Natalie: Welcome one and all, this is episode one of the essential guitar skills course part one. I'm Natalie Barrass, and this is our tutor Mr David Young. David, how are ya?
David: I'm very well, how are you?
N: I'm feeling good
D: Very good
N: I'm ready to rock and roll
D: Are you? Oh good
N: I am
D: Okay
N: What do we need to do first?
D: Okay, well what we're gonna do today is we're gonna talk through a few basic steps right at the beginning of learning to play the guitar. We're gonna understand a couple of chords, so we can play something by the end of the lesson, understand how to hold the plectrum
N: Mmmhmm
D: We're gonna talk about very basic music reading, just how to read the rhythm of one type of note, that's all, and we're gonna talk about coordinating our hands, cos obviously we have to have good hand coordination to play any musical instrument
N: It sounds vital. So these are our lesson objectives…
D: They are
N: …for lesson one
D: These are the lesson objectives indeed
N: Where would you like to begin?
D: I'd like to start with a chord if I may?
N: You may
D: Okay, when we play rock music, we typically play in a, a quite a dramatic, overdriven type sound on the amplifier. I'll just demonstrate that type of sound. When you hear that type of chord it's generally a chord called a power chord, as we call it, in the musical, the correct musical terminology, it's a five chord
N: A power chord or…
D & N: A five chord
D: So if you saw it written on a piece of music it would be called A5 or B5 or C sharp five or whatever. Now when we learn to play music there's what we call seven natural notes, A, B, C, D, E, F and G. No H's, no P's, no T's
N: (Laughs)
D: A, B, C, D, E, F and G
N: Okay
D: Okay? Now there are some additions to those, but those are the only natural notes, and the only letters that we use. So the two chords I'm going to talk about today are A5 and G5
N: So this is the A power chord, or the G power chord
D: Exactly, and we're gonna start with the A power chord. Now how we name our chords is by counting up the fret board to fret number five, which I should point out has got nothing to do with the chords being called A5 or G5, that's a completely separate issue
N: It's a happy coincidence
D: Happy coincidence, just so happens that A5 is at fret number five on the guitar
N: Mmmhmm
D: Now how we count these out are by starting a fret number one, which is down by the machine head. That's the first fret, second fret, third fret, fourth, five, etcetera, etcetera. Most guitars will have dots above frets three, five, seven and nine
N: Let's turn it over, can we have a look?
D: Fret three, fret five, fret seven and fret nine
N: Okay
D: And two dots at fret twelve
N: Mmmhmm
D: The reason for the two dots at fret twelve are because you are one octave up from the open string. So it's the same note again, a whole scale higher. So here's my E string, and if I play at fret twelve, I'm back at the beginning
N: Ah
D: Okay that's why there's two dots at fret twelve. Most guitars will have dots three, five, seven and nine
N: Mmmhmm
D: Okay? So we're gonna start on the second dot, in effect, which is at fret number five. Now to play our power chords or our five chords, or the chord of A5 I should say, we put the first finger of our left hand. I should also point out to you that on your left hand, as a right handed guitar player, your fingers are numbered. Your little finger is finger number four
N: Yes
D: Three, two, one, and your thumbs your thumb
N: (Laughs)
D: Okay? One, two, three, four. Okay, that's it. Can use your thumb, believe it or not, but that's just called your thumb. One, two, three, four
N: Okay, I'm understanding so far
D: With it so far?
N: Yes
D: Good. Take my first finger, put it on fret five…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …one, two three, four, five. On string number six, which is the outside string
N: Now, run me through the string numbering again
D: Okay, the string numbering is six, five, four, three, two, one. The notation for that is E, A, D, G, B, and E, but I'm gonna talk in string numbers and fret numbers, okay?
N: Mmmhmm
D: So there's not gonna be any confusion. So first finger, fret five, string six, okay? Now to play the chord of A5 we need two fingers on two separate notes. The other finger is my third finger, and it goes on fret seven, on the fifth string…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …creating that shape
N: So one string below, two frets on
D: That's it, that's the pattern. And if I take this chord and move it around the finger board…I get lots of different chords. But for the time being we're just gonna play this one chord, which is A5…
N: How were…
D: …at fret five
N: …you playing that with your right hand?
D: Okay, coming on to the right hand, I'm holding my plectrum. There's various ways you can hold the plectrum, and you see some fantastic guitar players who hold the plectrum in a, in an unusual way, shall we say
N: (Laughs)
D: But the typical way to hold the plectrum is to place it between your thumb and your first finger on your right hand. I've got a triangular shaped plectrum here, they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some of them are quite stiff like this one, some of them are very flimsy and actually it's quite a useful thing for a beginner to get a flimsy plectrum
N: Why is that?
