Guitar Reviews

The following list of guitarists are musicians, in my opinion that all guitarists should know.  Some of these individuals you may never have heard of but all of them are worth a listen!! Please subscribe, it really helps the page Joe Maphis Joe Maphis,  born  Otis Wilson Maphis  (May 12, 1921 – June 27, 1986), was an  American   country music   guitarist . He married singer  Rose Lee Maphis  in 1953. One of the flashiest  country  guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s, Joe Maphis was known as  The King of the Strings . He was able to play many stringed instruments with great facility. However, he specialized in dazzling guitar virtuosity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKQqc0qlrSo Biography Early life Maphis was born in  Suffolk, Virginia , United States. Joe's family moved to  Cumberland, Maryland , in 1926 when his father Robert Maphis landed a job with the B&O Railroad. Joe's first band was called the Ma...

 FIRST THINGS FIRST.. If you find this article useful, please subscribe, it really helps my blog. There are certain patterns that appear on the guitar fretboard and it is worth looking at these and memorising them to make things easy for yourself when learning any sort of scale or modes. These patterns are great to across the fretboard but by changing the starting point, you may also move up the fretboard. There are three main patterns to consider when looking at the guitar, and they will always follow each other. These are those patterns:-   I have put notes on these diagrams for context, it is the shape we are concerned with here, not the actual note..yet. Just look at how the notes relate to the others in each individual pattern. The next thing we shall look at is the root note for each shape. We will consider the Major Scale - or Ionian Mode first. MAJOR SCALE So let us look at pattern 1 above and see what we can make of it.  You can firstly see it is a block of three...

 7 Modes of the  Major Scale Hi all.. I hope this will give everyone an idea of how the different modes sound and also a basis for people who may be starting to get into modes but are unsure where to begin. In other pieces I have written, I have told you that different modes are made up from the construction from a parent scale. The parent scale we are going to use below is the C major scale.  If you find this article useful, please subscribe, it really helps my blog. Triads From Wikipedia:- In  music , a  triad  is a set of three notes (or " pitch classes ") that can be stacked vertically in thirds. The term "harmonic triad" was coined by  Johannes Lippius  in his  Synopsis musicae novae  (1612). When stacked in thirds, notes produce triads. The triad's members, from lowest-pitched tone to highest, are called:- the  root Note:  Inversion  does not change the root. (The third or fifth can be the lowest note.) the...

 Guitar Modes  If you find this article useful, please subscribe, it really helps my blog. A melodic scale is a progression of notes a particular order.  The idea of "mode" in Western music theory has three progressive stages: in Gregorian chant theory, in Renaissance polyphonic theory, and in apparent symphonious music of the common practice period. In each of the three settings, "mode" joins the possibility of the diatonic scale, however contrasts from it by additionally including a component of song type. This means that repertories of short melodic figures or gatherings of tones inside a specific scale, so that, contingent upon the perspective, mode assumes the significance of one or the other a "particularized scale" or a "generalized tune". Present day musicological practice has stretched out the idea of mode to prior melodic frameworks, like those of Ancient Greek music, Jewish cantillation, and the Byzantine arrangement of octoechoi (the ...

  WHICH SONG DO I CHOOSE AS MY FIRST?   There are a number of songs you could choose to play as your first song. I think this would mainly depend on the type of music you prefer. There are many suggestions on many web pages, I would say, have a look and choose one of those that is most appealing.   I know when I was learning guitar and there was the Bert Weedon Play In A Day book. I did not like any of the tunes I was expected to play. I actually bought a Beatles book with chords and work my way through it. Working on the songs that only had 3 chords until I could play fairly competently and then moved onto more complicated songs. Here are some songs in a few genres so it may help you choose songs that may fit what you are looking for:- Beatles Songs Rocky Racoon - 4 chords  https://www.chords-and-tabs.net/song/name/the-beatles-rocky-racoon Act Naturally 4 chords   https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the-beatles/act-naturally-chords-816028 Love me ...

 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...