Hello Folks,

After much research and thought, I have realized that, although plenty of information exists online showing people how to play guitar, there’s almost no discussion on how to use your mind and body to support the process. That is what I am going to write about on this blog. Thanks for joining me!

This blog is an information sister site to www.RhythmStrummer.com where we teach strumming versions of hit songs + a wide range of acoustic guitar techniques for beginner and intermediate players. Please stop by some time and check it out.

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This question came in last night from Carol, a newcomer to the blog and to RhythmStrummer.com. It seems like a simple question, but it’s actually somewhat complicated. What minors and flats have in common is that they both refer to the “lowering” of a note, but that’s really the only direct similarity. We have to go back to chromatic and harmonic basics to really break this down.

The western scale spans across 12 notes until it starts repeating itself (at an “octave”). These 12 notes are equidistant apart from each other (like moving up one fret at a time on the guitar neck). Oddly, the standard practice in music theory is to call them by letter names w/sharps on the way up a scale (C, C#, D, D#) and w/flats on the way down a scale (E, Eb, D, Db, C). But on top of that, most guitar music (and most music of all kinds) tends to be in keys that utilize one set of note names. What I mean by that is that, even though Eb and D# are the same note, you’ll almost always encounter it as Eb. On the flip side, even though Db and C# are the same note, you’ll almost always encounter it as C#.

Getting to know the typical names for notes comes with experience- kind of like memorizing your times tables or the alphabet. It’s got to become automatic. Let’s get back to the main question here, though-

Generally, you can say that, when you alter a note, you either raise/sharp it or lower/flat it. That’s the melodic, scalar part of the explanation. Now, let’s look the harmonic part of it. Harmonic means we’ve got more than one note at a time involved, creating chords, as opposed to melody alone. Any time you have 2 or more notes playing at a time, you’ve got a chord, and every chord has a “quality.” Chord qualities include basic things like major and minor, and they get much more complicated, like “A minor major #11.” Yikes! Don’t even think about that right now. We are just doing the basics here.

Every chord (except for a rock power chord- ask me about that later) is either major or minor. That is, it contains at least 3 notes (even if one of them is implied and not audible), and these three notes are in a configuration that is happy sounding or sad sounding. Technically speaking, the happy (major) one has a middle note (known as the “3rd”) that is a fret higher than the sad one, which has a 3rd that’s a fret lower. (G, B, D = major = happy, whereas G Bb D = minor = sad).

In this example above, the B was lowered/flatted to make a Bb, and the chord went from major to minor as a result. BUT, if you were starting with A, C#, E (a major chord), lowering/flatting the C# would create a C (not Cb). The C# has become a Cnatural here, even though the C# was “flatted.” “Flatted” here simply means it was lowered a fret. With a Cnatural, this chord (A, C, E) is now a minor chord because of the distance between each of its notes. If the C got flatted again, to a Cb, we’d have an Asus2 chord (A, B, E) with no 3rd (no type of C at all). The C got so flat that it became a B (Cb=B), and the 3 notes aren’t making either a major or minor chord any more.

Let’s look at it from one more angle to try to tie all this together. A “Triad” is a basic harmonic building block in music. It consists of taking every other note from a scale until you have 3 notes. Commonly, it’s thought of as steps 1, 3, 5 from a standard 8-note scale. In our example above of a G chord, the underlying major scale would be G A B C D E F# G. Taking the 1, 3, 5 of this scale yields G B D. Because of the way western 8-note scales are structured, this means G goes up 4 frets to B (a major 3rd) and 3 more frets to D (a minor 3rd). If you lower/flat the B to Bb, then your new note stack starts by going up 3 frets (minor third) to Bb and 4 more frets (major 3rd) to D. Now it’s a minor chord.

A major chord, therefore, is a stack of three notes with the first two being a “Major 3rd” apart and the second two being a “Minor 3rd” apart. A minor chord is the reverse of this- it starts with a minor 3rd interval and has a major 3rd interval above it.

Last example- in the key of A, our major scale is A B C# D E F# G# A. The 1 3 5 from that scale is A C# E. A to C# is a major 3rd and C# to E is a minor 3rd. Lower, or flat to C# to C natural, and now you’ve reversed the stack of intervals to having the narrower space first (minor 3rd = A to C) and topping it with the wider interval (major 3rd = C to E).

Phwew! I wish I had a chalkboard and piano so I could explain this better. Please feel free to ask for any clarification. It helps me know what to write about.

Cheers, Jennifer

It’s hard to ever get very good at music if you don’t have some basic information about how chords and scales work. Here’s some info to get you started.

