Greetings Fellow Guitar Enthusiasts,
Just wanted to let you know that we are uploading new YouTube video guitar lessons from our awesome home study program. You'll get to view a sample of our program and gain some valuable free insight into music theory and the guitar.
Our quality full-screen, high-resolution DVD video is MUCH better then the little clips on YouTube so you'll still want to consider purchasing our complete course. You also get all our excellent printed support material as well.
Thanks for all the positive feedback and continued good luck with your music!
All the best, Scotty West
It happened again just the other day. A guy named Ed came in to inquire about taking private guitar lessons from me. He had actually been playing for several years and was even in a Blues garage band. He's asking me how my guitar lessons will help take his guitar playing to the next level. I asked him a few questions and it became apparent that, like a lot of folks, he didn't really know ANYTHING about music. He's totally self taught. He knows a few guitar chords and some riffs. His friends have been showing him some finger patterns but he doesn't know what they are or how to use them.
I tell him that I think it's important to understand guitar/music theory in order to get where you REALLY want to with your music. How are you going to MASTER that instrument if you don't UNDERSTAND how it works?
He says "Yeah ... but I'm not interested in becoming a PRO or anything. I just wanna' jam with my friends ... play what SOUNDS good. What the heck do I need to know all that music theory crap for?"
I get that all the time and it's so frustrating to me. I know that if I didn't understand what I do about the LANGUAGE of music, I wouldn't be able to do ANY of the cool things I can do on my guitar. I have so much fun. I write my own tunes, jam my brains out and play anything just by listening to it. I owe it all to the excellent teachers I had and the hard work I did learning my theory and getting my ears trained. I want everybody to get to where they are as happy with their own guitar playing. It's kinda' my mission in life and it can be pretty discouraging when you see how many folks become blinded by all the misinformation there is out there ... so I'm always looking for ways to answer folks when they raise these objections. I suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
I said to Ed "Hey, do you play sports?" He said yes.
I said "How about Baseball?" He said it was his favorite. He's in a softball league.
I said "How the heck ya' gonna' play ball if you don't know the RULES OF THE GAME?"
He looked a little confused so I elaborated. THEORY is like the "rules of the game" for the sport of MUSIC. I guess you could get up there with your bat ... but why is this guy throwing that ball past me so fast? What am I supposed to do now? Hit the ball? Run to a base? What's that? What does it mean if the guy tags me with the ball? What the heck is an inning ... or a bunt ... or a pop fly?
We all seem to understand that games have rules. There is stuff you have to know to make sense of what is going on around you. Otherwise you would be totally lost. And it doesn't matter whether you're in the Little League, your local softball team or shooting for a career in "The Majors". Ya' gotta' know the rules of the game. Why is it so hard for folks to see that music has rules too?
Music is an ART FORM and I know a lot of you want to believe that there are no rules in art ... and indeed there AREN'T. Art is about SELF EXPRESSION ... right? You have my full permission to get up there and make whatever stupid racket you want. But is anybody else going to care or appreciate what you're doing? Will you be able to add anything of value to the history of the form? Probably not. You've heard it time-and-time again. You have to KNOW the rules in order to creatively BREAK them. In music, as in most everything else in life, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. You can believe me now or believe me later.
And remember ... the main reason that folks resist learning "the rules" of music is that they are under the mistaken impression that this stuff is complicated and confusing. But the truth is it's actually pretty simple if you get it explained to you the right way. Music is very much like a simple language. It's pretty logical and straight forward. It ain't rocket science. It's just so often TAUGHT really badly that folks get the idea that it's this big deal. So now that you know better, why wouldn't you want to take a little time to learn the rules? The rewards are very real. You could ultimately play guitar as well or even BETTER than the guitar heroes you have now.
I guess I made my point because Ed signed up for some lessons and I'm sure he'll do just fine. So batter up and let's hit one out of the park! Give our DVD guitar lessons a try. By the time we're done, you'll know pretty much everything about music and how it works on the guitar ... and call me anytime if you have questions.
Otherwise, you'll probably just wind up "sitting on the bench". Tennis anyone?
