Saturday 31 March 2012

Week 5 - They Say Anyone Can Play Guitar

Welcome to week 5 of me attempting to learn guitar.

When I could grab the time I would try to get some practise in. I was determend to learn a little more of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.

Yesterday I got the chance to watch more of the Marty Schwartz YouTube videos so I could nail more of the intro part - which I'm chuffed to bits to say I did. I'm happy to be playing something that sounds really nice. I also attempted more of the solo. If you watch the video you will see it's in parts. The slides in the second part are stumping me.

Oh, well. I'll just have to keep on keeping on!

Wednesday 28 March 2012

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - David Gilmour

There is one music video I've been playing over and over as it's absolutely fantastic. It's David Gilmore from Pink Floyd, live, playing the solo of Wish You Were Here.

Without further ado, because it so good, here it is:



Fortunately if this is something you would like to learn to play here are a couple of videos from Marty Schwartz - the guy I always go to for YouTube lessons.

This video is the beginning part of Wish You Were Here - the bit that is played with a 12 string guitar.

http://youtu.be/jt4veKC2I10 - unfortunately the video won't embed in blogger for some reason so you will have to click on the link.

Now for the solo section played by David Gilmour -

http://youtu.be/n67FLy3TLS0 - again, Blogger for some reason will not or can't find the video so I added the link for you to click on.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. By the way, I'm no where near actually playing the whole song - I'm definatly not that good - yet :-)

Sunday 25 March 2012

Getting back to basics - switching chords and strumming

Over the last couple of weeks, I've had little time to do much of anything with my guitar so I thought it was about time to get back to basics - and to be honest I'm still very much as the basic stages of learning.

Yes, I've memorised some chrods and have attempted to play a very small part of a few songs I like or that have been recommended, but the fact is - I still very much need to pracice switching chords and to strum in time. Perhaps it's just me but doing a simple down, down, up, down, up down strum and switching chords does not come naturally, but it feels that it should.

To help I've been watching a few videos. Here is one that is helping me just now - I hope it helps you too...

Saturday 24 March 2012

Week 4 - They Say Anyone Can Play Guitar

Over the last week I have been practising power chords, but it's been painful due to issues with the old fracture on my left wrist. I hope the trouble I'm having with my wrist will ease off - I can go for a very long time without even thinking of it, then for many months it can bother me more than usual, and this is such a time.

I lowered the bridge of my guitar by sanding it down. It turns out that it is a fairly cheap plastic bridge and replacements can easily be bought from Amazon. After I sanded down the bridge I found it easier to play, but I felt the sound had changed slightly for the worse and wondered if I had taken a bit too much off. I ordered a better quality bridge. When it arrived I noticed in the instructions that came with the bridge that it suggested it be sanded down to the right height so the low E was about 3mm from the 12 fret and the high E 2mm from the fret. I gave it a sand down then tried to fit it. It turned out to be too tight a fit. I had to grab it with pliers to get it back out. Looking at the fitting instructions on the packaging again, it also suggested that it be sanded to the correct thickness too! 

The new bridge is in now but I still think I haven't taken enough off  the height yet. I will have another go, and perhaps buying some cheaper bridges so I can mess about with the height of them to find a height and sound that I'm happy with. I can just imagine all you great guitar players out there shaking your heads in disbelief at me butchering my guitar.

I've not had a great deal of time on my guitar this week due to the weather getting nicer and working in my garden - got a lot of digging to do - so I've still not really improved any since last week. I have, however been challenged to learn a bit from Dueling Banjos which is an instrumental featured in the film Deliverance. I'm working on that now, just for a bit of fun.

Saturday 17 March 2012

Week 3 - They Say Anyone Can Play Guitar

What a busy week I've had. There's been too many thing happening, not all good, that's been keeping me from playing as much as I would have liked.

At the beginning of the week I a practise session with my friend and he showed me a few more things such as a part of Otis Reading's Dock of the bay, using a power cord, which starts off with my index finger on the 6 string of the 3rd fret, my 3rd finger on the 5th sting of the 5th fret and my 4th finger (pinkie) on the 4th sting of the 5th fret - then slide that whole shape up to the 7th fret and so on. It's difficult but I love practising it.

I was shown a couple of other song beginnings but to be honest it was too much to take in at the time as my kids were running around distracting me.

During all this time I've had with my guitar I often wondered if the action was too high. The action is the distance the strings are from the frets, which is typically measured at the 12th fret. Anyhow, I wanted to know how to lower the action so once again I headed off to YouTube and watched a couple of videos.



