The Guitar Study Newsletter for 6/12/2002

By Darrin Koltow

Greetings once again from MaximumMusician.com. This is Darrin Koltow, guitar coach, be-bopper, fret wrecker, strum chum, and generally good guy, bringing you more music making, guitar-playing tips. First I want to thank you again for signing up for the Guitar Study newsletter at www.MaximumMusician.com. You can unsubscribe any time using instructions at the end of this email.

You know, I hear that getting a buddy to sign up for the Guitar Study newsletter, at www.MaximumMusician.com, has caused spontaneous bursts of pleasure throughout your day. That's what my houseplant says, anyway. Maybe I need to get out more.

In this issue:

== The Bar Blender ==
== What to play ==
== The cons of pros ==
== Rhythm riddles ==
== Musicmaking as meditation ===
== Music theory shopping list ==

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== The Bar Blender ==

I call this approach the Bar Blender, because it reminds of a food blender, which reminds me of food, which I'm fond of. Maybe I ought to describe what the Bar Blender is.

The Bar Blender just means this: playing a song in a different sequence from the sequence you normally play it in. For example, instead of playing measures 1 through 4, then 5 through 8, then 9 through 12 of a song, you might play measures 9 through 12, 5 through 8, then 1 through 4.

What good is this? It might not be any good to you at all -- if you can play a tune perfectly, all the way through on the first shot. If you can't, the Bar Blender might help you.

The Bar Blender scrambles up the psychological associations you have to the song you're playing. Here's an example of the thoughts a musician might think, to illustrate these associations:

"Oh, bars 1 through 4 again. Man, this song takes so *long* to play! Let me rush through this part to get to the tough part in bars 8 through 12."

"Finishing up bars 5 through 8. Wow - that part goes so smoothly, I'm not even aware I'm playing it! Whoa -- look out: here comes the trouble spot."

"Now approaching the tough part in bar 9. Stay cool! Stay cool! Yes, yes, yes -- no! Dad Gummit! Oh, man, now I have to start all over again."

And you know what happens next: this well-intentioned, dedicated musician starts this whole script over again from bar 1, his body tensing up the same way in the same places, and making the same mistakes.

The Bar Blender shakes that up, and gives you a fresh perspective on your playing of a tune. When you play 4 bar chunks or phrases of a tune, you're still being faithful to the song, but you're giving yourself a chance to see new ways of playing it.

The hypothetical musician just described, if he used the Bar Blender, might replace the feelings and tension he has in the trouble spot, with feelings of calm and confidence.

It takes conscious effort to apply the Bar Blender. It's not what you're accustomed to doing. *Everyone* plays a song as it's "meant to be played": front to back, bar 1 to bar last. That's fine for a performance, where you're playing a tune just once. But for practicing that tune over and over, you might need to scramble those bar lines, so you can scramble the feelings you've stored in them, so you can release the expert musician within you.

== What to play ==

What do you do when you don't know what to play? Let's say you're just beginning to learn guitar, and you want to build skill *and* have fun. You want to have some kind of plan to work from. Yet, there are so many sources of info, you don't know which to choose from.

What do you do? There are as many approaches to answering this question as there are people, and probably more. Here are some suggestions for ways to figure out what to play:

Don't play. Seriously. Quit playing for a day or a week. If you don't miss it, then go on to something else, like learning Mahjong, chess or nuclear physics. Playing guitar isn't for everyone. And that's okay.

Ah, but if you *do* miss playing, ask yourself this: exactly what part of playing do you miss? When you yearn to pick up the guitar but have committed to giving yourself this cooling off period, what images of guitar playing invade your thoughts and compel you to play again? Maybe a certain style of music is egging you on: jazz, rock, blues. Maybe a certain technique piques your curiosity: finger style, sweep picking, power chords. Or, maybe it's something else entirely. The point is, by taking a break from playing, you give yourself a bird's eye view, a broad perspective of what you want from your playing.

