Hey everyone and particularly hey every guitar player,
I've been playing acoustic fingerpicking guitar for the better part of a year now, starting in December of 2012. I've progressed surprisingly smoothly, owing largely to determination and lots of free time
Fingerstyle is really fun, but it's also rather solitary, so I gave up an ad, looking for other musicians to play with. The response was really surprising, four female singers replied independently from one another. Individually, of course. Not four at once.
I'm meeting them next week-end, starting on Friday 27th, but I have no idea how to play the guitar as accompaniment for singers, having always played the voice part on the guitar.
So I'm in a jam and I'm freaking out a bit. Could you help me explaining to me what the fuck to do? I suppose I should just learn playing chord-progressions and repeat them endlessly, but which are the progressions I should keep an eye on, what do I do to prevent fatigue, how do I figure out which chords go well together and so on?
Also, can I just use a capo to get closer to her key, or do I have to learn how to transpose chord progressions to more easily approximate her vocal range?
I can practice at least eight hours a day next week, and I want to make it count.
Hello! To figure out which chords go well together, you need to learn some modes. What do I mean by that? To get there we need to know keys first. A musical key, take for example C has the following chords C D E F G A B. It's one of the simplest, thanks to no sharps or flats. Each of those chords has a Roman number attached to it, starting from C. So, here, C would be I and F would be IV This is important because knowing this helps you create almost innumerable progressions. One of the most basic blues progressions is I IV V. In the key of C that's C F G. You've probably played that before, it sounds awesome. You could experiment, or look at a list of the most common ones and play them in different keys and strumming patterns To spice things up a bit you could insert sevenths here and there (C7,E7,A7 etc). These sound especially good at the end of a progression, in my opinion.
Then there's minor chords. The relative minor of a major chord is found 3 half steps down. Take G. You go through F# and F and arrive at E. So Em is the relative of G. You can replace the G in your I IV V progression so it looks like C F Em, another classic. Experiment with that! The above is also true for keys. The relative minor of the C key is Am.
Preventing fatigue is all about using just enough force on your left hand that your chords sound clear. Try to find that optimum pressure and don't go above it. On your right hand try to not make unnecesary motions. Keep your strumming as tight as possible and keep your hand moving at all times(!)
I don't like capos. I sometimes replace them with either bar chords, where applicable or by transposing. You should maintain that practice, because it allows you to grow your chord vocabulary. The capo is the easy way out, the lazy way. I hope that just about covers it Good luck!
Man, this is such a great reply so shortly after I posted this blog, thank you so so much!
Though doubtlessly gold, I elect to neglect (lol) your advice about the capo for now, given the short time until I have to present something passable, I should take any short-cut I can get. In the long run, however, I think your advice should prove very valuable.
It might be good to use your present strengths even as you improve in other areas. Even though it's not conventional, maybe one of the singers will be interested in a different style with two voices? It sounds very interesting to have guitar backup that also does call and repeat or a duet type style.
It will depend a lot on whether they already have songs they know and want to do or if they want to invent new music.
learn how to play A major barre, A minor barre, E major barre, E minor barre. Get a pick. Play these four barre chords in different places and strum the pick over the strings. Loosen your left hand when you want to mute the strings and make a chunkachunka sound. Now you know how to play rhythm guitar!
On September 22 2013 05:25 EatThePath wrote: It might be good to use your present strengths even as you improve in other areas. Even though it's not conventional, maybe one of the singers will be interested in a different style with two voices? It sounds very interesting to have guitar backup that also does call and repeat or a duet type style.
It will depend a lot on whether they already have songs they know and want to do or if they want to invent new music.
I agree wholeheartedly. Maybe you'll be more unique with counterpoint melodies.
It's not like I don't know bar chords, I obviously have to know most of the shapes for fingerstyle as well, it's just a whole different matter to put them together and strum them in some seemingly random fashion.
You can use a capo, but ideally she will be able to match the guitar's voice. I think just practicing a few basic loop rhythms like you would find on a drum machine or an electric keyboard would prepare you enough. Fingerstyle seems much more advanced to me than rhythm-based playing, but of course your arm will probably get more of a workout.
if you'll play an e major to start, you can play the a major on that fret and then a whole step up. That is the I IV V. Then you can center some progression around those and play around with some other chords like a minor II or minor VI or minor III or whatever.
really just pick four chords, strum them in sequence at let other people play with you. Just experiment and don't worry too much about being right (but the I IV V is a good base to orient yourself)
how experienced are the others and what instruments
Maybe I should try posting an ad sounds like a sweet deal
Just do what they ask you to do and don't fuck up the rhythm. theory stuff is nice but optional since you can just play chords you know sound good without it. With no rhythm you'll sound amateurish at best, you might want to get out that metronome. Maybe you'll just need condoms though
yeah I'm just saying that makes it harder. I'm bad at reading and was giving you advice for playing with a band. Jamming with a band and accompanying a singer are different beasts.
