Q&A is a health hazard! So I’m going to have to do a little bit of housework to get it back up to standard and I was wondering what your advice would be for cleaning it. What do I use furniture polish and elbow grease or is there a propriety treatment that you can recommend? Aaron
EXAMPLES 15 Ex 1
œ œ b œ n œ 4 œ œ # œ &4 œ
E B G D A
5
7
6
7
5
8
5
8
In my experience there’s nothing better than a bit of lemon oil, teak oil or even linseed oil (if you can stand the school sports pavilion stench) for perking up a guitar fretboard. Take all the strings off, apply a very small quantity of oil - and I mean very small as you can very easily swamp the whole thing if you don’t ration it successfully - and then take an old firm toothbrush and scrub away. Wipe off the muck and excess oil with some paper towel and your fretboard should look practically brand new! If it’s really bad, you might want to begin the process with 00000 grade steel wool, then continue the process as above.
E
œ œ # œ œ 4 œ œ œ &4 œ
Ex 2
A Dorian E B G D A
4
7
5
5
7
7
5
8
E
Ex 3
œ œ # œ œ 4 œ # œ œ b œ œ b œ #œ &4 œ # b b
5 9 9 Extensions
A Dominant / A Mixolydian
E B G D A
7
4
6
7
5
7
8
5 5
8
4
5
6
E
Ex 4
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ 4 Œ &4 A7
E B
5 5
G D A
8
5
7
7
5
6
E
Ex 5
& 128 Œ œJ # œ œ # œ œ . œ . A7
E B G D A E
5
6
5
7 5
you’ll find that most of it is grounded in conventional harmonic/melodic thinking and these trips into musical hyperspace are there for melodic contrast and don’t form the mainstay at all. In order to encourage your ears onto this new territory I would advise you to track down a good scale book and audition some of the altered scales in order to hear what they sound like. One word of caution, though; any scale you play is really just a series of seven notes and is meaningless unless it’s
7
7
7
5
7
œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ # œ œ Œ J 5
7
5 7 8 5 7 5
7 5
given a context, and so try to play them over some sort of backing track or other pre-recorded harmony so that you can hear how they might sound in use. Good luck!
Fretboard Filth Dear Theory Godmother I bought an electric guitar from Ebay and when it arrived I noticed that the fretboard looks like it’s never been cleaned. The guitar is great and I’m really pleased with it but the fretboard
Acoustic Blues Dear Theory Godmother I recently bought a new acoustic, having played electric guitars for a number of years. I’m having a great deal of trouble making the transition. For some reason I find the acoustic very hard to play, even down at the nut, I’ve checked the width of the fretboard and it’s not that much wider and the action at the 12th fret is a little higher than I’m used to but not scarily so - and so I’m lost as to what the reason can be. I’m using a set of .011s and so a change in gauge is not the problem as I use .010s on my electric. Even simple chords like C, G and D just feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to take the guitar back to the shop and look a fool because I can’t play it and so I wondered if you have any ideas as to what the problem might be. Eric If you’ve been playing electric guitar for years and your acoustic fretboard feels strange and unplayable, I have my doubts as to whether the problem might be with you. Naturally you can expect a settling in period where everything feels a bit odd and even a string gauge upgrade from .010s to .011s is going to take a little getting used to; you can expect this swapping between any two guitars. But my guess would be that your acoustic has a nut where the strings slots have not been cut deeply enough. I’ve played a number of guitars where this has been the case and it c an make first position chords feel really odd and unwieldy. I would advise you to take the guitar back to the shop and, if they have a repair facility, ask them to measure the action at the first fret and i f it’s too high, adjust it for you. This should be done
under guarantee, incidentally, seeing as it’s a new instrument.
Note To Self Dear Theory Godmother With today’s facilities available via the internet providing video tuition and prêt à porter tab, what sort of emphasis would you as a teacher put on learning to transcribe? I’m thinking that a lot of today’s guitar students have a relatively easy ride in that they can find virtually anything they’re looking for on a website somewhere. But surely a paint by numbers generation won’t be able to add anything themselves and take the instrument further forward? I’d be interested in your opinion. Jerry Learning to transcribe is a vital part of playing, to be honest. Even if you don’t take it to the ex tent where you write it out in notation or tab, then picki ng out riffs and licks by ear is essential. I don’t want to sound like the old man of the sea but my generation - and those before us - learned by copying from records. It was painstaking work involving a lot of trial and error and continuous stylus repositioning on the vinyl albums of yore, but gradually the job became easier and easier. We probably didn’t realise that what was happening at a fundamental level was that we were training our ears, but it was this kind of cherry picking that formed our first real vocabulary on the instrument. Transcribing teaches you a lot about tone as well because the job doesn’t end with finding the right note; there are other things to listen out for like vibrato and timbre. Recognising the difference between a note played on a wound string at the top of the neck and a unwound string further down; or an open string as opposed to a fretted note - all these are part of the art of transcribing and, by association, learning about the i nstrument. As you say, a student who learns exclusively from other people’s tab is missing out on this vital tool. Perhaps it’s avoided owing to a fear of the unknown, or in some cases pure laziness. But as I say, you don’t have to learn to write music; just having the ability to hear a note and play it is a key principle in getting to grips with the guitar. Falling back on the ‘fast food’ of tab is missing the point somewhat and you are also quite right in thinking that it will effect the evolution of the instrument. So, even if it’s just a couple of notes at a time, I’d implore anyone who is serious about the instrument to make some time to learn to associate pitch with fretted notes - you’ll be doing yourself a big favour.
Visit www.davidmead.net to check out David’s books and solo CD...
March 2013 GuitarTechniques 9