There are 12 notes in the “western” scale that can be played before you start repeating yourself. This is also referred to as the notes between octaves. An octave is what you get if you take one note and double its frequency. It will sound like the same note, but it will be a higher version of it. The 12 notes in between are called the chromatic scale. They are all a half-step apart from each other.

Most commonly, all 12 notes are not played, but rather 7 notes are played, and they are chosen from the 12 in a way that sounds interesting and sensible. The most common set of 7 notes is called the Major Scale, and next most common is the Minor Scale (it has some variations we’ll talk about later).

The note that most starkly contrasts (and defines) major and minor scales is the 3rd. If you take the first 5 notes of the scale and switch between a higher or lower 3rd, the music literally goes from being happy to sad sounding. Try it on your instrument. If it were major, you’d play C, D, E, F, G. If it’s minor, play C, D, Eflat, F, G. You don’t have to start on C- you can start on any note. I’m just giving you one example. These combinations of notes can also be thought of as patterns of half step and whole steps (a whole step is simply 2 half steps at a time). So a major scale has the pattern Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C) and a minor scale (let’s use the natural minor variation for now) has the pattern Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole (C, D, Eflat, F, G, Aflat, Bflat, C).

I’d like to stop here and let you digest this and ask any questions you might have. Then, based on what you say, I’ll know whether or not to explain more about this, or move on to the next layer of information.

If there’s any one suggestion I can make for your approach to this, it’s to start trying to identify major and minor tunes by sound when you are hearing music out in the world or playing it on your guitar. First ask yourself if it sounds happy or sad, and then see if you can find and sing the 3rd, or even the scale, that goes with it.

There’s SO much to think about when you are early in your musical development. You have to keep a beat, stay in tune, maybe sing, and make it all sound nice. It’s a lot of balls to juggle, and getting a nice tone out of the guitar (or whatever instrument) can easily take the back seat to simply getting through a tune.

This is ok for a while, or as a way of isolating things when you are practicing, but it actually turns out to build your mental capacities and physical sensitivities quite nicely to focus more on the details of your sound.

If, for example, you are using a pick, it will make a clicking noise each time it hits the strings. Start noticing that, and practice making it consistent and understated. You could even try different picks and take note of the difference in sounds each type of plastic makes on your guitar.

Same deal with your fingernails. Certain hand angles cause the nails to scratch against the strings in different ways. I have started getting annoyed when I hear that scratching noise over wound strings (the lower ones), and it makes me hold my hand more perpendicular to the strings. Now it sounds better- more clean and clear.

Then, if I dig into the strings a little more- with some confidence- I get much more pure guitar tone than clicking or scraping, and that kind of sound gets addictive. If you remind yourself not to settle for any less, then in only a few weeks, it will start to happen automagically, and you are playing at a new level.

One more tip on this- try recording yourself so you can be a passive listener to your own playing. I bet it will highlight some things you hadn’t noticed before and give you more ideas on where to put your practice time and energy.

I mentioned on my Facebook page the other day that East Indian musicians, as part of their learning process, are required to vocalize everything before they play it on an instrument. This is true even with percussionists. I think this is a great approach because it assures deep internalization of the music they are playing, thereby improving their skill level.

Of course singing is an important part of any musician’s life. You don’t have to have a great voice, or even let anyone hear you, but being able to match the pitches you hear on the radio and in your head is pretty much a fundamental necessity of being good at any instrument other than drums.

If you can match pitches, then your next step is to start identifying them in greater detail. You don’t have to know if what you are hearing is a C or a D. Being able to do that is impossible for people who do not have perfect pitch. BUT, if you can match pitches, then you can start putting them into a structural context relative to each other. Let me explain further:

In the West, we use what’s called “diatonic harmony.” This essentially refers to music that has 12 chromatic notes between octaves and generally uses an 8-note scale (skipping a few of the 12 to make it sound more melodic and sensible). A major scale is one way of getting from one note up to it’s next octave. A minor scale (with its 3 common variations) is another way. Together, these scales make up 99% of all music you’ll encounter.

Along with this, each tune has a “key” that it’s built around. Another way to think about it is that each tune has a “tonal center” or note/chord that the song keeps coming back to. Often, the key or tonal center is the first and last note/chord of the tune. And the key will certainly be the most often played chord or note throughout the tune. Now that you know that (or even if you already knew it), you can start humming the note that you think is the “main note” of the song. I find that I can keep humming it while the song progresses and it will sound like it fits in.

Try getting good at this, and once you have it down, you can start identifying other steps in the scale relative to this note (also known as the “tonic” or “one chord.” We’ll talk about the next steps in a future post.

Are you guys/gals interested in this stuff? I personally think ear training is WAY underrated as a key piece of music education. I think it’s like learning a language- you have to learn to identify what it is you are hearing.

