Day 21

Did you have fun playing all those random arpeggios?

Guess what's up tonight!

MORE OF THAT

Okay. Theory again. Sorry. God, I"m bad at living up to the name here.

The notes with the letter names we've been playing are all part of something called the major scale.

I'm not going to talk about whole steps and half steps because you can get that anywhere. We're gonna TALK ABOUT FRETS.

If you're fretting an E, the next fret up on that string will be F. Always. If you're fretting an A, the fret after the next one up will be B. Alwaty.

So here's the circle, over and over. |-| indicates a fret you skip.

|a|-|B|C|-|D|-|E|F|-|G|-|A|-|B|C|-|D|-|E|F|-|G|...

Got it?
Good!

B and C are buddies, E and F are buddies, everyone else likes their personal space. Or something. Remember it how you can.

And this applies for everyone who's playing a fretted instrument (except dulcimer. Dulcimer's fretted differently. Dulcimers take skipping a fret a step further and just don't have that fret. Diatonic instead of chromatic).

So, you know the names of the strings on what you're playing, right?
Ukulele, you're probably gCEA or GCEA
Bass, EADG
And Guitar, GDAEBe. Which, if you go high-pitch to low, Easter Bunny Gets Drunk After Easter.

(Baritone uke gets Easter Bunny Gets Drunk and bass has Get Drunk After Easter. And ukulele gets...guhSEEEUUH. Sorry. That's how I remember it. gCEA spells guhSEEEEuuuhh.)

Okay. Now you know your strings. Pick one.

Let's pick the G string, because it makes me laugh inside to say that.
Look up at the head of your instrument with the tuners. The thing that separates the part of the string you play from the part of the string that's being wrapped around the tuners is called the nut. I've probably said that before. I don't know. I'm not an expert. This isn't even a real car.

So pretend the nut's a fret. It looks like a fret, it's parallel to the frets. You're good.

If it helps you remember, lightly put your finger on the tiner-windy bit of the string. Then play your open string. The note your string makes when the string is open is the name of the string note.

This lab coat has someone else's name on it. I don't know what's in this beaker.

Now, start counting. If it's yoru G string, you'd skip the next (first) fret and your next fret is A. If you're playing your G string (haha), the second fret will be A.. Now keep going. Find all the letters on the whole string.

Then do that thing from last nigth on that string.

Then cry over how much more you know than you knew.

Then try to get some sleep.

Day 20

We made it this far.

Okay, here we go.


|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---

|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|-E-|-F-

The notes on the low E string. Ukulele, pretend you have different tuning or sit this one out.

You're going to memorize those.

Start by playing it up and down and up and down until you think you have it. You should also start listening to see if you can hear the difference in the tones.

Now, on each note, play

|---|---|---|---|---|---|

|---|---|---|---|-X-|---|

|---|-X-|---|---|-X-|---|

|---|---|-X-|---|---|---|

Starting lowest pitch and working your way up.

Now, take each note in the following sequences, find it on the fretboard, and play that sequence (it's a major arpeggio, if you care). Then on to the next note. 
Try to not look at the fret diagram up there. The ideal is that you just memorize where they are.

So here's your sequence:

AEFDCBG

AEFBDCE

AFEAFBGDF

ADFEE

AEFGDBA

FEDCBDG

AEFGBDF

EDFBG

FBDFCB

BDBF



If you're wondering how I got those sequences, the answer is keysmashing on my number pad and then doing a find and replace. They don't represent actual frequencies of the note bine used or anything






 

day 19

Accept that sometimwe you have a bad day

sometimes you work really hard

and when you're done you just dont' feel like playing.

And take a break.

Day 18

Bassists: bad news for you. Or maybe good news.

You're going to need to know more music theory than most people, to be able to play with other people.

Here's a quick, dirty, and oversimplified way to know enough music theory to be able to play along with people.

Other instruments, follow along, because this is useful to know.

When you look up chords on ultimateguitar or the JoCo wiki or wherever you're getting your chords from, you're going to see text and letter names above it. Like

           Em                     A                             Em    B Em  
I've got a regular problem so my standard break from life is in order. 

Where the letter above the word changes, the guitarist changes the chord.
(This is probably review for everyone. just hang with me)

Notes have names. Chords have names. The notes on your fretboard have names. You need to know all of them. Most of them. At least these.

|G|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|
|D|---|-E-|-F-|---|-G-|---|
|A|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|
|E|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|

I hope that diagram makes sense. The |X| is the nut and the open string name and every | is a fret..

So. That's your thing for tonight. Get to a point where you can find all those notes, without having to stress about it. You don't need to be good at it. Just get the idea in your head, or be able to count up those letters. Play it up and down and over and over until you start to remember where the frets with the letters are.

Don't care about theory? PLay it anyway. Up and down and up and down, tose frets, until your fingers fall off.

Guitar and ukulele, keep up with that strum practice from last night. Get really good at that. It'll help you later. Getting really good at switchign between G and Em? Throw in A.
|-0-----
|-0-----
|-1-----
|-3-----

|--0----
|--3----
|--3----
|--3----
|--0----
|-------

And keep up that strum thing until you're really good at changing chords in that half-beat. There's never going to be a time in your life when you go GOD DAMN IT I'M REALLY GOOD AT CHANGING CHORDS IN THE HALF BEAT.
So you have that going for you.
Which is nice.
Sleep well.