Exciting Guitar/music Lesson For Newbies! Pick up your dusty axe and give your fingers a workout

[rob86 2]

This isn't going to be a real beginners lesson, more of a "getting to the good stuff" kind of lesson for the people who just have old guitars or pianos lying around and it won't be as in depth as it could be because I don't really get the feeling many people want to learn how to play the guitar out there so I'm not going to spend too much time making diagrams and stuff unless anyone is really interested.This lesson is a brief introduction to the 12 barre blues, the pentatonic minor and the pentatonic major scale. First - blues music. Blues music comes in many different styles, which I won't detail here, because there are books on the subject, but it's important to know that it has a massive influence on western music. It originated in America, the African American's played this style of music often on plantations during the days of slavery. It slowly emerged to being a professional style of music, and grew in popularity despite much racism against black people being around in those days. Familiar names from this early era of blues are BB.King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker. (There were many more than that). Blues had different sounds going on in different parts of america. Texas blues, Mississippi blues, Chicago blues.. Many white people were intrigued by this form of black music, and it caught on big time in England and elsewhere in America. As Muddy Waters says, Blues had a baby, and they called it rock'n'roll. Blues was no longer a form of black music played only in small black-only clubs, it was catching on and breaking down racial boundaries. Rockers in England, such as Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and almost every classic rock band was influenced by the blues. This may not be obvious to someone who doesn't know much about music, but once you realize this, it is quite interesting. Jimi Hendrix, often thought to be one of the most influential guitarists in the world, was a BLUES MAN. He played the blues, but electrified it. You may know these people as rock musicians but they played the blues. Most of them even played true blues songs. Without writing an essay on the subject, in short, this humble black music of the American plantations literally influenced almost every part western music. Country musicians in those days often mingled with the blues, famous musician Johnny Cash did a lot of blues music. Heavy metal bands play the blues. Black Sabbath, pioneers of heavy metal, played blues songs with an unholy distortion. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammet throws blues solos in his songs all the time. Blues influenced Reggae, Rap, Jazz, everything. Jazz influenced Blues as well!Now that the introduction to Blues music is over, let's move on to the other stuff. You all know what a beat is in music, it's what you tap your feet to, or clap your hands to. 1 and 2 and 3 and four. Well in western music and most (not all) rock music, this beat is simply, 1 & 2 & 3 & 4. Even if you've never studied music, this rhythm is totally embedded in almost every mind, at least if you listen to western music. It's called a 4/4 rhythm. A Bar, or Barre, or Measure (all synonyms) is a bunch of beats grouped together. In this case, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4. < -- 4 barres.Well now that we know what a barre is, we know that the 12 Barre Blues has 12. Quite simply, you just play 12 barres and repeat over and over, while someone solos or sings over it. This is used in 99.9% of blues music, in classic rock, and even some modern heavy metal. It's usually three chords, played in a pattern. You can play chords almost any way, ranging from extremely easy, to a bit harder, to needing Shaquille O'neil (is he still around?) hands. You can play it on a piano, or on a bass guitar (notes, not chords).Wait - hold on now, did I say solo? Yes! Can you imagine soloing? Well, guess what. It's easy! There are absolutely simple patterns of notes that you can play that will sound excellent over these three chords. You just have to practice them and you can play so much music you wouldn't believe it. These patterns are called pentatonic minor scales, I won't tell you what these patterns are, because I'm a mean guy. No, not really, but it'd take a diagrams and some question answering that I don't know if anyones interested in. It can get as complicated as you want it to, from a simple pattern memorization, to scale and music theory understanding, to physics (most guitarists don't get that into it though). The incredibly cool thing about these pentatonic scales is not only that they're simple, no, the really cool thing is that you can move them, and they change into the major key. That's called the Pentatonic Major scale. This is used in happier sounding music, such as country music, reggae. So basically, you learn one simple thing, and can confidently solo over almost anything. If you're showing off your guitar skills and only have to play for 5 or 10 minutes, then you will have enough of a repertoire to make people think you're a guitar God (or Goddess!). Seriously!I realize this wasn't really a beginners lesson at all, and if you're a complete newbie, you'll probably know nothing about tuning your guitar and your fingers won't work right. That's why I didn't really describe what the scales were and how to play chords. There are entire books on playing blues music, pentatonic scales, etc. This was mostly a lesson to pique the interest of a person who's always been interested in playing guitar but has always thought they couldn't do it. Well let me say this, playing the guitar isn't impossible. It takes practice, but anyone can do it. If you choose to go on this musical journey, you will realize that bands you thought were inhumanly talented, might not be so far out of your league in a few years. If anyone wants to play guitar or bass guitar (I don't know much about advanced bass like slapping, and popping so don't ask for that!) , I can help you along the journey. I just need to know you're interested and that you're willing to practice. If anyone is interested, this blues lesson can continue, with a lesson on what exactly you're supposed to do, or I can start at a more basic level... how to hold a guitar, how to put the strap on, or even in another area. Or you can get help elsewhere on a dedicated music lesson site, or a book, and I'll be here to help you with any questions.Was this exciting? No, probably not as exciting as I made it sound like it would be ! .. There's a lot to learn, and it's impossible to post even a fraction of it all in 30 minutes.Disclaimer: I don't guarantee the accuracy of my lesson (GASP!) especially since I'm rushing to finish this post. So if anyone notices anything wrong, feel free to point it out, I won't care! I don't claim to be a musical genius.I also want to add something important. Hand size is not an excuse. Your hands aren't too small to play guitar, your hands aren't too big to play guitar. Men with small hands and girls often go for smaller scale guitars, but this isn't absolutely necessary. It's up to you. I have small hands for a guitarist, and this concern has plagued me through my entire guitar playing adventure. There isn't too much I can't (theoretically, with practice) play now. I won't lie, small hands makes things annoyingly more difficult, but almost everything is still achievable. I understand the frustration of stretching my fingers for weeks and still not matching the stretch span of a newbie guitarist with long fingers. If you want to play the guitar, there's no excuse why you can't. There are excellent guitarists with missing fingers, deformed arms, or even NO arms. There are blind guitarists. The only thing holding you back is a lazy "No-Try" attitude.