Country Guitar Scale in the Key of A - Part 2

The Country Guitar Scale as mention in my previous Country Guitar Scale article is none other than an F minor Blues scale starting on A.  Because there is a relationship between F minor and the key of A major it works beautifully.

Try using a standard chord pattern like A F#m D E7, one bar for each and see how thie scale fits.

I’ve started the scale on A, wheras in my previous article I started on the F sharp.  The descending part has a  variation in it to make it more interesting than the the standard up down scales that make guitar players dizzy and turn them into great scale players but lousy musicians.

To download the printable version (adobe acrobat format) click on the following link: a_country_scale1

 This site is updated on a regular basis with youtubes, scales and helpful guitar info

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/

Also, for other great scales and guitar info go to my other site

http://the-guitarplayer.com/

 

 

The Gap Between the Worlds mp3

Dedicated To My Son Joshua (1980 - 1999)

A few years ago I recorded a piece of music called ‘The Gap Between the Worlds’ it seems a relevant time to share it with my friends. It’s in open-tuning and is a little ambient and has a certain amount of beauty in it.

To add beauty to the world is a worthwhile thing. we all don’t see the same things as beautiful, but to me this is. The song is in an mp3 format.

There is something extraordinary about having children, a part of us living on when we quietly leave the stage of life. To have a child that leaves before us no doubt is the greatest fear of any parent. As a parent that has met with this experience I feel qualified to discuss it from the point of view where what I say is potent and maybe useful to others that may go through this experience.

Children are a gift; we hold them gently in our care for sometime, we welcome them with open arms and if we are to live in happiness we must be prepared to let them walk freely from the world when it is their time to go. If we don’t do this we can find ourselves in a prison house of grief. This prison house will prevent us to live our own life’s journey in a way that is fitting for the gift of life that we have been given.

Where there is pain, there is clinging; clinging or attachment to things that we know do not last, regardless how deep our love may be for that thing, experience or person. Those that love us and have moved into forever only wish us well and wish to have us live in joy, not suffering for what might have been.

So today is the Birthday of my child that moved from this world in 1999, and I will not pretend that sadness doesn’t swallow me at times, but I will say I have the duty to myself and those around me to take the wisdom from my sons passing and seek to embrace the moments that I have here in this life and live them with the value that they deserve.

And the only Path worth following is one with a Heart and that is the Gap Between Worlds.

Tony Hogan

To listen click: The Gap Between the Worlds

 And here is another piece recorded shortly after my son moved on:  The Bardo

 

 

David Wilcox Youtube

My first encounter with the music of David Wilcox was when I read an Acoustic Guitar Magazine in the early 90’s.  A few years later when they named the top 10 acoustic guitar albums, his album ‘How Did You Find Me Here’ was included in the list.  I’m not surprised.  David Wilcox plays mainly open tunings, he also uses capo’s and half capos.  His technique is very smooth and relaxed and it’s not until you try and play his music that you realise how good he is.  As far as I am concerned, David would have to be one of the best singer songwriters on the planet.  I was fortunate enough on the day I was looking for his music in the 90’s to find two of his albums in the shops, as I live in Australia, this is a little odd.  I have never sen his music in the shops here since.

I’ve posted information about him because I know that there are many people that wish to play guitar and sing. David Wilcox is a perfect example of how we can express music with one guitar and one voice.  He’s a master songwriter with a perfect voice.

 

Guitar Bloggers Unite for Human Rights

Today is  a very important day, many guitar players may not be aware of the importance of it.  Once we are aware of something, from that moment on we have the choice to act upon it if it appeals to our intelligence / conscience / heart. So here’s my story.

I’ve always had a knack of finding great ‘T shirts’.  I found one about a year or so back, it was a cheapie and it said ‘Music is the Weapon of the Future’.  Not being an overly violent person apart from enjoying football and martial arts, I could see the wisdom in it and it appealed to my sense of humour.  A lot of people would talk to me about the shirt whenever I wore it, this would lead into some tremendous discussions on the role of music and its misuse.  Although I have a social conscience, I’ve never really gone out hugging trees and tying myself to fences or other inanimate objects to make a statement, for me, food is an essential item and not being near a coffee shop or kitchen can be extremely stressful.