On September 22 2013 07:59 sam!zdat wrote: yeah I'm just saying that makes it harder. I'm bad at reading and was giving you advice for playing with a band. Jamming with a band and accompanying a singer are different beasts.
Yeah, I'm feeling lost already.
Playing fingerstyle alone, I always have the bass-line go guide me through a song. Missing that, I've no idea what's going on.
If I were in your position, I'd break down my goals for the practice week like this:
1. Know the names and how to play the basic chord shapes. Specifically, the open "cowboy" chord shapes as well as the basic 6th and 5th string root major and minor barre chords. Even more specifically, if someone says "play 4 measures of C major" you should immediately be able to associate that chord name with a shape and play that. 2. Focus on practicing the ability to keep a steady rhythm. Make sure you are able to play along with the tapping of your foot or a metronome without speeding up or slowing down, even if it means you miss a few notes here or there. It's not ideal to play a wrong note, but it is even worse to get off rhythm. I prefer practicing while tapping my foot, since if you are following the lead of a singer, you want to synchronize your rhythm with her tempo as you can hear it or even see it in the tapping of her foot or movement of her body, even if she seems to speed up or slow down at certain parts. 3. Have strum patterns for fast and slow songs. Since this is a crash course in rhythm guitar, try to become comfortable a strum pattern or 2 for both fast tempos and slow tempos, which will require different accompaniment. For example, fast songs may require a lively and strong strum pattern, whereas with slow songs may even allow you to use fingerpicking patterns. 4. Be able to read a chord chart and transpose. By chord chart, I mean lyrics with the chords notated above the words at which they change from one to the next. As for how to transpose...using a capo is easy and some people will call it lazy. But I could just as easily call using barre chords the "lazy and easy way out" if I were to let my jazz snobbery show...and I could easily suggest that you should be able to hear all the individual notes of a chord and how they each have their own melodic lines as you change from one chord to the next, and from all of that be able to construct a chord at any position on the next that naturally transitions from the previous chord in a pleasing way...while barre chords can get the job done but have sub-optimal voicings. In the long run, you do not want to have rely on either using a capo or even on using barre chords. But for now, since you have little time,just use whatever works.
And for the day of:
1. Accompany the singer. Don't think of it as Soviet Russia, where singer accompanies you. 2. Have fun. It'll be nerve wracking, but do your best to enjoy the moment. 3. Focus on making music. If you show up with the ulterior motive of making love instead, then you'll end up forever alone and without people to play music with.
The first one said straight up that I didn't cut it. Though I appreciate the honesty, it stung a little. The second one wasn't even a singer and just wanted to bang a guitar player. The third one didn't show up.
Guess the fourth one was alright, we played a little and she had some cool ideas about songs we could practice, let's see where this goes.
I suppose the overall experience seems, as you put it, sobering. Sorry to hear that. Did the first singer at least explain why she thought your current level of skill isn't up to par? While it is hard to hear that kind of feedback, you can make it more of a positive overall by using it as a learning opportunity.
On the other hand, taking the fourth case on its own, it sounds quite promising. GLHF.
She said my rhythm was really great (probably to blunt the impact of what comes next), but I have no idea which chords to string together. No argument there, I'm in in the process of learning that. Basically, she had hoped I was a lot more experienced, though I made my level of expertise pretty clear beforehand.
No crying over spilt milk, though. I have loads of stuff to learn and the pressure is gone to do it within a week's time.
By the way, I largely used your crash course to prepare, and by the fourth time, I absolutely killed it with a semi-improvised piece of finger-picking. Still suck balls at strumming, though.
Elliot Smith is a guitarist I really admire and he has some cool finger style strumming technique he uses a lot.
You might want to look into that kind of stuff if you are against playing with a pick. I like playing with picks so thats what I use, you can find a way to make what you want work though ^_^
Personally, I would prefer to be told that I have great rhythm but also that I still need to work on learning chord progressions, etc. The importance of rhythm cannot be understated. When performing live, I would much rather hit a wrong note here or there but stay on the beat, than play all the right notes but without impeccable timing. The other people in an ensemble and even the audience generally share that sentiment as well.
As for whether or not you need to use a pick, I would say that there are plenty of techniques to explore before you should feel that you need to do so. Andy McKee and Preston Reed for example, generally strum downward with the 4 fingers and upward with the thumb but sometimes strum with just the thumb, etc. Adapting some fundamentals of flamenco strumming could also prove helpful. And there is always the thumb-pick.
What type of music is your goal? I can make more specific, i.e., more meaningful, recommendations based on that.
EPT
