Richard Daniel's HeavyGuitar.com Ezine -- Issue #3
Dear HeavyGuitar.com Ezine subscriber,
Welcome to the third issue of the HeavyGuitar.com
Ezine. In this issue we look "Behind The Guitar:
The Human Need To Create." A look at the universal
drive to create and the long and winding road to
the electric guitar.
Our tuition column takes a closer look at live
mikes, PA volume and the small Band.
See answers to questions from subscribers. Finally,
we introduce the Universal Fretboard Call
System to all e-zine subscribers and students: with
a Blues lesson included.
If a friend has passed this issue along to you and you
wish to subscribe so that you get these issues directly,
you can do so by visiting http://www.heavyguitar.com,
or send a blank email to heavyguitar-5498@sendtheinfo.com
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So, let's get this show on the road...
Behind The Guitar: The Human Need To Create.
Richard Daniels speaks on the universal drive to create
and the long and winding road to the electric guitar.
Like all good citizens of the modern world, and guitar
players particularly, I switched on the TV for a little
entertainment as I sat down to dinner the other night.
I now have over 70 channels to chose from, and as I was
surfing across the face of the great wasteland
something caught my eye: It was a show on animal
instincts and the extremes to which the various
creatures of our fair earth go to carry out the basic
drives which are hidden in their nature. Salmon swim
hundreds of miles upstream to spawn. The beasts of the
great African Serengeti plain travel together in herds
hundreds of miles in a migratory cycle just to repeat
the very same loop again and again. Birds fly thousands
of miles to turn around and fly back to where they started.
What struck me the hardest about the show was that after
all was said and done, the animals of our planet act
out these elaborate processes, all of which take
tremendous physical exertion, yet they do it all without
pay, without written or verbal direction, and most
amazing of all, without complaint or question.
Basically, I had to conclude that the creatures of the
earth work out the course of their lives driven by a
sort of built-in auto pilot: The instinctive life forces
found inherently in the mind of the animal. Instincts
are the invisible, innate psychic dispositions that
ultimately propel the behavior of all life forms on
earth. Close-up shots of the eyes and faces of the
birds, land animals and fish studied in the show
revealed yet another level of the mystery at hand:
These animals are blindly driven to carry out their
goals. The unmistakable impression that you get looking
directly into their eyes is that their world/life view
is ALL ABOUT DOING IT, with very little, if any,
contemplation given to exactly what it is they are
doing. Sort of like the guys in my band.
Where does this leave us? Well, we all find ourselves in
a world where not one of us ever asked to be born, yet,
thrown into the human condition, we have to contend
with it directly or get picked over by the vultures
lower on the food chain. From the dawn of civilization
mankind has struggled to distance himself from the
animal kingdom. Thing is, it was recently discovered
that human DNA shares 98.5% of its genes with those of
chimpanzees. Like it or not, this new discovery presents
a cold, hard indisputable fact. In centuries past,
humans could form a self-centered unchallenged world
view based on what they roughly deducted from
observation, on what they thought to be true, on what
they were told to believe, on what they felt or wanted
life to be.
Now-a-days, in order to be realistic, all thoughts and
theory on our basic nature has to incorporate the fact
that genetically we are practically the same as other
animals on the planet. The truth, it seems to me, is
that the 1.5% variance- whatever it is- makes all the
difference in the world. We are without question
uniquely human among earth's creatures. We talk through
the air. We play guitars. We've got New York. We go to
the moon. What a species!
Now, in light of this genetic fact, we are forced to
look closely at our own behavior in a new light. We are
superior (for lack of a better word) to the purely
instinctive driven animals of the earth because we have
greater intelligence, a higher consciousness (or so they
say) and therefore possess a sense of self-realization,
self-determination, and an inborn right to give credence
to any and all personal beliefs, as far as our place in
the cosmos goes. The way it seems to me is this: we are
still basically instinctually driven, but we seem to be
the first species to have figured that out for
ourselves. Over time, we have played out our inborn
drives in a thousand rituals and danced around the fire
behind the faces of countless different masks. Through
all of this, however, despite our inventions of culture
and our tendency toward self-importance, we are still
driven to action by forces inside of us to which we are
basically blind.
