New Chords with Jimi and Duane

Jimi Hendrix

Okay, so now I'm gonna go back and pick up some of the stuff I skipped.  There were some interesting lessons in there--chords I not only didn't know, but a few of which I wasn't sure my fingers would perform for me.  As with all the other things I've learned along the way, practice proved to be helpful.  Duh.

These lessons brought me a new chord that looks difficult but one I managed to learn quickly.  Turns out, this was one of Jimi Hendrix's go-to chords.  If you think of "Purple Haze" or "Foxy Lady," you'll know which chord I mean.  It is E7#9 and I thought it would take me forever to be able to get it, but I haven't found it that hard--thank goodness.  However, since I've only learned that lick in "Purple Haze," I can't say I wouldn't find a different chord change to it more formidable in another song.

Duane Allman

When I played it for John the next lesson, he said, "Good.  Now remember just what you did there and apply it in this week's song.  How about "Melissa" by the Allman Brothers?"

Well, who doesn't like that song?  I mean, what a great song, right?  There were several chords in this song that were new to me, but I was up to the challenge.  There were two new E-shaped chords with odd (to me) fingering, two new barre chords, a chord I'd played before but didn't know the name of, and B7, the relative (finger-wise) of E7#9.

So, "Melissa."  John wrote out the whole song and I do alright with it, but the chord changes between the A and the Bm trip me up as does the change between the Cmaj7 and the B7.  I'll keep working on it.  It really is a great song.
The following lesson we changed direction and he showed me a technique I had watched guitarists do and thought, How do they do that?  This is where they use their thumb to press the 6th string (See John?  I do listen.) while playing a chord with the other fingers of the left hand.  Eric Clapton's "Lay Down, Sally" is the one I got for this and if I can keep from overthinking it to get ahead of myself I'm not doing too badly.  And let's face it, it's a fun song to play.

Eric Clapton, early days

P.S   If this posting looks funny and not quite right, you'll have to forgive me.  It looks totally different in "edit mode" than it does in "preview."  Too many pictures, I know, but whaddaya gonna do?  As usual, I totally don't know what I'm doing here.  D'Oh!

"Dirty Movies" and DADGAD

Well, it hasn't been quite two months since my last post, but a lot has been going on and I'm going to skip over some stuff.  Actually, not all that much has been going on.  I often find myself in a heat-induced coma after I walk the dogs.  I wake up to find myself on Facebook playing a mindless game as the hours tick by.

I'm still taking guitar lessons and still having fun with it, though I admit I'm not practicing enough.  When I first started, I made it a point to practice at least an hour a day.  Sometimes I got in more, sometimes a little less.  Mostly, pretty close to an hour on-the-dot.  Now when I practice, I still strive for that hour, but there are some weeks that I only practice five days.  I think I had one week where I only practiced four days.  That's not gonna get me anywhere.  And I might as well quit paying someone to teach me if I'm not willing to put the work in.

But I am still having fun.  Learning new songs.  Learned a bunch of Zeppelin which is way fun--"Whole Lotta Love," "Heartbreaker" and "Livin' Lovin' Maid."  Now we're studying alternate tunings and I got "Kashmir."  It's in DADGAD.  When John showed it to me, he said, "Man, I could play this all day."  And now I see why.  I swear this song is addictive.  It's not all that hard to play, (once you practice it a while) but it is hard to stop. 

And I must move on.  The next week (that would be last week) we went to Drop D tuning which is DADGBE.  The song is a deep cut from Van Halen's Fair Warning album called "Dirty Movies."  I thought I might have the song on the Best of Both Worlds CD, but it's not there.  I knew, however, that I had the vinyl.  So I pulled it out, uncovered the turntable and played it.  It didn't sound anything like what John had played.  Certainly not anything like what I was coming up with from what he'd written in my practice book.  Oy.  "Mean Streets" sounded more like what I was playing and of course, I told him that at my lesson this week.

He was like, "No, this is "Dirty Movies.  Listen to it again."
Van Halen's "Dirty Movies" played by some guy on YouTube. The part I'm learning starts at about 1:10.