D: Well it means that when you're trying to learn to strum, and you're a bit tense and whatever, the plectrum will have a little bit of give in it. Some of them are quite papery and quite light, whereas this one's got no bend in it whatsoever…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …you know, which some people might find more difficult
N: Alright, so…
D: May not, but they may do
N: …through the whole course will we always be using a plectrum?
D: Yes
N: Right
D: I will be using the plectrum the whole way through
N: Can…
D: So you, so…
N: …can we do it without a plectrum?
D: It's possible to play without a plectrum, but realistically for electric guitar play, and there are some great guitar players which play in the style using their fingers, but ordinarily you would really want to use a plectrum
N: Okay
D: So how we hold the plectrum then is between our thumb and our first finger. So basically I've got that between the pads of my thumb and first finger. So I just take my thumb, put it down on the pad
N: Mmmhmm
D: And basically the plectrum itself is in-between
N: Alright, whereabouts is the point, or the tip of the plectrum?
D: I've got the point of the plectrum in this instance pointing out towards the guitar string, that's the most common way of doing it
N: Can you show me how it would look on the guitar…
D: Yes
N: …when you're sort of playing it
D: If I put my thumb perpendicular to the guitar, the plectrum comes out…
N: Perpendicular, that's a good word
D: Yeah, I know. The plectrum then comes out sideways to the guitar string, and you can have a nice even hit. I'll just turn up so you can see or hear this. So the plectrum's very close to the guitar strings in the first place, so there's not really much chance of me missing
N: Mmmhmm
D: But that's something you really do have to think about with our right hand in any case. This chord has only got two notes, two fingers on our left hand, so we mustn't hit any additional guitar strings. Not very nice
N: Sounds nasty
D: We only want those two strings, so the plectrum just goes just above the sixth string…
N: Yeah
D: …which is the first one that we strike, and I'm hitting through both strings, nice and even. Very important to get an even weight, you can even think of them as one big fat guitar string if you like. You don't wanna kind of…
N: Fall off of one onto the other, yeah
D: …stumbling, separation, it's one nice even strike
N: So that's the sixth and the fifth string there
D: Sixth string and the fifth string, that's our chord of A5. So what we've got there is our chord, which is at the fifth fret…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …first finger, just to recap, on the sixth string on the fifth fret. Third finger on the seventh fret, on the fifth string. Plectrum in our right hand, which strikes both strings nice and evenly. Okay, moving on to the second chord that I'd like to teach
N: Yeah
D: It's exactly the same shape, so there's nothing hugely new involved there, other than we're doing the same shape at a different fret
N: Mmmhmm
D: Now this particular chord is G5. This note was A, this note down here is G. My first finger goes on the third fret, on the sixth string…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …same shape of course as A5. And our third finger goes on the fifth fret on the fifth string…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …so as you can see that's the same shape as A5, but it's two frets lower down. This way is lower
N: Yes
D: This way is higher. A5, and then I've got G5 down here
N: Obviously you're using your first finger. Does it matter? Do you always have to use your third finger for that second note?
D: Some guitarists will use their fourth finger, you see that quite commonly. I think it's better to use your third finger. Couple of reasons for this, one is you might need your little finger for, or your fourth finger for some other additional notes at some stage in your playing. And also if you think about it, one finger per fret is fairly logical. So if my first finger's on fret three, my second finger hovers over fret four. My third finger is in position for fret five. So I think that makes more logic really to, or it's more logical…
N: Yeah
D: …to use fingers one and three rather than one and four I would say
N: Mmmhmm
D: So just to recap on those two chords again…
N: Totally
D: …we've got A5 which is at fret number five, and G5 which is at fret number three
N: And it being given the name A and G because of the note that you're playing with your first finger?
D: On the…exactly, on the sixth string, and we'll touch on this in much greater detail further down the course, you'll learn what all the notes are up and down the bottom two guitar strings, the bottom two strings being string six and string five. But you're quite right, the chords are named from the note which is underneath your first finger. So if I put my first finger on fret five, that note is an A. Don't have to worry about the name of the other notes under your third finger, don't need to worry about it at all…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …it's an A5. G is on the third fret on the sixth string. Put your third finger in place…
N: Yeah
D: …G5. And be very careful with the coordination in the right hand…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …to make sure that those two strings are struck nice and evenly
N: Okay, if we're following the notes at home…
D: Yes
N: …we'll be, after the break, looking at exercise one…
D: Yes
N: …which is where we'll see those two chords together
D: That's correct
N: Can you talk me through posture? Sort of how we should be sitting to…
D: Yes
N: …achieve the best?