Modern scientific breakthrough discoveries offer us a
fantastic window into the quantum/magnum "real world" in
which we exist, free of the confines of the human
dimension's perspective. The difference between us and
the men and women of history is that we know about
genetics, the atom and the galaxies of our universe. We
know, they did not. This new found knowledge allows us
to experience removed, temporary glimpses of a constant,
dynamic universe and our place in it. Because our
vehicle of realization, the mind and body, is directly
tied to the workings and callings of an instinctive,
survivalist, inborn core from which we can't divorce
ourselves, I have to report that even though our present
human condition offers episodes of insight, it is never
too long before we are called back to the basics: Potato
chips, TV, bed (O.K. Diet Pepsi for those watching your
weight).
Still, my point is that humans inherently long for
bigger and better things, thoughts and feelings, above
the dirt. The drive towards a vision beyond the base
human condition is natural, practically unconscious and
as we will see, directly responsible for our species
creation of music. That special drive, surpassing the
drive for physical survival, is the 1.5% difference that
forges the human spirit and makes it long to soar. It
comes built into the territory of being human. The other
98.5% is the monkey business part of our lives, of which
you are probably already familiar.
Now in order to rope this essay in a little bit before
all of the sheep get out of the corral (or the bats from
the belfry, if you prefer) I now direct your interest to
a book written by Robert Jourdain called Music, The
Brain And Ecstasy. What I drew from the book is this:
Human beings are, by their very nature, hard wired to
universally apply music to heighten their senses, change
their mood and ultimately achieve an ecstatic state
which transforms the individual past the mundane use of
the senses, and into a world of transcendence. From the
book:"For a few moments music makes us larger than we
really are, and the world more orderly than it really
is. We respond not just to the beauty of the sustained
deep relations that are revealed, but also to the fact
of our perceiving them. As our brains are thrown into
overdrive, we feel our very existence expand and realize
that we can be more than we normally are, and that the
world is more than it seems. That is cause enough for
ecstasy."
One outstanding premise of the book is that the
environment of the human mind is practically starving
for the hypnotic effect that music presents to the
listener. Like water on a dry sponge, the mind is ready
for music. It drinks it up. The mind loves the way music
makes it feel. It goes beyond a nice fit: the human mind
wants music. It senses that music straightens thinking
out, somehow. Music makes the mind feel whole, strong,
complete and at times, even noble. The human animal
seems to be unique in this respect.
Since we are the only species to ever really develop an
intricate music that saturates all of our cultures the
question remains "Why? What purpose does music really
serve, what is the reason that it is so universally
woven into the fabric of human experience?" Well, having
won the war of the species, humans' instinctual drives
were free, in part, to develop to"the next level"
propelling individual behavior towards the creation of
art, invention, and a very real need to use music to
express one's inner emotion.
One thing is for sure. When Western civilization set
their ships out to explore the globe in the middle of
the past millennium, the reports back to Europe were
universal in many respects. First off, there were
already people living all over the world. Secondly, the
peoples of the world all carried out certain common
rituals of behavior (birth rites, death rites, marriage,
coming of age rites etc.) through the particulars of
their different cultures. But the real news was that
they all used music in one way or another as an integral
part of their lives. Music was discovered to be
universal among all cultures spanning all periods of
human history, even though many cultures were completely
independent of each other. African shamans were
discovered to use stringed instruments to drive the mood
for trance induced religious ceremonies, while other
parallel reports came in from around the world. People
USE music. Always have. Always will.
There are many behavior patterns that are specific to
certain cultures, but beyond basic human needs, the
creation of music and the drive toward artistic
expression are in a universal and exclusive category of
their own- right up there along side of survival and
eating. This means that music was discovered
independently, again and again and again, throughout
time and place, and used as a tool to carry out the
inner drives of mankind's higher natural calls. It is
not important to categorize the history of music at this
time. What thrills me is the concept that we are driven
to create music by our very nature. Witness our own
species, leveraging our successful survival instincts,
forging past their initial base parameters in order to
see through them, beyond the animal state and into the
expanse of the universe of feeling, seeing and knowing
our own world, and who we really are at heart. The means
to this refined end: Music.
What all of this leads to is the need for music as a
necessity of the human condition. Of course, it can't
compare with hunger or reproduction for immediate
attention. It is just that at this point in time,
history shows that humans, left alone to their own
devices, will use music in every aspect of their lives.
