The Guitar Diaries #1-#3

Have decided to start keeping something of a record of my weekly guitar lessons -- the following is a catch-up from the first three weeks...

Lesson #1

Reviewed basic major scale patterns (I already had these pretty well nailed), picking technique etc (I was encouraged to use a thick pick -- so I've traded the 1mm Jim Dunlop for the smaller, thicker Dunlop Jazz III).

Introduced triad shapes across, and up and down, the fingerboard. Covered major, minor, diminished and augmented. The three inversions (I-III-V, III-V-I, V-I-III) were considered. Moving from one inversion to the next is achieved by raising the lowest note an octave (so that it "leapfrogs" the other two to become the top note) or conversely by lowering the highest note).

Augmented triads are an interesting case because the three inversions are identical, which happens because the three notes are evenly spaced throughout the octave. (As an aside, it's interesting to think of what you get from all such symmetric decompositions of the octave: firstly, the octave interval itself (the most trivial: a note and the same note an octave higher); the tritone interval (two notes six semi-tones apart); the diminshed seventh chord (4 minor third intervals); the augmented triad already mentioned (3 major third intervals); the whole-tone scale (6 notes each a whole tone apart); and finally the chromatic scale (all twelve notes, each a semi-tone apart). Mathematically, this simply reflects the different ways to factorize the number 12: 1x12, 2x6, 3x4, 4x3, 6x2, 12x1.

Lesson #2

Covered basic 4-note shapes for seventh chords: major seventh, dominant seventh, minor seventh, minor seventh (flat 5). Also introduced a fewer other chord shapes: added ninth, open triad voicings.

A good way to practise these shapes is to play them for each note in the major scale, moving up the neck. 

Also learned a nice "bossa nova" rhythm that works well with the V-I-III-VII shapes on the bottom four strings (EADG). The two bass notes are played alternately with the pick, while in between the fingers play the two high notes.

Was given a chord melody arrangement of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to help become familiar with the chord patterns being learned in the contextof an actual song. It would be fun to take other simple tunes and attempt my own chord melody arrangements (Ernie Ball books have some nice ones... -- it could be nursery rhyme heaven/hell!).

Lesson #3

Looked at the inversions of seventh chords up/down the neck. This is quite interesting, because on the guitar you can't generally play "closed" seventh chords (i.e. I-III-V-VII), since the fingerings would be, well, unfingerable. So instead you play something like I-V-VII-III, where the III is one octave higher. Now, you can move this up the neck through a sequence of inversions, by moving each note to the next higher one. Thus, you get the following inversions:

    I-V-VII-III -> III-VII-I-V -> V-I-III-VII -> VII-III-V-I

Some of the resulting patterns are familiar as fragments of barre chord shapes, a couple less so. The III-VII-I-V shape on the ADGB strings is a bit of stretch (particularly for the major seventh), but sounds quite nice.

One thing that I noticed sounds cool is when you take a major seventh voicing, C let's say, and move the root note down to the seventh. You get a melancholy-sounding E minor chord. Then change the note that was the seventh in the original chord up to the root, and your back to the major seventh sound.

We also did a simple 12 bar blues piece called "Model T Ford Blues" by, you guessed it, Robben Ford (it's from the GIT course notes -- I think he used to teach there). I had a lot fun practicing this one -- it has a really bluesy sound and you get to pour as much "feel" into each note as you can (I was imagining myself Ralph Macchio in Crossroads -- complete with gormless slack-jawed facial expression :-). It's basically in the B flat blues scale, though a couple of times the major sixth note (G) is played, which has an interesting sound. I'm not sure what the harmonic significance of that note is -- but it sounds cool.