Questions and comments are welcome! Jennifer

If you are like me, you learned basic open position chords first on guitar. If you got past those, you probably went on to barre chords, and then to jazz chords. You’ve probably noticed by now that there are several different ways to play each chord. Some sound good in some songs, and others sound bad. You need a system to pick the right ones for the right situation. Sheet music and chord charts often don’t tell you where to put your fingers, so you have to start figuring it out.

First things first- learn 2 or 3 ways to play each chord in a song. Everyone can play open E major. It’s your basic E chord. It’s in a group of chords that use the lowest (6th) string for the root (E). E major can also be played with a 5th-string root. This is an “A position barre chord” starting on the 7th fret (don’t be scared by the jargon). It’s what you would get if you put a capo on the 7th fret and then played an A chord. Now you’ve got two ways to play E major.

Here’s one more: play an open D chord and move the fingers on the top (highest sounding) 3 strings UP 2 frets. (Then you have to make sure you ONLY play those top 3 strings). Now you’ve got 3 E major chords to choose from.

From each of those E chords, you can find many other close chords. If, for example, you needed an A chord next, all 3 of the positions/voicings I just described can be slightly altered to make an A chord. Going from E to A is the same as going from I to IV. It’s a very very common harmonic move in music. An E chord is made of up 3 notes- E G# and B. An A chord is made up of A C# and E. So right off the bat, you can see that they both have an E note. So whichever finger is playing the E note can stay still and the other two need to switch. B usually goes up to C# and G# can go up to A. (Am I getting too confusing? :-0)

If so, it’s all just a convoluted way of saying that each unique chord voicing can move to a nearby spot for a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) chord. Three unique E chords will move to three unique associated A chords, creating quite a number of options for one song. If some of the voicings don’t sound very good, try some others up the neck until it sounds better. You’ll start to have favorites, and you’ll notice that different chord voicings match with different songs and styles of music.

And if all this is too much, just stick with open position chords. Tons of famous people use these most of the time and make great music. Even if you get tired of the basic ones, there are some nice variations that are still super easy. We can go into some of those in future posts.

Happy fingering! Jennifer

One of the hardest things about playing guitar is fluidly changing from one chord to the next. Several fingers need to quickly reconfigure and efficiently get from one place to another, and for a beginner, this can be torture. Not only are you struggling to figure out which part of your finger to use, but it hurts to push down so many strings at once (especially if you have a steel-stringed guitar).

Just to get started, make sure your nails are short enough on your left hand, and that you are using the very tips of your fingers. You’ll probably develop grooves and callouses on them, and that’s okay at first, but later it might become a liability later because not all chords are best played with the same exact point on the skin of your finger. After a while of doing it, I had to start filing my fingertips so i wouldn’t keep dipping back into the same groove on my callouses.

So if this part of playing is still hard for you, pick a couple of pretty easy chords to switch between, like Em to Am or D to G. Just two chords is enough for now. This exercise is meant to help you smoothly get from one spot to another and back.

Now, once you have one chord fingered, strum it to make sure all the notes are ringing out evenly with no unwanted extra noises. Adjust your fingers to fix any problems, and strum again until it sounds nice. It’s crucial here not to push down on the strings too hard. Doing so will only make it harder to switch chords because of all that tension that has to be released before you can move. (I use a small nylon stringed guitar to make it easier to play lightly). Anyway, the point is (and this very important) that you never want to use any more energy or tension than is minimally required to get the note to sound right. Any extra tension will only hurt you and slow you down.

So once you have the first chord sounding and feeling right, THINK about where your fingers need to go next. Don’t put them there yet. Just imagine in your head the different directions and locations each of them need to go to for your second chord. THEN, ever so slowly, pick up your fingers and deliberately move them to the next chord. Watch every moment of the move and carefully place them in their new spots. Make sure that chord is sounding out nicely when you strum, and reverse the process.

Every time you go back and forth between the chords, imagine the move first, and then slowly execute it, using only the energy it takes to do so. Back and forth, back and forth. Then, you can start speeding it up.

This method makes a good practice for beginners and intermediates alike because there are always new, harder chords to switch around to, and after you have 20-30 nicely memorized, you can aim even higher. It just keeps getting easier over time.

Good luck! Jennifer

Hi Group,

Through the years, I’ve determined that I progress much more quickly if I use the music I love as a starting point for what I play on guitar. Even if it’s really complicated music, you can make it work as a beginner. Here’s why:

Every musical piece has some simple fundamental qualities to it- the tempo, the key, and the number of beats per measure, to name a few.

Even if today is your first day touching a guitar, you have the ability to connect with a fundamental part of any piece of music and play along with it. Let me describe the process.