They will use it to worship. They will use it to dance.
They will use it to sell. They will use it to march to
war. They will use it to hurt. They will use it to mark
themselves. They will use it induce a drug-like trance.
They will use it to lift the public spirit at weddings,
or set the mood of a burial and rituals of all kinds.
The individual will use it while alone to change the way
he feels, to elevate himself, to expand his immediate
horizon. Above and beyond all other things, people have
always used music as a way of expressing their inner
feelings to the world outside of the self.
It is important to see that once civilization got
rolling that the "whole shooting match"of historical
expansion feed on itself. One development led to the
other. Discoveries in the field of instrument making led
to better execution by the players. More refined
instruments led to deeper musical discovery, which
spawned more refined styles. As world population grew,
so did cross-cultural spill over. Discoveries applying
to all things musical were shared, exchanged and
embraced, accelerating the process which eventually
brought on the great episodes of music history: Ancient,
Middle Ages, Baroque, Classical, Modern and all we
personally have known and experienced.
I have found that the documented history of musical
style, instruments and performers is always heavy on
precise details of who, what and when things actually
happened, but I have found that most studies usually
fail to address the human drive that was responsible for
the entire deal in the first place.
Once you recognize the human compulsion to create
expressive art as the force behind all music application
and invention, the doors open which permits us to see
all related subject matter in a clearer light. For
instance, the development of the six string electric
guitar is a well documented affair, but knowing that
there was a very real human need that invisibly forced
the events to occur helps us to see past the dates,
names and places listed in the history books to the real
underlying cause.. Recognizing the existence of"the
drive" facilitates our true understanding of the
instrument, why it was constantly refined, why it was so
adaptable through its history and why it remains the
most popular instrument in the world today. The history
of candy is clear: the name and the type are not as
important to understanding its nature and effect as the
common fact that people will crawl a mile just to be
near a sugar bar of any kind.
The guitar started out as an ingenious gut stringed
chromatic based chordophone invention around 1780. It
was the demand of the expressive performer that brought
the instrument into being. The highest technology that
each period of history had to offer was always applied
to the guitar because the obsession of the performers of
history for more and better instruments never let up as
time rolled through history. The first modern guitars
appeared sixty years after the height of Stradivarius'
violin making perfection. What looks like a dusty
antique in a faded picture today was actually the "crown
of creation" of musical instruments to a world without.
Born into the world to satisfy the human need to
express: witness the invention of the modern guitar,
classical Europe, around 1780. Perfect in every way for
individual exposition, the guitar was considered the
finish line by those that first embraced it. It took
centuries of development, driven by the individual's
demand for a more perfect means of voicing his
imagination, to bring the guitar into existence.
The invention of the steel string was applied to the
guitar not simply because technology allowed it, but
because the steel string helped the performer to more
easily create vastly broader musical visions. Once guys
heard that steel sting sing, they were all down trying
to get one. Why? Because they loved steel strings? No,
it was because the steel string opened the flood gates
of expression. Understand the underlying compulsion of
the human to create, and you will better understand the
real story of the guitar.
The delta blues played out on the steel string. The well
worn story is that the steel string fit the haunting
ordeal of the African man, playing a refined Euro-
instrument on American soil against all odds of a good
life. It could all seem like a lot of loose ended
history, an effort to understand, if we don't consider
"the drive" in the overall story. Once you see the
obsessive inner human drive to exhibit as the underlying
reason for all music culture, it is easier to see a
particular incarnation of musical history, such as the
delta blues, in its true perspective, removed from the
fog created by romance, legend, indulgent reverence, and
the inevitable distraction caused by naming the Gods who
carried the hammer: Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy
Waters, and so on.
The only things that really carried through the entire
history of the guitar, from its inception to the present
day, are "the drive" of the performer and the instrument
itself. All else is the stuff of singular historical
episode. Once again, it wasn't really the guitar that
"went electric." It was the pent-up insistence of the
performer for a more versatile vehicle on which to shoot
for the stars that really stirred the pot. Thousands of
years in the making, born on American soil, popularized
during the 40's, mass produced during the 50's, Ladies
and Gentleman, the most expressive-friendly chordophone
in the history of the universe: the electric guitar.