Here's another approach to figure out what to play, or what to plan to play: learn what the three best books are for learning guitar, and commit to getting and learning from at least one of them *now.* I can give you a head start on this. Before I do that, I should tell you that whatever I recommend comes from the heart, and not from the wallet. No one is sponsoring me here.

Okay, the books: Leavitt's Modern Method for Guitar. Get volumes one and two at least. If you like pain, get three also. It's good pain, though: you'll know exactly what scales to play over which chords, for example.

That's a good method book. Here's a good theory book: Jazz Theory by Mark Levine. I know, I know, you may not be a jazzer, but the theory you'll learn from this book will still help you, regardless of style. It's a thick book, but an easy, gentle read. Levine takes you step by friendly step from the wee rudiments of intervals and cycle of fifths, all the way up to reharmonizations of complex jazz tunes. Great stuff here.

Also a must is the revolutionary Fretboard Logic by Bill Edwards, which teaches you the CAGED system. This system, if you don't already know about it, is like a treasure map, helping you discover the golden sounds in your guitar.

Finally, here's a book for your soul: Stephanie Judy's Making Music for the Joy of It. The title says it all -- almost. Reading this will help you figure out why you're playing *and* what to play *and* how to play. It's filled with inspiring stories of ordinary Joes and Marys like you and me, who have discovered how to max out their personal pleasure meters with making music.

== The cons of pros ==

I saw a thread recently in a guitar newsgroup, talking about how a great guitarist was seen by one of the writers/players; this player expressed that he wanted to quit after seeing this pro play: "I'll never play like *that*" he wrote.

I've felt this feeling, too. And, I've seen that lots of other guitarists have this feeling. The idea goes like this: if you can't be as good as Clapton or Morse, Segovia or Satriani, why continue practicing? You'll never be as good as they are.

It doesn't help to hoot and holler otherwise. What *does* help, when you get this discouraging feeling from comparison with a pro, are a few insights. Here are those insights:

*You are not seeing the incredible potential you have to develop the skill that your guitar idol has.* You have hidden this understanding from yourself. You see clumsy fingers and broken phrasing and think, "This is all I am. All my mistakes completely make up who I am. Everything I can play and will be able to play is what I can play right now."

Having thoughts like these is the same as looking at an acorn and believing that it will forever be an acorn, and not a tree. With thoughts like these, your car could get a flat tire, and you would think you'd never be able to drive that car again. You'd look at a baby and think it would never grow to adulthood.

Do you get the picture here? When you feel discouraged from seeing a pro play, because you are comparing your *perception* of your skills with the pro's skills, that's like comparing the young acorn to a mighty oak. In other words, you're not seeing the big picture.

To help yourself see the big picture, imagine Steve Morse or Satriani when he was just beginning to learn to play. See how clumsy his fingers were. Listen to the crappy sounds he was making. Notice how frustrated he gets that he doesn't yet sound like *his* idols.

You simply don't see the power you have to develop incredible skill. We *all* blind ourselves to this power. And there's no use kicking ourselves in the butt for this, because it does serve a purpose. If we spent all of our time basking in the warm glow of our potential, we wouldn't have time to develop that potential. So, our mind's inclination to focus only on what's happening at the moment can have a positive effect.

The next time you get discouraged from seeing someone playing better than you, put images in your head to see the whole picture: imagine you are wearing a tee shirt with an acorn on the front, and the pro is wearing a tee shirt with an oak on the front.

== Rhythm riddles ==

Here are a couple of concepts I want to throw your way to put some more punch into your rhythm playing.

First, what do you do if you're bored or dissatisfied with your current strumming patterns?

Create a seed strum. That is, a strumming pattern that can grow into other patterns. How do you make a seed strum? Start with a familiar strum and notate it:

v^v^v^v^ 
1&2&3&4&

Once you can *see* what you're doing, it's easier to change it, isn't it? Now, how *do* we change it? How about these possibilities:

- Keep the same basic pattern, but start it at a different point:

from v^v^v^v^ to ^v^v^v^v

- Regroup the v's and the ^'s:

vvv^^vv^ or vv^^vv^^

- Permute a pattern you like. This is basically the same as the first option. For our purposes and porpoises here, we can take interpret permuting to mean, "starting at a different point."

v^v^  ^v^

v^  ^v^v^

^  ^v^v^v

Again, once you've figured a way to write down what you're currently strumming, you'll see that it's much easier to change your strumming, to add variety to it.

Consider another aspect of strumming. Why *do* we strum? Pianists don't, trombonists don't. Yeah, I know they *can't*, but that misses the point. We strum because it gives music a strong sense of rhythm, doesn't it? In that sense, it provides percussion. Not the same exact kind of percussion that a drum provides, but some kind of pulse or heartbeat.

Now, what would you do if you couldn't strum? How would you still get a strong rhythmic feel into your playing?

Rather than provide some quick and easy answers here, I want to suggest that you explore this question. First, study how other instrumentalists add a sense of rhythm without strumming. What notes do they emphasize? What note durations do they play? How do they play legato or staccato?

Here is an excellent way of finding out how pianists develop a strong sense of rhythm. Enter this URL in your browser: groups.google.com. Once you're there, click the "Advanced Groups Search" link. On the next page, enter this text in the box that reads, "exact phrase": "rhythm piano." The results you get back could rev up your rhythm playing.

If you're feeling brave, go one week without strumming. Use that week to make the songs you currently play sound just as rhythmically cool using techniques besides strumming. I guarantee that, if you do this with sincerity and energy, you'll get insights that will enhance your playing.

== Musicmaking as meditation ===

How do you feel after you've finished a practice session? Sometimes I feel like I just ran a marathon -- without the satisfaction of having completed such an incredible feat. In other words, I'm stressed to the max.

On other days, I feel like I'm flowing and growing, and when I put the guitar down, I have energy to do the relatively unimportant, non-guitar tasks of my day.

There's one musical exercise I do that used to bring all kinds of stress. Now, I swear it's like meditating. I call this exercise Bass Singing. To summarize it, you play the melody of a tune on the guitar, and you sing the bass line under it. Without digressing too much from the topic of Musical Meditation, I'll tell you that the purpose of Bass Singing is to train your ear. (And my ears have grown tremendously since I started doing Bass Singing.)

When I first started doing Bass Singing, I couldn't play-sing one bar without tensing up. I'd detect my mistakes or see a mistake coming up and ziiiip! -- I'm instantly turned into a block of ice. Thawing out afterwards, so I could proceed with other exercises, just didn't happen. I'd stay tense throughout my practice regimen.

Yet, because I did actually enjoy moments of success with Bass Singing, and because I saw great progress in a short period of time, I stayed with it. And the weirdest thing happened. Once I was able to sketch out the playing and singing of a tune, I would close my eyes and just go on "autopilot," playing the melody and singing the bass. All thought leaves my mind; I'm totally focused on the sounds I'm making.

I'm now also taking the time to breathe deeply in between certain notes, and release even more stress. In other words, Bass Singing has become a kind of meditation for me.

And let me tell you that I'm *not* a meditator by nature. Give me stress, man. Turn the radio up, pipe caffeine into my veins, and dazzle my eyes with wacky web sites when I surf. When I think of the image of someone sitting in the classic lotus yoga meditating position, or whatever the heck you call it, I want to sneak up behind him and yell, "Get a job!"

So, what's the point of all this? It's simply this: your practicing doesn't have to feel like work. It can be a form of relaxation. Musical repetition especially, such as what scale and arpeggio practicing call for, could definitely throw you into a meditative state.

I mean, think of how successful meditators do what they do: they chant Aum, Aum, Aum over and over again don't they? They call this Aum sound a mantra. The same thing can be done with playing scales. You can play them over and over like a mantra, zoning out of the grey, boring fog we see the world as, and moving into a soundscape with fantastic images and possibilities.

