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Post by dawkins on Dec 18, 2013 17:37:57 GMT
I might give that a go then after xmas - I love all those PS songs but Kathy's Song is my favourite - closely followed by America. I'll need to sort out some reording gear.
A UK guy doing a nice version (He might even be a member here) does anyone know?
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missclarktree
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Post by missclarktree on Dec 18, 2013 17:46:06 GMT
I have been in both camps: the one which plays mainly by ear and basic knowledge of chords and now one which involves reading music and gaining a deeper understanding. I'm currently playing classical studies at about Grade 4 (and occassionally 5) but my understanding of music has progressed really well. Another bonus is the fact that you get to learn the neck much better (although the top end is still hard for me) and as Keith has alluded to you get to understand what chords such as C6 are. One of my happy moments was when I really understood the difference between a Maj 7 and a Dominant 7 and plenty of other stuff like that. So I am converted to the idea that the more you know the better. That's really interesting because my experience has been that I've felt quite limited by the classical method. I started out with Frederick Noad's Solo Guitar Playing, which has given me a reasonable knowledge of notation, but left me feeling dependent on it, like "painting by numbers". The chapter on chords warns against the 'dot pattern' diagrams because "they say nothing of what the right hand should be doing". On the other hand, they leave scope for creativity when the player has to decide. Although there are a few pages of dedicated chord practice, none of the chords are named, so I never learned how songs are constructed or how chords are related to scales. Great respect to Noad - I think purely from a classical playing point of view, it's an excellent book. But, having looked at it again, I notice all those rules, designed to give maximum facility to the right hand and avoid injuries, etc, but now that I want to play different styles, I have to unlearn it all. 'Knuckles parallel to the strings' (!), 'Wrist 3 & a half inches above the face of the guitar', etc. Because Noad has so little theory, I didn't learn it as I went along, and was resistant to it when I did have lessons for a while. I'm trying to rectify that now. But at the moment I feel like a parrot who can say a few words but has no idea what they mean, and whose feathers would fall out in shock if it had to compose its own sentences.
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Post by dawkins on Dec 18, 2013 20:07:27 GMT
I think that's a fair assessment of how I have felt at times, but perhaps I should add that my guitar teacher engages me in other guitar related theory/technique and as such I guess this more holistic approach is paying dividends - albeit steadily.
My teacher requires me to analyse the music I play (and it's not mega difficult stuff) so that I'm not just reading the dots. So for example I can look at a piece and work out the chord progression; where the perfect cadences lie and so on. I'm getting quite good at spotting most of the basic chords now and of course suspended chords and chords such as 6ths and so on take some brain space but I can here them when played. What I have learned is that music is largely formula driven and that these formulas apply across all genres. In fact a piece a played recently had echoes of Kathy's Song and it was nearly five hundred years old.
But my teacher is adamant that the development of your ear plays a huge role in all of this and he is very keen that guitarists try and develop a broad ability across styles - especially seeing as not many of us have the time, or talent to become concert classical guitarists.
My own issue is that Jazz theory would probably help me develop more knowledge, particulary in relation to chords, but I can't stand Jazz and can't, despite many attempts, get to like it.
In terms of technique - I seem to have adapted well to the hand positions and at the moment I'm happy with how that works. In particular the ability to use the I M A fingers as opposed to clawhammer or I M only that I often see. I guess it's horses for courses.
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missclarktree
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Post by missclarktree on Dec 19, 2013 18:58:41 GMT
Glad you've found a good teacher. It sounds a great way to learn because I guess the theory will become part of your working knowledge, constantly being reinforced by practice.
It may be a bit late in the day, but I'm going over past material but, this time, trying to analyze it as I go along, and trying to be more open to trying new things.
I know what you mean about jazz, though. I've tried but haven't managed to get into it. I think it's genetic.
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Post by scorpiodog on Dec 20, 2013 10:59:56 GMT
I know what you mean about jazz, though. I've tried but haven't managed to get into it. I think it's genetic. Slightly off topic, I know, but, as someone who has just seen a glimmer of the light after 6 decades of declaring my dislike of jazz, I thought I'd have a quick two penn'orth. Jazz isn't really a genre, it's a spectrum. So, saying you don't like jazz is a bit like saying you don't like classical music. There are bound to be bits you can listen to. And there are some pretty easy ways to get into jazz. For me, it was Steely Dan, Quintette Du Hot Club de France, Michael Buble and Diana Krall. Pretty strange and eclectic selection, but all qualify as jazz. I think the thing they have in common is that they are all very melodic. They are all damnably easy to listen to as well. From there, I started to enjoy jazzy bits from artistes I liked anyway (John Martyn, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Georgie Fame, Joni Mitchell) and that led me to explore Jazz guitarists. Then at an open mic session, a chap I'd seen and enjoyed many times who played Bossa Nova and other Brazilian stuff on a nylon strung guitar (and sang in Portugese!) turned up with an archtop and stared playing melodic jazz stuff, and sang in English. And I thought "I'd like to do that". So I went out and bought an archtop. Well I still can't do that, but I do occasionally like playing the jazz guitar and one day I'll get it right. But that led me into listening to some of the great jazz guitarists (Charlie Christian, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Les Paul, and that has led to my trying other types of Jazz. I'm still struggling with people like Thelonius Monk and Charlie Mingus, but at least I'm starting to understand and appreciate where they are coming from and to appreciate their musicality. I shall continue to expand my appreciation through listening, but I doubt whether I'll get very far with playing it until I've started to study the theory (which I plan to in the New Year) in order to uncover the sense behind the chord progressions which colour the music. It's a very very broad topic, Jazz. I truly believe there's something within it for everybody. And it's not like marmite! Slight swing off topic (for which I apologise) but I'd just like everybody to have a chance to listen approvingly to these great musicians and to try to understand what they're saying when they play. It's a really worthwhile journey.
