Excuses aside, I'm sorry for not updating sooner and I'm grateful to all of your for your patience and enthusiasm. Those of you who've e-mailed me this week, I'll be responding shortly. If it wasn't for the opportunities to make music with you fine folks, I'd surely go insane.
That's the pattern of alternating fingers we used with our right hands to play We're Going to be Friends by The White Stripes. Your thumb always plays the bass note, which will be the note the chord is named after, and located on one of the bottom three strings. Your first and second fingers cover the 3rd and 2nd strings respectively, EXCEPT when you play the D chord. For that your first and second fingers should scoot over to the 2nd and 1st strings, respectively.
Jack White only uses his thumb and first finger in the clip up there. Do as I say, not as he does! (but do notice the way that he plants the rest of his fingers against the body of the guitar. I do that too and you may find it helpful for keeping that right hand grounded.
We also worked on Satellite of Love. Watch the quick syncopation in the changes and the D-Dsus4-D-Dsus2 run. The best way to learn is by listening (and you'll get to hear Bowie's backing vocals. Bum bum bum!) Listen especially to the way the vibe changes in the bridge--the "Harry, Mark, and John" section. We didn't get that far in class but we'll work on it tomorrow.
Guitar 2 this week was a whirlwind of moveable shapes! We took a look at both forms of Bminor listed on the song chart, and we're going to take the "alt" version as our regular go-to. Remember you can even add a pinky to make it a 4-finger-full chord. (The pinky goes where the 3rd finger is on the chart, and the 3rd finger slots in next to it on the 4th string.) Daydream Believer is a good way to practice both that, and the slide-up-Aminor-2-frets version of the Bmionr chord. Plus...RIFF! Read the top number as the string number, and the bottom number as the fret number in those fractions at the bottom. 0 means no frets, so you can also think of it as an O for "open." We play that riff in place of the two measure of G, so where you see the asterisk, strum the G chord once and then off you go picking the melody. You end with a C chord, which takes you straight into the chorus.
We also talked about capos. We now know how to properly put them on the guitars, what they do, and how to read "Yo Mama's Capo and Transposing" chart in the course pack. Experiment! Take a song you love to play, and mess around with adding the capo. How does changing the key effect your ability to sing the tune? Harder? Easier? Look at the chart and see if you can figure out what key you've switched to by adding a capo. Start to get comfortable with the different keys so you know which ones you like and which ones you don't. Also, play Careless Love from the songbook in the key of C (inside the parenthesis), and then play it again using the shapes listed outside the parenthesis (which would normally be the key of A), but with the capo at the 3rd fret. Same song, same key, two different chord constructions! Neato!
And in Guitar 1 we may have set a record for curriculum covered. Sheesh! First it was two easy modifications of the E chord: E7 (lose the 2nd finger), and Eminor (lose the 1st finger). Another Saturday Night and I Am Trying to Break Your Heart are two songs that'll help you practice those chords, respectively.
We also learned a new strumming patter which combines quarter notes and eighth notes. It goes like this: 1 2 3-and-3-and. The first two beats, you just do a downstrum on the beat. Those are quarter notes. For beats 3 and 4, you'll play through the eighthnotes with a down-up movement on each beat. You can also think of it like this: D D DU DU
As if that wasn't enough to worry about, we talked a lot about the anatomy of the guitar and its particular care and feeding. That could be a class in and of itself! Never be afraid to pop into the Different Strummer Music Store at the School and ask questions about your machine. Do I need new strings? What kind of strings do I need? Is this guitar right for my body shape? What's with that buzzing sound? These are all things that a luthier--someone trained to make and repair stringed instruments--will be able to help you address.
...wait there's MORE?! I'm telling you. I can't believe we made it this far, but we also learned the G chord! There are two fingering options on the chord chart, but I highly recommend you get used to the 2-3-4 version first. Yes, I know it uses your pinky and that's awkward and painful, but you'll be much happier down the line if you can make this your go-to fingering for the G. Getting in and out of it is much smoother when you're in the context of playing a tune. Play through Hobo's Lullaby in the songbook for some good practice. Take it from Woody in the clip above!
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