All the best, Scotty West
Those of you who are at all familiar with how I teach guitar know that I think of music as a LANGUAGE. This makes the guitar itself merely the TOOL that you use to express the language. I'm always trying to get folks to see that if you don't understand how the language really works, you're not going to see how the instrument itself works.
This is a hard sell for many people. They think that learning music is complicated and intimidating. They're afraid they won't get it and they don't want to feel stupid. They want to believe that they can learn to play guitar just by copping some more tabs or watching a few more YouTube guitar lessons. Well I've got some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is you probably won't get to play guitar the way you really want without learning how music works. The vast majority of folks who start off playing eventually crash and burn because they don't know enough about how the language of music works to get to where they can actually THINK on their instrument. This keeps them from being able to do the really fun and creative stuff with their guitars ... like songwriting and improvising. Others waste literally DECADES worth of time fumbling around in the dark, attaining a level of playing that they could have mastered in just a few short months with a small expenditure of focus and discipline.
The good news is ... believe-it-or-not ... music is a pathetically SIMPLE language to learn if you get it explained to you the right way. If you don't think so, try our Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Home Study Program. I guarantee that our video guitar lessons will get you to understand most of what's going on in music in just a few short weeks. We've sold thousands of our guitar instruction programs around the world in these last 9 years and we still retain that 100% satisfaction rate so we must be doing something right! I'm also available 7 days a week to answer questions if you're confused or need help. Call toll free or send me an email and I'll talk you through it free of charge.
Here's a great example of how much music is like a language and how thinking of it that way will launch you into areas of creativity you never dreamed possible.
Many of our modern styles of music involve IMPROVISATION ... Jazz, Blues, Rock and Country just to name a few. Everybody wants to learn to solo and rightly so. It's some of the most fun you can have anywhere in music. In our previous guitar lesson posts and on our website, we try to get folks to see that the path to becoming a great improviser involves EAR TRAINING. You solo by HEARING the riffs in your head and then you simply execute them on your guitar by understanding the layout of your fretboard. Our YouTube sample videos talk all about this. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/user/scottyxcom . Our website also contain lots of information on how to arrive at this level of musicianship. Check out this essay page http://www.absolutelyunderstandguitar.com/guitar-lessons-instruction-dvd-improv.html .
We've also pointed out time and again that you have to have a reasonable knowledge of music THEORY in order to do any meaningful ear training. How are you going to train yourself to RECOGNIZE these note patterns if you don't even know they exist? If music is a language, then music theory is the equivalent of the rules of SPELLING, GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY in other languages. It's that simple. How could you ever hope to do anything creative with the English language if you didn't know how to spell words or construct sentences?
So here's my new example involving soloing on guitar. While I was talking to one of my private guitar students the other day, it occurred to me that we are CONSTANTLY IMPROVISING when we speak in our native language. When you converse with someone, you USUALLY only have the faintest idea of what you are actually going to say ... right? You're kinda' makin' it up as you go along. You respond to input from the person you are conversing with and you didn't already know what they were going to say when the conversation began. I dare say you often START sentences without really knowing how they are going to END. I'm not exactly sure at this moment exactly how I am even going to end this paragraph!
It struck me that this is exactly like doing a guitar solo. You're making it up as you go along, responding to what the underlying chord progression suggests and expressing thoughts and feelings as they stream through your consciousness ... not always knowing where you're going to end up. Once again we see that music is just like any other language.
Of course, being able to converse in the language means that you have to understand how to choose your words by knowing what they mean and how they function. You have to understand grammar in order to form your words into sentences. This is exactly like what music theory does for you when spontaneously "conversing" in the language of music when doing a guitar solo! Not only that, but you know what all the words SOUND like ... and that is exactly like what ear training is!
So once again we see that music is just like any other language and you owe it to yourself to do your homework if you ever want to truly master it. And remember, it isn't even all that complicated. It's just often TAUGHT SO BADLY that everyone thinks it's this big deal. I stumbled around for years until I found the GOOD teachers and resources that got me to see how simple and elegant the whole musical language really is and I always say that if an IDIOT like me can understand music, then ANYONE can. You just need to BELIEVE and you will be on the true path. We're here to help you any way we can.