Against the advice of my friend, I loosened all the strings and lifted out the bridge, took about a 1.5 - 2 millimetres off the bottom and put it all back together again. Please note, if this is something you are thinking of doing, get the job done by a professional. I could have easily taken too much off making the bridge too small, and ruined my guitar. I probably was lucky - I fancied my chances of not making a mistake. It could have gone wrong. Don't do it.

Thankfully the guitar still plays fine after butchering the bridge and I can notice that the stings are closer to the frets. It has made a bit of a difference but not much. That will come with practice and perhaps some more practice after that.

One of the other setbacks this week involved me jarring an old fracture injury in my left wrist which makes my practising painful and some of the chords that I could almost hit become that bit more difficult.

Sunday 11 March 2012

They Say Anyone Can Play Guitar - 2 Weeks

It's actually been 2 and a half weeks since I bought my acoustic guitar and I've kept the fingernails of my left as short as possible, trimming them about twice a week. The hard skin is starting to develop and I'm getting use to them being so short.

Over the last week I was shown some great playing tips and chords, including what my friends call the Green Day G, which is the G Chord but with the ring finger on the B string and the pinkie on the high E sting of the 3rd fret. I don't know if this variation on the G chord has a name but it sounds great. It also helps when you're learning to play Green Day's (Good Riddance) Time of Your Life, because when you move from the G chord to Cadd9, then to the D chord, your ring finger doesn't need to move from the B string on the 3rd fret. Another variation on the Cadd9 chord is to keep your pinkie on the High E string which makes this song really easy.

The lesson for this these chords and Green Day's Good Riddance - Time Of Your Life song can be found on this Marty Schwartz YouTube video:




This week also so me being introduced to some really nice Blues music played on the acoustic guitar in the chord of E - otherwise known as 'Blues in E'

Another great video by Marty on learning some blues stuff on the acoustic can be found below, but what my friend, Tim showed me this week is barring the E minor chord with your index finger and hammering on and pulling off the top E string on the 3rd fret with the middle finger as the top 3 stings only are being played. Sounds really cool.

Without further ado, some Blues lessons:

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Finger Exercises - Learning To Play Guitar

The great thing about taking up a new hobby is there are lots of people willing to offer advice. Part of that advice was to do exercises with my left hand to strengthen it. Those exercises included squeezing something like a squishy ball that I can get from a sports shop and to do exercises with my fingers going up and down the fret board.
I’ve found this great video on YouTube that covers doing exercises with my fingers on the fret board. Just thought I would share it with you as I will be trying this out. J

Saturday 3 March 2012

My First Week With The Finlayson D1-G Acoustic Guitar

Following advice, I've done my best to keep the fingernails of my left hand as short as possible to help with pressing the stings on the fretboard. I've also been practicing as much as possible, usually until my fingers get too sore. My fingertips are going through the process of developing calluses, which is a good thing as it makes playing much less painful. Having my fingernails this short and subjecting the fingertips to the pain of pressing thin steel wire onto frets causes a weard tingly feeling which last for ages, but I am assured it will go away after a few weeks. I'm only managing to get in about half an hour playing a day.

While the fingers of my left hand are becoming 'seasoned' I've been looking at videos on YouTube to give me ideas on what to do with my right hand, other than just strum.

The pain and tingling feeling in my left hand doesn't bother me, in fact I welcome it as I know it will pass and I will be able to play for longer. Finding video to show me a few trick to do with my right hand makes learning to play more fun and adds another layer of interest.

For most of this first week of learning I was kind of wondering if I made a mstake with the guitar choice as holding it felt a bit uncomfortable, but I think it was just a case of getting comfortable with it.

Overall it's been a fairly good week, I've not pushed myself too much as I didn't want to damage my fingers, also I've managed to learn a couple of chords and a couple of variations, such as E major and minor, A major and minor and A7.

Over the coming weeks my aim is to learn a couple more easy beginner chords and then practice switching from one chord to the next quickly and smoothly.

So that's been my first week learning to play guitar, something they say anyone can play.

I'll leave you with this video of Tommy Emmanuel playing Classical Gas, and as an absolute beginner I watched this video and was totally gobsmacked and amazed at his playing abilities. Watching his left hand throw some seemingly impossible looking shapes and fly up and down that fretboard makes me think I'll never be able to play like that, but that's OK, I'll settle for 1/10 of his abilities right now.