How can you achieve this shift in perception of scales, for example? I think a key ingredient of this shift is letting go of the non-essential actions you currently use to perform scales: watching, for one thing. Quit watching your fingers; you're making them self conscious. Your fingers already know what to do, most likely. Let 'em do it. Close your eyes.

And while you're cutting out other non-essentials, quit holding your breath, too. Do you think singers hold their breath when they practice their instrument?

Now, if you're ready for some super advice on musical mediation, check out what Steve Vai has to say on it, at http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots. Excellent stuff from a master. Aum.

== Music theory shopping list ==

Music theory is a set of rules that attempts to describe how music works. These rules are used when you hear some music that sounds good and you want to know *why* it sounds good, so you can make *more* music that sounds good.

Why am I telling you this? Because approaching your study of music theory with this perspective may make learning a bit easier for you. Your concept of music theory might involve learning lists of meaningless numbers and notes, chords and scales. Maybe it means a flurry of weird looking symbols that seem to have nothing to do with the funky, jazzy, soulful sounds that you want to get from your guitar or other instrument.

I want to offer a checklist for some music theory components that will help you understand how to get these cool sounds from your guitar. I'll list these concepts, but won't define them -- at least not in depth. What I want to do is help you understand *why* it's important to know each concept. There are gazillions of articles and books freely available to teach you the theory concepts themselves. Here are some resources for this:

- newgroup rec.music.theory
- the jazz theory book by Mark Levine. (It's not just for jazz players)
- wholenote.com articles
- teoria.com: has music theory software

Now, here's a brief list of some of the theory concepts themselves:

- Major scale
- Cycle of fifths
- Minor scales
- Triads

How do you use the major scale to make your guitar rock or swing or shimmy? A lot of people talk about how rock is a child of the blues, which may be true. Yet, much of rock music makes extensive use of the major scale, not just the blues scale. If you learn the major scale well -- its intervals and its chords in keys C, G, F, A, and E -- you'll be in a much better position to understand and create rock or any other kind of Western music.

The cycle of fifths is super important to understanding how chords move from one to another. It's important for other reasons, too, but I'm a chord freak, so chord movement and progressions are my focus. Being familiar with the cycle of fifths will help you predict with accuracy what chord is coming up next, after the one you're currently playing. Popular Western music generally involves moving from one chord up a fourth to the next chord. Learning the cycle of fifths will show you how to move up by fourths.

Minor scales are important to know for a couple of reasons. They break up the monotony of the major scale, which makes up most what our ears hear when we tune in to the radio. Also, there are different types of minor scales, which produce different feelings, which provide even *more* variety. Play examples of the Harmonic Minor, the Melodic Minor and the Relative Minor, and you'll see what I mean.

Also, a tune that has a lot of minor key action happening in it may shift from the Melodic to the Harmonic to the Relative minor, producing a variety of sounds and moods that a tune focused on a major key doesn't have.

Triads are another important component of music theory. Studying triads gives you a head start on learning harmony. Triads are the simplest chords, so it makes sense to learn these chords before more complex ones. It's important to learn triads because you don't want to get stuck just playing single melodies on your guitar -- as beautiful as you can make them sound.

When you begin to learn triads all over the guitar, you begin to see that the guitar is not a single instrument, but a mini-orchestra that you command and conduct.

There are lots of other components of music theory you might want to learn. The key point in beginning to learn theory is to ask and answer *why* you're learning it. If the reason doesn't involve making cool sounding music, then why bother?

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Well, fellow guitarists and fret aficionados, you've done it again: neglected the dishes, the vacuuming, the tax-paying and child-rearing, all because you were reading the Guitar Study newsletter. Encourage others to neglect their daily chores by getting them signed up, at www.MaximumMusician.com. Do this for me, and I'll do your laundry for you. I love the smell of clean towels.

Have an intergalactic, delicious week that's saturated with your guitar playing.