Slash evidently has a new album coming out on April 6th called Slash and Friends.  I first heard about this on the Music for Relief site when the initial news about Haiti was trickling in.  Several artists were asked to donate a pre-recorded, but yet to be released song to be included on an album – the proceeds of which went to Haiti relief efforts.  Slash contributed the song Mother Maria - which was recorded during the Slash and Friends sessions but will not make it to the album.  This is an amazing song.

I had lunch with a friend today and we started talking about mix tapes.  Think back to high school, and tapes – pre-CD, pre-iPod…yeah those ones.  He told me about this site where a fella makes virtual mix tapes to share with his friends.  The we started talking about categories of mix tapes – “Alphabet Blues” (one blues song that starts with each letter of the alphabet, for a 26 track mix tape, etc.  I got inspired so I present you with 8 Colors.  Obviously I did not perform these songs, all I did was mix them…

brown eyed blues: ben harper
red wine success: cold war kids
burnt orange peel: beck
yellowle dbetter: pearl jam
another kind of green: john mayer trio
when the stars go blue: ryan adams
purple haze: jimi hendrix
black: pete yorn
*bonus

apparently it’s now time to get rhythmic in my musical journey – 12 Bar blues is one of the most popular “formulas” for chord progression in modern music.  At its most basic it is simply the I, IV and V chords in a key (1, 4, 5).  For example, in the key of G we have the following notes.

So to play 12 Bar Blues in G, we’ll play G, C, D. The basic pattern would be

Or in our case of playing in the key of G, the notes would be.

I am a computer geek by trade, so I like patterns – they make my brain happy so here’s something else that’s nice about 12 Bar Blues on the guitar.  If you play it in basic barre chords the example above would look like this (in it’s most basic, stripped down format).

|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
|--5-5-5-5--|
|--3-3-3-3--|

|-----------|
|-----------|
|-----------|
|--5-5------|
|--3-3-5-5--|
|------3-3--|

|-----------|
|-----------|
|--7-----7--|
|--5-5---5--|
|----3-5----|
|------3----|

Why is that cool?  Because it’s a movable format.  Find any note on the low E string (nice diagram here) and you can use that as your starting note in the key or your I note.  Keep your finger position the same but move the root note down a string to the A string for the IV note.  Then move your hand position up 2 frets and you’ll find your V note.  Pretty cool, very simple.

I recently rented and watched the documentary video It Might Get Loud featuring The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White – I don’t have words to convey how amazing I felt the experience was.  If you like the guitar or even just like music – this is an inspiring 90 minutes – do yourself a favor and check it out.

This is less of a lesson – more of a stream of consicousness – it took me a while to wrap my head around this lesson – so you, the reader are made to suffer too… sorry about that.

The basis of most western music is the C major scale (also called the Ionian scale)

C D E F G A B C
1  2  3  4  5 6  7 8

Major scales follow the pattern of
Full Step | Full Step | half step | Full Step | Full Step | Full Step | half step | Full Step

Chord formula for Major Chords 1, 3, 5 – so if we take the C scale above and extract the 1, 3 and 5 notes we end up with C E G – the notes that make up a standard C Major chord

A major 7 adds in the 7th note – so for the above example the B is also added bringing the chord to C E G B

Wow I am not sure where to start on this one – we covered a bunch of stuff tonight, I’ve really got my work cut out for me. I guess I will start with pentatonic scales since that is the bulk of what we covered. There are really only 5 shapes that cover all pentatonic scales – learning them will be the tough part.

Tonight we covered starting with an E root note for the scales – acknowledging that simply shifting the root note up or down the neck totally changes what scale you’re playing – and based on where you start the shape changes weather it is a Major or Minor Pentatonic…fun stuff even though a bit heady.

so 5 shapes.

Shape One: (for the E pentatonic the root notes on this are simply the open strings)

Shape 2:

Shape 3:

Shape 4:

Shape 5:

The sixth shape to complete the octave is really just the first shape played again.

A couple of noteworthy things here.

1. The back notes of one pentatonic are the front notes of the previous – they all fit together much like a puzzle (a really really complicated puzzle)
2. Here’s where it gets really heady – the root note separates the major from the minor so on shape one for example – playing the open E string first makes the scale an E Minor Pentatonic – Playing the G note on the E string (3rd fret) first makes it an E major pentatonic

We also dealt with writing the scales out tonight – all 12 of them – but I need to wrap my head around that one a bit more before I dive into trying to”explain” it.  So stay tuned for the “Guitar Lesson 3a” post.

Ran across

this link after posting – worth checking out.

This week I am to build on the C-Major Scale that we addressed last week.  Last week was to be played in quarter, half, and full notes – this week we add eighth notes via “perfect alternate picking”.  The pick is to continually move up and down – never up twice – never down twice.  By the end of the week, I should be able to tap my foot, keep rhythm and have the pick move up as my foot moves up – the pick move down as my foot moves down.  Sounds easy…it’s not!