Apart from being a money spinner, an obsession or hobby, music is a very powerful tool. It has the ability to influence peoples subconscious.  Stop for a moment, and think about the songs you grew up with and the lyrics than run through your head.  Here’s a few examples:  ‘What do you get when you fall in love, you only get pain and lies and sorrow… I’ll never fall in love again’ (Um, yes I will) ;  ‘I don’t like Mondays’ (actually I don’t mind them), ‘If you leave me now you’ll take away the the greatest part of me’(No, no, I’m the greatest part of me, not you) … all musically valid of course, I have nothing against any of these great songs but if you let too many of those thoughts run around in your head, eventually if you are not careful, you’ll end up manic depressive or accidentally thinking that what somebody else was processing through writing music could be the the norm or absolute truth without even giving it too much thought.

Social change does not come from the top of the social hierarchy, there are decisions made that impact on everyone but from little things big things grow (thanks Paul Kelly).  As musicians, songwriters and performers, we are in a prime position to not only create an awareness of things through music but also to create music that can enhance the communities we live in. I don’t just mean by writing songs about Human Rights issues, I mean writing music and lyrics that if people find themselves repeating the words over and over in a mantra style that at the end of the day when it has finally turned itself off, the person will feel good about themselves, not beaten and battered by love.

I have a friend, a very good drummer and he knows I like bluegrass music ( as well as many other styles) and he came up to me one day and said “Did you know that there are more suicides by people that , listen too country music than any other style’.  My obvious response was ’no’.  

What I think we now need is music that when it is played backwards says things like “I will fall in love again and I’ll send you a picture of us on a romantic holiday”, “I like Mondays, because if I don’t by the time it reaches Friday I’m going to feel so crap that I’ll hate that too” ,  “if you leave me now, well, thanks for the visit but I’m up grading to a better model” .

As musicians we have the ability to bring about powerful social change.  If you have written a piece of music that you like that can add something nice to the world we live in, please let us know about it through our comment section. 

I also would like to encourage the other guitar blog sites to write about this issue today in some way. For more information on todays  joint venture between Blogcatalog and Amnesty International go to http://unite.blogcatalog.com/ And we could also congratulate them on there efforts to help create a more harmonious world.

 

A Country Scale for Guitar Improvisation

Country Guitar Scales are the same as Blues Guitar Scales. 

If you are playing a country or folk song on guitar in the key of A, the chances are you would be using the chords A. D and E.  Yes there are a lot of other chords you could use as well but I thought it best to keep it as simple as possible, then develop from there.  If you were to use the A Blues scale, it would sound OK in a blues but would sound very awkward in country or folk. So here’s a great alternative. 

What I and many other players would use would be an F# minor Blues Scale, (# = sharp) .  Thee is a relationship between F# minor and A major, in the same way that there is a relationship between E minor and G. 

Play the following scale slowly, record a backing track of a dozen or so bars of simple chord patterns using A D and E and you’ll se how it fits.  If you’ve never used this scale in this way before I’m confident it will open new doorways for you for improvisation.  I’ll guarantee it will take you to the next phase of your playing when this ‘penny drops’.  I will be doing a number of variations on this scale to make it a bit more musical, and that’s it isn’t it, make better music.

For the printable pdf file Click a_country_scale in pdf format

Guitar Blogs and Directories - Open Letter

Guitar Blogs and Directories;

Dear Fellow Internet Developers

As each day goes by I am starting to see my guitar posts and content appear on websites from one side of the Internet to the other.  As a musician of almost 40 years experience I am more than happy to aid other musicians in their development as I consider that the world will be a better place if we can create beautiful music.   The content I write is well thought out and is aimed at nurturing various aspects of the guitar players education, it includes helpful hints, TABS, Scales, Notation, youTubes of things that you may not be aware of, ideas to help when you’re feeling uninspired, performance tips and numerous high quality information that I have gathered over 30+ years from studying with great musicians, performing in numerous line ups and self study in areas that relate to harmony and improvisation, open tunings,  that I couldn’t find in books or learn from any othe players. 