So I did.  Over and over, until I finally thought I maybe heard it.  That sounds convincing, doesn't it?  The truth is, I could hear part of the riff, but the main part eluded me.  I couldn't get the rhythm of it and just couldn't hear it through the vocals.  I tried to tape it on my digital recorder, but I sure couldn't hear it any better with its sorry sound.

So I had lunch.  I must've needed the nourishment because as I ate, the thought occurred to me that I might be able to find a video on YouTube and actually see EVH playing the song.  Well, you know, (shrug) I thought that might help.  And there were videos of the song.  (Turns out there aren't any videos of Eddie Van Halen playing the song, but check out the link above.)

But I didn't click on them.

Because--and thank you Google search--there were actual lessons posted on YouTube for this very song!  The one I clicked on was by a guy named Doug Steele who seems way cool, into metal and goes slow enough that even an old broad like me can catch on to what he's doing.

Now, he teaches most of the whole song and I'm only learning the main riff at this time, so I brought my little recorder and "taped" several loops of it in order to be able to listen to it in my practice room.  Man, what a help it's been.  I've been able to get the rhythm better and figure out fingering to get me ahead.

Which brings me back to practice time. 

Have I mentioned that John wants me to perform onstage at the Windjammer in the Autumn Showcase? 

I may not have.  I don't want anyone to get their hopes up.  A funnier comedy show, I cannot imagine. 

I told him "no way" right off the bat, but of course, he blew smoke up my . . . (ahem) butt till I started to consider it.  The song--Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."  I've got the blues part down, no problem, but that first riff--while it's not the hardest thing I've ever tackled--it's sure not the easiest either. 

Huh.  I think I just thought of something that might make it a little easier.  I'll have to try it out later. 

But I digress.

So this week, I've started putting in some extra practice time.  I've had to in order to get this Van Halen song.  And in the meantime I've been working on "Johnny B. Goode" as well.  Guess what?  Yes, I'm getting it a little better too.

I'm not saying I'm definitely going onstage at the showcase, but if I step up my practice time and then decide to, it will only be my nerves screwing up my fingers. 

Horses and Harmonics

Souvenir guitar from
Virginia Beach

John introduced me to the pentatonic scale--Gm and A (or is it Am?) to be specific.  This takes a good deal of coordination just to play it as in "scale exercises," nevermind trying to improvise a lead phrase of my own.  So one night during practice, my husband asks, "What's  that you're playing?  It sounds like 'My Girl.'"  Yes, that's right.  The Temptations song from 1964.  I was like, "What?"  I couldn't think of anything I'd practiced that sounded like "My Girl."  I kept trying to hear it, but as far as I could tell, it wasn't there.  I asked John about it at my next lesson and he showed me the phrase I was listening for.  Okay, maybe I could see how they were related.  And now I can play it for my husband.  He's my biggest supporter.  (:grin:)

I continued (and continue) to practice "Funk 49" and scales.  Then John added in harmonics and the galloping horse sound, as in the beginning of Heart's "Barracuda."  Admit it, you can hear it in your head right now!  He was pleased that I even knew what he meant by "harmonics" and I think he's been pleased with my execution of them, but the galloping horse sound was a bit more difficult for me to master.

Now, I know all you real guitar players out there are probably laughing out loud at my clumsiness, and I felt like an idiot trying to get my small, heavy pick to do this.  I thought, Hmm . . . maybe I need a more flexible pick.  I looked through my pick dish and found a nice, medium Fender pick that I've had forever and  -- voila! -- there it was!  Yea!  John told me I'd have to use one pick or the other, though.  I couldn't be changing picks out to suit the song.  I'm back to a heavy pick, but it's larger than the original one.  Hahaha!!  You should've seen the look on his face when I reached into my pocket for the other pick. 

The next stop on the harmonics train was the first few bars of "Roundabout" by Yes.  It's mostly recognizable when I play it and I'm proud of the harmonics work but, as usual, my rhythm execution leaves much to be desired. (sigh)

We all know what the musician says when asked how to get to Carnegie Hall . . .

Next up:  New chords, "Purple Haze" and "Melissa."