D: Posture is, posture's ever so important. A lot of people suffer from, like, back ache if they don't sit quite right
N: Mmmhmm
D: Electric guitars are quite heavy, in actual fact, so you need to be set up in the right way. Now, to play electric guitar, or acoustic guitar for that matter as well, we put the guitar on our right leg. You'll see classical guitar players with the guitar on their left leg, but electric guitar players and acoustic guitar players generally play with the guitar on their right leg. The most important things to bear in mind here are the, are that the guitar neck should point up, not down
N: Right
D: You don't want the guitar to be falling down this like, and the reason for that is, when you then try and play it, 'A' I can't really see what I'm trying to do…
N: (Laughs)
D: …the guitar feels really uncomfortable, and I'm kind of holding it up…
N: Yeah
D: …as well as playing it. The idea is that it will rest nicely on your right leg, and if your right leg's, or your knee is pointing towards the floor, put a, you know, put a book under your right foot, get a foot stool or use a book, it doesn't really matter, but raise your right leg up, so it feels, I'm sitting on a stool here with my legs up quite high
N: So this needs to be flat
D: This needs to be at least flat, certainly not pointing, sloping down and away
N: But it can point, maybe, slightly up?
D: It can point slightly up yeah, that's fine, and get comfortable with the guitar
N: Mmmhmm
D: So it's a good thing to sit up a little bit. Don't sit with your nose on the neck try'na see what you're doing…
N: (Laughs)
D: …sit back a little bit. That's good as well
N: Alright, lovely, good advice. Okay join us back here for part two where we'll be getting more comfortable and doing some exercises
N: Welcome back to part two of episode one, it's the Gigajam essential guitar skills course part one. My name's Natalie, this is the lovely David
D: Thank you
N: How are you still?
D: I'm still fine
N: Good. We've got comfortable with our guitars
D: Yes, very comfortable now, yes
N: We're looking relaxed
D: Yes
N: We're in position
D: Yes
N: What do we need to know now?
D: Okay, we've obviously learnt a couple of chords, A5 and G5
N: Indeed
D: To put that into some kind of musical context we need to understand something about rhythm. I think the first thing to understand is that music is ordered into bars
N: Okay
D: So it's divided up into something we can understand and relate to. And the most common type of bar is divided into four beats
N: Mmmhmm
D: Four beats in a bar. That's the most common, you know, number of beats you'll hear in any kind of bar, especially in rock music
N: Right
D: Okay? Now if you have one note which lasts for those four beats, it lasts for the whole of a bar, and consequently it's called a whole note
N: Alright, how would that, how would that sound?
D: How that would sound is, if I play my guitar and count to four beats, I'll count myself in. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. So I hit the chord once…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …on beat one, and I let it sustain, or ring on, through the other four beats. So that's called a whole note because it lasts for the whole of a common time bar
N: Mmmhmm
D: Okay. Four…
N: Alright so that's…
D: … beats of a common time bar
N: …that's how it sounds
D: Yes
N: On here, on our Gigajam course notes…
D: Yes
N: …we've got the, the visualisation of it, how it would look in a piece of sheet music
D: Correct
N: And there it is there, and it's a kind of, just a little circle
D: It's a circle without a stem
N: Mmmhmm
D: It's just a circle all by itself. It's lasts for the who…for the four beats as we've discussed, and it's an empty note. It's not, some of the notes later on will be filled in, they'll be black notes in effect, and have stems…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …up or down. But this particular note is just like an egg shape type note, circular note, a white note, lasts for four beats
N: Alright
D: Okay?
N: So are we gonna be using these in the exercise that we have?
D: We will be using these in the exercise. Just before we actually dial up the Xtractor and start playing the exercises, I'd just like to speak a little bit about how we practise changing our chords between A5 and G5, and some problems that people might encounter…
N: Okay
D: …when they're playing those chords. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm gonna play the exercise which we will then come to shortly which is in the course, but I'll use that anyway. I'll play A5 for two bars…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …which means I'll count two bars of four beats
N: Mmmhmm
D: I'll then change over to a G5 which is another two bars of four beats
N: And will you use whole notes?
