26

(7 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Couldn't have said it any better than gitaardocphil.

You already took the hardest step, you decided to start playing.

I, too suggest you learn some basic chords and get strumming, you'll have fun when you can strum along to your first song.
You could start with G, C and D, there's loads of cool songs that use just these three chords. Sweet Home Alabama, for example.

I only got hold of the Fender Beginner DVDs later on in my learning curve, but these are a great place to start. Search for "DVD Fender Acoustic Keith Wyatt" or something similar.
Occasionally, you can pick one up on ebay. Don't worry about the investment, they resell great on ebay.

Happy playing smile

nc

27

(7 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Got ya...


That E -> AMaj7 change is beautiful. Makes for nice mellow sort of atmosphere. I catch myself going somewhere else than to G after that D, though, if you don't mind me saying. I guess that's because the lyrics take me to a slightly different place than you smile

You certainly have my respect!!!

28

(240 replies, posted in Guitars and accessories)

A 86 Squier Stratocaster, a fairly new

Yamaha APX5 Elektroacoustic which is a great piece for it's price

and the same as a 12 String (APX5-12) which doesn't sound that good for a 12 String, is really hard to play for me, but I got it in absolute mint condition at about half it's retail price on ebay. Maybe as I progress, I'll learn to make it sing. smile

29

(7 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Interesting.

First time I tried playing sth. I have never heard before. Although I have no idea how you think how this should be played, you get some idea from the lyrics and the title, insert your own experiences with the theme and there you go.

Thanks for sharing.

30

(2 replies, posted in Bands and artists)

They're located in south-eastern Germany, lil' ol' town called Pocking. Sometimes they do gigs in Austria.

You can get the CD amazon, although please let me point out that I did not want to enhance CD sales with this thread.


Cheers,
nc

31

(4 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Sounds right to me.

Jikklop, in order to be able to figure out by yourself how to play these chords, you may want to learn what note the first five frets on your Low E, A and D String play. That way, if you want to play a slash chord, like C/Dm, for example, you know where to find that C you "put on top of your original chord root". In this case, there's a C on the A String, 3rd fret, so put your pinky on that while fingering Dm, and there you go.

Cheers,
nc

32

(2 replies, posted in Bands and artists)

Hi there, folks...

I'm usually not much into local bands, but this one really has struck a nerve.
They usually play cover at gigs, but have come out with their own rock album recently.

http://www.ryaneden.com/music/index.html

There's some mp3 samples in the music section, give the acoustic version of Mary Jane a try, I love it.

Cheers,
nc

33

(6 replies, posted in Acoustic)

This might be intersting:

http://www.geocities.com/mike_mccracker … /intro.htm

34

(6 replies, posted in Acoustic)

As for tabs on arpeggios, it's like cytania wrote:

Play the root of the chord with your thumb ( for Em that's the open Low E String, For Am it's the open A String), then do a pattern with your first second and third finger on the G, B, High E String.

                       Em                                     Am
E---------------0------------------------------------0-----------
B-----------0--------0-------------------------1--------1--------
G--------0----------------0--------------2-----------------2-----
D----------------------------------------------------------------
A---------------------------------0------------------------------
E-----0----------------------------------------------------------
     like          a        river     flows

See the pattern? It's always root note G B E B G. The root note is usually on the lowest (in terms of pitch) String that is involved in Chord.

So for your Elvis song, you need the chords Em, Am, A7, Dm7, G7, you can look those up in the resource section here at chordie.com

Remember that the thumb plays the three low pitched strings, and your first, second and third finger stay on G B and E String respectively.
Practice on one chord until you can play the pattern at tempo, use a metronome if you have one. By that time, the muscles in your hands will have gotten accustomed to the pattern so that you can stop focusing on your picking hand and focus on the chord changes and the singing.

Cheers,
nc

35

(34 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Just got back from a 12 k run, happily trodding along to a playlist of my 5 fav Jimi tracks.

Maybe to some music theory enthusiast, some "Hendrixism" and his use of guitar effects appear somewhat simplistic.  I'm not competent enough to really say something about his musical finesse...

...but fact is, his music f***ing jams!!!
That's about all you need to know as a listener, as long as you get some form of enjoyment out the tunes, it's great music.
Now, if you consider the vast number of Jimi fans, how his tunes keep reappearing, are being instantly recognized and how many of his tracks are considered "classic", everyone has to agree that he was a brilliant ARTIST.


I'm going to grab my guitar right now and give Little Wing another shot ...

36

(6 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Arpeggiating over a chord means that you don't strum all strings that make up your chord at the same time but play a little pattern with the single strings of a chord by using your fingers.

There are a lot of nice patterns for Chord Arpeggios, and I have to admit, I'm not really good at fingerpicking, but for this song you could try a similar pattern than the one usually used with "House of the rising sun".

For each Chord, play the Bass String, then G-String, B-String, high-E-String, B-String, G-String.

Play the bass string of the chord with your thumb(t), the G string with your index finger(i), the B String with your middle finger (m), and The high E String with you ring finger (r).

So, fingerwise, you would get the following pattern:
t-i-m-r-m-i

Hope it helped.

Cheers,
nc

Take a look at this guy:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tQ6IRRxYSMg

He's fingerpicking the intro, don't worry about that yet, but he's strumming D___D_DU for each chord when he starts singing. You can see the chord changes very well.

Also, note how his hand keeps moving in a straight eights pattern, although he only strums 4 times for each measure (DDDU). He just misses the strings at the omitted strums, but it helps him stay in tempo.

You're making progress, as I see, that's great.

You can play that intro you're playing over the whole song.

See here:
http://www.chordie.com/chord.pere/www.p … OCKING.TXT

This version is formatted quite nicely, that means that it gives an idea of where to change the chords while you sing the lyrics.
Exactly when to start singing depends on what strumming pattern you're using, and you're probably going to change that pattern with every line of that song very soon, that's JAMMING, YEAH smile
Unfortunately, the song above is a little off in the first line, so here's where I would change the chords:

G           D                               Am              Am
  Mama, take this badge off of me
G           D              C            C
  I can't use it anymore

I suggest this:
In order to get a feeling about how the singing ties in with the guitar playing, you could sing the song to yourself and just play the very first downstrum of each new Chord. You can get an idea of when to place that first downstrum from the link above, but you'll also recognize that by yourself while your singing, because your voice will make the same changes in pitch. I will just "feel right".
Now, in the two lines above, I indented the lyric lines a little while the Gs on the chord lines are the very first character of the line. That means I would Downstrum the G, the start singing the "Mama...". The other Chord symbols are right on that syllable where your first downstrum of that chord should be. Note there's two Am and two C, because you play those chord for two full measures.

Once you're comfortable with all those first downstrums, you may want to bring in the other down- and upstrums for each chord while you keep singing. You sort of tie all those first downstrums together with whatever strumming pattern you want to use.




Basically, singing and playing is something you will get comfortable with. I remember watching someone freely strum along to loads of songs at a party. I had been playing for just a few months by then and I was still to get comfortable with very basic chords.
So I tried that at home and it seemed impossible. I thought I would never be able to sing and play at the same time, but I kept trying with simple songs. I had a whole load of songs printed out by then, and it literally happened over night that I could play that one song I was failing at the whole time. To my surprise, I could strum along to pretty much my whole collection of songs all of a sudden.

That's just how it happens, keep trying, you'll get it.
A good thing is to watch others play, so remember searching for "acoustic cover", "acoustic lesson" or sth similar on youtube, along with whatever songtitle you want to see people play.
Helped me a lot.

Hope it helped a little and I didn't confuse you too much smile

Cheers,
nc

39

(27 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

I'm currently at university hoping to become a teacher. The classes I'm going for is english and IT at a medium level of education in Germany.
Before that, I have been in the military for eight years, military police, that is.

I picked up the guitar two years ago and I think I have been playing or practising pretty much every since.

It's a wonderful hobby. Music by itself can do miraculous things and when you actually make it yourself, but you guys all know that, ... stuff happens!

nc

40

(15 replies, posted in Acoustic)

My five cents worth:

I guess you have the D/C down already, Old Doll, I think adding the C with the pinky works great, because to me the Chord actually sounds better when I mute the open D string with the pinky at the same time instead of stretching the pinky over it.
It's not strong enough (yet) anyway.

Oh, and feel free to sport any signature you want to. As long as it's not offending, or something worse, I would NEVER think of calling your signature "rubbish". If nothing else, it's unique and original, and (probably) not just a lyrics quote...

Hi, I remember having the same problems about 18 months ago, I guess I'm just somewhat ahead on the ol' learning curve.
For starters, you could play both songs with a DDUUD pattern. (D is for a downstrum, U for an upstrum).
Some very basic rhythm theory for you:
You're playing eighth notes, when you strum 8 times ( 4 up, 4 down: DUDUDUDU) over one measure. That's a little boring to play over songs, however, so in order to give it a slightly more dynamic feel, you leave out some of those eight strums:  DUDUDUDU -> D_DU_UD_. The strums that are now underscores are being left out. Keep your strumming hand moving in an eigth note pattern, but don't touch the strings when you want to leave out a strum.
It works quite well for Knocking on heavens door. Play this once on the G, once on D and then twice on C or Am, then repeat.
ONce you have this down, which will take you no time at all, try to vary the pattern a little, but keep your strumming hand moving steadily. Simply miss different strums every time you go around the chords.
DDUUD works on pretty much all songs that are written in 4 time, but not on waltzes, 6/8, etc.

You could do a youtube search for "accoustic guitar lesson" to find easy lessons, helped me a lot, and it's easier to show stuff with a guitar than explaining in words.
Apart from that, keep playing!!!

English is not my native language, so please forgive me for not using accurate musical terms or sounding a little strange.

Cheers,
nc