All the best, Scotty West
We all know the old saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day. Teach a man to catch fish and you feed him for a lifetime".
What's this got to do with learning to playing guitar? I was just looking at some of the other top ranked guitar lesson sites on the web and I realized that they're just "giving you a fish". Each short lesson just shows you one song ... or one riff ... or one concept ... or one finger trick. I guess you can try to learn to play guitar that way but it's gonna' take forever and you may never really wind up with a holistic, integrated vision of music ... at least not one that will allow you to do the really fun and creative stuff like songwriting and improvising.
Remember ... MUSIC IS A LANGUAGE. The guitar is just the TOOL you use to EXPRESS that language. All along I've been saying that you can't really learn to play guitar one little "sound bite" at a time. That's why we developed our Absolutely Understand Guitar course the way we did. Each DVD video guitar lesson is an hour long and TOTALLY covers a particular guitar theory subject. Our 32 video guitar lessons are also designed to be viewed in a strict order so that each concept flows into the next providing a total picture of how the entire language works. This is how you "teach a man to catch fish" in the world of guitar.
If you have that fundamental understanding of the language, you'll figure out all the details for yourself. You don't need all these dumb little video clip lessons. In fact, you'll find that they're counter productive ... giving you the impression that if you learn enough of these little finger tricks, you're somehow going to become a real musician. YEAH ... RIGHT!
Another benefit is that once you understand the language of music, you find that all these different STYLES of guitar are really much more similar than they are dissimilar. You'll realize that Country guitar ain't all that different from Metal guitar. You can believe me now or believe me later.
I also realized that a lot of these other instructors don't have "The BIG Picture" themselves. That's why they try to teach the way they do. I was watching some of these video clips and they were so full of misinformation that I was truly appalled! I saw guys routinely demonstrating techniques and concepts that were flat-out totally wrong and misleading.
I feel fortunate that I had the awesome instructors that I had ... the guys that got me to see the total picture. Chief among them was my late dear friend Dick Wetmore ... the legendary Jazz Violinist. He could play ANYTHING. You could hear that he was SPEAKING through his instrument every time he played. He's the one who taught me the relationship between THEORY and EAR TRAINING that leads to true musicianship. These are the lessons I hope to pass on to my students.
Another reason they produce these little video clip guitar lessons is that web video is still so primitive and audio/video files are so big that it isn't POSSIBLE to provide long video guitar lessons online and still maintain good image quality and resolution. That's why we're still sticking to DVD at this point. Our hour-long DVD guitar lessons have excellent video and audio quality. That's also why our lessons can be a little more expensive as well. It takes a lot of time and effort to create a course this well designed and produced.
So here's what I say ... "Teach a man a song and all he knows is that song. Teach a man how the language of music WORKS and he can figure out how to play any song he wants for the rest of his life".
And that ain't no fish story ...
All the best, Scotty West
First ... Holiday Greetings to all our loyal readers! Thanks for helping make 2008 our best year yet. Thanks also for all your positive feedback. Our staff works so hard providing the best video guitar lessons anywhere and it makes our day to hear that we have so many happy students out there. Tell all your friends!
For those of you new to our video guitar lesson program, check out our website at www.AbsolutelyUnderstandGuitar.com . We've been in business for 9 years and have sold thousands of our DVD guitar course worldwide. Believe it or not, we still retain a 100% satisfaction rate. Everybody loves the course and we're here to remind you that it makes the perfect Christmas gift for the aspiring musician.
Talk about value! You can purchase 32 hours of our world class video guitar lessons for about the same price as 3 hours of private guitar lessons ... and you'll find that Scotty is just about the best guitar teacher you'll ever find anywhere. He knows the subject inside-out and with 25 years of teaching experience, he's gotten real good at explaining the stuff so that everybody understands it. It's fun and easy.
The program comes with a comprehensive printed support material package as well ... the official course handbook, a complete scale, chord, mode, arpeggio fingering encyclopedia containing nearly every finger pattern known to man. Scotty's famous musical sliderule will show you how to spell any pitch pattern in any key!
