Posts Tagged ‘guitar’

In his youth he played on street corners for dimes and pennies! He was born on 16 September, 1925 on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. He spent his youth playing on street corners for dimes. Today B.B. King (Riley B. King) averages 250 ‘packed to the rafters’ concerts around the world each and every year.

In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, Tennessee to pursue his music career and it is first love. His first major break came in 1948 when he performed on Sonny Boy Williamson’s radio broadcast. As the years well by, King has developed one of the world’s most identifiable guitar styles.

He borrowed from Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and others, incorporating his distinct and complex voice-like string blends and his left-handed vibrato, both of which have become vital components of a blues guitarist’s vocabulary. His economy, his every-note-counts phrasing, has been a model for thousands of players from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Jeff Beck.

Soon after his number one hit, “Three O’Clock Blues,” B.B. began touring nationally. In 1956, B.B. and his band played an astonishing 342 one-night stands. From the chitlin circuit with its small-town cafes, juke joints, and country dance halls to rock palaces, symphony concert halls, universities, resort hotels and amphitheaters, nationally and internationally, B.B. has become the most renowned blues musician of the past 40 years.

In the mid-1950s, two men got into a fight during one of King’s performances. The men knocked over a kerosene stove and set fire to the venue. King raced outdoors to safety and then realised he’d left his beloved acoustic guitar behind. He rushed back in to retrieve it and almost lost his life. He found out later that the fight had been over a woman.

He named his guitar Lucille to remind him to never do a mad thing like engaging in physical fights for a woman. Ever since, each and every single one of King’s guitars has been called Lucille. Does your guitar have a name?

Pinch Harmonic

“Pinch harmonic is a typical guitar scream. It is frequently played by the guitar players to rip into the solo and to play one or more notes that just scream and sound amazing. The principles remain the same but this time all the action depends on how you pick the string.

While playing the pinch harmonic guitar player not only picks note as normal, but also lets his thumb brush up against the note precisely after he picks it. The thumb is setting up the node of the “harmonic” and forcing the strings to vibrate with the desired harmonic series. If you crank the gain and treble up, after employing the technique in proper way, you will always get a screaming harmonic of some kind.

As with other harmonics you require to fine tune the exact position you are utilizing to hit the melodic point, and you can even switch between different harmonic types in between tones. Since Pinch Harmonics are executed near the bridge, we are choosing from the higher harmonics, so we acquire high notes. Some higher harmonics also include disharmonious components, adding to the scream. A lot of the possibilities are here within a small space – we get more because the guitar is artificially sensitive to the higher order harmonics as be having upped the gain a lot.

Tap Harmonic

A “Tap Harmonic” is just like an “Artificial Harmonic”; the divergence between them is that the “tap harmonic” uses a single action- to do a tap, instead of separately touching and pulling the string. For this you need to tap the string softly so that it very briefly strikes the fret underneath it and remove your finger very quickly. The tap puts the string in vibration and at the same time creates the node in the right place – so of course you need to tap the string at the right place essential to set up the “harmonic” you want.

Whammy Bar Harmonics

Ultimately, the “Whammy Bar Harmonic” is akin to the “tap harmonic”, the only difference is that while playing “tap harmonic” you select very high order harmonics, and there is no fret beneath the exact point you need to strike, therefore, you require to practice a whipping action to set the string vibrating and deaden it in the accurate spot to set up the desirable node. That is why; “whammy harmonics” are about the most challenging “harmonic” technique. A good point to do this is on the G string between the 2nd and 3rd frets – depending on the right position you whip. In this way, you can get 3 or 4 different harmonic series. Simply remember that before you whip, push your whammy bar down, and after the tap release it and add a few vibrato – with this technique you can find some crazy screams.