The Year of Guitar Continues

Conner's picture in the frame
Gayle gave me.

OMG!  I knew it had been a long time since I blogged, but sheesh!  Two months?!  It’s actually been a pretty productive year so far.  Not in writing, of course, but in other things.  I did submit “Douglas Decides” to The Petigru Review, but I haven’t heard whether or not they accepted it.  They extended the deadline after I rushed to get it in on time, but that’s okay.  I needed the push.

And it's not like there hasn't been anything else going on.  I'm still practicing "Funk 49" but haven't quite gotten it yet, so we've moved on to pentatonic scales, harmonics and lead exercises among other things.  John says I’m doing pretty well.  I think I’m doing okay as long as I practice, which I mostly do.  I talked to Joey (brother-in-law and Conner's dad) recently and I guess he finally went back to lessons, which he’d been going to sporadically at best.  It seems John is teaching us the same thing right now and Joe was like, “Yeah, but I’ve been taking lessons a year longer than you have!”  Hey.  What can I say?

For my birthday in April I got a bunch of really cool guitar-related stuff.  My friend, Gayle gave me that great picture frame (shown above) and I finally put Conner's picture in it.  I thought about inserting my own picture, holding my guitar of course, but nobody really wants to see that, eh?  Hahaha!!

Jeff's co-worker, fellow West Virginian and our friend, Lisa loaded me up on guitar gifts!  The book to the left is Guitar Trivia by Michael Heatley.  Really fun book with a lot of information, not only about famous guitarists, but also about guitars and amps.  From this book I learned the difference between single coil pickups (like John's studio guitar) and humbuckers, like mine. This led to one lesson getting somewhat off-track as we discussed pickups.  In another lesson we discussed amps.

Lisa also gave me this book, Guitar Gods (Consulting Editor [whatever that means], Rusty Cutchin, with forward by Mick Taylor).  I haven't gotten into this one yet except to make sure Eric Johnson was well represented--which he is--as he was only mentioned once in Guitar Trivia.  But it looks really good and I know I'll enjoy it as well.  All of this plus Lisa went to the trouble of making a gift bag by taking a solid red (how did she know?) gift bag and glued pictures from guitar magazines on it.  I was like, "Oh my God!"  It was a really good birthday and I know I've forgotten some other things Lisa brought although she did turn me onto Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat beer which is really tasty stuff. 

Joe and Conner did not give me a guitar related birthday gift, but I found a cool SG mouse pad at Shem Creek Music and I tell myself that if Joe had been paying attention, that's what he would have gotten me.  I desperately needed a new mouse pad.  I'm glad I waited.

Actually, I've learned so much--or at least have covered so much material in the last couple of months, I'm going to split up the blog posts so that none of them are too long.  (Thanks to Dave Moulton for that advice!davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/ )

Girls Rock!

As usual, it's been a busy couple of weeks.  Went to two concerts, been dealing with this crazy, destructive dog, and learning a bunch of great new stuff on guitar.

Cool stage design at Prince concert
Get it?

 I went with a friend, my nephew and brother-in-law to see Prince and his crew at the North Charleston Coliseum on March 30th.  What a great show!  I had never been that big a Prince fan even though I know some of his music from the radio.  But there's no denying his showmanship.  Lalah Hathaway opened the show with her voice as smooth as silk and after a short intermission the Welcome 2 America tour got underway.  The Post and Courier said there were over 10,000 people there and I believe it.  Not only that, but nearly all of us were on our feet the entire time.  It was an expensive ticket, but well worth it!



Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi

 On April 5, Derek Trucks and his wife, Susan Tedeschi came to the Charleston Music Hall downtown.  Wow!  Another great concert albeit of a totally different type.  Derek works the slide on his Gibson as well as Duane Allman ever did--some say better.  And Susan, proving she has chops of her own on her turquoise Fender Strat, sang with a voice which was rich, rough and raw, whatever the song called for.  I was not expecting the band to consist of so many members, but the stage was full of veteran musicians who were also characters in their own right.  A full horn section really surprised me, as well as two drummers, a keyboard player and two backup singers.  All of them were crazy-good!  If any audience member left disappointed, it was their own fault.  Great show, great venue.