Absolutely Understand Guitar is a complete education in guitar technique, music theory and ear training. It applies equally to all styles of music ... acoustic or electric ... and all skill levels. You can even call or email Scotty seven days a week if you have questions or need help ... no charge! Call right now if you like. Our toll free number is 866-477-9900 and our email address is auguitar@capecod.net .
We ship USPS Priority Mail (max 3 days shipping time anywhere in the country) the very day you order our course so there's still time to get it before the big day.
So have a great holiday and here's wishing you a happy, prosperous and melodious New Year! Best wishes from the whole staff here at www.AbsolutelyUnderstandGuitar.com .
Thanks to some good folks in the music business, our brave service men and women overseas will have a merrier and more melodious holiday season this year when they get a free guitar and free video music lessons.
Through an extraordinary non-profit called Operation Happy Note, a few lucky troopers will be opening up a package containing a free guitar. Along with that guitar, they’ll now have the chance to take video guitar lessons free of charge from Hyannis musician and teacher Scotty West, owner of Absolutely Understand Guitar located in Hyannis.
Since 2005, OHN has sent literally thousands of guitars, keyboards, mandolins, banjos, violins and harmonicas to troops serving all over the world. Today they have thousands more requests yet to be fulfilled. Founded by Steve and Barb Baker in their music store in Fergus Falls, MN, OHN is a volunteer organization that sends donated musical instruments to deployed service men and women around the globe.
When the Baker’s son was deployed to Iraq, Steve Baker, a veteran himself, decided to send him a guitar to help him pass the time. It made such an impact that suddenly other soldiers began requesting instruments to play as well.
OHN has become so popular that Steve and Barb now receive emails, cards and photos daily from grateful service men and women around the world who have benefited from their hard work and generosity. Many of these can be seen on their website at www.OperationHappyNote.com
This December, the deal gets even sweeter. Scotty West, creator of the Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Home Study Program is teaming up with Operation Happy Note to make his video guitar lessons available to troops all over the world free of charge. Starting this December, each guitar package that OHN ships out will contain a coupon for a free AUG guitar lesson course that troops can download directly from the internet just like downloading a video game or movie.
Scotty West has been playing guitar for 40 years and teaching private lessons for 25. He created a 32 hour-long video guitar lesson program now sold to thousands around the world. When he learned of Operation Happy Note he had an inspiration – wouldn’t it be cool if he could do his part for the troops and make his guitar lesson program available through Operation Happy Note!
"Initially, our video guitar course was only available on DVD. The cost of producing all those discs made it impossible for us to provide the program free-of-charge" says Scotty. "But now, through the magic of video download, this cuts our material costs so dramatically that we can provide the program free to OHN guitar recipients who might want to take their guitar skills a bit further.” Scotty says he’s planning to make it available to the V.A. for disabled veterans as well, hopefully along with a free OHN guitar.
"When the troops receive their guitars from Operation Happy Note, the coupon inside tells them how to get in touch with AUG and register for their free guitar lessons. They can then download the videos anywhere they have an internet connection. It's a really cool thing!"
The Absolutely Understand Guitar lesson program is a complete education in guitar technique, music theory and ear training, all in one easy-to-use package. "We're real proud of our humble little course" Scotty says. "It's kinda' my life's work. I put everything I had into it. We're thrilled by the response we've had and we’re excited to take this one step further. Everybody loves the program and we've met so many nice people through this business. Now we're proud to be able to give something back to the brave men and women in uniform who sacrifice so much for our freedom."
Scotty knows something about life in the military. He’s dedicating this initiative to his father, Lt. George D. Dickie Jr. Now 84, George was navigator in a B-24 flying with the 461st Bomb Group of the 15th Air Force stationed in Italy during World War II. After the war, he received a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and got a job at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford, CT. Says Scotty: “Dad worked in research, testing designs for many of our modern fighter jets. He loves this country and was prepared to sacrifice everything for it. He's my hero and I hope my efforts can make things go a little easier for the young men and women willing to make that same kind of sacrifice today.”
For more information, contact Steve and Barb Baker at www.OperationHappyNote.com . 218-736-5541or email them at info@operationhappynote.com . Help OHN by donating instruments, money or time to OHN. OHN is a non-profit company supported entirely by donations.
