Re: Thin Lizzy - Wild One - Guitar Chords


"SteveShark" <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ua4k839i8rbrvinud298if10ek0vfuh8rd@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 18:39:12 +1200, "John B" <poo@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



I still reckon that transcription skills and the associated
hearing
skills are really an essential part of a guitarist's armoury,
but to
say "Work it out for yourself" isn't really very helpful in
the
short
term.

Quite right. And there's no time like the present to start
learning to use your ears.

It's how I learnt everything way back then. No tab or
transcriptions to Hey Joe, Hideaway, Over Under Sideways Down
and
all the rest.

We sound of a similar generation - I was 15 in 1966. I just had
the
records and a guitar and as you say, there was nothing to help
you
other than a few rather dry and inappropriate books that
wouldn't have
been much help in view of the style of music I wanted to learn
to
play.

Hey Steve. 16 in 1966. Books? Mickey Baker. But nothing to show
the "modern" pop and blues styles emerging then. You *had* to
work it out for yourself.


But that applied to virtually everything that we take for
granted
today and the sheer quantity and range of learning aids
available has
changed the nature of learning.

Nah. Not really. To play guitar you still have to do all the
basic stuff. There comes a time where you just have to use your
ears instead of tab or transcriptions. Don't get me wrong, they
have their place for sure.

But I think too many people seek the easy way where someone else
is doing all the work they should be doing for themselves. You
know, the old give a man a fish or teach him how to fish.


I suggest that whilst we just listened to music and worked it
out by
ear, "joining the dots" and applying what we acquired to other
music,
it's totally different now.

Sure. Much more pertinent information readily available. Trouble
is, many get confused and frustrated with information overload.
Buy too many books, videos etc. Failure rate is still very high.

Ya gotta get the basics down.


The long process of realisation - that within blues-based music
lie
certain scales and forms that have universal application to
that
style, for example - has now been short-circuited and anyone
wanting
to learn a piece like "Hideaway" can now go and buy a book or a
magazine detailing all the musical theory behind it and also an
exact
transcription.

I don't think I would have liked to learn that way. For me, doing
it the hard long way worked out much better because you can
really get right into a piece. Plus it kept me off the streets
and all that. It would have been cool though to know there were 5
pentatonic patterns that spanned the fretboard. If only I had
known that!

Much guitar playing these days is so sterile. Sounds like its
learnt from a book with sugical precision. A lot of it just
hasn't got the real guts of what music should be... you know,
right from your guts. Telling a story.


It may mean that there are people who aren't particularly
interested
in the musical principles involved and who just learn the piece
by
rote almost, without knowing what's going on in it, but that's
an
inevitable consequence.

At one point I used to develop my own films and prints - now I
have
digital cameras and a PC.

He he. Same here. Used to have my own portrait photography
business in the early 80's.

It's progress, and whilst it may mean that
people no longer care that much about the mechanics of
photography,
they can now get on with the business of taking and producing
photographs without having to possess a vast amount of
technical
knowledge.>
Yes, something may have been lost, but we've also gained and
what used
to be a somewhat tricky and prolonged process is now available
to
everyone.

The same applies to playing guitar.

IME as a teacher, those people who would have sat down and just
"worked it out" still do that, but just at a later stage if
their
interest has been piqued, and with guitars so affordable and
learning
aids so widely available we're probably getting more people
starting
to play than ever before - I certainly see no signs of the
instrument's popularity waning or a shortage of good players.

I expose my students to ear training right from their very first
lesson. I give them some backing tracks for the key of C major
and a chart showing the C major scale mapped out over the entire
fretboard. Then I show them how to jam with the tracks on one
string at a time.

It's what I call the Major Scale Master Pattern. From there we
zoom in to find the basic chords and move on from there. All with
ear-training included.

So they learn to use their ears right from the start by also
learning to sing the notes they play. Huge benefits from that.


.

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