Subject: Getting the Sounds in Your Ears
You are getting this e-mail because you subscribed to it on www.learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com. If you don't want to receive these e-mails any longer, go to the bottom of this message and click on "unsubscribe." Hey there Friend, Our ears are the most important instrument we have as musicians.When I was learning how to play in a band way back when, I seldom gave much thought to my ears, other than to give a passing thought to protecting my hearing when we played gigs. I didn't realize how capable our ears are in discerning subtle adjustments to the different frequencies we hear. Something a whole lot easier to grasp is tuning the ear to recognize the various pitches. It all starts with standard tuning for us guitar players. When I teach my students, I tell them to first tune their guitars and then strum the open strings so their ears get used to what a guitar tuned to standard sounds like. The more often they do this, the easier it is to tell when one of those strings isn't tuned properly. Once the ears can tell whether the guitar strings are tuned or not, you can make the exercise stick even better by humming the string pitches as you play each string. Humming, plucking and listening become a triple threat, connecting your mind and body to associate each pitch with a location on the fingerboard and a relationship to the other strings. Ear Training Foundation I think this is foundational to training the ears. Repeating an exercise like that above helps the ears recognize pitches and begins the mastery of fine tuning, Even though we have extremely accurate, inexpensive and easy-to-use tuners available to us, nothing replaces your ability to tell when a string pitch is just a bit sharp or flat. Building on that foundation of tuning, we can then start recognizing individual pitches besides the open string pitches. I usually start students with the key of C major because there are no accidental notes (sharps or flats). Anyone that has used a basic "Intro to Guitar" book learns the C major scale as part of learning the basic notes in the open position of the neck. The major scale is a very recognizable scale pattern to most people. It's also pretty easy to explain through demonstration that each major scale pattern sounds the same - the only difference is the notes used. It's the pattern that gives you the recognizable sound. Over the years our ears have been inundated with the major scale pattern (at least those of us used to Western Music - that's Classical music, not Cowboy music). I haven't had a student yet that had never heard a major scale in one flavor or another. Where I start to have a little challenge is introducing the various minor scale patterns. The natural minor scale is not too difficult, since it is made up of the same notes from the major scale. The only difference between major and natural minor is your starting point. For example, if you start a C major scale on the eighth fret of the sixth string (a C note), the natural minor scale begins on the fifth with an A note, three frets below the C. The natural minor scale sounds different from a major scale because the natural minor scale has a different interval pattern than the major scale. When we look at the interval pattern of a scale, the shift between two notes is typically (not always) either a half step (1 fret) or a whole step (2 frets). For example, to shift from an open E note on the sixth string to an F note on the first fret is a "half step" - one fret. From an open A note to B (second fret) on the fifth string is a whole step (two frets). Major Scale Interval Pattern W W H W W W H Natural Minor Scale Interval Pattern W H W W H W W These whole and half steps are the space between the two pitches (notes). Even though two notes could be on adjacent frets, there are still microtones of sound between the two notes that we don't usually pay attention to. This is one reason why guitar frets are spaced the way they are. We start to get a little unsure when hearing different scale patterns that we don't recognize. There are two other common minor scale patterns that use seven notes in the scale - harmonic and melodic (pentatonic only uses five, so even though it's a common, recognizable scale pattern, I'm not including it in this discussion). I've become fairly familiar with the harmonic minor scale pattern and used it while studying The Eagles 'Hotel California'. But I don't have the melodic minor scale pattern committed to memory yet. I have to say I'm struggling a bit to get the melodic minor scale pattern into my ears. To be honest, I haven't put much time into it, but to be a better rounded musician and guitarist, I've committed to adding this pattern to my bag of tricks. For this reason I haven't really introduced any of my students to the melodic minor scale pattern either. I guess now that the cat's out of the bag, I'll need to do that - in fact, putting this scale pattern in front of my students will help me learn it better as well. Feet to the fire, you might say. Given some of the winter days we've been having, this is one way to warm up the toes. How about you? Do you struggle to remember how scale patterns should sound? Do you have any tricks that work that you'd be willing to share with the group? Reply to this email and let me know - I'd be glad to give you props and feature your technique in an upcoming email. Y'all have a great weekend, ya hear! Peace~ Dave Dave "Eddie" Vance is a rock guitar enthusiast and gear nut. He has been playing guitar for over 30 years and enjoys tormenting the neighbors every chance he gets. When he's not slaving for the man, you can find him rocking out with his B.C. Rich Bich guitar, a cold beer and some sweet tunes. He also runs Learn-To-Play-Rock-Guitar.com, but you knew that already! Follow Learn To Play Rock Guitar:I welcome your feedback! Did you like today's message? What other topics would you like to see covered in my e-mails? Please let me know at: dave@learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com As always, please feel free to forward this email to a friend! I review products before recommending them. If you buy a product based on my recommendation, I will receive a commission. However, my emails also contain links that don’t require any investment on your part and are jam-packed with "juicy, guitar learnin' tastiness". We don't rent or share your name with anybody. Feel free to forward this issue to any friends you think would enjoy its contents. They will thank you. So will I.
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