For more information about Absolutely Understand Guitar, contact Scotty West at www.AbsolutelyUnderstandGuitar.com, 866-477-9900 or via email: auguitar@capecod.net.
I Just wanted to comment on a couple of mistakes that I see parents often making when they go to purchase a guitar for their child at Christmas time.
First, be aware that guitar is a VERY difficult instrument for kids younger then say 10 years old to play. They just don't have the motor skills. I'm not saying it's impossible. If your child is TRULY motivated and focused, they can succeed with patience and practice ... but many will become discouraged because they just aren't capable of controlling the instrument at a level that SATISFIES THEMSELVES. Many are still in the "play" phase. They see themselves as "Rock Stars" up there on the stage not realizing that it takes hours and hours of work to get there.
You also have to find the right guitar EDUCATION for them. Many of the online courses (including ours) don't work well for the young kids. You probably want to get them a private teacher ... but ya' gotta' make sure you find the right one. They have to have a FUN program where the kids get to play music they like. The days of the stodgy old guy who just sticks you in the exercise book are over! You may have to search hard but you can find a good teacher if you do the leg work and ask the right questions.
The young kids may also need a 3/4 size guitar. They simply won't be able to wrap their hands around a full size guitar. Small guitars are more available and affordable than ever ... electric and acoustic. If your local music store doesn't have any, try shopping online. As you may already know, www.MusiciansFriend.com is the web's best known musical web retailer. They have a good reputation for taking care of their customers. Even if you don't buy from them, it's still a good place to research and do price comparisons.
No matter what age the child is, make sure you get them the instrument that plays the music THEY LIKE AND LISTEN TO. Don't get your child an acoustic guitar if all they listen to is Hard Rock. They'll just get discouraged and quit. Some other teachers will disagree with me on this. Some feel that you should start every kid on ACOUSTIC guitar before they play electric. Though these teachers may have some compelling arguments, I believe the overriding factor is MOTIVATION. It just ain't that much fun to play Iron Man on a folk guitar!
Make sure you get a reasonable quality instrument. Some parents try to get the cheapest instrument they can find. They say "I don't want to spend a whole lotta' money until I know that the kid is going to actually STICK WITH IT" ... and I can certainly sympathize with that ... but get them a piece-o'-junk instrument that FIGHTS them every inch of the way and you GUARANTEE that they get discouraged and quit! Be prepared to spend a minimum of $200 for a trustworthy guitar (another $100 for the amp if you go electric) and don't ever buy one from a TOY STORE. Many of these so-called instruments are UNPLAYABLE right out of the box!
Remember, if you purchase a viable instrument, it will always have a certain RESALE value. You can always sell it to the parents of the kid next door for say $75-$100 if your child looses interest ... and that certainly makes it worth it to spend the extra few bucks to give your child the BEST shot at developing a lifelong interest in music. Heck! They might even get rich and famous and buy you a house down at the beach!
Once you get them the instrument, they gotta' learn how to play it. For any kids over say 12, I might humbly suggest our Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Guitar Lesson Program on DVD as a great way to get started. Our course is very comprehensive and well organized. We'll get your aspiring guitarist off to the best possible start without bad habits or confusion ... all for a FRACTION of the cost of private lessons. We also have the absolute BEST STUDENT SUPPORT in the industry. Kids can call me anytime toll free or email me if they need help ... NO CHARGE! I don't know any other program that offers that. Check us out at www.AbsolutelyUnderstandGuitar.com .
From Scotty, Kathy, Geof and all of us at AUG ... have a great holiday season!
Over the years, I've observed that a lot of my beginner students don't take enough time to tune their guitars thoroughly. They tend to view the process as a nuisance and they blast through it as quick as possible so they can get on to actually playing, often leaving the guitar less than properly tuned. You might want to consider the fact that you're just working against yourself this way. Here's why.
It's much more FUN and SATISFYING to play a guitar that's properly tuned. That's just the way it is. Our modern guitars are very precise and well designed instruments. They are capable of producing the most incredibly sonorous tones ... but this will only occur if the guitar is brought into "focus" by tuning it with the precision it requires.
