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Welcome to the site. The aim is to introduce and develop a more intuitive approach to music and playing the guitar. There’s regular content on the way - my intention is to make it as ‘hands on’ as possible so the sounds are under the fingers first and the analysis can come afterwards.
Hi I'm Howard..Thanks for visiting my corner of the internet. I play guitar and have been a music obsessive for as long as I can remember. I am not going to pretend that there are any ‘five minute hacks’ or a ‘secret chord or scale’ that you ‘MUST’ know - you can get all that on YouTube - I should know, I’ve watched them all! That said, I believe that guitar playing has become overly academic in recent years with many theory heavy approaches becoming prevalent across social channels. Whilst I’m not putting down music theory in any way whatsoever, I do believe it has it’s place and that that place isn’t always necessarily the first step in learning something. Many of the accepted greats of Jazz, Blues and Rock didn’t themselves read music or were aware of the various scale modes etc that we are sometimes led to believe are essential in dissecting their styles - they simply learned their craft by, well, playing.
The good news for guitarists is that it is a very visual and patterned instrument in its layout. With a bit of preparation this can be an invaluable aid to mapping out the fingerboard and getting the sounds under our fingers much more quickly . Yes, there will be scales and chord theory etc.. along the way but the focus here is on visualising the instrument and hearing the sounds - the rest can come later, (a bit like learning to drive before figuring out how the engine works).
Anyway that’s enough for now. I will continue to add bits and pieces to the site and link up some socials with videos and sounds. Any questions etc drop me a message!
Howard
It All Begins Here
Picking….. the bane of all guitar players. Who doesn’t constantly question their picking ? The problem is that it is such a personal thing - it has to be because no one else has our hands. Do we use a .60mm like Eddie? or a pebble from the beach like Pat Martino? a silver sixpence like Brian May?Do we hold it with four fingers like Pat Metheny? the thumb and second like EVH? or just a regular position? Do we pick from the wrist? the elbow? the ankle? …ok you get the idea here.
You pick with whatever feels good from wherever feels good - that’s it. Otherwise you will waste more time scouring the internet looking up nonsense than you can afford.
#1 - Place your first finger on the 7th fret (B) of the thickest (low E) string and play it with a down stroke.
#2 - Place your second finger on the 8th fret and play it with an upstroke (keep both fingers down).
#3 - Place the third finger at the 9th fret and play with a downstroke (keep all three fingers down).
#4 - Place your 4th finger at the 10th fret and play with an upstroke (all four fingers should be down at this point).
#5 - Repeat steps 1-4 across the neck.
Keep thing even - start as slowly as you need to. If the stretch to the low E is too much then start from the high E.
Scale next using this same method.
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