Guitar Reviews

  Scales and Intervals -Why Bother If you understand the Major Scale, it is the basis of all other scales and chords. An understanding of the Major Scale makes it easier to build scales, chords, understand keys, and how they work, understanding songs and writing your own songs. Music scales This is an ordered sequence of notes that may be played ascending or descending. The pitch will correspondingly increase or decrease. This ordered sequence will continue in the order given with the presented intervals. An interval is the difference in pitch (sound) between one note and another. On a guitar the interval is measured by frets, or semitones (one fret = one semitone or half tone, two frets = whole tone). Shown below is a Major scale played on one string of the guitar. To play a major scale on guitar the sequence of intervals would be W W H W W W H This may be easier to see on a piano keyboard If you look at the C major scale, and count up using the pattern, you’ll see that it f...

    hold it correctly If you are going to play guitar for any period of time it is best that you are holding it in the correct position. This will prevent fatigue, aches and pains. You will also get a better sound from your instrument. You will have to consider if you are playing in a casual manner or in the ‘classical’ style, or if you prefer, or want, to stand up. Are you playing an acoustic guitar, or an electric? The two main things to consider when holding your guitar is your body position and the position of the guitar. Look at the picture of Jimmy Page above – This may be great for JP but, does this look like a comfortable position to you? So let’s consider what we need to do to get things right. As the song said - My Body, Your Body, Everybody (move your body) Make sure that if you are sitting down, and that the seat allows for you to play comfortably. Find a suitably firm seat with preferably no arms to int...

  FROM THE B********  (don't look at the answers and have to say to yourself, 'I'm a ******') So I was born in a s**** t*** in the north Scotland, ask John, he'll tell you. This is a picture of the town..honest. There was a certain beat to say I was a s**** t*** b**. I wasn’t b*** in the *0’s but all my b******* and ******s were, it was colder then. Ask the coppers, they can't keep anything to themselves. My mum and dad were overjoyed with their new ****d, I felt free, and everyone loves it, when a ****d is born.  There was four of us:-  My oldest brother wasn’t born in the ***, he wasn't yanked into this world. My second brother was born to be *****, his name wasn't Patrick either! my sister was born to be ****, although she did look cold, and I was born to ***, no BS. I was the last of four children and my mum rolled over and said ‘that’s the l*** t***. When my sister arrived the year before, it was a different story, it was ‘H*********, I **** *** S...

  INTERVALS   Intervals are important in music and they are the basics for chord and scale construction. An interval is the difference in pitch between one note and another. Intervals can be either designated melodic or harmonic. A melodic interval is when notes are played in a melody (unsurprisingly lol), and harmonic intervals are notes that are played at the same time eg. a chord, double-stop, etc. Ok, so what harmonic and melodic Intervals do I need to know? Good question, thank you for that. I will endeavour to answer it, (mmm clears throat…) Wow, that looks confusing.. This may be easier Intervals are designated as either perfect (P), major (M) or minor (m). If you look at the fret diagram you can see that written above the sixth semitone is  Ƅ 5. Above that is the type of interval, in this particular case it is a A4/d5. This is an Augmented 4th or a Diminished 5th (sometimes called the Tri-Tone). All this means is the Perfect 4th note has been sharpen...