As there are so many other blogs etc starting to access my work, it would be appreciated that if you are going to do so , it would be polite if you forwarded a comment to me to discuss this with me as I do not want to be associated with most of the garbage that is out there.   Places like guitarnoize, 20lbcat and the guitar blog ring and some others have some good original material but there are many blogs that are just using some of our good content and links to drive traffic to their blogs to sell somebody elses affiliate lessons and in many cases, the owners of these blogs have very little to offer in the way of good quality information.

If you are going to use portions of my posts please contact me prior to doing so.  A number of people are also adding useless comments of little value to my comments in order to add their web address, if you plan to do this and not genuinely add a  useful comment please save yourself the time and do it on someone else’s blog that does not care so much about quality of what they do. 

If you have a good quality blog relating to guitar, I will more than likely help support you in whatever you are doing as I am dedicated to high quality music of any style. By maintaining a decent standard amongst associated guitar blogs it will benefit both the developers and visitors alike

Regards Tony Hogan

This also relates to my other blog the-guitarplayer.com 

Gordon Giltrap youtube

Gordon Giltrap recorded an excellent album in the seventies (1977) .  At the time, my memory tells me he was playing Flyde guitars, a guitar company that made a lot of unique instrument.  If you haven’t heard him and you like beautiful guitar playing I suggest you watch this youTube.  It’s called Mrs Singers Waltz, and I guess if ever a contemporary tune sounded romantic, this is it.  Complete with a couple waltzing.

I heard that Gordon had recently been playing guitar with the great Scottish guitarist martin Taylor… my mind boggled at the idea of these two guys teaming up.  Especially when they were both favourites of mine in their respective styles.

Being able to play great solo guitar for me is much more satisfying than playing guitar solos, bith are valid.  Although there are strings in this tune it would still stand up as a solo piece.  It’s a wonderful thing to watch all these players play after enjoying their music 30 years ago and they just get better, more musical and are a great inspiration to us all as we seek out our own musical personalities.

Gorgeous guitar playing

Seventies Style Acoustic Guitar Part 2

Acoustic guitar players in the seventies often played a lot of musical cliches, no problem really, it is really common to all styles.  I’ve written a reasonably simple chord pattern with a descending bass part.  Whenm you play it you’ll say, oh where have I heard that?  The answer is everywhere.

The first bar is a standard sort of pattern built around a D major chord, after playing the D chord then the bass notes step down on the A string (fifth string). You’ll notice I’ve included the left hand fingering in the Guitar TAB. 

Then in the second bar we play a G chord and step down a couple of frets ans on the last beat we play an A7th chord to lead us back to the D chord. 

Here’s why you need to learn the basic stuff.  It will help you develop your ears, when you play with others you will automicaly run on auto because you’ll HEAR the chord changes, this will free you up to be creative and musical.   A lot of players are in a hurry to play technical things and miss the foundations.  Be aware of that issue, if you want to be good player, take your time, get a good understanding of everything.

 

The printable version in TAB and Music Notation is available, this is free, no strings attached (joke huh)  d_chord-bass_parts

I also have another guitar blog with great resources for acoustic and electric guitar at the-guitarplayer.com

To aid in the development of this site please spend 2 minutes and do the survey.  Here is the Guitar Survey link

Steven Baughman YouTube - Three Irish Tunes

Steven Baughman is a magnificentopen tuning fingerstyle guitar player. I first heard of himabout 8 years ago when I was playing Celtic style guitar and from memory Pierre Bensusan had mentioned how good he was, so I followed through on therecommendation.

Traditional Celtic tunes are not only beautiful to listen to but as a player they give you a lot back in return for your efforts, regardless how old they often are, there is always something new to be found in them. I recommend if you plan on learning any of the Celtic tunes, see if you can get to hear a vocal version, this may help you interpret them. The third song is very humorous in its execution in this song check out the rhytmic texture created by his right hand, also watch Steve’s left hand very closely in the first two songs. A lot of players try this style, Steve Baughman does it better than most.

