MUSIC MATES

Archive for June, 2009

If you have played other musical instruments like the Spanish guitar, you might know how tough it is to play the chords. You have to contort your fingers in strange ways even to play even the simplest combination of different notes. This problem is not observed in the piano, the layout of whose keys are arranged in such a way that playing most chords are extremely easy. While you are learning to play the piano you will observe that you need to synchronize the movement of both your hands. While the right hand plays the main tune, the left hand plays the accompanying notes which are made up of a combination of different notes played at the same time.

These are known as chords and it is due to them that one is able to obtain the harmonious effect in a song. While the complicated chords are made out of a combination of 3 different notes, the basic chords are a combination of just two notes which are known as the dyads or intervals. These basic chords are not real chords in the technical sense, but are the simplest way for the player to get introduced to the world of chords. If you are interested in playing harmonious music, you need to have an idea of chords which are the foundation stones of harmonic music.

It is at this stage, when you are learning to play the basic chords that you should also learn about intervals since they form an integral and important part of music. There are different types of intervals in the Western music scale and the smallest of such intervals is known as the minor second. This is constituted by playing two notes that are half a step apart, simultaneously. There are many types of intervals and some of them are minor second, major second, minor and major third etc. There are many sites on the net from where you can purchase notation books for beginners that will help you to learn more about the basic piano chords. As you use them along with the normal music, you will observe the difference they make to the overall harmony of the music you are playing.

Dusty Springfield was really born as Mary O’Brien. We have seen the deep soul touching voice of Dusty Springfield being resurrected through the Pet Shop Boys number “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” in the late 1980s. Otherwise many of us could have long forgotten the throaty blues singe, bringing a different style and aura to the usual husky and soul touching blues singer. The blues singer has been a cusp of two worlds really. She comes from a culture which was not accustomed to be pronounced in blues singing. But as a child Dusty was always bent on becoming a blues singer. She wanted to change the way blues singing was perceived. Even with her catholic upbringing, her friends would recall, she could make blues singing sound raunchy as a child!

Springfield has always been specific with diction and pronunciation with some mainstream strictures maintained with blues singing. Though her followers were mainly an audience of white she did all the work to make it sound the authentic. From early school talent contests Dusty made it a point that her blues rendering was all for soul and jazz. Even when she went on to form the band The Lana Sisters, with Riss Chantelle and Lynne Abrams. They were doing busy pop rounds with a total soul route. So their dripping really sounded harmonious and breathy. However they had to compete with the likes of rock n roll boy groups and also pop singers like Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele during that time.

As a pronounced individual singer, Dusty’s talents continued to flourish with time. So even after the group she went on to be a solo crowd turner. She was later paid tribute to by likes of Elton John and Cher.

Rock as a genre of music may have been born relatively late as far as music is concerned, considering that they played the fiddle and the harp since Alexander the Great. But rock like the youngest kid of the family has been the most spoilt, most fickle (where sticking to rules is concerned) and also probably the most loved. The musical format can be best described as being “restless” and it is therefore extremely difficult to define. Electric guitars, drums, bass, strong vocals and deep lyrics are some of the terms that can be thrown together and somehow give a tentative definition. A closer look at the history would at the closest give one an idea of its evolution, interpretation of how that comes together to form the music genre is left entirely up to personal taste.

Rock music owes its origins to the 1940’s as a decade.  Country and Jazz was the order of the day at that time and the two morphed together aided by some electric guitars to produce a new kind of sound. 1950’s rock music pioneers like Chuck Berry were one of the first to merge some guitar with classic blues and be successful at entertaining the crowds at the same time. It was by the early 1960’s that Berry’s followers began to expand the scope of rock, these included The Rolling Stones. Rock music in their hands was beginning to become cultural symbols with their freedom with sex and youthful energy.

The 1970’s brought along new experiments as far as the sonic territory was concerned. Led Zeppelin helped kick start a new branch of rock that came to be known as Heavy metal, which was darker and heavier than what their predecessors were creating. Pink Floyd also began to gain popularity around that time and they added their psychedelic arrangements that have often been credited with egging on the progressive rock movement in music.