D: Whole notes
N: Alright
D: If the chord sustains for the four beats it must be a whole note, that's what it would look like written down
N: Okay
D: Okay? Now when we play the chords, I'll count myself in again, this is what we're gonna try and achieve. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, down to G, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one. Now, the hardest part of playing the guitar, especially at the beginning, is moving chords around quickly
N: Mmmhmm
D: What I think a lot of people will find is when they move the chords, their fingers don't move quite together, one moves down okay…
N: (Laughs)
D: …but the other one gets left behind, okay…
N: Yeah
D: …you know, those kind of stuff. You just have to persevere, and it's just muscle memory, getting used to the feel of the chord under the fingers
N: Mmmhmm
D: Feel quite comfortable with it, getting used to that feeling and then trying to move it as one, straight down
N: Ah, so not leading with the first and sort of…
D: Exactly
N: …following with the third finger
D: Don't lead with the one and then move the other one along. You've gotta move both of the fingers simultaneously
N: Do you almost lock it so it's sort of rigid?
D: Yea…in a relaxed kind of a way. It's a very important point, and I'm glad you brought that up, because if you grip too hard and you then try and move, you've kind of locked yourself on the guitar
N: Yeah
D: And as you move down over the fret markers, you feel like you're bumping over them, gedink, gedink, gedink…
N: (Laughs)
D: …as you move down, okay? If you just relax a little bit, and, you know, you've gotta press down hard enough for the strings to play, clearly. If I don't quite press down hard enough….it's not really working
N: Mmmhmm
D: I've gotta press down cleanly, but to be honest with you, it's more to do with accuracy than strength, you know, I've seen six year old kids play the guitar, and it's not because they're so strong, it's just they're pressing the guitar string straight into the fingerboard. They're not pressing it up, they're not pressing it down, they're not pressing it into the fret…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …again, if the finger presses on the metal fret it won't play. It's buzzy and rattly. You want...
N: Just behind
D: Just behind, in the middle of the fret so just in front of the next fret up. But if it's in there you'll hear it so it'll be clear. So it's gotta be quite accurate, don't press too hard, you'll get the feel for it once you've practised it a little bit. And then move down as one quite relaxed. The other thing I'd like to say about that is, especially with the overdrive sound we're using on the amplifier here, when you move you'll hear a 'wwichhh' kind of noise…
N: Yes I noticed that
D: …it's that finger noise
N: Yeah
D: Yeah, you'll hear finger noise on the strings, which isn't the same as the chord sounding, sliding your way down, so again when we change chords, this will be pointed out very clearly with the music Xtractor in a second, you need to move the chord quickly, but as late a possible. You can't, you've gotta, each chord will last for four beats…
N: Yeah
D: …you can't cheat and leave on beat three…
N: And get ready
D: …so you've got two beats to get ready for the next chord. You've gotta see through the four beats, and at the last possible moment move the chord down quickly onto the new chord. I'll just demonstrate that again
N: Yeah
D: So you've got one, two..
D & N: three, four, one
D: Two, three, four, one, two. So I'm moving the chord quite late, but..
N: Just literally, just before the one…
D: Just at the last minute
N: …comes in
D: The whole note lasts for four beats, you've gotta let that chord sustain for the whole four beats
N: Mmmhmm
D: So if we move over to the Gigajam coursework that you would have downloaded. You'll see above the exercise there, that's the exercise I was just playing, we've got our three icons
N: Mmmhmm
D: I think what's very useful is to look at the video clip first of all
N: Yeah
D: So anybody playing this at home gets an idea as to what's going on. They can hear the exercise, and they can read it through as they watch the video. So if you'd like to just bring that up and watch the video of me playing that exercise now that'll be, here we go, that'll be nice. And you'll see how that corresponds with the music that's written there on the page
N: Mmm, and obviously the beauty of this is so you can double check if you're getting it right
D: Exactly. You can hear it, you can see it
(Exercise starts playing)
N: We can hear it
D: Giving you the four beats there
N: Yeah
D: One
D & N: Two, three
D: Here's the move
N: Four
D: One, two
D & N: Three four
D: One. Back up to A5
N: Two, three, four, one, two, three, four
D: So as you can see each chords' sustaining for those whole four beats
N: Yeah
D: I'm only playing one of them in each bar
N: Mmmhmm, and just hitting the sixth and the fifth strings
D: Just hitting the sixth and the fifth strings that's absolutely correct. Okay, so what I'm gonna do now, if you'd like to bring up the guitar Xtractor?
