What's black and white and black and white and black and white? See the first picture ...
Yesterday we went to the wooden instrument festival at Marylhurst University in Lake Oswego, Oregon. This is a collection of makers displaying guitars, violins, violas, double-basses, flutes, harps, parts, etc. coupled with a series of mini-concerts at a small theater across the lawn, for a grand three buck admission.
We got there at noon, ate a picnic lunch with the dogs, walked through the show, and then got to the little theater just as Alan Perlman started his set. He did some stuff on steel string, then
classical, both guitars he built, very nice.
It doesn't seem fair that you can be an excellent player and build fine instruments, too.
William Jenks then played a JM Blanchard classical, a spruce-top about two months old. Guitar sounded pretty good, though it hadn't opened up yet, but Jenks was having an off day, hit a few clams, lost his place on stuff I've heard him play flawlessly before.
Kristen Waligora played a cedar-topped classical by Dan Biasca, and both she and the guitar were terrific. She finished with a modern composition, I missed the composer, lotta dissonance and not usually my cup of tea, but it was a show piece for her technique and the guitar's
range. Had a lot of harmonics, pinch-harmonics, and the instrument's resonance was great.
What is hollow, made of wood, costs fifteen thousand dollars and you have to wait fifteen years to get one?
The second picture is a guitar by Jeffery Elliott. He stopped taking orders and hopes to live long enough to finish his waiting list. Talk about job security ...
Here's an unsolicited guitar training recommendation for you. You said the other day that you'll never be able to master the guitar because of your age-- you may never be Segovia but I think you can make a pretty good run at getting good; witness the sad story of Jason Becker, who started at 13, became a shredding master by the time he was 17, and by the time he was 20 was already feeling the weakness of the ALS that would make him a prisoner in his own body.
ReplyDeleteMy recommendation is only this: Learn arpeggios. Learn enough music theory to learn what they are, learn the basic major and minor chords, and learn the major and minor 6-string arpeggios, and concentrate on that more than scales.
Why? Because scales, especially blues scales, are very easy to build off of arpeggios. And you only need to learn two arpeggios-- one major and one minor, and those can be slid all up and down the neck without changing anything.
I first learned 6-string arpeggios from a guitar magazine article about Jason Becker 20 years ago. It was a hard technique to develop but it's the highest-payoff technique I ever learned, far more so than scales in terms of speed, ease and benefit to understanding.
Sounds like good advice. I pretty much know the major, minor, and seventh chords -- the "cowboy" chords, and a little about the CAGED system so I can move 'em up and down. Just enough music theory to hurt myself -- what a chord is, note progression, sharps and flats in common keys, and circle of fifths and like that.
ReplyDeleteBeen working on arpeggios -- you can't play "Hotel California" without 'em.
I'm better than I was, but not to "good" yet, and far enough away from mastery that I don't expect to get there. Of course, my concept of mastery is something in the Chet Atkins/Tommy Emmanuel/El McMeen/Michael Chapdelaine arena.
I'm not interested in becoming a professional musician, so that lets a lot of stuff slide right there. If I can learn how to play pieces I hear and like, well enough so I don't flub them too badly, that'll mostly do it for me ...
The whole problem with the guitar is the fact that the tuning changes on the B string-- it makes it very difficult to learn scale and even chord shapes in a meaningful way other than by rote. Arps change that to some extent. It's also funny that arpeggios are thought of as being so advanced. I think that in some ways they are easier than scales, even to the point of being a "cheat" technique, because every chord is an arp.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when you're using 6-string arps with the root on the E string eg:
--7-h-12 < hammer to 12 with pinky
--8--
--9--
--9--
--10-
--12- < root (e) at 12 fret on both e strings
it gives you two root notes. So, to solo over, say, Em, if you just play combinations of the 6 notes above, you will sound good and you will also have a style that people won't associate with beginner guitar.
'Nother thing you can do is repeat notes among the three high strings above-- the one above is a minor chord but here's an 80s instructional video that explains it a little better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb_0fQwtwgo
If you look at just the techniques Atkins uses, and his methods for arranging his solos, it's funny how much he has in common with shred guitar, specifically Yngwie. The guy constantly uses arpeggios, pedalpoints and fast scalar cadenzas.
The only thing he needs is more hair.
--7-h-12 < hammer to 12 with pinky
ReplyDelete--8--
--9--
--9--
--10-
--12- < root (e) at 12 fret on both e strings
I don't have enough fingers to chord this one. If I barre at the seventh, I still need four fingers, even if I can do two at the ninth fret -- and I can't wrap my thumb around the classical neck. I assume this is a moving thing?
Also, the link to the vid is busted.