Punk was also soon born around the late 1970’s, when bands like The Sex Pilots and The Clash brought rock down to its basic instruments, loud singing and enraged playing of instruments and an over all attitude that spelt RUDE. Industrial rock soon came to the forefront with their unconventional use of instruments like drumming machines. However, the 1980’s again began to toy with the genre as every decade had been doing. English bands such as Depeche Mode began to demonstrate a post – punk style of song writing. REM as an American band began to absorb a similar style and these bands became popular as the “College rock” because of its popularity with the college radio stations.

It was in the 1990’s that rock began to settle into a different mould, one of an alternative style with bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden bringing the genre to mainstream music. The 1990’soon dwindled back to the past with a more traditional mainstream style of rock returning Linkin Park and 3Doors Down and Foo Fighters. Even though on the surface they might sound like hip hop-rock, contemporary and grunge, the spoilt kid remembers its roots.

Equipment and Attitude

If you are going to learn to play the guitar, you will need to beg, borrow, or steal one. Since air guitar is not the same as the real thing. Whether you use an electric, acoustic, electro-acoustic, or classical guitar is not significantly relevant. There will be differences, to be certain, but you will still learn to play the guitar and the skill can be applied to any type of guitar.

Many believe the classical guitar a fine instrument for the beginning guitar student. It depends on how quickly you are going to start performing for others. If you will be performing in less than a year from when you begin learning to play the guitar I would encourage you to purchase an electro-acoustic guitar. At any rate, you will also need a pick, which is flat, triangular, and made of nylon (a hard plastic). That is all you really need to start playing the guitar.

There will be three aspects to your learning at the beginning. They include scales, chords and rhythmic patterns. Many enjoy starting with 3 chords and one strum pattern, so they can play a pop song and sing along. This is a good way to begin, because it engages the heart together with the head.
First Steps

You can begin to play a song with only three chords. So let us learn D, G, and A.

Technically, a chord is three notes or more played at the same time or nearly the same time. You will notice that the chords for the guitar usually have 4-6 notes. That is because some of the notes in a chord are played at two different pitches, called octaves. The same note, just higher pitched is an octave higher and the same note, lower pitched is an octave lower.

Look at the legend to familiarize yourself with notation for chord diagrams on the guitar. The first horizontal bar in the diagram corresponds to the nut on the guitar, which is the top of the neck, where the strings enter the head of the guitar.

Now look at the chord diagram for D. Try to carefully place your fingers at the places on the neck of the guitar that correspond to those in the diagram. Then, using the pick, strum from the fourth string down.

If there are some strange noises it is because of one of three problems all beginners have. Be careful to press down hard enough on the string in the middle of the space between the correct fret bars. If that is not the problem, be careful not to touch any other strings with the fingers you are using to make a note. Also, watch the palm of your hand that it is not inadvertently touching a string. You must twist your hand and reposition your fingers until you get each string sounding a clear note. Remember to not play the 5th and 6th strings (the top two, lowest pitched strings).

Repeat this procedure for each chord. Practice the three of them each day for about three days. By then you should have them sounding beautifully every time.

You will need a strum pattern as well. Strum patterns are patterned combinations of down strums and up strums. Yes, you must strum up sometimes in between the down strums to create the rhythm of the guitar.

So imagine that a down strum is worth a quarter note in time of a 4/4 song. What does this mean? Simply put, it means that you will strum down four times for each measure. A measure is a basic unit of time in the song. You can count it out: 1, 2, 3, 4,; 2, 2, 3, 4; 3, 2, 3, 4 in military fashion or 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4 in civilian mode. The benefit of military mode is that the 1st number counts the measure you are on. You will feel that 1st beat of nearly every measure if you are counting correctly, depending on the song too.

The up strums come in between the beats in the measure. They can be counted together with the down strums in this way: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & ; 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & ; etc… each ‘and’ is a strum upward from the 1st string up to the string you normally start your down strum on for the chord. It takes practice.

There is a basic strum pattern that works in general for singing along with a song. It is D . D U . U D U / D . D U . U D U / etc… The periods are where you make the strum movement, but do not make contact with the strings that time. So to put it another way, where the untouched strokes are in parenthesis: D (U) D U (D) U D U / D (U) D U (D) U D U / etc… You are always moving your hand that holds the pick down and then up and then down and then up, but sometimes you stroke the strings and sometimes you do not. It is all based on the strum pattern you are creating for the song. Try it! You will get the knack of it soon enough. Practice makes perfect.