Archives for 2013

This is the particular image that I had in my head as I was composing this piece and it’s also the image that I try to keep close as I’m playing it. It’s good to have a reference point that pulls you away from the nuts and bolts of playing whether it be an image or a quote or whatever. Even though there is a freak storm on the way, there’s a sense of calm in this photograph of the Silvery Tay taken in Dundee by Maggie Smith which I tried to encapsulate in this solo fingerstyle guitar composition

Performance of said composition

I was trying to combine happy with sad when I wrote this

As musicians we want to develop the skill to be able to transfer the musical ideas that are created in our heads naturally onto the guitar. In order to achieve this we need to know the guitar fretboard very well in terms of where all the notes are, what their musical names are and how they all sound in relation to each other.

The Ear To Instrument Video below is designed to develop both your ear and your knowledge of the guitar fretboard at the same time. Go and get your guitar, watch and listen as this video plays. After I’ve played with Olivia singing the note names the video goes quiet and its your turn to sing and play back. Go on, give it a try ! Click here to go the musicianship section of the website where you’ll find more ear to instrument training videos with full explanation of how to use them

In this exercise I’ve taken the developed blues chord progression from my previous blog post, fingerstyle blues progression 2, and added a guide-tone line. For an explanation of guide-tone lines go to my original blog on the subject, guide-tone lines.

The first time around I play the guide-tone line with accompanying chords. The second time around I’m only playing the chords leaving space for you to have a go at the guide-tone line. The TAB is given beneath the video.

In my previous blog on improvising on the blues I discussed using guide-tones as a route into improvisation. The guide-tones come from the chord progression so a nice way of varying the guide-tone line is to vary the chord progression. The progression below is based on the progression in my previous blog on the subject but I’ve added some extra chords to add more colour. Have a go at playing the progression. In my next blog I’ll look at creating a new guide-tone line from it. Scroll to below the video for the TAB and notation

One of the most satisfying feelings when playing live is to have the awareness of the sound filling the room. In a quiet room it’s almost like a meditative experience. With that in mind, when I wrote this song “Tibo” I was trying to evoke that experience. It’s named after an establishment where I do a regular gig, “Cafe Tibo”

This is the first post in a series where I’ll be looking at how we can develop improvisation techniques over the blues. Melodically I’m going to be looking at how we can build and develop improvisations and harmonically I’m going to be looking at how we can vary the basic blues progression. In the first 12 bars of the video I play only the chords of a basic blues progression in G. The notation and TAB are given below the video. In the second 12 bars I start to add the guide-tones. For a description of guide-tones go to my  previous blog post on  Guide-Tone Lines. Have a go at playing the guide-tone lines along with the video.

Some melodies just have a timeless quality and Londonderry Air is one such melody. A traditional Irish Air, the melody can be traced back to the early 1600’s, albeit with varying theories of origination from the musical historians (there is a theory that suggests it originates from lowland Scotland but I’ll not push that one) . It’s testament to how a melody can have a life and a travel a journey through the decades and across continents. It has been been played by all varieties of instruments and will be for some time to come I’m sure.

Learning how to improvise is an ambition of many guitarists and while it may seem at the outset a very difficult thing to achieve there are approaches to the subject that will help you get started. One of these is guide-tone lines.

In the attached guitar video I’m creating guide-tone lines for fingerstyle guitar over standard chord progression movements which I then go onto embellish. A guide-tone line is a melodic line which comprises of tones from the chords of the chord progression being followed. True guide-tone lines only use the 3rd and 7th of the chord but more sophisticated lines will make use of all of the chord tones.

One of the hardest things about improvisation is that it often takes place within a certain structure, for example a pre-determined chord progression. This can be harder to tackle than “free improvisation” where there is no pre-determed structure. By identifying melodic lines within a pre-determined chord progression you will start to identify possible motifs that could be developed. It’s also a good practice for developing your song writing skills. You’ll notice from the attached notation that the lines I’m identifying are not necessarily the top lines, in measures 5&6 the guide tone line is an internal line. In the attached video I’m using various ideas to develop the guide tone lines………….for a later blog.

If you want to try and add some of your own accompanyment to the lines in the attached notation, try play the odd root note from the chords. You don’t have to play everyone, just enough to support the guide-tone line which should already be implying the harmony.