Girls Rock!
On to my own guitar adventures.  I was really excited when John gave me the intro to Boston's "More Than a Feeling."  I figured if I could do the intro to "Bristol Shores," I could do this one too.  And I have.  Thanks to some advice from the nephew.  I was having some trouble transitioning back to the beginning of the phrase and he told me not to move my third finger.  Oh!  Duh!  It made all the difference.

I also got Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" which includes a "pull-off," a technique I'd never done before.  But it wasn't difficult and I mastered the first part easily.  The concept of the second one confounded me a little but I finally got it.  When I played it for John, though, I was way off on the rhythm.  Hahaha!!  Have I mentioned I have a rhythm problem?  Hahaha!  Yeah. I think I've got it down now.



My practice book

 I reorganized my practice book and made things a little easier to read.  I put a couple of songs on a single page since many of them are no more than a line or two of tab or chord names.  John saw "China Grove" underneath "Sweet Emotion."  He said, "Oh, China Grove . . ." and before he could saw anything more, I played it.  He was like, "Yeah!  That's just what I wanted to see."  Kind of a drill for finger coordination with power chords. 

This week, he was going to give me the intro to "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas. It includes bending which I'm anxious to learn.  But on the phone with my nephew the other night, he mentioned "Funk 49" by Joe Walsh--also one of my favorite riffs.  So I told John that Conner had suggested it.  Now, here's a technique to master.  And it may take me a while.  It's a two fingered "hammer-on."  O-o-kay.  Hahaha!!  And he played me a bunch of songs that use this technique. You may recall I have practiced the hammer-on with the "hip chords" and I've played one for years on Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," but to do it with two fingers--at the same time?  Well, let's just say, I'd better go practice.  Hahaha!! 

Oh, I'll get it eventually.  I got the power chords and the barre chords (well, just the E-shaped ones so far) and I'll get this too.  It's amazing how many new tricks this old broad can learn.  Having too much fun along the way!

"There's a whole lotta things I never done, I ain't never had too much fun!"   --Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen



Strings and Things

Gosh, yes, it's been over two weeks since my last post. Boring, busy life intrudes.  But I've been thinking about guitar-related items to post and this cloudy, rainy day seems the perfect time.

Despite my better judgement (and my own advice) I changed the strings on the Tetomas acoustic.  Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't do it.  I know I said I'd leave it to the professionals, but (shrug) eh, whaddaya gonna do?  It was almost a challenge I couldn't resist.  Besides, I had the strings.

The first thing I did was inspect the pawnshop Fender and see what I did wrong.  I knew I'd wound one side wrong and John said I needed to have more string winds around the posts.  I made a diagram:

Making the diagram, I got the fundamentals pretty well entrenched in my brain and I went for it.  I removed the old strings and polished up the wood as well as I could.  It's an old, scratched up guitar but it looks better for the effort.  The neck in particular.  It was nasty-dirty! 

I started with the 1st string, what I call "e."  I wasn't sure how much slack to leave, exactly, in order to have enough for winding around the posts so it was purely trial and error.  Mostly error, I'm sure.

Do overs


At first, I didn't think I'd left enough so I took it apart and started over, and on a few I knew I had too much.  I'd have to take it apart and start over again.  It got to be pretty funny, actually.  That's one good thing about being able to laugh at yourself.  This isn't a life or death situation. 

Of course, the more I took the strings off, the curlier they got and more unmanageable they became.  Patience and humility were my friends in this project.  Eventually, I got them all installed.  Some have more wound around the posts and some have less, but I think they at least all have enough. 

Before trimming

The large-wound bass strings, D, A, and E definitely have the most string wound around the posts.  Honestly, it's comical.  Hahaha!!  Eh.  (Shrug)  Whatever. 

Tuning

So now comes the tuning.  I'm not too bad at tuning since I have a keyboard which I can use for reference.  The trouble I've always had with tuning is breaking the "G" string.  It's ridiculous.  I've got a couple of packages of strings that are missing the "G" because of breakage.  Duh.

