Hey Tom,
Good luck with your guitaring. Yes I dabble a bit with guitar but an not
really interested in it, as keys is my thing. But I play rhythm with the
idea of paps backing myself one day performing my own songs. I classify
myself as a party guitarist. Am able to accompany peeps around the camp
fire.
But yes I understand that thing totally about the guitar action and it
wrecking your fingers. Is important to have a nice instrument.
Fingering, at the risk of stating the obvious, the basic fingering is the
bar chord, where you lay your first finger across the neck. You then use
your other 3 fingers in various combos to make various inversions of that
chord or related chords.
And of course some guitarists use kapos to change the key of those same
fingerings.
So kapoing is a easy way to simply learn a bunch of chords then just kapo
to whatever key you want.
I can't use kapo though, as it throws me when I know I'm playing a c chord
but am hearing an e flat. Same thing, I can't use transpose buttons on a
keyboard.
Anyway, good luck with it all.
Ross.
-----Original Message-----
From: realmusicians-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:realmusicians-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Kingston
Sent: Monday, 19 December 2011 9:37 PM
To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [realmusicians] Guitar talk.
Hey folks,
Here's a little report on my guitar adventure and a couple of questions.
I've been doing endless research on the web for weeks now trying to have at
least some idea of what I'm talking about when it comes to guitars.
And like every instrument, there's a heck of a lot more to it than we think.
Although, sheesh, you'd think I would have learned this by now.
Oh well. It's been a very interesting adventure.
Next I borrowed my nephew's guitar to give it a shot. He hasn't played it in
years. So, just like the last time I did the same I decided after only a few
days that it was simply too cruel and inhumane punishment and couldn't
imagine how guitarists do it. And yes, I knew it should be set up, but not
knowing any more than the concept of the process, which made perfect sense,
I couldn't imagine it making any real difference on such a guitar gorilla. I
think it's an Ibanez, but I keep forgetting to ask.
So, before I gave up again I said, what the heck, and brought it in to be
set up. I got it back yesterday. All I can say is, holy guitar tech, batman!
It felt like they gave me a new guitar. The difference was absolutely mind
blowing. Heck, by last night I was whamming through a chord progression,
doing quick mutes, and even tossing in a body slap here and there. I
couldn't believe it. And my fingers aren't even sore.
I can feel that I've been playing, but I wouldn't call it pain. And previous
to this setup it was literally impossible for me to play one chord. It took
every last ounce of strength I had in my left hand just to get one out of a
dozen attempts to kind of, almost, vaguely sound like some kind of a mangled
chord. And after that long 5 or 10 minute session I had to quit because my
fingers were screaming so loud I couldn't even hear what I was trying to do.
So I'm completely sold on annual setups. And most importantly, I finally
have some real inspiration to play the guitar.
In practical terms, yesterday was my first real day on the guitar. So if I
can get a chord progression going in one day I think I should be able to
enjoy the guitar, which is what's most important to me. So, needless to say,
I'm pumped about it.
Okay, and now for the questions.
Right now my main focus is on chord fingering. Of course coming from the
piano on which we have a linear playing surface wherein we can play the
3 inversions of any chord from top to bottom through out the entire range of
the instrument with nothing more than rotating finger positions, the guitar
neck is more abstract to me. But I assume there's got to be some logic to it
other than memorizing a thousand specific fingerings. I've watched a ton of
YouTube videos, and in one of them the guy referred to the most basic chords
by a specific name, which I don't remember now. And I'm not talking about
major, minor, sevenths, etc.
This was specific to the fret fingering and I assume neck position on the
guitar. I know how to figure out most chords, but don't see any logic on how
to apply it to the guitar. Of course the range you want to play in as well
as preventing your left hand fingers from getting tied up into nasty bundles
of knots are obvious. But I'm assuming there's more to go on than that and a
trial and error method.
I've spent the last couple hours googling blind accessible guitar chord
charts and just guitar chord charts, and all I got was a bunch of tab sheets
for songs with blind in the title, a bunch of stuff from a band with blind
in the name, and a ton of purely visual chord charts.
So I'm wondering if anyone has or knows where to get a readable chord
note/fingering chart. And I'd also be interested in any links to accessible
tab sheets.
And just as a final note, boy, there seems to be quite a few really good
guitar lessons available on DVD now. But it's hard to tell if they're too
tied to the video. Although I must say, I've been pretty impressed at how
many folks posting YouTube videos realize that just watching someone play
isn't going to do much of anything even for a sighted person. So while they
use the cameras as an adjunct to the lesson, they still explain in detail
exactly what they're doing with every finger, fret, and string. But of
course these are just a pile of little snippets. And conversely, I can't
believe how many YouTube videos that
say: learn how to play insert song name here, are absolutely nothing but a
video of someone playing the tune. Not a single word is spoken. I figure
these folks just want to watch themselves.
My biggest concern at this point is to get my left hand positioned
correctly. I know how easy it is for a beginner to make things work in the
wrong way when they're just learning the basics. But then it becomes a very
painful reality check when they get to the next level and realize that their
incorrect hand position makes getting there impossible, so they have to
start all over again and go through the difficult process of trying to break
a bad habit and learn a new one. I'm actually considering trying to find a
true professional instructor, which usually isn't easy, just to get me
started and mainly to watch my every move and make sure that every physical
aspect of me and the guitar is correct. I believe this is one of the most
important aspects of playing an instrument that is most often unknown,
overlooked, or simply ignored because we don't think it's that important.
Okay. Enough babbling for now. Thanks for listening.
Tomster the bombster, guitarist extraordinaire! Heh!