Just custom made for playing out your instinctive inner
drive to create. Les Paul and Leo Fender have their
names on the guitars, and history has given them their
due, but I am sure that they both knew somehow that
their timely inventions served as grease on the wheels
of a greater overall movement of causation. Elvis, The
Beatles, Led Zep, Van Halen, Stevie Ray, all of these
characters had "the drive" before they picked up a
guitar. Even icons, now seemingly forged in stone
forever and ever, once employed an original portfolio, a
scheme to simply show off.
So the guitar is a shadow of human need. Way before the
actual invention of the instrument there existed the
hidden, subconscious human agenda of necessity that
brought all musical property into the light of day.
Richard Daniels
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TUITION COLUMN
==============
Live Mikes, PA Volume and the Small Band
What I really know about microphone volume setting and
PA equipment I have learned from the direct experience
of setting up my three piece band over the years. I
move my PA out of the basement music room every now and
again, and I have a few pointers about setting volume
levels that may help you avoid some of the pratfalls of
getting the PA to a good working level. Up to about a
year ago I had a cheap minimum level model, an old
Custom with pleated upholstery around its casing. Do you
remember those old things? I had all kinds of problems
with it, so I bought a brand new Fender with 325 watts,
six channel input, with 30 digital presets for the
reverb, delay, special effects etc. It has one setting
that adds a third and a fifth above the note sung. Then
I got two Yamaha 15" speaker cabs.
The basic thing to know about mike volume is this: After
all is said and done and the speakers are set up, and
the wires are run, and the power amp is turned on and a
live mike is in the stand- the two most important
settings are the raw master volume and the treble
setting on the mike channel. Oh, I know, there are dials
galore, and a spectrum of things to consider, but what I
am defining here is the soundman's greatest enemy:
Feedback. All other settings fall behind the volume and
the treble when it comes to understanding the deal on
feedback.
Things to know: After a mike is turned on and live, and
the volume knob is slowly increased incrementally, there
will be a point where, after running through the usable
range of volume on the set knob, the response from the
mike will become highly sensitive, and after a certain
point will start to scream with feedback. The usable
volume parameter (for example between 2 and 4) is
commonly defined on the high end by what is known as the
"threshold of feedback." Here is the thing: the optimum
setting for a mike's volume is just before the mike
starts to feed back. It is sort of like looking over a
cliff: it gets more exciting closer to the edge, but you
dare not go to close because you could lose the whole
thing.
The very best way I know to describe this critical
setting is to tell you what I do when I am alone and
setting the mike up myself. I put the mike in the stand,
adjust it to my singing height and position it
diametrically away from the main speakers as much as I
can (usually directly toward the back of the stage with
the speakers on each side facing outward favoring each
side) and after setting the treble and bass flat (at the
zero point usually at 12 noon) I then start with a
reasonable user setting that I can feel is considerably
under the peak threshold. I walk up to the mike for a
test, and then just go back and forth resetting the knob
and testing the mike until I start to approach the point
where the mike starts to report a full warm, louder
signal.
At this point you are entering the "warm zone" This is
ultimately where you want to be. From here your goal is
to creep- in tiny instruments on the sweep of the knob-
ever closer (louder-higher volume) toward the peak. Go
ahead and let it feed back a little when the time comes
for you to experience it. Dare yourself to enter into
the "danger zone." See what happens first hand. You have
to know how far is too far to back off from it, right?
After running through this procedure a few times
you will come to realize that all of the other PA
settings are academic compared to this one. If you can
get the knack of setting the volume just short of the
critical edge where feedback starts, you will be on your
way to truly getting the most out of your PA. Try
bringing up the treble knob and you will find that it
works practically like the volume knob does in respect
to taking you towards the feedback threshold. The higher
you can sneak the volume/treble knobs, the clearer, more
vibrant your mike will sound. Go to far, and you will
know it.
I understand one problem is that the conditions under
which you set a PA up may be social situations. The
other band members making sounds. People vying for your
attention, singers telling you what to do, or drummers
setting up their cymbals. All of this works against you.
There is a fine art to setting the system just shy of
the feedback point, and it might be best for you to fool
around with it when you have the place to yourself.