I've discussed this with John and he showed me how to stretch the strings while tightening them up during the re-stringing process.  As the slack becomes less, you push the strings to the side with your fingers, not too much--don't pull the pegs out-- but enough that tension is evident.  Do this often during the process and breaking a string while tuning shouldn't be an issue. 

For lessons, John tunes my guitar to match his using a Korg electronic tuner.  Turns out, either my husband or my brother gave me one exactly like it years ago, but I was never very confident using it.  After seeing John utilize it, I've used it a little more, though I still prefer my ears and the keyboard. 

The way the Korg works is, one end of the cable is plugged into the guitar and the other end is plugged into the tuner.  As each string is struck, an indicator needle and lights tell how far off, or on, the note it is.  Since I've been using it the nights before my lessons, I've been pretty close to perfect when I get there.  It's a neat little gadget.



Plug-in end of the Korg electronic tuner

So I got the Tetomas cleaned up, strings changed and tuned.  It plays pretty well, but it's a lot smaller than the pawnshop Fender, and for all the abuse the Fender took before it came to me, it has the better sound, by far.  

So there ya' have it.  I trimmed up the ends of the strings to about an inch/inch and a half, and it sure does look a lot nicer.   I haven't thought much about changing the strings on the electric.  Probably a good thing. 

By the way, I used strings that had been around here a while, but were still sealed up in their original plastic bag, so they were still good.  I'm not sure how I came to have so many full sets of strings--I guess one of the music stores was having a 3/$10.00 or a BOGO sale.  They are all D'Addarios.  There is one set of Martin acoustic strings--missing the "G" of course.

 



From China Grove to Bristol Shore

Yeah, I didn't post last week.  I was a little discouraged, trying to make "Sunshine" fluid.  John gave me the rest of the song so I could play the whole thing, but I wasn't confident I was getting it. 

He also gave me a choice on what new song to learn.  He said, "Eric Johnson or Van Halen?"  Just hearing EJ's name makes me smile and I think I said, "Whaddaya mean?" but who the heck knows?  Anyway, he picked out the intro to "Bristol Shore" and I was grinning like a lunatic.  I told him I definitely wanted to learn that kind of thing--that it was one of the original goals I set for myself. 

And what about Van Halen?  He played VH's cover of "You Really Got Me" which looked more like what I'd been practicing, with the power chords and all, so I chose that.  It looked like I could do it, with enough practice, and he tried to show me how to palm-mute.  He makes it look so easy.

Nephew Conner Fersner
showing off the wah-wah
we bought him

Then on Sunday, we had the opportunity to hear our nephew, Conner, play.  Oh my God!  He is so good!  He made all those songs just . . . flow.  And he made it all look so effortless.  He said, "Here, get Dad's guitar Aunt Mary O.  We can play together."  I was like, "Are you out of your mind?!"  I'm nowhere near his level, and now I can understand why his dad, Joe, is somewhat discouraged with his own lessons.  Man!  That kid's good.

So I was a little down walking into my lesson on Monday.  But as has been the case after all of my lessons, I was grinnin' like crazy upon leaving.  John said I wasn't doing too badly--I was actually doing pretty well.  He reminded me that Conner's been taking lessons from him for a long time--four or five years.  'Course then, I had to laugh--how good did I expect to be in a month and a half?  Hahaha!!

For this next lesson, I'll have two weeks of practice because I'm not going to make it next week.  On top of practicing the songs I've been doing, and the techniques involved, John also gave me the Doobie Brother's "China Grove."  I'm having a lot of fun with that. It's got that string-dulling, chunka-chunka sound I like so much.  I saw Conner do it on Sunday and I was envious of his skill.  (I shouldn't be envious.  I'll never catch up to him, but I sure am proud of him!)

With the extra practice time I'll have before my next lesson, I asked John about "Bristol Shore" and he showed me.  I was so psyched!  I came home and listened to the song and then started to work.  Gosh, I can't believe it, but I'm really doing it!  Not only that, but you can even recognize "China Grove."  That makes me happy!  Chunka-chunka!