You should know the few fundamentals about the guitar, and the first step in is the understanding of notes that is the basis of music. The next step is to have knowledge about musical scales. The problem is that when some individuals are presented with musical scales for the first time, and they are being asked to play variations of these musical scales, it can become a discouraging undertaking. In this article we are going to explore some of the reasons for the existence of musical scales, and why we focus on them so greatly.

what are Musical Scales? A Technical View

We can construct music out of 12 possible notes because we have only 12 possible notes. Western music has evolved such rules which describe how and when you can use these notes together. Although this is merely convention, but by practicing these principles you will immediately find that something is improper or unique instead of hearing the various general musical scales you hear commonly when you do not apply these rules. No proper information is written in stone about the mode these things are devised, but we are all so used to hearing music from an early age that incorporates these principles that we don’t even think about the alternatives until we start to study musical theory in depth.

If you want to play western style music and be a great guitarist, you are in need to understand these principles. A noteworthy part of these rules and conventions is the musical scales we use.

What is a scale? It is basically a sequence of tones, picked out from the 12 available, that work out together to give an effect to the music. You can describe individual scales in a better way as a list of gaps between the notes. Half notes or Whole notes are denoted by the term Tone or Semitone which give the pattern of utilizing their basic letters, T and S.

Some people utilise Half and Whole (W, H) to denote the gaps, and other manner is to list the number of semitones (1 or 2). Either way is taken, these three are same or all impart the gaps for the leading scale:

1. T T S T T T S 2. W W H W W W H 3. 2 2 1 2 2 2 1

Let us see, how this acts. Pick up a musical scale at random – G# major. This step tells two things. First, our root note is G#. Second, we will be using the Major scale rule to work out the notes.

Therefore, we start with our G# note, and add the basic step of the rule which is a T, meaning a Tone. Thus, starting with G # and moving up a tone or two half notes puts us onto A#:

G# + T = A#

Next, we start with A#, and look at the next alphabetic character in the rule – its a Tone once again, so we add 2 half notes to A#, to give us a C:

A# + T = C

Next, we start with a C and find out the formula – now it is a semitone, which takes us to C#:

C + S = C#

If we continue with this we get the following:

C# + T = D# D# + T = F (remember nothing is like an E#) F + T = G G + S = G#

So, we have built up our scale of G# major according to our major scale pattern to get the notes:

G# A# C C# D# F G

Mostly, the scales we use have 7 notes in them but that is not an essential pattern. For example, the minor pentatonic scale only has 5 notes in it (its formula is 3 2 2 3 2 – I used numbers here instead of T and S because it has a few Tone and a half leaps, which is 3 half notes, and that is more easily written down as a 3 instead of something like “T + 1/2″, but it all signifies the same thing). Some scales have more notes, for instance the chromatic musical scale has all 12 notes in it.

So in this way the scales work! The pattern depicts them and we pick whichever root note we want to create. The next step is to convert these notes into a formula so that we can play it.

So you have understood the 12-bar blues or at least the concept of it and you would like to push your blues playing to higher grounds.

Well your in luck my friend!

The better way to invigorate up your playing is to learn the blues shuffle rhythm. I am not sure where the name derives from, but the shuffle is a term used to identify the break down of a beat into 2 components where the first is lengthier than the second.

The blues shuffle rhythm is founded on an eighth note triplet rhythm. A triplet is when you use 3 notes in a given time space instead of two. In a standard 4/4 time signature where there is four quarter notes the eighth notes would be counted as…

1-&-2-&-3-&-4-& … where the &’s are the eighth notes between each quarter. to fill the same time signature with eighth note triplets we’d count as…

1-trip-let-2-trip-let-3-trip-let-4-trip-let … where the trip’s and let’s are eighth notes amounting up to 3 per quarter note. So basically…

1-& = 1-trip-let

The blues shuffle is achieved by playing the first and third notes in a series of triplets. So if the count is…

1-trip-let-2-trip-let-3-trip-let-4-trip-let … then you will be playing on all the down-beats or numbers and the let’s. I have bolded the notes you should be striking to better illustrate.

1-trip-let-2-trip-let-3-trip-let-4-trip-let.

To hear what the shuffle rhythm really sounds like try listening to Led Zeppelin’s – You Shook Me or Grateful Dead’s – Truckin

I hope this has cleared up any confusion you may have been having about the blues shuffle rhythm

When you’ve made the purchase of a guitar for the first time, you might get ready to practice with lots of gusto, but suddenly, you give up. Why? This is such a common event that plays over and over again with frustrated guitarists who are just beginning.

Frustration can sometimes get the best of us when we expect things to go smoothly like learning the guitar, but sometimes it’s more helpful to pinpoint the reason of our failures. Check out these reasons why you might lose your guitar motivation and stop playing.

1. There are not enough hours in a day. With all of the obligations of working and taking care of a family, learning a new talent like playing the guitar can seem like a hassle. However, fitting in even the smallest amount of time like ten minutes per day can stir up a sudden drive that might motivate you to continue even more.

2. Your goals don’t exist. Some of the most powerful and successful individuals on Earth have reached their current status from the constant execution towards their goals. If you have a personal motivational guitar goal that you set for yourself, you’ll be creating a mental obligation that will drive you to completion of the task at hand.

3. Your goals are not reasonable. You might have set goals, but it’s even more detrimental if those goals ask too much of your abilities. Set goals that are small and sequential so you can gain a little gratification each time you reach one that will motivate you to set yet another.

4. You don’t play what you want. Getting real enjoyment from playing the guitar is what you want to achieve, but it can be difficult if you’re forced to do dull scales and practice riffs. Remember to give yourself time to just mess around and play fun songs as opposed to constantly working on new skills for improvement.

5. You don’t write your goals down. It’s great if you take the time to make some goals, but writing them down is a powerful way to ingrain them in your head. Motivate yourself to play more by making a personal contract on paper and signing it as a promise to continue on the guitar.

6. You’re afraid of failing. Even with something like playing the guitar, the fear of failure is very high, but you need to look past that fear and realize the task at hand for what it really is. Learning the guitar is a small project that you can take at any pace you want and you virtually have nothing to lose by trying.

There are a lot of things that can stand in your way of learning the guitar and that’s why it might be hard to pick up the instrument again. But, if you learn to throw away your assumptions of how you’ll perform and work at your own pace, you can achieve any success you want and gain back some of your guitar motivation.

When it comes time to buy a good guitar, it’s hard to know what guitars are good from all of the new brands that are popping up to buy. All these guitars vary in manufacturer, style, tone, and a number of other good things to pay attention to.

If you’re not critical in your inspections of a guitar, you might not get your hands on a very good one to say the least. Look over these important tips about a guitar’s quality and you can make a better decision when you discover a guitar to buy.

1. The guitar neck has no gaps between it and the body. If you notice that when you play the guitar that the length of sustain in each note seems to be cutting short, there may be a small gap between the neck and body. Buy guitars that have virtually no gaps between any of its parts to ensure longer sustain and a higher quality of tone.

2. There’s a natural curve in the guitar neck. When putting on guitar strings, the guitar begins to develop a natural curving motion that serves the instrument in a good way. If the guitar you’re looking to buy doesn’t have this natural curve, there may be some very slight string vibration issues.

3. Don’t let the guitar hardware jiggle around. A good guitar is made so that all of its pieces fit together securely and that includes the hardware. Make sure that your guitar’s hardware is fastened securely and is in no danger of coming loose or falling off.

4. You can’t have your cable slipping out of the jack. Once you find that good guitar, you can’t have your cable falling out of the jack when you’re moving around on stage in front of the entire crowd. See that your guitar cables stay snug in the jack by wiggling them around and giving them short tugs to test its resilience.

5. Don’t stand for tuning pegs that don’t tune. Have you ever had to turn the tuning pegs a couple rotations before they actually grabbed the string and started affecting the pitch. Don’t settle for tuning pegs that have play in the rotations if you want to ensure your guitar stays in tune longer.

6. It sounds good. Don’t forget after all of this visual and physical inspection that you want your guitar to sound good. Buy a guitar for its well-made construction, but mostly for its awesome and dependable tone.

It’s best to do a very thorough inspection of a guitar before you buy because you don’t want to get stuck with a piece of junk. Put these tips to some good use and make sure the next guitar you go to buy is a good one.