Guitar Reviews

 I would suggest reading other posts in this series that explain Scales and Modes before going further with this post. If you find this article useful, please subscribe, it really helps my blog. This is taken from a previous post:- Learning Modes from the Pentatonic Scale As the name suggests the Pentatonic Scale is made up of 5 notes. Depending on whether you are looking at the Major or Minor Pentatonic Scale, will depend on the scale degrees used in that scale.    The Major Pentatonic scale is made up of the 1st - Major 2nd- Major 3rd- Perfect 5th - Major 6th,    The Minor Pentatonic scale constitutes the 1st - minor 3rd - Perfect 4th - Perfect 5th - minor 7th, and you can see a comparison between both scales below.       The obvious thing to say about this is that shape 1 is followed by shape 2, etc. Also, if you look closely, you can see how the shapes match each other as they move along the fretboard, i.e. shape 1 of the Minor Pentatonic...

    modes (sounds scary, eh?) Not really. Music modes explained   Modes in music have been around for a long time, they are nothing new. They were formalized in the 1600’s and are used in all types of music and used by a wide variety of musical instruments. Should I learn modes? Learning modes allows you to colour any tune you are playing, or improvising, with feeling. It also allows the sound of the song to focus on a differing tonal centre. If your playing is beginning to sound boring and you feel you are stuck in a rut, this could another reason to study modes. Modes can be seen as scales within a parent scale. Many people use mode and scale to mean the same thing, however, this is not strictly true. A mode can be seen as a scale of it’s parent scale, derived from a different point in the parent scale. All modes are scales but not all scales are modes. The Blues Scale for example is not a mode. From the ...

  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...