I think many beginner guitar students just can't tell what they're missing when they do a less-than-perfect job of tuning. They say "Sounds good to me" not realizing that a couple of more minutes tuning would have made the guitar sound that much better. On a subconscious level, your brain might be going "This doesn't sound as good as I want it to". I think many young guitarists then blame their PLAYING for the problem when it's simply a tuning issue. It wouldn't surprise me to find that certain aspiring guitar players have actually GIVEN UP the guitar for this reason! What a shame!
Back in the old days, we all had to tune our guitars by ear. This was problematic because beginners are rarely able to actually do that well. When I first started playing guitar, my ears were good enough to tell me that I was OUT of tune, but they weren't quite good enough to tell me what I had to do to CORRECT my tuning. I remember sometimes spending like 20 minutes trying to get the stupid guitar in tune ... by which time I was so frustrated, I didn't even want to play it anymore.
Nowadays, we have these wonderful electronic guitar tuners and I recommend that all of my guitar students get one. You can tune your guitar perfectly in like 30 seconds and go on to the joy of playing a properly tuned instrument. Some guitar lesson programs and teachers still contend that you should tune your guitar by ear ... but I disagree. All professional guitar players use tuners now. Why wouldn't you? It does a BETTER job in LESS TIME. Certainly you might want to EXPERIMENT with tuning your guitar by ear just to see what it's like ... in case your tuner dies in the middle of a gig. Otherwise, save yourself the hassle. Use a tuner.
Some folks contend that they can tune their guitar BETTER by ear. Indeed that might APPEARto be true in certain situations. But that's only an illusion in ways that are too complicated for me to explain (involving TEMPERAMENT) in this short post. I might actually contend that if you COULD tune your guitar better by ear, there might actually be SOMETHING WRONG with your guitar (poor INTONATION) and you might want to have your local guitar tech adjust your instrument.
Simply using a tuner doesn't guarantee that you'll tune your guitar perfectly. You have to use the tuner CORRECTLY. Pluck the strings the same way you would when you're actually playing ... not stronger or weaker. Dial it in as precisely as you possibly can. Take those extra few seconds. Don't be sloppy with it.
You'll need to go through the strings several times. You'll come to understand that the tuning of ONE string might ALTER THE TUNING OF YOUR OTHER 5 STRINGS (particularly on guitars that have a "floating" tremolo system). When you start over after finishingtuning your 6th string, you might notice that the first strings you tuned have gone back out again. I would suggest that you keep going through ALL your strings until you can go through them without having to make changes to ANY of them ... and this could be as many as say 10 times!
Also, tuning a guitar is a moment-by-moment thing. You really can't count on your guitar staying in tune for any significant period of time. Sometimes a new student will ask me "Why do I need to tune my guitar? You tuned it for me last week". I point out to them that their guitar probably went a little out of tune bouncing around in the car on the way home from their guitar lesson!
Your guitar strings are constantly stretching. The act of PLAYING the string can cause it to slip. Make sure your tuning machines, neck bolts and bridge parts are all correctly tightened down to keep them from moving around.
Certainly you want to tune up whenever you sit down to play your guitar, and I would recommend checking it every few minutes. When I'm performing, I check my tuning in between EACH SONG WE PLAY. I have a way to shut off my sound so that the audience can't hear me and I'll quickly check it while they're applauding and we're introducing the next tune.
There are many different tuners you could consider buying. I suggest you get a CHROMATIC tuner instead of a plain ol' GUITAR tuner. Chromatic tuners can tune all 12 notes which you will need when performing songs with ALTERED TUNINGS and these are more common than you might think.
Guitar tuners have different features that account for price differences. If you're performing AMPLIFIED, you might want a tuner that you can plug the guitar directly into. This bypasses the built-in microphone so the tuner won't be confused by other noise in the room. Many tuners also have an OUTPUT jack so you can connect a second cable out to your amp. This way you can simply leave it plugged into your signal chain the whole time. Your guitar plays right through the tuner into the amp.
Tuners with these features can be expensive. If you're looking for a nice little tuner to use at home, I recommend a KORG CA-30 CHROMATIC TUNER. These should be available at any reputable music store or online for about $20. Don't settle for less.
