Music And Dance

Archive for May, 2009

Many beginner guitar players, anxious to get through the hard stuff and start playing ask if they really need chords to learn guitar. There’s also the question of how many chords are really necessary. Some people have actually bought their first guitar, downloaded some tabs and learnt to play them. So for people who have been able to learn guitar without chords, the question is whether they can just keep going in this way.

You will need to learn the chords A B C D E F and G – major and minor. You can start with the open chords which means you will be playing within the first three frets on the guitar, and stay with these as you learn how seventh and ninth chords enhance your playing. After that, you can learn the basic barre chord shapes and the way they can make your playing sound more interesting.

As you learn new chords, you will be putting them to use in songs that you like. Otherwise you are going to get bored learning and practicing chord fingerings alone. The open chords are all pretty easy once you get the knack of pressing down on the strings without muffling the adjacent strings.

Bear in mind that as you get a collection of chords to learn guitar you totally ignore any impulse you might have to play fast. Speed comes by itself the more you practice. You main concerns at the moment are precision and relaxation. It will seem like impossibly slow work, but that’s the way you need to do it.

Some teachers insist on teaching students to play in the genre they enjoy most, but that does not always work out. If you want to play songs around a campfire, rock and roll strumming and picking techniques are not for you, but not every guitar teacher can adapt to his students. So, the best guitar teacher for you is one who can teach you how to play a guitar using the music you are most interested in.

If you want to learn to play rock and your prospective teacher is more pop or jazz oriented, he can get you started on guitar playing, and you could even stick with him for a few months, but if you are really serious about rock or metal or whatever, you are going to need a teacher who plays your kind of music sooner or later.

It will help if you can tell a prospective teacher what it is you expect to learn. For example a beginner with no guitar playing experience will have different requirements from a person who has been trying to teach himself the guitar for some time. And a child will need a different approach from a grownup.

Where do you find the best guitar teacher for you? In the classified ads, of course but it would be far better if you take a trip down to the nearest music store and ask them if they have a resident guitar teacher or if they know of one. Getting into one on one discussions will be more helpful than perusing the classifieds.

Then there’s the question of how much a guitar teacher should be charging you. It will vary from place to place but don’t go too far out of your budget range unless you have found a teacher that you are really enthusiastic about. The prices a guitar teacher will charge are not an indication of his quality. If you see someone who is not charging much, go talk to them. They could be cheap because they are building up their business.

A riff is a sequence of notes or chords that is repeated many times throughout a song. The guitar riff is a modern musical phenomenon although riffs have always been used in jazz and blues. In rock guitar a riff may contain very few notes but those notes usually make up a catchy combination of rhythm and tune that sticks in the memory of all who hear it. A riff can also contain a rhythm with no melody as in Ravel’s Bolero or in any number of classical pieces that make use of the fandango rhythm. Use custom silicone wristbands to show your support towards music.

But getting people’s attention is what riff guitar is all about. As soon as you start playing, heads turn, the attention of the room is focused on where the music is coming from. It might be news to some of you guitar players who just want lessons on how to play riffs that the whole song is usually not a whole lot harder to play than just the riff. So when you pick up a guitar at a party, you could actually impress the people with your ability to play and sing a whole song.

Some early songs containing notable riffs are Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones, Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix, Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple Spoonful and Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream, and It’s All Right Now by Free. An interesting example of the use of a riff is Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin. The riff is in the song’s melody line which is sung by Robert Plant, and the guitar simply accompanies the riff.

If you start off your guitar playing with lessons on how to play riffs, that’s fine. Your next step could be power chords, or you could tap into your creative side and begin composing riffs of your own. If you are having trouble remembering riffs that are not from the sixties, try Under The Bridge by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dammit by Blink 182, Come As You Are by Nirvana, and Devil Inside by INXS.

So, there is no shame in wanting to take riff guitar lessons. It’s a great way to grow a repertoire of popular songs. You don’t even need an electric guitar to learn riffs. Just get some tabs for some of the songs I’ve mentioned and take a look at how simple it would be to learn the chords to the complete song.