Part seven: Return of the acoustic and getting in rhythm

Leaning to play the guitar has led me to rediscovering music again. I am listening to all the old guitar music I used to listen to again – Blur, Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, Supergrass, The Charlatans, and I am discovering for myself the brilliance of some of the music that I missed out on – Nirvana, R.E.M., Leadbelly and folk music. I am buying music for the first time in nearly a decade, and it’s a great feeling. My most recent purchase is the 10-year anniversary edition of Everything Must Go by Manic Street Preachers. 

Originally release in 1996, it was re-released 6 years ago and comes with all the B-sides, demos, alternative recordings and live versions from that album. As far as tunes go, it is by far the best Manics album, and it’s incredible to think that it was released 16 years ago. Someone who was a 16-year old listening to that album in 1996 is now legally old enough to be a grandfather. Where do the years go?

 

My seventh lesson with Max went quite well. I played Gene Smith fairly cleanly, if albeit slower than the 116bpm of the song. I was then shown a more recent Rock School grade one piece – Gotta Lotta Rosa by Joe Bennet, and went through the A and E minor pentatonic scales. I was then shown Can’t Buy Me Love by The Beatles, as it’s a good song for practising strumming patterns and chord changes.  I don’t think it’s possible to really learn the guitar without playing Beatles songs, considering the massive influence Lennon and McCartney’s songs have had on guitar music over the last 60-odd years. It’s like avoiding learning the blues – it’s impossible, and nor would you want to.

Can’t Buy Me Love is a good song for practising strumming a chord changes. Other than D minor, I knew and could play all the chords already – E minor, A minor, D minor, G major, C major, F major. The rhythm – down, down, up, down, up, down, up, is easy to pick up, the hard bit of course is the chord changes. The chord changes on the final and beat of the bar – the final up stroke. I can play the song quite slowly, it sounds quite nice but nothing like the song. It’s good for practising though and I’ll keep at it.

I found Gotta Lotta Rosa easier to play. It’s some simple strumming of A, D, D sus 4, and C chords, plus some simple lead guitar on the bottom three strings – E, A, and D.  It’s a rock style song so sounds good plugged in with some gain (distortion) on the amplifier. I’ve played it quite a lot like this and when I play it unplugged it sounds a lot weaker. An unplugged electric guitar is good to start with when you can’t play anything, but when you can play just a little bit, it is much better to be amplified so you can really hear the notes and chords that you’re playing.

VIDEO: Gotta Lotta Rosa. My playing actually sounds very similar to this!

I felt adventurous so got my acoustic out again and played some traditional folk songs. After a couple of hours of playing I found that my fingers really hurt. This is not just because the action of the guitar is higher than my electric, but also because the strings are thicker. The bottom E string on my acoustic looks about twice as thick as the one on my electric. But I didn’t give up this time and I have found that it doesn’t hurt as much when I play my acoustic now. It has also improved my playing – I am plucking notes cleaner and starting to get a real feeling of rhythm when I play. I look at the tab for some traditional songs and find myself adding my own rhythm (up and down strumming) without really thinking about it.

My traditional acoustic folk guitar repertoire now consists of the American National Anthem, Scarborough Fair, When the Saints Go Marching In, Yankee Doodle, Amazing Grace, You are My Sunshine, Camptown Races, Silent Night, and Waltzing Matilda. Add in my previously learnt Three Blind Mice, Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday, Danny Boy, Down in the Valley and Red River Valley, and that’s an album’s worth of traditional songs. I spend about half my practise time playing those 15 songs on my acoustic guitar and the other half playing the last few weeks pieces from Max. Yankee Doodle is really good for rhythm, and as I said, I am now alternate picking without thinking too much about it.

My guitar music re-education has continued with the purchase of the classic Urban Hymns by The Verve and Noel Gallagher’s excellent High Flying Birds solo album. Both are great. All in all, it’s been a good week guitar-wise.

Lessons learnt: D minor chord, better alternate picking, acoustic guitar playing, some folk songs

Part Six: Plugging in and getting in time

Returning to my electric was like seeing an old friend: comfortable, easy and with a lot of memories.  My Encore E-2 blaster (cheap but beautiful Telecaster rip-off) is starting to get a bit worn with some of the sunburst lacquer coming off the bottom, but for me this just adds to the charm, like a well-loved child’s toy. It was also much easier to play than the acoustic and I decided to stick with it for a good while yet.

In that week’s lesson I struggled with the syncopation piece and most of the lesson was Max showing me to how to play it properly. I was also given a Rock School grade one piece to play – Gene Smith by Matt Backer. It starts with a few strums of G, then its D sus 2, D, D sus 4, D. I hadn’t encountered sus chords before but they are basically slight variations on a chord. D sus 2 is the D major chord shape but playing the open B string instead of playing the D note (second string, third fret). D sus 4 is the D major chord shape but playing the G note (first string, third fret) instead of the F#/Gb note (first string, second fret). Sus chords allow you to strum along, keeping the same chord shape but changing by moving one or two fingers slightly. I think they are used in a lot of Oasis songs.

Max again reiterated the importance of keeping in time and I took this in mind for that week’s practise. As I practised the syncopation piece I said the beats out load (“one and two and…”) and it helped get me in time. He also told me to remember that when I’m tapping along to the beat the down strums/plucks are on the beat (one) and the up strums/plucks are on the between beats (and). I remembered that too and soon was playing the piece much better than before. Once you know the tune of course you don’t have to look at the musical notation and just need to remember where to put your fingers, this makes it much easier and you can then relax which makes it sound better. 

I was now at the stage where I could actually play the guitar a little bit (I can play something simple and someone can easily recognise it, which is much further than I ever got on the keyboard) and I wanted to be able to better hear what I was playing. I had abandoned the iPad app as it had too many options, and the acoustic guitar as it was hard to play, but I still wanted to be able to make some proper noise rather than the muted sound that comes from playing an electric guitar without an amplifier. The answer was simple – I got my amplifier back from my brother. My altruism of lending it to him so he could play his electric drum kit without headphones was replaced by my desire to hear my guitar playing. Playing something plugged in for the first time was great fun. I played my signature tune of Three Blind Mice, firstly with gain (distortion) and then clean. It sounded great. I was happy. 

IMAGE: My 10 watt BB Blaster amp. The first time I have plugged into an amplifier since learning.

The next evening I had a bad day and felt really shattered. It took some motivation to pick up my guitar. I played that week’s practise piece a few times as well as the syncopation piece. Both were sounding better – half of it was the improvement in my playing, the other half the amplification. I then practised the USA national anthem a few times. It’s a great piece to practise as involves the use of 4 strings and about 8 different frets. There’s quite a bit of moving but it’s fairly easy to play, and it sounds great, especially amplified. Of course my rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was without the intricacies and the tricks of Jimi Hendrix’s famous version, but it was still a lot of fun to play, sounded great to me and was good for my development. And that’s all I really want from the guitar.

Lessons learnt: D sus2 chord, D sus4 chord, A sus 2 chord, A minor 7 chord, better timing and rhythm, I really like my cheap electric guitar.

Part five: Going acoustic (briefly)

A month has now gone on my guitar journey and I feel it’s time to take stock of where I am. I now know and can play 6 major chords, 2 minor chords, 5 seventh chords, 2-note and 3-note power chords, barre chords, and notes on the first three frets of all strings. As I have only properly (every day) being playing the guitar for 4 weeks, I am quite pleased with this. If you’re learning the guitar then I recommend reminding yourself of your progress like this, as learning the guitar, for me and millions like me who are not naturally gifted musicians, is a very slow and frustrating process.

I read that there are 3 million guitarists in the UK. The UK has a population of about 60 million, so that means that one in 20 people in the UK play the guitar. You’ve still got a better chance of being a professional guitarist than a professional footballer, but it will still be very hard and involve an incredible amount of practise.

Much of that week’s lesson was looking at why I was struggling with Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was mainly the timing that was the problem – I found the semi-quaver count hard. Max simplified it by telling me to count one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a, three-e-and-a, four-e-and-a. I still found it hard so he told me to not worry about it too much and just concentrate on the tune.

The rest of the lesson was an introduction to alternate picking, quavers and rests and a study in syncopation. If you are learning to play the guitar then you will soon hear about alternate picking. At first I thought that this meant that every note is picked alternatively – up and down, but it’s easier and makes more sense than that. Alternate picking is the same as alternate strumming – basically you play down on a count and you play up on an and. So one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and would be played down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up. Once I started playing this way I noticed I instantly had better timing and rhythm. Syncopation is commonly used in all types of music and basically means missing a beat or note where you would expect to hear one. I found some of these easy but other parts very hard.

Other than that I continued to practise You Really Got Me and Smells Like Teen Spirit. I watched video lessons for them both on You Tube and that definitely helped.  The problem I was having with You Really Got Me was keeping my 3-note power chord shape together when sliding between frets. I saw that this was because I was keeping the pressure on when I was sliding and needed to take the pressure off before sliding between the frets and then put it down again when I’ve reached the next fret. I played You Really Got Me better than before, and even managed to play a better (but still poor version) of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

As I have said, learning the guitar is hard, takes a long time and is frustrating. That’s why power chords are great as they are fairly simple to play and enable you to quickly learn popular songs. I learnt the main riffs to Song 2 by Blur and Punk by Gorillaz in about 5 minutes. (By learnt I mean remembered what the chords are and can play them OK.  I definitely need to practise both a lot more). The weather that weekend was good and I spent a few moments that Sunday trying to play my repertoire of You Really Got Me, Teen Spirit, Punk, and Song 2. I looked forward to a sunny summer of sitting outside and playing an acoustic guitar.