David Qualey youTube - Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring

The David Qualey youTube recording of Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring by Bach is a very interesting one, although the song has been played by many guitarists globally on classical guitar, his interpretation is rather unique. You’ll notice it’s very realaxed and very musical and it’s not stiff like a lot of recordings or performances I’ve heard.

I first heard David Qualey in the eighties when he recorded the album Solioquy on the Windham Hill label, William Akkerman’s record label that brought us the greats Michael Hedges and Alex DeGrassi.

What I like about David’s playing is it’s very relaxed and he manages to take a standard classical piece and make it his own.

I love the intro he has given this song.

David’s site is located at http://www.david-qualey.com/index.html

John Renbourn and Stefan Grossman Youtube

If you are a regular reader of my guitar blog you would already know that John Renbourn and Stefan Grossman are two of my all time acoustic guitar favorite players, if you have not heard of themm you are in for a treat.  I’ve posted this youtube guitar duet of them because it is a fascinating setting to find them in, we have John Renbourn the great British fingerstyle player who plays Baroque and other old music coupled with the excellent American fingerstyle blues / folk  player/historian and they are playing the beautiful jazz tune by Thelonius monk on acoustic guitars, both improvising very passionately… it doesn’t come any better.  If you like music wih heart and gentle passion you’ll feel this one. 

Guitar duets…the only thing more beautiful than one guitar

It’s humbling to hear these guys play guitar, a lesson to us all

How To Play Guitar Chords - Seventies style

How to play Guitar chords for acoustic guitar.  In the seventies there were a lot of acoustic guitar duos and bands. I have decided to post a a few chord patterns that have a sort of seventies sound for the next few posts.

This first exercise that I made up starts on a D major chord , then it moves up the fretboard to a D minor Seventh, from there it goes to a G and back to the D minor 7. That movement from Major to Minor is very sweet.

The next 4 bar are a D chord, followed by a C with a D bass C/D, then it goes to a D again but it is played up at fret 5 and returns back to the C/D.

The final four bars are starting on a D minor 7, moving to a G, then a C and back to a D. It’s a good idea to learn to train your ears to hear chord changes, don’t just play them, listen.

Some of the interesting duos and bands of the seventies were Batdorf and Rodney, Seals and Crofts, Tufano and Giammarise. Cecilio and Kapono, England Dan and John Ford Coley, many may not realise it that Hall and Oates were very acoustic on the album Abandoned Luncheonette album, Loggins and Messina, Aztec Two Step, and years later Buskin and Batteau.

Work through the chords and play them with another player using straighter chords. The use of these type of chords will also give you an open tuning sort of sound.

NOTE: you could also drop your bottom E string a whole tone down to D. Enjoy!

 To Download the printable version click the link d_chord_exercise

Acoustic Blues Guitar - youTube Stefan Grossman

You may be familiar with Stefan Grossman from the many guitar instruction videos and books.  One of my all time favourite guitar albums is called Thunder on the Run and I particularly like Stefan Grossman and John Renbourn playing duets together.  Stefan has also done brilliant work with Duck Baker.

Apart from being a guitar historian and teacher, Stefan is a magnificent guitar player who gets a beautiful tone from his instrument, Franklin guitar.

In this Tutorial stefan is showing how to play a simple blues in E.  There are many musical cliches in this but the way they are executed is what seperates Stefan out from the bunch.

Note how he uses the repeatative alternating bass part, also take a close look at the outro and how hie finishes on the E7#9 chord.

 

Eric Bibb - Blues Guitar on 12 string youTube

The blues can be very simple and even broken down to one chord or riff, the most common blues are generally three chords; or you could go to the other extreme and play a jazz blues with numerous chord changes. Regardless whether we play a complex or a simple blues, the end result needs t be be music with feeling. My feelings are, a good way of measuring a players musicality is to get them to play ab blues.