So tune that guitar correctly. It's worth the few extra minutes. You'll be rewarded with a much more satisfying musical experience. You'll thank yourself ... and so will your AUDIENCE! ;o)
All the best, Scotty West
Greetings fellow guitar players,
I'm constantly amazed by how much misinformation there is out there about the use of scales in guitar solos. I'm often disappointed by how the main stream guitar instruction magazines often promote and perpetuate these misconceptions in their guitar lessons, attempting to make soloing look easier than it actually is. Most online guitar lesson and music theory instruction programs also fail to provide their students with a clear understanding of this fascinating subject. This does guitar students a grave disservice and makes learning to play guitar much more confusing.
Here's the problem. Many guitar lesson venues will try to convince you that the guitar solo in any given song is based on ONE PARTICULAR SCALE. There are some (but only some) songs that CAN be viewed this way, but it is not a particularly useful or enlightened vision ... and there are other songs that totally defy this line of reasoning (chord progressions that contain a KEY CHANGE for example). Many of you have been disappointed by guitar solos that you tried to create using this line of reasoning.
The truth is there is a SEPARATE SCALE FOR EACH CHORD IN THE SOLO. If you think about it, how could it be any other way? If they tell you that the guitar solo is based on a MAJOR scale, how is this going to work when the chord progression contains a MINOR chord? Shouldn't we be playing a minor scale when that minor chord comes around? The answer is YES ... though many of you are going to have a hard time believing it. You might say "well I know there could be better guitar solos than the one I just played, but all-in-all I think I did pretty good using that one scale". The point is, to REALIZE those better solos, you might have to change your thinking and embrace this more enlightened understanding of the process of improvisation.
Here's the really funny thing. YOU'RE ALREADY PLAYING ALL THESE DIFFERENT SCALES. You just don't know it yet and so you're unable to control your guitar solo the way you might like. This is what the true understanding of MODES will help you see. The same set of notes actually IS SEVERAL DIFFERENT SCALES depending on which note in the set is working as the ROOT. The other notes in the set are FUNCTIONING differently depending on which chord you are playing them over! Understanding and controlling these shifting relationships is what can take you to the next level in your quest for better guitar solos.
Have you ever heard of the MIXOLYDIAN MODE? You might say "Yes ... but I don't know what it really is and I don't know how to use it". The funny thing is YOU ARE ALREADY PLAYING IT. In fact, you'll hardly ever play a song that doesn't have Mixolydian in it! It just might be the 2nd MOST COMMON SCALE IN ALL OF WESTERN MUSIC yet most of us don't really know about it. This is just one example.
Many of you might be surprised to find that the process of becoming a better guitar soloist is a bit more complicated than you thought. There is an extended list of guitar scales that you need to have a grasp of. In my video guitar lesson program, I have what I call the "MUST KNOW LIST" of scales and there are 17 scales on that list. If the chord progression you are soloing over contains 5 chords, you will be using 5 of those scales in that very song!
So there are more guitar scales to learn and ultimately we have to EAR TRAIN all of them ... but the results are very real. With this deeper understanding, there is no reason to believe that you couldn't solo as well or better than any of your great guitar heroes. I'm totally serious!
Once again I might humbly suggest our Absolutely Understand Guitar Video Home Study Program as a great way to learn this stuff. It's one of my specialties. I've been explaining this concept to guitar students for 25 years and have gotten it down to a science. Nobody has trouble understanding this stuff the way we present it. Check it out at http://www.AbsolutelyUnderstandGuitar.com/ ... and you can call or email me anytime if you need help. Our toll free number is 866-477-9900.
Continued good luck with your music! All the best, Scotty West
Greetings,
Now that so many school systems have dropped music and art education due to budget constraints, young guitar students are at a terrible disadvantage when trying to put the music they listen to into some kind of historical framework. Though, in my view, public school systems rarely did a very good job at it, at least they provided music history and appreciation classes that gave guitar students some sense of how the art form has evolved over time. Without that, we are often left with a rather narrow vision of music and many students are totally unaware of artists and styles that fall outside of what they hear on the mainstream web and commercial radio stations.