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007
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Post by 007 on Dec 20, 2013 11:27:38 GMT
Types of Jazz definition Wikipedia As the music has developed and spread around the world it has, since its early American beginnings, drawn on many different national, regional and local musical cultures, giving rise to many distinctive styles: New Orleans jazz dating from the early 1910s, big band swing, Kansas City jazz and Gypsy jazz from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s on down through Afro-Cuban jazz, West Coast jazz, ska jazz, cool jazz, Indo jazz, avant-garde jazz, soul jazz, modal jazz, chamber jazz, free jazz, Latin jazz in various forms, smooth jazz, jazz fusion and jazz rock, jazz funk, loft jazz, punk jazz, acid jazz, ethno jazz, jazz rap, cyber jazz, M-Base, nu jazz and other ways of playing the music.
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Post by dawkins on Dec 20, 2013 11:41:44 GMT
I know what you mean about jazz, though. I've tried but haven't managed to get into it. I think it's genetic. It's a very very broad topic, Jazz. I truly believe there's something within it for everybody. And it's not like marmite! Slight swing off topic (for which I apologise) but I'd just like everybody to have a chance to listen approvingly to these great musicians and to try to understand what they're saying when they play. It's a really worthwhile journey. Totally agree. I'm one who doesn't have to like a genre of music to appreciate what talent they have. For me Jazz just never feels resolved, and this of course is mainly because the progressions are forever moving with lots of sevenths and so on. But they are incredible musicians in their own right.
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Post by scorpiodog on Dec 20, 2013 11:42:29 GMT
Types of Jazz definition Wikipedia Typical Wikipedia, half the story. No Trad jazz or modern jazz. Many consider blues to be a form of jazz, too, and that has sub genres all of its own. I think your list needs to be at least twice as big, and it STILL won't have it all. I'd rather listen to it than list it, anyway. Fill yer boots!
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007
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Post by 007 on Dec 20, 2013 12:02:48 GMT
Agree entirely Paul I made a list of all the types of Jazz before I looked at the Wikipedia site and most of my list were not there
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Post by jwills57 on Jan 1, 2014 3:35:01 GMT
Hello, All--I consider myself to be a fairly experienced player; I played by ear for years and developed a good ear. I would encourage serious guitar folks to at least dabble, or more than dabble, in learning chord theory. I can't read music, but I found when I made a pretty thorough study of chord theory, my ability to arrange and compose really took off. So if reading music is a bit of a leap, chord theory should really help the advancing guitarist.
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 1, 2014 12:09:55 GMT
Although I play mainly by ear I have a basic music theory education from piano lessons as a youngster. This I've topped up occasionally over the years and a little theory is good although I don't think it necessary to go over board. Some basic knowledge of chord variants is useful and also an understanding of major and relative minor keys. Also, an understanding of some of the different scales is useful, for example, the pentatonic scales and Mixolydian mode scales. There is a good Wikipedia page on scales at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Musical_scalesThere are also a lot of scale resources on the web. Playing with different scales is interesting — I'm currently thinking about Hungarian Gypsy! One of the breakthroughs for me was understanding Martin Simpson's method — you can see info of this (and also tabs) on his website. Simpson is a great advocate of guitarists thinking in terms of route notes and numbers rather than named scales. This makes sense as finger style guitarists use capos so frequenty. He will always talk about (for example ) a 7th as being 1,3,5,7 — relative to the key you are playing in. This might sound intimating but it shouldn't be. I don't really think you need much more than this.
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maninashed
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Post by maninashed on Jan 2, 2014 17:41:33 GMT
An odd thing about knowledge is that the more I learn, the more I find there is to learn.
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leoroberts
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Post by leoroberts on Jan 2, 2014 22:53:29 GMT
An odd thing about knowledge is that the more I learn, the more I find there is to learn. I remember when I was at school the mantra went: The more I go to school the more I learn The more I learn, the more I know the more I know, the more there is to forget the more I forget, the less I know so screw school. I have stuck to this philosophy of life ever since...
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 3, 2014 15:21:20 GMT
An odd thing about knowledge is that the more I learn, the more I find there is to learn. I find that with most things in life !!!
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 21, 2014 23:37:42 GMT
I fall into the camp of a little theory being good for me. Mainly due to my getting glazed eyes and the brain seizing up when confronted with long wordy passages about theory, littered with lots of technical terms.
I don't think it's 100% down to my being lazy .... but I'm sure that's part to blame. Possibly the words old dog and new tricks are appropriate too. Generally though I've really only found "practical theory" to work that well for me.
In particular if theory can be translated into patterns and shapes on the fretboard I can absorb it much easier. A good example of that would be in my trying to get to grips with playing modes. I had several goes at trying to get my head around what seemed like a vast treatise on the theory that was modes in most books - thing was even if I could sort of get the general gist it didn't seem to translate into how I could play them. Just a few short years ago I encountered a teacher (David Wallimann) who used patterns to demonstrate how to play melodic lines in modes, and linked in these patterns to the pentatonics ..... two 10 minute videos of his, very easy patterns to remember, and within a couple of days I could have a stab at melodic lead in all of the six main modes. One of the top 3 moments of clarity in my 40 years of guitar playing - opened a door into a great musical place too.
But I do find my lack of theory knowledge starts to hurt more when it comes to trying to create a pre-planned and arranged piece of music. So far results are banal or certainly not very good. Which is something I'm going to have to work on more if I'm to pursue getting better at exploring this new road of playing acoustic guitar.
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