I found this youTube video by Eric Bibb and the first thing that struck me was the texture of the guitar, he’s using a twelve string, it has a small body, the sound is incredibly sweet. Eric Bibb has a very smooth voice and he plays gospel as well as a sort folk style at times, but in most of his music there is blues underlying his tunes.

Have a listen to the chords he ues at times throughout this song ‘aint No Cane On the Brazos’ , what I like is he dares to be a little different in his harmonizing of songs. Eric Bibb has a beautiful sense of time and at times has so musicality that it scares me. His music is simple in structure, quite frankly I think he will be one of the most influencial blues players over the next so many years. We can all take a musuc lesson from him just by listening to his approach.  We can all learn from the different ways that other players take something that is very simple and stretch it to make it their own.

One guitar, one voice, perfect in its execution.

Eric Bibb Hompage 

Eric Bibb - Blues Guitar - youTube

Eric Bibb plays a mix of Blues Folk gospel acoustic guitar.  If you haven’t heard him play I highly recommend you have a listen.  His guitar playing is very smooth, in fact he’s one of those players who plays just what’s needed, he doesn’t over play.  Eric has a  very good voice that  works beautifully with his guitar playing.  This song ‘In my Fathers House’ has a very strong rhythmical fingerstyle picking part. 

A few months back I woke up one Sunday morning and had a techie problem witha web site, I spent a few hours trying to sort it.  After this period of time I decided to call it quits for the day, by this time I was very frustrated.  I wandered downtstairs, put on Eric Bibbs Diamond Days album.  Within a few minutes of listening, I found myself in great spirits.

Here is the link to his website. ERIC BIBB OFFICIAL SITE

Have a listen to the Eric Bibb - In my Fathers House youTube Video

 

Diversity in Your Set List = a Good Gig

Have you ever been to see someone play music and it seemed like they’ve played what sounded like almost the  same song all night?  Sound familiar?

So how to get around this? If you are new to performing you may not even realize that you are doing something a bit like that.  As many players want to get out of the practice room and into the public arena, it’s worthwhile thinking about the songs that you play, not just whether you like them but whether there;’s a good balance in what you do. 

Now ladies and gentleman, here’s blues ballad number  Seventy Three for the evening. 

No matter how good you are, or think you are, boring is boring.  So here’s a few ideas to get you thinking clearly.

• Look at what Keys your songs are. Are most of them in the same key?
• Do you play too many ballads?  I love ballads but too many kills the energy of what you are doing, they need to be played at the right time, they have more impact if you place them correctly in the set list
• Are all your songs 4/4 time?  Break them up with a few 3/4 ’s and 6/8’s
• Do all your songs have the same type of chords, mainly majors, or mainly 7th’s if you are doing blues?
• Have you fashioned yourself on another band or player and do too much of their material?
• Do you only do originals?  I love original music but if you add the odd familiar song it can add a little familiarity for new listeners to you gig.
• Do you do straight covers?  I think it’s good to turn a tune inside out and make it your own
• Is your song list predictable?  Why not throw an odd song in here and there?
• Are all your songs the same mood?  People like top go through different emotions.  Make the audience laugh and cry?
• Do you communicate with the audience? You could always play the whole gig with them shut.
• Do you try and show off in every song just how brilliant you are? Don’t play everything you know in one song. Space it out a bit and add the element of surprise.
• Do you play with the same instrument all night? Swap instruments, maybe some nylon string, 12 string etc, Even mandolin is nice.  I play a Balalaika ever now and then, people call it falafel music and the girls start bellydancing… this IS cool
• Do you only play fingerstyle picking?  Play some rhythmic stuff and some plectrum guitar if possible.

If you have given it your best shot, tried your best and followed the above, if people aren’t happy at the end of this…they may never be happy and this is not your problem.

OK, when I sat down at my computer I had planned to post about something else but we ended up with this and it’s vvery useful…you don’t necessarily have to follow the above but at least it will get you thinking.

If you have about 2 minutes to spare, please do the Survey so I can develop my sites even further.

An interesting thing I’ve found out is very few players that have responded to my survey subscribe to guitar magazines.  Maybe it’s the thrill of finding it in the news stand

CLICK HERE NOW for the survey

Scott Nygaard - A Great Player

I first became aware of the Scott Nygaard on a Tim O’brien album and then gradually started to see his name appear in acoustic Guitar magazine, a magazine that I consider to be essential reading for acoustic guitar players. http://acousticguitar.com

This is a good tutorial.  Scott is a very good player, if you want to hear him in full flight, check out the song Senor on the Tim O’brien album. In full flight he’s as good as anybody and has a very clear tone. In this tute he’s using a small bodied guitar. What I highly recommend is that you learn the fretboard properly, this is a prerequisite for learning and playing properly.

glossary:

Alternating picking = down up down up picking
Circle of 5ths = E to A to d to D to G to C etc
Arpeggio = a chord broken up and each note played individually,
Pentatonic = 5 note scale,
Chromatic = one step (note) up or down
3rds = the 3rd note of a scale C D E F G A B C, in this case E

I originally was looking for a Scott Nygaard youtube to write about because I like his playing and felt that it would be to guitar players benefit to hear him and I found this tutorial. For more information about Scott Nygaard go to Scott Nygaard you will find information about his projects and albums there.

Harry Manx Blues and Indian guitar

For years now I’ve been a lover of both Indian music and the blues.  Due to my studies with the Sarod player Ashok Roy I have played quite a few instrumentals in open tuning, I used to use the tuning B, F# , B , F#, B and E  working from the Bass up, the bottom end of the guitar was tuned quite low.  I found it very interesting playing in this tuning.  My teacher used to sing the parts to me, I’d sing them back, then I’d transcribe it in the Indian notation and then play it back. 

I first heard of Harry Manx a few years ago when he toured my local area.  What I like about he is he has bridged the gap between Western and Indian music quite well.  he plays the Mohan Vina, an instrument played by the musician Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt.  The vina is a traditional Indian instrument in a similar vain to the sitar.  I feel it is important to see what some of the musicians are doing that are playing a little outside the norm because when we hear new things they can create new possiblilities for other players.  I’ve linked to two youtube videos of Harry Manx the Canadian player, one is blues slide and the other a mix of Indian and blues.

Can’t be Satisfied

How comfortable does he look playing?

The aim of this blog site is to inspire guitar players.

 

Simple Blues in G for Guitar

Early today I was writing a Blues Variation Scale for my other guitar blog and I thought it would be a good idea to write a very simple Blues In G for Acoustic Guitar because the other blues I wrote was more of a scale variation than a song.  My humour got the better of me when I went to name it and I could help calling it ‘G String Blues’ .  This blues doesn’t use any full chords but uses parts of chords.  I find this way of playing chords can open up a guitarists playing.  It’s built around a standard Minir Blues scale that consists of the notes G, B flat, C , D flat, D, F, G, it deviates out of that on a couple of occassions over the C7 chord and also over the D7 chord. This way the chords are ‘IMPLIED’ , not actually played but hinted at, this helps create a little tension and release.

For those that aren’t readers of music dots, don’t be too concerned, just note that the first chord of the G7 bar is held for one whole beat and from then they are half beats.  e.g. count 1    2 and 3 and 4 and.

As I have stated, this is a simple blues but it can be built upon and would make a very nice jazz blues, try to vary the melody a little once you get it in time. 

To download a printable version, click on the link g_string_blues3

Sixties Songs Small Faces Itchycoo Park

The Small Faces sang Itchycoo Park is a classic sixties song. I’ve included in my acoustic guitar blog because I feel it is relevant, ok I’m cheating, I can hear an acoustic guitar in the intro. And really it’s too important to leave out. I just love the chorus and the phasey sound at about 60 seconds and also the call and response both in the verse and chorus.  Enjoy the youtUbe of Itchycoo Park

The band included the very almost famous Steve Marriot, he went on to form Humble Pie the great rock band.

Enjoy!

If you find where I can get one of those outfits please let me know.