My guitar students ask me "so where can I go to hear these other forms of music? I turn on my radio and all I hear is the mainstream stuff". Well, there are a few bright spots out there in veil of mediocrity. A few posts back I told you about Pandora.com ... a site where you can set up your own web "radio" feed built around a particular artist or style like jazz guitar or jazz piano. They will then feed you music by that artist, but also from other musicians who's styles are similar. It's a great way to discover new guitar players.
I have another suggestion as well. Actually, I've been recommending this option for decades but just recently I've been researching improvements in this venue. I'm speaking of our venerable NPR radio network as a way to supplement your ear training.
NPR (National Public Radio) is a radio network funded by government grants and donations from listeners. It is non-commercial so not so tied to the corporate music mill. They genuinely see themselves as educators and so you are going to hear music here that you won't find anywhere else. They play primarily "fine art" music (as opposed to popular music) ... that is what might be loosely labeled as Classical and Jazz. It's not that they don't like or appreciate pop music. It's more that they figure you can get that stuff from any number of other sources.
You might hate to hear this, but I have come to believe that ALL TASTE IS ACQUIRED. You were not born to like the music you enjoy. You were SOCIALIZED into it. You like first what you're EXPOSED to ... what your peer group listens to ... what the media ALLOWS you to experience. It can take courage and deliberation to rise above the confines of your own preferences. But I say, if you aspire to becoming a REAL artist, you owe it to yourself to investigate other forms of musical expression. You never know what you'll find. Heavy Metal guitar players can learn from Classical musicians. Just look at Yngwie Malmsteen! Pop musicians learn from Jazz players ... Sting and Steely Dan for example.
Love it or hate it, Classical and Jazz music tends to attract the true genius level musicians of the era. Let's face it. Free your mind and answer the question honestly. What can you REALLY do more with ... a 50 piece orchestra or a 5 piece Rock band? With it's layers of complexity, Jazz improvisers routinely create melodies that your average Pop player can't even imagine.
If you don't like these styles, it might simply be that you haven't been EXPOSED to them enough to begin to develop an appreciation. Sometimes new modes of expression can be disorienting and intimidating at first. You're not going to like everything you hear right out of the box. But allowing yourself to experience these new artists and compositions is the very thing that helps you GROW as an artist yourself.
These are the styles that NPR stations tend to play. In their rolls as educators, they tend to air more EXPERIMENTAL forms. Commercial Classical and Jazz stations play only the safe stuff like Beethoven and Lois Armstrong. NPR stations will play those as well ... but also more avante garde artists like John Cage and Anthony Braxton. Prepare to have your mind totally blown. You may find you know almost nothing about where the cutting edge of the "art of noise" has gone in the 20th and 21st centuries!
My wife and I live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. We are fortunate to live within broadcast range of one of the flagship stations of the entire NPR network ... WGBH radio 89.7 FM in Boston. Many of the fine programming that airs on NPR stations word wide originates right here at WGBH ... breakthrough programming like "Classical Performances" with Richard Nisely and "Eric In The Evening" with Jazz maven Eric Jackson. I've been listening to this station for about 30 years now and have gained what might be equivalent to a Masters Degree eduction in music just by tuning in.
Many of these shows feature LIVE PERFORMANCES by world class artists who stop by WGBH's million dollar studio when they're in Boston to perform! The hosts interview the artists live. You learn about their music ... their aesthetic philosophy ... their instruments ... their influences ... their lives as performing artists. Name one other venue where you can hear the likes of John Scofield or Pat Metheny play live for you right on your radio! They also broadcast Boston Symphony and Boston Pops concerts LIVE!
Now with STREAMING AUDIO on the web, anybody can listen to WGBH no matter where in the world you live! Simply visit http://64.71.145.107/online/play.php?xml=897.xml , sit back and enjoy. Prepare to have your musical horizons stretched beyond your wildest dreams. No matter what styles you want to play, you'll pick up all kinds of new ideas to bring to your own music.
Much more guitar instruction information can be found on our website www.absolutelyunderstandguitar.com .
All the best,
Scotty West