In addition we covered the G Major Pentatonic scale:

|----------------------0-3--|
|------------------0-3------|
|--------------0-2----------|
|----------0-2--------------|
|------0-2------------------|
|--0-3----------------------|

And how based on which root note is started with (the 0 or 3 on the low E string) this pattern can either be a G Major Pentatonic or an E minor pentatonic scale. I believe that it has to do with the notes that are played and how they correspond to the notes played within the chord (G Major or E minor). I will find out next week for sure.

Tonight I had the privilege of seeing Grammy Nominated artist, the Zac Brown Band and their Breaking Southern Ground tour perform for the KYGO Christmas Show at The Fillmore Auditorium in Denver….

Initially, I figured I’d post a review and set list here – but after seeing this show, that really wouldn’t do it justice.  This was hands down, the best show I have seen in a really LONG time – possibly ever.  The Zac Brown band is a roving cast of characters who all play multiple instruments at times there were as many as 12 people on stage, once as few as four.  Each artist is a master of their instrument – many are also fantastic vocalists.

Somehow, as a group they manage to blend this musical perfection with the ambiance of a house party.  I felt like I was Zac’s personal guest, invited to witness he and his friends having a good time.  We might as well have been hanging out in his living room with a keg in the corner.

The Zac Brown Band is definitely the draw, but the show is called the Breaking Southern Ground tour.  As such there really isn’t an opening act, but more like guests that show up to play.  Sometimes they play alone, sometimes with members of the ZBB, sometimes as part of the whole ensemble.  Tonight’s first musician was a guy named Levi Lowrey, a big bearded dude who, as Zac put it, has a gift for taking the most awful situation and making it sound good in a song.  His tune “All American” was my personal favorite – thumbing its nose at anything politically correct.

Next a lady named Sonia Leigh played – she’s hard to classify.  If you were to take some Tanya Tucker, mix in some Sheryl Crow and a bit of the Cowboy Junkies, you might get close.  She’s an amazing song writer and some of her writing will evidently appear on the upcoming ZBB album.

The last “opener” was a guy named Nic Cowan who’s evidently a Texan who’s been transplanted to Georgia.  Nic has a funky beat maybe a bit G Lovish.

Any of these amazing musicians’ sets would have been well worth the price of admission but the show had barely started.

ZBB rocked it – every song was near perfection even though Zac was recovering from a cold and apologized several times for the state of his voice.  Notable highlights included (but weren’t limited to) Free, Into the Mystic, The Devil went Down to Georgia, The Night They Burned Ol’ Dixie Down, Who Knows and Toes.

For anyone who has heard the song Chicken Fried and decided that you weren’t interested in ZBB because they are a “country band” – you’re really missing out.  That song sounds country, this band is not.  I felt like I was at a Widespread show, with fewer dirty hippies.  If you get a chance, check out these bands – you won’t be disappointed.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the ‘net over the past month or so reading, watching, and listening to tutorials on how to play the guitar.  I though that I’d post these “How to play the guitar” links for others out there that may be searching.  Let me know what you think.

Videos

Marty Schwartz from Guitarjams.com has a great channel on Youtube.  He goes over how to play songs of all levels and he updates frequently.  Check him out here.

Aaron Gallagher is almost entirely self taught (and he’s not even been playing all that long) he runs a great site called Free and Easy Guitar that has a HUGE how to video library.  Pick a song from the drop down list, and Aaron will teach you how to play it.

Justin Sandercoe is a London based guitarist who runs the site justinguitar.com.  His site differs from the others in that he has highly structured lessons that you can follow along with.  The site is donation based.  I’ve been spending a good bit of time making my way through his Basics Course.

I also just stumbled upon a site called Guitar Noise.  I’ve not used it too much yet, but it has many tutorials as well as guitar related news.

Tabs

The best site i have found for guitar tabs is hands down Ultimate Guitar their index seems to be near bottomless, so much so that I feel no need to reference any other.

Other Resources

• Online metronome
• Guitar Scales & More Scales
• Guitar chords & More Chords
• All about the fret board

And just to humble everyone out there – remember kids – John Mayer plays better than you with only one hand.

My first guitar lesson was last night.  I am getting over my issues with taking a “class”, having “homework”, and feeling like a dork since I have no earthly idea why I want to play the guitar in the first place.  – Enough about all of that, done venting.

So obviously the best place to start any journey is at the beginning – and I am not very good so baby steps suit me just fine.  Last night we went over the C Major Scale

|------------------------------0-1-3--|
|------------------------0-1-3--------|
|--------------------0-2--------------|
|--------------0-2-3------------------|
|--------0-2-3------------------------|
|--0-1-3------------------------------|

My challenge this week is to:

1. learn the scale (doing alright on this)
2. learn to play it on the whole, half & quarter notes
3. learn to play it to a metronome – optional (who are we kidding – - I’ll make myself do this)