Beyond Theory

For me, scales and chord shapes are excellent ways to understand the theory behind music - but I feel people should realise there needs to be a time when you can just forget about what is "correct" or even what is musically impressive and concentrate instead on "what sounds good".

We all start off learning pretty much the same scales and chords - and to me even if you are only armed with some basic scales and a few chords there is no reason why you cannot create meaningful, melodic and most importantly enjoyable, emotional music.

I often play songs around people and they inquire as to what a particular chord is as they haven’t seen it before. Although I have an idea of the tonality of each chord that I play (i.e. is it major, minor, minor 7th sounding etc - my ear tells me this), I cannot always be sure of the exact spelling of the chord.

To be honest when I am creating these chord sequences I am not thinking about the chords or even the notes that I am playing, I am simply chasing the sound that I can hear in my head. Later on I can sit down and work out the chords that I am playing if I need to communicate this to another musician.

Often I will sit down with my guitar and I will experiment with just putting my fingers on the fretboard in places that I normally wouldn’t and just see what kind of sound comes out, sometimes just moving a finger here or there leads into a nice chord sequence.

Sometimes you might end up playing a familiar chord - but perhaps in a different inversion and the timbre of the chord might suit certain chord sequences better than others (i.e. it sounds more suitable than the standard shape that you might normally use).

Some Exercises you may Try

I realise that this might be one of the strangest online internet guitar lessons that you have read in a little while - but please try the following exercises - hey if it works then more power to you - otherwise then by all means consider my advice as just that, advice not a rule or something you need to do :)

• Imagine a simple melody (single note) in your head and then try to find it on the guitar.

• Create some chords by simply putting your fingers in random positions on the fretboard - if it sounds rubbish then move one or two and see what comes out - remember you wont be hurting anyone (unless your Amp is REAL LOUD!!)

• Play a chord and remove a finger from the fretboard so that an open string is played - this is a common way to add a certain difference to a common chord progression.

• Just go Nuts - you don’t have to tell anyone what you do - pick strings with your teeth (I don’t advise this - and I am not paying for your dentist), detune strings, experiment with weird digital effects, play drums on your pickups with an Allen key, use a slide, tap your pick against your strings, pull strings off the neck and behind the neck, pick your tremolo springs - whatever it takes to widen your ears (and possibly others ears if they are listening).

Don’t forget about theory - I spent many nights with pieces of paper working out some of the mathematics of music (not that I am a theory nut either ;)...but also don’t forget music is about expression.

If any of these techniques work for you then that is great - If not then why not create some of your own... always strive to create something wonderful (I will let you know if I ever do :)

Hope you are still with me after that - be yourself and if something sounds good to you then do it :)

Lessons : Octaves

Octaves

Octave Licks are used by a great number of players, from Jazz greats like George Benson to Rockers like Jimi Hendrix. Octave Licks are great for inclusion in your lead and your rhythm playing.

First of all what is an octave? Well lets refer back to the major scale (I hope you remember that - if not then you may wish to refer back to an earlier lesson of mine).

In the aforementioned Major Scale lesson, I stated the following:

"This is a one-'octave' pattern for the A Major Scale, what this means is that the fingering starts on the root note (which in this case is A) and then goes up eight notes to the next occurrence of the 'root' note. The next occurrence of the note is eight notes higher than the first and so is called an octave.

You can go eight notes of the major scale above any other particular note and you would find it (the same note but) an octave higher."

So there we have it, to find octaves we can use the major scale. Just pick any note - play a major scale pattern from that note and count "root"-2-3-4-5-6-7-"octave" ensuring that you are playing a note for each step (i.e. A=Root B=2 C=3 etc)

(Alternatively you could just memorise the octave patterns which I am showing in this lesson - but I would sleep easier knowing you understood the theory too ;)

The eighth note that you played was the same note as you started with except only one octave higher.

So in the following sample you will see that I start on the A note on the 5th fret of the E String and just follow the major scale up until I find the A note on the D string at the 7th fret.

Play the two notes together (The Root and Octave - I do this at the end of the example above) - sounds somewhat cool huh? Try playing these notes with a pick with a single downstroke (mute the string in between so it doesn’t sound) and try plucking them with your fingers.

Often using a pick and strumming the octaves while muting the strings around them gives us a nice rhythmic sound.

One of the coolest things that we can do with octaves is to play melodies that we would normally play with a single note and play the octave/s above as well.

For example, we could play the following simple melody: