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Guitar chord forum - chordie → Posts by cytania
If you listen to the Beatles Anthology 2 there's a track where Lennon goes 'I canna do it, I canna do it, I canna do it!' and then launches into a scorching vocal.
Have some simple pieces ready and make a point of working through them even when nothing else comes together. Sometimes it shakes the dust off unwilling fingers, sometimes it just mean you can say, 'yep did some practice'.
Sounds like you cranked your strings up too tight and tuned an octave higher. The giveaway should be that the strings are terrificly hard to hold. A girl in my guitar class did this last year so it's quite possible to do. Once you get used to the tautness the strings should have you can get them close before tuning.
Having so much fun with the simple rhythmn version of Johnny B Goode. It's all 2 4 2 4 on A then 2 4 2 4 on D then up two to 4 6 4 6 on D, anyone know what I'm talking about?
I'm after other songs with this simple boogie form. The Yardbirds album 'Roger the Engineer' has 2 good sounding jams, 'The Nazz Are Blue' and 'Jeff's Boogie' but I'm not finding many YBs tabs.
Any good old-style rockin beginners songs appreciated, don't matter if you call it country, blues, rock'n'roll, hillbilly, roadhouse or whatever...
Mama Cass - her voice just cuts through the mix and puts chills in your spine.
Judith Durham - another great pop voice, pity about her using only keyboardists recently.
Dionne Warwick - the best Bacharach singer ever.
Elvis Presley - Don't let the icon status detract from the live power.
Otis Redding - He's not all 'Dock Of The Bay' see him work the faster numbers.
The Wilsons - generally you're hearing Carl and Mike Love on the BB records not Brian, although he can do all the parts too.
Eric Burdon - amazing vocals with the New Animals check out his version of 'River Deep Mountain High'.
50s tunes often use the easy chords, a classic sequence is G Em C D which crops up over and over again. Now 80s songs often use unusual chords, that's what gave those acts a weird edge. Try the Cure's 'Boys Don't Cry' it'll give your B shape a work out.
Checkout my run-thru post on 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' for a punk/new wave song that is nearly all barre chords.
This punk song was originally done by Eddie & the Hot Rods, then covered by Thin Lizzy and later by Guns'n'Roses I think. My run-thru probably owes alot to the first two.
This is one of those easy electric songs everyone wanted and is on Chordie. It's nearly all one barre chord shape and will get you speeding up and down the neck. It walls into 4 parts.
1) Intro and Chorus 2, E A F#m. Ok forget how you learnt how to do open E as a beginner, make it now with your little, ring and middle finger. Strum strongly on bass strings then whizz up to 5th fret and get that first finger down flat. Play strong and clean, now back to 2nd fret but lift that flat finger so it still holds the bass E string but let's the thin strings scream out. Tickle the thin E to death and blend into the E shape again. It's dang-dang-wahahahaeee.
2) Verse, B A E. OK after that powerful intro the guitar will be buzzing so just form a cheat's B and strum just a couple of it's strings sparingly. Same for open A and E but make sure you're using the barre E shape for the next part.
3) Prechorus. It's that barre shape up 2nd 4th, 5th and then 7th fret. That's F#m G# A B. Then back down again 5th to 4th to 2nd to zero (that's the E shape). Play clean and strong to really lift then fall.
4) Chorus 1, the scorching 'why don't you' bit. You should be on zero fret E then fly up to 5th fret and then 7th fret for 'ask them' and then to really give the song punch all the way up to 12th fret. This is E again but will scream out if you really let loose on it.
The only really difficult bit is then getting back to F#m on 2nd fret from 12th but if you've really got the guitar buzzing that should cover your slide back up the neck.
Set your amp to a modern hi-gain type setting, but not too much reverb. Enjoy.
The good news PD is that once your fingers learn the chords they never forget. I played guitar in my teens and then quit for 20 years. I went to guitar classes a few years ago expecting to have to struggle all over again. Amazingly the basic chords I'd learnt came back like old friends (still had to get the rest though).
Horse with no name isn't as easy as some claim. Although it's only two chords the feel of that song is in the strumming, which again you can't expect from day one.
Concentrate on E A D chords at first. You'll be able to do Johnny B Goode acoustic style with these.
Then look to learn G and C. These 5 chords give you access to most rock songs. In particular strumming A with a break to G then D will give you rockers like 'Get Back' and AC/DC's 'You Shook Me All Night Long'.
Stick with it, it's worth it.
When you're restringing your electric it's your chance to be Keith Richards. Leave off both the E-strings (or if don't want to mess around drop them both to D). Drop the A string down to G and strum. The guitar is now in open G and you immediately get the Honkey Tonk Women sound. I found Modern Hi-Gain on my virtual amp gave the right stones feel.
On the verses you softly strum open and then put your flat first finger over the 5th fret on the 1st and 3rd verse lines for a more powerful chord. On the 2nd and 4th verse lines you put that first finger over the 7th fret.
The chorus is open for the 'Hoooo-ooo-ooo-ooonky' and then you fly up to 7th fret for 'Tonk' and then on up to 12th for 'Women'. On 12th if you put one finger on the actual G string at 13th fret and tickle it you'll crudely get the discordant lead bit.
Obviously there's alot more to this song. Richards jabs in notes and bends and slides and all sorts. Pickup the 'Play with the Rolling Stones' book for an exhaustive tab. But what I've described is fun enough for beginners (like me!).
I'm think you'll end up with an unbalanced sound from the different strings and an unbalanced feel for your fingers. Make sure your strings are all the same age. New strings start off syrupy, then get to a sweet-spot for most their life, then as they need changing they go a bit metallic and grating. Change them all at once from the same packet.
The 'Fender Presents' DVDs are well regarded but frankly you'll find guitar groups and tuition far more fun and encouraging. Try your local guitar shop and see if they have anyone who does lessons. You can learn so much more, so much quicker when you can ask questions and get personalised tips.
Squier Fender Strat is a good starting point. Pop along to a shop and try one out. You might also want to try a Yamaha Pacifica. Put some time into picking out a practice/rehearsal amp. If you're playing in a bedroom a Pod or an amp with modelling built in would be a good investment. Try out the guitars you fancy with the basic amp you can afford. Look for a good all round bluesy sound from the two, metal distortion can be dialled in later.
Look for a neck and body that feel right in you hands, easy to move with and hold. Look for the sound you want. Single coils give a wailing lead sound but cheap ones can pick up buzz in a nasty way. Humbuckers are more for rhythmn work but cheap ones can be fuzzy muzzy. There are some guitars which combine both single coil and humbuckers. Avoid archtops, semis and hollowbody's unless you're desperate for a jazz/rockabilly sound.
Above all pick up the instrument, heft it, pluck the strings and ask to plug in. When you find the right one it'll sing out loud and clear.
Here's a real good fan page;
<a href="http://homepage.oniduo.pt/rupean/Slashsound.html" target="_blank">http://homepage.oniduo.pt/rupean/Slashsound.html</a>
and here's another one;
<a href="http://www.snakepit.org/equip.html" target="_blank">http://www.snakepit.org/equip.html</a>
Now you could get out there and pay scalper's prices for a Slash signature Gibson and his signature Marshall amp or you could simply pick up a Line6 Pod and match up the closest modelled amp in it (I'm pretty sure it does JCMs but can't get a listing at present).
Keep going with your 5 chords cobby, you'll find the acoustic makes them sound sweetest and rewards you quickest.
That first finger of yours could be a natural for barre chords on the electric. I've been practising Chuck Berry and Stones stuff and wish for bigger fingers. I've been playing 3 years but trying Keith Richards moves makes my fingers ache just like GitaFiddle says.
With your electric try turning tone and volume on the guitar to full and turning off gain/overdive and set tone to full on the amp - this should give a classic Country sound, when you twang the bass strings you're in Texas. Now drop the volume on the guitar a bit and turn the amp to mid tone and just add a pinch of distortion, should be getting a bluesy 60s rock sound. Drop a little tone off the guitar to get a more dirty rockin sound and experiment between back and neck pickup positions. Bridge pick up should be harsher, neck pickup stronger and trebley. Now lower guitar volume yet again and turn up the amp to compensate then nudge the gain/od up a fraction more - should be very bluesy. Now as you raise the guitar volume you should be controlling the degree of distortion. There'll be a sweet spot where playing soft and clean sounds clean but as you move harder a satisfying snarl arises. This distortion should hang around as you stop playing but not storm away to itself forever. After that it's all in the playing...
This site attempts to define both with soft and hard clipping.
<a href="http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/ampovdrv.htm" target="_blank">http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/ampovdrv.htm</a>
In reality guitarists have sought to get sounds from their amps through any means possible. The Sonics put an icepick through their speakers and got a killer fuzz sound. Amps have been miked and then locked in closets. There's even a kooky sustain device that attaches to the headstock and vibrates the actual guitar.
In general work with what your amp provides. It's how your work with the gain that counts. If you get curious as to what you're missing try an inexpenisve Pod or Vamp to try a range of sounds quickly without going through dozens of rigs.
Guitars really came into their own with the big swing band orchestras. I could never understand why these dance bands always had a jazz guitarists when you could never hear him playing and no solo spot either.
I now gather that the guitarists rhythmn playing was vital for keeping all that brass/wind on the beat. The 'chunk, chunk' of the guitar (often amplified with early pickups) could be heard by the other players but not the audience/dancers and kept them in time better than the percussionist.
Barre chords, hybrid picking, flat picking... in particular with electrics some songs use flat fingers to hold of deaden multiple strings. More details of what you want to play please.
What your brother needs to pin down is if he's just tossing out random riffs or if he can jot them down and repeat them so a song can be built up. Far too many showy guitarists can throw out a few superb flourishes that are never the same twice. Improvised solos are good but there needs to be a safety net for the nights when things are tough.
Look for songs that you both never get tired of and have a solid rhythmn that you can both jam around. Every seen a band get real wild and loose, the solos really go on and things almost fall apart... then they strike up a familiar hit, maybe a cover version and get back in synch and on course. You need songs like that to unite your playing.
So many thinks can make a difference to how a guitar sounds. Strings for instance, makes do vary and of course after a month or so strings can sound tired. Likewise your pick, a big old Gibson black will sound different from a grey Dunlop. Oh and then of course there's your fingers....
Enjoy your guitars.
Acoustic is more immediate fun without the obsessive knob-twiddling. You strum an acoustic and as you modify your fingers it can start to sound good straight-away. Of course you still need to learn and practise but the promise is there from the beginning.
Electric is more tricky, I find I'm tackling sounds that sound energetic but actually arise from light and precise plectrum strokes. Oh and each song has a 'right' sound arising from the at least 5 parameters and that's with the simplest beginners rig. Electric can distract you from actual playing with a detour into amp sounds, effects boxes, modelling, hot rodding...
The 'Fender Presents' Electric DVD is well regarded but get yourself on a lessons as you'll enjoy it so much more.
I've always thought that if you give a Strat Pack to a teenager they'll go 'hooray!', crank it up, thrash away, have fun, bash it about and make a big mess of the finish long before they eventually outgrow the instrument.
With an adult player they'll be listening more over-critically and getting picky about a particular sound. The adult will be checking out the setup and trying to care for the guitar and realise that it's not quite up to it.
Different approaches, the enthusiasm of youth versus the knowingness of age.
If you strum with overdrive enganged the sound is too bombastic for anything but AC/DC. If you lighten the sound by turning tone and volume down or even switching out coils/PUs you can strum away, I find 60s Brit Invasion stuff does pretty well like this.
Having said that the trick to getting electric sounds right is partial strums. On alot of Stones songs you just tickle the top 3 strings with occasional full whacks for emphasis. On the chorus of Johnny B Goode (described by me earlier) you do a 'call and response' between the bass strings and the treble strings, the trebles match in with the Go Go Go!s in the lyrics.
Hi Andros, the UK is blessed with hundreds of small guitar shops stocked with a wide range of electrics. Get yourself down to plenty and pick up the instruments. If the shop's not to busy ask to plug in on a basic amp like say a Roland Cube. Don't let them dial in fancy settings - get a clean reference channel to start with. Listen to the various guitars sounds and see how the guitar feels in your hands. You'll probably go through quite a few 'I like this one's before you find out what you're really after. Be wary of any shop that doesn't want to let you handle and play guilt free. Once you've found the kind of guitar you are after you can then match a practise amp to it, try out the basic distortion and standard effects like chorus and reverb. Again you may not find recommended amps are what you want. When you find the right pairing you'll know it.
Apparently my practising is beginning to grate on the other half but I find pluging my old Sennheisers into my amp results in broken-up head-achey listening. Could be the level is too high or just a bad socket/adaptor.
I've been looking at the Behringer Vamp2 and the Line6 Pod2 but frankly I don't want to spend my time dialling around for effects a simple multifx pedal would suit me better.
My question is this. Can I use a simple pedal like Behringer's Gdi21 V-Tone DI as a preamp to drive my headphones, get a decent level and a nice sound?
What I've found so far;
£20 Backing trax can be as expensive as a simple Griffin Garaband guitar USB cable or a new cassette recorder.
£40 Samson USB microphone or M-Audio Jam Lab USB input box.
£150 Boss Micro BR - what a wonder this is! Solid state 4 track recording with drum machine and effects just remember to add PC-15 for a guitar cable adaptor at £30.
£200 Sony have a Hi-MD with no-nonsense recording modes but it's old technology next to Roland's Edirol R-09 which has two quality mikes and is solid state all the way and is only a few steps higher costwise at £270.
Yikes, my old tape cassette recorder died this weekend. It was just a cheap dictaphone type thing but I'm not sure what to use instead.
All I want to do is play along a rythmn guitar track whilst Garageband beats out drums and record the ensuing racket. I can then take the recorder elsewhere and play it as a backing track to practise soloing over.
Should I get a mike for my miniMac? Just buy some of those backing track CD/book affairs? What's today's equivalent of my dictaphone? Would it just be cheaper to get a basic porta-studio?
Guitar chord forum - chordie → Posts by cytania
