The Guitar Players Field Guide

Introduction

Why am I doing this? My Dad has been wanting to learn how to play the guitar since he was a teenager. He has tried many times over the years but it never quite stuck. Working overtime in a steel mill will make ya want to wander the pages of a Stephan King novel instead of practicing boring scales.

There was always a guitar tucked away in some corner of our house as I was growing up. His ambition to play is probably the reason why I started in the first place. I was always drawn to it from an early age and it quickly became a dream of mine to just play guitar for a living. Subconsciously, I think that if I could achieve those dreams of mine that it would somehow make my fathers come true as well.

I am at the point right now in my life where I feel like I need to give back, rather than to keep on taking. On one of my recent trip’s back home to visit my family I was able to help him a get a new guitar. He had texted me a picture prior to my trip home of a guitar that he saw hanging on the wall of our local music store while he was record shopping and I could just tell that he was in love with it. I knew that if he had the right instrument that it would inspire him to want to keep picking it up. So we went down to Speno’s Music with an old shredder guitar that I never played anymore and we traded it in for a gorgeous Guild Manhattan Special Hollowbody guitar equipped with a bigsby.

As I continue to teach my dad how to play guitar I will periodically be updating these chapters as to coincide as a guide for myself to stay on track with it and for me to re-learn some new techniques, erase some old bad habits, and bond with my Dad with the goal of next time coming home and jamming together on some classic 70’s rock songs.

Learning how to play the guitar with the proper technique is important. But I also believe that learning the functionality of the instrument is just as important to truly gain a better understanding as your body and mind learns how to connect with such an old tradition. The souls of our human consciousness singing beneath six strings of steel and dead wood.

My goal with this is to try and teach some basics with how the instrument is made, while understanding it’s functionality and maintaining a proper setup so that learning a new song or routine comes a bit easier than it would on a guitar that plays like a stiff dog. If a guitar plays good then chances are you will too, it’s just that simple.

Learning the Fretboard

What does that mean? The fretboard is a fretted fingerboard on a flat or roughly flat strip of wood on the neck. When the strings are pressed down (or fretted) the vibrations are shortened, producing notes of a higher pitch. 

The frets themselves are those thin pieces of metal laid out laterally on the fretboard in specific locations. Common fretboard materials are typically rosewood, ebony, or maple. 

If you notice there are dots on the side of the guitar neck that indicate certain frets. These are called fret markers and they are on the whole steps starting on fret 3 and going up through fret 12 (double dots) and continuing up the neck.

Everyday Warm-Up Exercises

Practice, practice, practice. I heard those three words all of my life. It can get boring real fast but there is no other way to go about it. The reason you need to do it daily is to get the muscles in your fingers and your brain to work together. Muscle memory is real and once that pandora’s box is open you can achieve almost anything you pour your heart into.

This exercise works on stretching the fingers of your left hand while also keeping your right hand steady and moving in a controlled picking pattern. You will want to alternate your picking pattern (down, up, down, up) and keep your pinky planted on the guitar as a guide. This will keep your playing more steady and precise, meaning less buzzy and wrong notes.

Chords in the Key of C

The key of C is the most common of all of the keys in music. I believe that the piano has something to do with that. Follow along with the video above to get a better understanding of playing these eight different chord shapes along with some common chord progressions used all over popular music.

Basic Theory 1.0

All music is built from the scale, a series of notes by intervals. An interval is a unit of distance on the guitar, piano, the staff, in the scale, etc…

  • Half Step – 1 Fret
  • Whole Step – 2 Frets
  • Minor 3rd – 3 Frets

Intervals can be altered or changed by using accidentals.

  • Sharp – raises a note in pitch by a half step or 1 fret
  • Flat – lowers a note in pitch by a half step or 1 fret
  • Natural – cancels a sharp or flat

Scales start at the Root/Tonic note and proceed to the Octave, which is the same note as the tonic but at a different pitch.

Scales can be Major (happy), Minor (sad), or Modal (many moods).

There are three types of scales…

  • Chromatic – built of all half steps, 12 notes, neither major or minor, conveys movement.
  • Pentatonic – no half steps, made of wholes steps and minor 3rds consisting of 5 notes and is commonly referred to as “the Blues” scale and is major or minor.
  • Diatonic – foundation of all Western music and consists of 7 notes (doe, re, mi…) with half and whole steps and can be major, minor, and modal.

Book A Private Guitar Lesson!

Want to learn more? Make an appointment today by emailing:

Patrick Olyn Benson AT G mail DOT COM