Dave J Ford: Guitar lessons Newburgh, Abernethy, Lindores, Fife. Guitar tuition, guitar teacher

Workshops....

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Acoustic & Electric

Hear Dave on Guitar

All workshops will use music that you have brought along. It’s as important to bring some audio music, CD, MP3 etc, as your instrument. Desert Island Discs,,,

Guitar workshops are split into beginners, advancing beginner & intermediate (click above for definitions)

Please click below for details of what you’ll be learning:

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Beginners Workshop

Beginners will be doing many of the things you would do in a private guitar lesson. Please visit that page to find out more. In a workshop the dynamics are little different & you’ll benefit from a cool environment where enthusiasm & a shared interest - passion even, is infectious. You’ll get listen to your fellow students favourite music & learn by watching others getting it right – or getting it wrong… You’ll also get to play with others, a very valuable experience.

We may not get to use the music you have brought along as much as more advanced classes, but we will still use it, so please bring along 3-6 favourite tracks. Preferably on CD

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Advancing beginner

Advancing beginners should already know a few chords & be able to play a rif or two. We’ll be trying to put whole songs together, working as usual by ear. You’ll be guided through the process of finding notes & chords by ear. Bar chords will be useful here although a cappo can be used to help you if you're not there yet...

With bar chords you can play similar sequences in any key just by moving everything up or down the fret board a fret or 2. The patterns often change only slightly (when you run out of fret board!- in which case you find the same chord further up).

Someone who bites their fingernails playing a A# Minor (or Bb Minor) guitar chord

Intermediate

You should be an accomplished guitarist & should normally have played for at least a couple of years. You should be able to play a few songs from beginning to end. You may well be better than Dave, your teacher! However, he will take you along the playing by ear path, on which you may not have trodden. Since you should be able to play all standard chords without thinking, you’ll be in an excellent position to be able to concentrate not on the instrument & playing it technically, but on what you hear & on trying to reproduce it.

The ultimately goal of the class, which you may well not reach, is to be able to play any song in any key so long as you can sing it in your own head. Or reproduce what you hear instantaneously. Whether you reach this holy grail or not, on your way there, you'll be able to work out your favourite chord sequences & play along to your favourite music. This course is about dispensing with the chord books.

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Try before you come... below decribes the sort of thing we’ll be doing together. Have a go!!

So go on... put on some of your favourite sounds!

Bass

The Bass gives massive clues to the chords being played. Try to ignore your favourite rifs & lyrics & concentrate on the bass. Turn up the bass tone control on your hi-fi & if you can bear it, turn down the treble.

The bass nearly always hits the root note - that is the note of the chord, on the first beat of the bar.

So if you can count along to your music, usually 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 etc pause the music if you can or turn down the volume after you've just said "one" & try to sing the note the bass played in your head. Whilst humming away, try to find the note on your guitar. Not the chord, just find the note that you heard.

If you're new to this you might find it impossible at first but have a break & try again later. Once you can do this accurately, you've made a huge leap into analysing your music. If you can reproduce one note, you can reproduce them all. Once you have the note you have the beginnings of your chord. A good beginners book will help you identify the note by name. Of-course it helps if your guitar is in tune too...

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Once you have the note you have the chord. Of course you then need to be able to play it! - If you don't know say, the chord of 'D' yet, get yourself a chord chart from any music shop.

If the note was D, play a D chord on your guitar. There are probably only 3-6 chords in your song if it’s Pop or Rock or Folk music so don’t be daunted. If it’s Jazz you’re into, there'll be rather more.

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Carry on building up your sequence of notes - & chords. You'll find it painfully slow at first & sometimes won't be quite sure if you've selected the right note or not but do keep at it.

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Most songs sequences - a verse or a chorus only have 2 - 4 chords in them, so you'll find the same ones cropping up again & again.

Write down your sequence & if you can play chords already, try them out along with the music.

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Trying them out without the music playing is also useful as a contrasting way to establish which chords, if any are wrong.

Major & Minor

just when you thought you were getting it:

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So you've established you're after an 'E' chord. But is it an E major or an E minor? Being able to spot a major chord from a minor is crucial. The bass alone won't tell you. But you're half way there having found the right key, in this case ‘E’. There's only a tiny difference between a major chord and a minor chord. The third in a minor chord is one note lower (a semi-tone) than it's major counterpart.

The best way to learn how to identify the difference by ear is to play both on your guitar. Your chord chart will tell you how to play both major & minor chords. Close you eyes & give each a good listen. Play them in turn thinking about the different sounds & what they mean to you. Most people think minor suggests ‘sad’, & major ‘happy’. Spotting this subtlety in live music is sometimes tricky but one of the worst mistakes one can make in music is to play a minor over a major - or visa-versa.

If you have a chord book for your favourite artist, put on some of their music & try working out the chords. Use the book to check if you were correct - & to check majors & minors.

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Exercise:
If you can already play a song chord sequence on your guitar, try it in another key. All you really have to do is move everything up or down the fret board by the same number of frets. Try 2 frets up first. It sometimes helps to 'bar' standard chords first. You may need to work out all the chords first in your new key but if you do this exercise often enough in different keys & with different songs, you should get a feel before long for what needs to be played without working it out. You're on the road to playing intuitively by ear & without the need to know the next chord - you just end up playing it.
Barring:

Standard 'E major' chord	Barred & up 1 fret it becomes 'F major'
This means playing a D barred on the 5th fret or a G barred on the 3rd. A chord chart will help you if this puzzles you. If you can't find a barred version of commons chords you can work them out. For example: The G barred on the 3rd fret is exactly the same shape as an F (which you'll definitely find in a chord chart - & pictured above) - only up by 2 frets. Your D is the same shape as a B (also to be found) only you bar it on the 5th fret. Seeing a pattern yet?? So you can find any chord you like. Just go up a fret & you've gone up a 'semi-tone' chord. Right is a list of the chords you'll go through by adding a fret. Be aware that going up 1 fret doesn't take you from D to E because there's a note between the two! It' s Eb (E flat) & this note can also be referred to as D#. Flat means 'lower' & sharp 'higher'. Two adjacent pairs of notes don’t have any black note between. These are B - C & E – F. So going up one fret from a B chord takes you straight to C. Any keyboard will show you this.

A Bb B
C
C#
D
Eb
E
F
F#
G
Ab

Congratulations! You've just transposed a song!

If you sing, try singing it in your new key. No probs? Then start singing it in a random key, then find this key on your guitar.

Lead??

Rhythm guitar is the main subject of this page but..

If you want to play lead guitar, you'll still need to listen carefully to chord sequences though you often don't need to know what the chords are. Try it out... just play away and see if your playing sounds cool coz at the end of the day that's all that matters. It's surprising how you can pick up what to play just by playing along to a series of chords, either played by your mate or by Jimmi Hendrix on you iPod. You just get a feeling after a while for what sounds right.

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If you find after a lot of persistence that you're not getting it, have a go at establishing the chord sequences. Or just get a chord book for your stuff.

Problems?

If you've tried the above but have problems, give me a phone or an email to arrange a lesson. The object of lessons is to teach you how to progress on your own. Contact details & email links are at the foot of the page

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LESSONS

Theory: I will from time to time introduce theory of music when appropriate. I will endeavor though always to make chunks of theory relevant, interesting & short. With the guitar, there is the best chance of paperless music theory. A chord chart is really all you need.

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3 Clinton Street
Newburgh
Fife KY14 6DP

email: dave
mobile: 07970 744986
landline: 01337 841004

Red & White Electric Guitar: Guitar lessons, Newburgh, Fife