songwriting.  They studied the songs of the artists that came before them.  If you want to be a great writer read lots of books…not only read but devour them, re-read them, memorize parts of your favorites. Learn where the author got his ideas. Dig up all the references.  Learn who your favorite authors read and read those books too!  The next step is to write, write, write!  In time you will become a good writer.  That doesn’t mean you’ll be rich and famous but you will master this craft.  This process can be applied to songwriting. You may start by learning the songs of your hero’s.  For instance if you love the music of John Lennon, learn as much of it as you can.  Learn the words and the music.  Pluck out the melodies and learn to strum along with the chords.  Copy down the lyrics and learn to sing the songs the best that you can.  When you see a reference to something specific in the lyrics look it up.  This will help you to further get inside his head. Then learn Chuck Berry because he influenced John Lennon.  If you really want to dig down deep learn some Robert Johnson. Since he influence Chuck Berry and probably just about everyone else.   Do this same process for other artists that you like.  If you feel competent on your instrument give some lessons and teach songs to students.  This will further solidify your understand.  Join a cover band and learn lots of other people’s songs. 

The next step is to start writing.  You will want to jump into this as quickly as possible.  That means don’t wait until you’ve learned the entire John Lennon song book before you sit down to write something.  

Here are a few tips to get you started: 

1. If you can’t think of anything to write take a song that you like and write different lyrics to it.  Conversely you could take the lyrics and write a different tune.  This just an exercise to stimulate creativity.  If you rewrite someone else’s song you’ll have to credit them.
2. Start out by sitting down with the intention to write a song.  Be quiet and “listen” to what comes to your mind. Do this daily.  Give it at least 10 minutes.
3. Set aside the same time each day to write.  This will condition the mind to turn on the creativity and make it easier in time to write on a consistent basis.
4. If you get an idea during the day, in the shower, while driving, in a dream, etc… do what ever you have to do to capture it.  Call your voice mail and sing or say the lyrics. Pull over and write it down…whatever you have to do!
5. If you feel really blocked relax and enjoy playing and singing some of your favorite songs.  Very often you will find yourself inspired to write your own song while doing this.  Also be aware of mistakes you “accidentally” play while doing this.  These “mistakes” can often be disguised inspiration.  Keith Richards once remarked that when the Stones sit down to write they’ll often start with playing the Buddy Holly songbook and wait for some one to make a mistake.
6. Don’t be too worried if sometimes you write songs that are very close copies of other people’s songs.  That is just part of the process.
7. You may find yourself going through a phase where you feel like all your songs sound the same.  There are a couple of things that you can try when this happens.  You may simply need to write that song out of your consciousness. Your mind may just be trying to get it out of your head.  The theory is to keep writing it and in time you will come up with something new. If you don’t have the patience for that go back to one of the other techniques.  Keep trying until you find what works for you.  However, keep in mind that creativity doesn’t usually thrive when forced.
8. Don’t stress out if you feel like your songs suck.  Just stick with it.  A lot of the “greats” have written their fair share of shitty songs.  Most never see the light of day.  Just keep writing.
9. Live your life!  Get a girl friend, take a vacation, go on business trips, make lots of friends, learn a sport, have hobbies, get divorced, change jobs, read more books, see more films… The greatest songs communicate real life in some way.  Get out and live!

Song writing is a skill; a craft that you will develop like your singing or guitar playing.  It takes practice and time for most people to develop.  Take your time. Work on it and you’ll be writing cool jams before you know it. 

Lou Lombardiwww.yourguitarist.com 

www.llstrangelove.com 

Another one from ultimate-guitar.com/forum

Question: 

I’ve been playing guitar for about 2.5 years now and I’ve noticed that my wrists still ache for a while after playing for extended periods of times, especially when I barre, but I was wondering if you guys have any exercises you do to build up finger/wrist strength to prevent such aching?

My response: