Do. Or do not. There is no try. (Just learn the damn song).

I spent the weekend learning to play Like A Rolling Stone. It is a beautifully simple progression in C that uses chords exclusively from the major scale. In terms of arrangement you can strum it like Dylan or electrify it like Hendrix. Or you can take a leaf out of Yoda's book. Just play it.

These days you can get access to note perfect video lessons in seconds. I have used them often but on occasion I find that they can be a block to me learning the whole song. This is because I often spend more time trying to perfect some minute technical detail, rather than focusing on learning to play the song. Some songs get relegated to 'long term project' and I drive my wife mad practising that bit. And I end up not ever playing the song.

If this sounds familiar here's a couple of unblockers for you....

1. Nobody cares as much as you. Sure some songs need to be played pretty close to the original, but most don't. Most people want to hear the song not the details.

2. Those Christmas TV ads with simple acoustic arrangements of famous songs probably come from somebody strumming because they want to sing. Everyone loves those. If it works for them, it'll work for you.

3. People remember what you played, not whether you got the slurred phrase in bar 11 correct. They remember feel.

4. Just learn to play it the way you can and start playing it. You can do the long term project as well.  That way you learn two arrangements of the song.

5. Learning and playing the chord progression WILL help you to learn the complex parts.  At worst you might find something that you like that sounds like you.

Just finish it.

That riff.... 

1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Richard Thompson

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2bpt7TAqsI6X003eFI0TGExZVk

GuitarPro https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2bpt7TAqsI6UVo1aUZvbFg1V1U

http://guitarmortal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/guitar-gods-richard-thompson.html

Learning songs with your ears not your hands

I was on the train to work the other day (I have a two hour commute), and thinking about songs I need to polish up for some stand - in gigs with Fraudio.  Fraudio are one of the UK busiest function bands and things have to sound good and sound like the song.

There are a couple of songs where the parts I need to learn are mostly end of line fills. Now I could just noodle in pentatonic minor, but some of them are quite distinctive so I want to replicate them.

So how do I do this on a train with no guitar to learn it all quicker.  Well I decided to use my inner ear to get to know the song really well and start to understand the fills. Here's what I did.

1. As I was listening to the song I stopped it at every fill and wrote the structure of where they all are. (See bottom of post).

2. Then I made a note of the shape of the fill by singing out a phrase in words that matched it rhythmically. I found I could remember where these were without my notes after a few repetitions.  It also helped me to recognise where the fill was repeated with a minor variation elsewhere in the song. The phrases I used were mostly nonsense and where it didn't work I simply made a note of what I thought was happening.

3. When I got home I found learning the licks was really easy and I could get close to some just from memory. Much quicker than my normal guitar approach.

Below is what my notes looked like.

Intro |C |F f1 |C |F f2 | (f1 = durdle door, f2 = you'oo know you really want to)

Verse 1 Pick chords

Bridge 1
....revolution from my bed (f3 durdle door, really want to )
.... head (f4 da-da durdle dup)
....bloom (f5 da durdle dah)
.....heart (f6 bendy thing)

Chorus 1 Big fill at end of chorus 1:40

Verse 2
..night or day 1:50 (f8 treble strings)
...life in the hands (bends)

Bridge 2
...bed (f3 octave)
...head (f9 bend durdle dum)
....bloom ( f10 slidey)
...heart out (f11 box 1 to box 2)

Chorus 2

SOLO

Chorus 3
Fills start on last line

Chorus 4 Look at line 2!!!!!

Dropout

Durdle durdle dah da dah durdle durdle durdle etc in box 1 and 2

End.

D is for Dorian - modes made simpler

I have been playing guitar for a number of years and the modes have always been a bit of a mystery to me.  I understand basic chord theory (see How songs work - the obvious stuff) and the major and minor scales, but, beyond adding extra notes to my trusty pentatonics, the modes have always seemed like some code known only to a secret guitar illuminati.

Now when i don't understand something, I try to capture what it is I want to learn in some basic questions and then try to find out some answers. This helps me to make progress in manageable steps.  Here are my mode questions:

1. What is a mode?
2. Why should I care about them?
3. What is the theory?
4. How are modes different to the major and minor scales? How is D Dorian different to D major or D minor?
5. How/when do I use them?

This will make more sense if you understand the major scale.

1. What is a mode?

The word 'mode' means 'way of'.  So a mode of the major scale means a way of playing the major scale.  Specifically it means playing the notes in a major scale but starting from a note that is NOT the root note.  That's all it is.

Here's a Cmajor scale.

C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C (no sharps or flats)

If you play the same notes but starting on D,

D  E  F  G  A  B  C  D (no sharps or flats)

you'll be playing a mode of the major scale. The notes are the same but the starting place or root has changed.

Each mode has a name.  The mode that starts on the 2nd note in the major scale is called the Dorian mode.  This is the only mode I'm going to cover now.

If you read How Songs Work, you'll see how scales are used to make chords. Modes work the same way.  The chords of a mode are the same as the chords of the major scale that the mode came from.

For example the chords of the D Dorian mode are the same as the chords of C major. This is because the scale and the mode have the same notes. That makes sense doesn't it?

So if I play a song with the chords of C major but I start and finish with Dm, then I am playing in the Dorian mode of C major or D Dorian.

But surely I'd be playing in D minor? Well, no.  Let's look at why.

The notes of the Dm scale are

D  E  F  G  A  Bb  C  D.  See the flat.

The notes of D Dorian are the same as C major which means no sharps or flats.

D  E  F  G  A  B  C  D.  

The difference is that 6th note which is sharpened.  That creates tension.

Dorian is a kind of minor scale. The nearly minor scale.....

Tune your 6 string to D. Play the notes of the D minor scale against it as a drone. Now play D Dorian against it and hear how the 6th note sounds tense.

More soon.