Video transcript:
Hey everybody, in this video I want to talk a bit about being interesting on the guitar. Not a subject people approach much, I know. That’s probably why so few musicians are interesting in their music. They are taught to play the same style that others have played and so only innovate a small amount at the most. So I want to talk to you about what to do to be interesting, and how to avoid the traps of commonplace music.
First of all, I would not recommend getting a teacher. When you limit yourself to a teacher, you learn to play just like your teacher. He or she shows you what they know and what they like, and your scope of knowledge isn’t broad. Instead, what I suggest is getting a guitar playing manual to teach you the fundamentals of playing. I have only ever used one, you can check it out here at this link. I’ll also put it in the description for you. You won’t have to spend a small fortune of private teachers which as getting expensive at 20-40$/hour, and you’ll be proud you taught yourself. It can take you from beginner to advanced guitarist. You don’t really need anything else except learning the correct way to practice, and actually practicing. So check it out.
Next, learn basic guitar theory as a basis for where to start. Music is not really as confusing as it appears to be. The problem with it is that it uses an arcane set of symbols that is not very easy to understand at first. We are stuck with it because so much music we have is written in the current method.
Music doesn’t exist on a page and in symbols and notation – it only exists in our heads and how we perceive it. It is purely psychological. It is like using the word ‘red’ to describe a color. The symbols we use are just an attempt to put to paper what we experience in our heads. Therefore, your feeling of what is right to play is more important than what you can write on paper.
But it is a good idea to learn music to be able to communicate with others about music. And rest assured, once you learn a bit about how it works, the rest will come easy. The manual I mentioned teaches you all of this, and scales and everything that you’ll need to know to play all popular music. Also, get yourself a map of the notes on the fretboard in standard tuning. I have placed a link to one in the description for you:
http://beginnersguitarlessons.net/fretboard.jpg
The strings are normally tuned to EADGBe, from thick to thin, and this is called standard tuning. What this does is change the lowest note each string plays, then each fret up is one semi-tone higher.
After you learn some basic theory and get yourself a map of all the notes, start playing them and seeing which sound good together, and which sound bad. Play two notes at the same time and see how they ring out. For example, if you play the 5th fret thick E string and the 5th fret A string at the same time, you are playing an A note on the E string and a D note on the A string (because you are holding down the frets at those notes). These notes sound good together because they are a certain distance apart – 5 semitones (this is an ‘interval’ and it is called the ‘perfect 4th’ – confusing, I know). Now, keep one finger on the 5th fret on the E string, but hold down the 6th fret on the A string. This interval is called the Tritone, and it is six semitones apart, which sounds what you might call ‘bad’. Of course, it has its musical uses. But due to its sound, it was actually outlawed by the Catholic Church in the middle ages because it was thought that the interval was evil. Pretty funny huh? It does sound evil, though.
Now to get to the point of all this:
What I want you to do is find out for yourself what sounds good together and what doesn’t, and create your own musical sound, rather than relying on something that already exists. Or at least, use something that already exists but alter it so that it is given new life. The idea behind music is to affect people emotionally in some way, and to surprise and excite them, never to bore them.
Don’t let musical standards get the best of you. Only learn songs if you are going to cover them and breathe new life into them (like, say, Jimi Henrix’s cover of All Along The Watchtower, originally by Bob Dylan. Both versions great songs in their own right, but different), and to practice your guitar technique.
Take Joni Mitchell as well. The reason why so much of her music sounds so unique is because she uses so many strange tunings and strange chords that people don’t usually use. She invented many of them herself. Bass players who would play with her wouldn’t know what to do, in many cases, because they were so focused on using standard scales. She would just tell them, ‘play what sounds good’.
There is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ piece of music, because music is so subjective and people experience it in so many different ways, so don’t ever strive to play somebody else’s music ‘perfectly’.
Anyway, if you want to learn more about how to play guitar properly, how to learn the fastest way and how to ultimately become a very interesting guitarist, see this video as well with way more important tips all beginners should know.
Hope you really like the video, and cheers!