First, just put the recording on and have the controls at your fingertips so you can rewind and stop the sound easily. (the Amazing SlowDowner is an excellent free program that will allow you to also isolate and loop sections of a .wav or .mp3. It’ll also adjust pitch, so it’s a real winner). But even with just stop/start and rewind, you can pull this off.

When you hear the tune, listen carefully to where you would tap your foot if you were dancing to it. Then, transfer that tapping to your guitar. Mute your strings with your left hand and strike the strings with your right hand along with the beat. Make yourself get through one whole section or even the entire piece without missing a beat. Pulling this off is almost like having a successful meditation session, and doing a basic rhythm practice like this every day will add up to a much higher level of musicianship for you over the course of a few weeks.

The great thing about it is that, if you get bored with just striking the strings on the main beat, you can double the speed of your strum and make it harder. Or you can add a foot tap either with your downstrokes or with your upstrokes, or even on every-other downstroke.

Above all, make sure you FEEL it in your body and that you are actively training your body to follow a regular pulse. After a while, your body will follow along automatically, and people listening to you will really notice the difference in what you are presenting.

This is step one of developing good guitar rhythm, and I’ll keep going into more levels of complexity as we progress.

I also need to talk about melody and harmony and how you can keep using your favorite music to work on those parts of your playing. Stay tuned! Jennifer

Yep, it doesn’t pay off unless you do it regularly. HOWEVER, practicing guitar is a little better than the gym because your brain will unconsciously absorb and integrate your latest guitar improvements when you are not playing. You body, though, will just get softer if you don’t work it out regularly.

But the point is that no one gets good at anything unless they make a commitment to it. And making commitments is much easier when your making it to something or someone you love. You’ll want to keep coming back because it makes you feel good.

As you are practicing, notice the things that you are doing better than you’ve done before, and congratulate yourself on them. Maybe even show a friend what you’ve successfully learned to execute.

This feeling of accomplishment is the food that keeps you coming back. You know you can get better if you just dig in, pay close attention to what you are doing, and repeat it a lot.

Then, next time you are stalling from practicing, try to remember how good you felt about yourself last time you finished a good practice session. Remind yourself that if you keep the habit up, your rate of improvement will increase, and the feelings of self satisfaction just keep piling up and up!

Lastly, you can also look at it from the reverse angle- NOT practicing hurts. It adds to the already low self esteem that most of us have. If you want to avoid feeling bad about yourself, dig into building a skill, and that will most definitely make you feel better.

Ok, so you wish you were a better guitarist, and you’ve got a decent guitar, but you only pick it up every week or month and sometimes don’t touch it for even longer than that. I’ve been there, and it’s not fulfilling. For me, I knew I could make the time to play every day, but something always made it hard to get started. I like to refer to this sense of stagnation as “static friction.” Static friction is a physics terms that means that objects move more easily once they get started, but getting them started in the first place takes extra energy.

You’ve probably all had the experience of finally picking up your instrument, only to realize that, once you get started, it’s pretty easy and rewarding to keep playing. It’s not ALWAYS that way, but it still happens a lot.

I overcome this barrier by committing to no more than 5 minutes of playing every day. You can even keep the TV on. Just pick up the guitar and tell yourself it’s a short session with no major mental commitment required. Then, noodle around on strums or scales, or anything you’ve learned before. Pretty soon, one idea will lead to another, and you’ll be on a roll.

One more thing to add to before I close this post- Education researchers and neuroscientists universally agree that the human mind is oriented in such a way that more short practice sessions are better than fewer long sessions. So, in other words, playing for 5 minutes twice a day is going to add up to more progress than playing once a week for two hours. Your brain needs to be refreshed more frequently than once a week if it’s going to keep growing over the long term.

Next, we’ll talk about how to create a practice regimen based on your favorite music.

Cheers, Jennifer

Ok, let’s talk basic “philosophy of skill building” here. #1 rule: You have to love it enough to get really good at it. The level of skill and fluency you develop will be a direct result of how much passion you have for it. This is just a basic fact of adult learning. No one excels at things if they don’t give real consistent effort over some extended period of time.

What specifically do you need to love? You need to love how you feel when you get into “the groove,” and you need to love the sounds that are coming out of you. Even better if you love more specific details, like the artist, the recording, harmony, melody, rhythm, and soundscape. In my opinion it’s not so great if you do it because you love the attention other people give you when you perform. But hey, if motivation from any source is really there, that’s your main resource as you embark upon this journey.

Next, we’ll talk about how to get yourself to be a consistent practicer (because what’s the point of playing if you can’t do it enough to like what you hear?)

Peace out, Jennifer