N: Yeah, sure
D: What I will do is I will play along on my guitar
N: Mmmhmm
D: Just practice playing along with that. We'll demonstrate how the Xtractor can help you by playing the exercise, by speeding up, by slowing down, and then we'll record the performance in a couple of moments
N: Okay, just while that's loading up, can we talk through the written notation that we've got there on the bar?
D: Yes
N: And the sort of positioning of the notes?
D: Okay, the whole note there, as you can see, is written towards the front end of the bar, because it lasts for the four beats so we tend to write it, or we write it above where beat one would happen
N: Mmmhmm
D: We wouldn't write it at the end where beat four would happen
N: Right
D: So they're written at the front, and the C that you can see at the beginning of the line
N: Ah, just there, yeah?
D: Yep, that stands for common time
N: Four beats in a bar
D: Which means four beats in a bar, cos you can have different numbers of beats in a bar. But in rock music, most of the time it's four beats in a bar, consequently it's called common time…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …cos it's the most common
N: And the positioning of this whole note on the stave, we've got A there, being in the sort of…
D: Yes
N: …second gap up
D: Okay, what we've done there is, in the guitar course we're not worrying about teaching people the harrmonic pitch of notes at this stage. However, we have put the notes in their correct place
N: Ahhh
D: So underneath the A5 you'll see that it's in a space which is the space for A…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …and on the G it's on the second line up which is the space for G. Not worried about people learning those, but kind of subliminally that will have gone in for when we learn to read notes at some later stage
N: Okay…
D: Okay?
N: …but we don't need to worry about that at the moment?
D: Don't worry about it right now, not at all, merely the rhythm
N: Alright
D: So if we have the Xtractor there, if you'd like to mute out the overdrive guitar for me please? Thank you
N: There we go
D: And basically just hit play, I'll just play along
(Xtractor starts playing)
N: There's the metronome that counts you in
D: Four counts in
N: One, two, three…changing to the G, our second whole note on that. Back up to the A, three, four, one, two, three, four. Down to the A, the G, my apologies. That's the A
D: Yeah
N: A at the fifth
D: G at the third
N: G at the third
D: Okay, you get the idea
N: Yeah, I mean…
D: Now obviously…
(Xtractor stops playing)
D: …if that's a little bit too fast you can go to the tempo marking and you can slow that right down, so it becomes more easy, which I would suggest anyone beginning will want to run this a little bit slower. 'A' that's probably quite fast
N: Yeah
D: So you can knock it down to whatever speed you like…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …and then just play at that speed
N: Okay, shall we do it again and maybe analyse it? I'll take it down…
D: Yeah
N: …to seventy
D: Okay, now if we're going to analyse this we need to swap over to a midi-enabled guitar. Either a conventional guitar like that with a midi pick-up attached…
N: Mmmhmm
D: …or this guitar here, which is quite unusual, which is a complete midi-guitar. So this will record straight into the computer, give us a score back, and we can analyse and see if I've played it right, or where any mistakes were, that type of thing. So if you'd like to just dial that up for me again, I will play the exercise
(Xtractor starts playing)
N: So this is the A fifth, two whole notes, there's the second one
D: Yeah
N: And then coming to the G fifth. Even though I've only taken that down…
D: Yeah
N: …ten bpm it's…
D: Really feels much slower doesn't it?
N: Yeah, but it's easier for you to, to find…
D: Yeah
N: …your fingering as it were…
D: Exactly
N: …to move up. Alright
D: Okay
(Xtractor stops playing)
N: Well as we're…
D: Shall we have a little look at that?
N: Yeah, I mean we're coming to the end of the, end of the show soon…
D: Okay
N: …so let's see if you can impress us and here is your analysis in all it's technicolour glory
D: Okay, so some of those colours are showing that I played those notes a little bit late, or whatever. But this is what's so good about this analysis…
N: Yeah
D: …even if you couldn't quite hear if you were a little bit late or early you can look at it and you can see it, and it focuses on timing, pitch and the note length. So it's ideal just to see exactly how you played
N: Excellent. Well I think you did quite well even though it says your overall grading is 37.29…
D: Errr
N: …percent
D: Hmmm
N: I know the reasoning behind that
D: Which is?
N: Which is because you didn't play the whole exercise
D: Correct
N: Exactly. It's the end of lesson one
D: Mmmhmm
N: Which means we are very much well on our way to achieving our grade one in the guitar. Join us back here next time for lesson two. I was Natalie Barrass, this was our tutor, David Young