That Friday I had had enough of waiting and ordered an acoustic guitar. I bought a Vintage V-30 in beautiful sunburst. I read that this had been rated the best acoustic guitar under £1000, so that was a good sign. I wanted something that would play a clean and bright sound, and was easy to play, and all reviews had indicated that this certainly was.

                                                                               
                                                IMAGE: Vintage V30 folk guitar

The guitar arrived and it looked beautiful. I picked it up and then realised something – never buy a guitar without trying it out first.  It looked and sounded beautiful but I found it harder to play than my electric. The body of an acoustic obviously sticks out more than an electric; as a result I found it harder to see the frets. The strings were also a lot thicker and the action (space between the strings and the fret board) was noticeably higher than on my electric. This means you have to put more pressure down on the strings. This hurts and means that it is harder to play. For the chords/ tunes where I can’t get my fingers as close to the end of the fret as possible I noticed that the notes were sounding muted. This was because I wasn’t putting enough pressure down.

Playing an acoustic guitar will make you a better guitarist in the long-term, but if like me you want to learn as quickly as possible, then an electric is better.

Lessons learnt: Alternate picking, don’t buy a guitar without trying it out first.

Part four: Plugged in and unplugged

As last week’s lesson was on a Wednesday, this week’s one was too, at my request, in order to give me a full week’s practise. I told Max that I hadn’t progressed much in the last week and had found the work, frustrating, hard and painful. He got me to play a very slow 2-note power chord version of You Really Got Me by The Kinks (last week’s homework), making me concentrate on timing. I struggled through but felt better for doing it. The lesson of concentrating on timing and slowing things down until they were in time was starting to sink in.

I was then shown the famous opening riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Played by Max on his acoustic guitar it sounded beautiful. It starts with 3 notes of an E5 power chord, followed by 3 notes of muted strings, 3 notes of [note] power chord, a note of open A, D and G strings. I could play all of these notes but together, at the pace of the song, I found it hard. As I was struggling with these fairly simple power chord songs, Max decided not to give me any other homework. Despite this, I left much more positive then I had arrived, with a refreshed desire to progress further.

That week’s practising went quite well, and I managed to start playing a 3 note version of You Really Got Me. I really struggled with Teen Spirit, as I found concentrating on the timing, plus playing a mixture of muted and fretted notes, to be too much for now. So I continued to practise You Really Got Me, and looked up some more power chord songs, my favourite being a power chord version of Hot Cross Buns.

Since day one I have been playing my electric guitar unplugged. To start with this was because I didn’t want to make too much noise, and then once I could cleanly play some notes and chords it was because I had leant my beginner’s practise amp to my brother for his electric drum kit. I considered buying another amp but then remembered that on my iPad Garage Band app there is an amplifier function where you can plug your guitar in and it simulates classic guitar amplifiers and effects. If you’ve got an iPad and an electric guitar then this is definitely recommended as there are dozens of combinations to choose from. To get this to work however you can’t just plug your guitar into your iPad – you have to buy an adapter first. I ordered Amplitude as it was one of the cheapest. 

When it arrived I spent about an hour playing around with it and listening to my guitar through the different amplifiers and effects. It sounded good but what I really wanted was for my guitar to have the same rich and clear tone as Max’s guitar – an acoustic. I disconnected my guitar from my iPad and thought that it was about time I got an acoustic. My other purchase that week was a music stand – I bought one of the cheapest going, and again, if you are learning music of any kind then I definitely recommend one. I use the music stand every time I practise as it is so much easier to have the music you’re trying to play in front of you rather than on your lap or on the floor.

I enjoyed listening to Max play Smells like Teen Spirit so I bought Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged album. The performances on it are beautiful: my personal favourites being About a Girl, and covers of The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie, and Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Leadbelly. I’d heard of the name Leadbelly but had never listened to his music. I then found out he was a blues musician from the 1940s and was responsible for bringing some classic American folk songs to fame. I downloaded his album – the sound quality isn’t great as it was recorded 80 years ago, but the guitar playing, musicianship and soul is very clear.

IMAGE: Nirvana, MTV Unplugged in New York

Continuing to the acoustic discovery I listened to Automatic for the People by R.E.M., and continuing the exploration of folk music I listened to House of The Rising Sun by Sinead O’Connor, and The Wassailing Song by Blur. Quite a mixture, and certainly not my normal preferences, but I enjoyed listening to a different type of music. My new musical discoveries weren’t going down too well with Selina who asked me ‘where have you suddenly got this obsession with shit music?’ 

Lessons learnt: B flat 5 power chord, A flat 5 power chord, D flat 5 power chord