Guitar Lessons ...with Patrick Scanlon
Yes, so you may be thinking-
"Who's he to be giving advice about playing guitar"?
Lesson 1
Never question my abilities.
Lesson 2
For the second lesson we will go over some of the very basics of the basics of the guitar. I will assume you are a complete novice, however the lessons will progress in difficulty, so please persist if it's all old hat to you.
Now, the standard guitar looks like this:
Above: Joe Satriani fresh from Surfing With the Alien.
Although the guitar is not plugged in, guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani appears to be demonstrating how to play an artificial harmonic on some sort of strange Fadd9, maybe? I'm not really sure what that chord is actually. It is also possible that he just randomly gripped the guitar in a weird way to look cool, though I doubt it. His shoes look pretty cool actually. Anyways, back to the lesson.
A standard guitar has six strings, and the standard tuning is EADGBe, going from thickest strings to thinnest strings. From there you have at least 21 frets, each corresponding to one step higher in pitch than the previous fret.
Using this knowledge, you can learn some of the easiest chords in the world, and impress dull friends:
Press down with your left hand's fingers on the following sequences:
D major
E A D G B e
X X 0 2 3 2 ... Regarded by many as the easiest chord to play, next to good ol' Emin7.
The 'X's and 0's are open strings, so don't go putting any fingers anywhere near them. 'X' means don't play it at all. The two means press down at the second fret. Three for third, etc. Now, strum with your right hand. Sound bad? That's because you aren't pressing hard enough. Press much harder and repeat. Let's try some other open chords:
G major
E A D G B e
3 2 0 0 3 3 ... Paul Kelly's perennial favourite.
C major
E A D G B e
X 3 2 0 1 0 ... Make that X a 3 and you've got that nice start from 'A Day in The Life'.
A major
E A D G B e
0 0 2 2 2 0 ... Your first power chord, in a way. How convenient.
E major
E A D G B e
0 2 2 1 0 0 ... E asked A to Gimme Three Steps, and A gave him two more.
This is all the chords you need to start your very own touring folk band. To start a touring funk band, play less of the strings at once, and try to make it edgy. To start a reggae band, play the chord on every third beat. If you want to start an indie band, put the guitar down, sell all your instruments and never speak of the incident again.
Now we can put all this good knowledge to use, as you learn your first full song in the highly anticipated Lesson 3!
Lesson 3
I thought long and hard about what song an absolute beginner could learn as a starter, and I came up with Paul Kelly's great song, To Her Door. Don't get me wrong, I really like the song, but some of the simplest songs can also be the best. (running cliche count: 19).
The song consists of a four bar pattern. The pattern is this:
G...D...C...G... repeat.
You may be surprised to learn that a whole bunch of songs bang away on the chords I've just shown you.
No, you really will be.
I'm serious, I'd say over half of the songs ever written in the chromatic scale use a similar chord structure. Spooky.
Now, the hardest part I found about initially learning guitar was being able to change between chord positions quickly. You play one chord, then wait five seconds until you can find the next position. That's where practice comes in. Practice until your fingers bleed. This will serve two purposes, it will;
a) Provide you with an entertaining anecdote for parties, whilst additionally allowing references to Bryan Adams' song Summer of 69.
b) Be highly amusing for me to hear of your discomfort, whilst also proving your commitment to the cause of not being just another crap/stock musician. Or maybe you just have girly-hands.
Don't worry though, another ten to fifteen years of hard work and this could be you:
Above: Steve Vai wishes he was Sri Durga right now.
Oh hell yeah!
Stay tuned next week for the next exciting installment of...
Guitar Lessons ...with Patrick Scanlon
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