Once you do establish the point for a common band set
up, and your gig is successful, go ahead and mark the
knobs with colored masking tape tabs right on the knob
position. Mind you that the markings will only give you
a rough idea for one stage for one night, but it will
serve as a starting point none the less. When in
question, always go shy of the mark and slowly test your
way up toward the point of no return. One complaint I
always have about equipment volume knobs is that,
although the knob sweeps from 0 to 10, it is always a
very small sliver of that spectrum that is actually
usable. On my guitar amp the volume knob is way to low
at 1, and way to loud at 1.5. Go figure. I can't imagine
why the knob goes between 3 and 9 for. I have never
gotten over 2.
Find the usable parameter on your volume knob from
experience. Check it out. Mark it. After the volume
knob, the treble is the second most important. Go up to
the point where you are getting the rich, expanded sound
that you are after, and then back off just a little and
leave it there. Sing a few songs. Figure out if you can
go higher without the feedback factor and try to sneak
it up a hair. If you hear a complaint, back down again.
That is how it works in the end.
Short story: I am jamming down at Jodie's house as
normal on Friday night. We take a ten minute break after
an hour of playing. Just 30 seconds after we put our
instruments down and leave the room the feedback starts.
It came slowly out of nowhere, but within ten seconds
was peaking and screaming no end. We all ran over
ourselves running to the master knob to kill it off.
What happened? The main mike was set so dangerously
close to the threshold of feedback that as long as the
mike was processing a signal of any kind (people talking
in the room, the bass player tuning up, or somebody
actively singing) the thing seemed to be happy and shy
of the mark, and giving good sound. As soon as everybody
making noise left the room, the system began to hear
itself, and started to process its own basic hum. This
was enough to "teeter" the system over the threshold. So
keep in mind that if a mike is not feeding back on a
stationary stand after fine considered "quiet stage"
adjustment, you are safe at that setting during a
performance because you are processing a signal, pushing
you just a bit back from the threshold point.
Everything will be fine then. That is, of course, until
you have a "special guest artist" (as we have had down
at Jodie's any number of times) and with a beer can in
one hand and your mike in the other, Mr. Friday Night
Fever proceeds to swing the mike directly in front of
the PA speaker. Of course, this results in instantaneous
feedback of the highest order. Everybody in the band
starts screaming over each other and the guy with the
mike is oblivious to the fact that he is causing the
problem- so he keeps singing Wild Thing. This, my
friend, is the price of the special guest artist. Just
keep him away from the guitar rig.
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QUESTION & ANSWER COLUMN
========================
QUESTION: What is the most common open tuning on the
electric guitar?
ANSWER:
A basic cornerstone of my teachings is that the guitar
was first and foremost a chordophone that was designed
to play an E chord. It is no accident that the two outer
strings are both E notes, two octaves apart. For this
reason, the most common open tuning is the "open E." The
six strings, usually tuned to E, A, D, G, B, and E, are
opened tuned to E, B, E, G#, B and E. In the key of E,
E=1, G# = 3 and B = 5.
This was the favorite open tuning of the old blues
fathers. You could take a bottleneck and run a chord
straight across, adjusting leadwork to the pattern,
while always knowing that you can always remove the
slide and get that perfect ringing, full E chord. George
Thurogood always goes out on stage with two guitars: One
tuned to standard, one tuned to E, both white Gibsons.
QUESTION: What are the most common fretboard woods for
use on the electric guitar?
ANSWER:
Rosewood is probably the most commonly used fretboard
wood because it has a nice natural finish, not oily to
the touch but with a natural oil finish from the wood
itself. Warm, open grained and burgundy in color,
Rosewood comes in a great variety of colors, and
textures including the rarer Brazilian.
Ebony is a dark, tending to black hardwood that is
widely used for violin and cello fingerboards. On the
guitar the ebony fretboard is less used than Rosewood,
but remains a favorite because of its hard, unforgiving
face and its slick feel with a steel string. A side
benefit of the ebony board is that a set of new frets
looks "absolutely fabulous" gleaming against the black
wood in the bright stage lights.
Maple neck Stratocasters are my favorite thing in the
world. Maple is a blonde/yellow and very hard. The thing
to know is that maple neck Strats are basically one
piece of wood. The "fretboard" is the same piece of wood
as the neck, and the frets are cut directly into the
same piece of wood that handle the machine heads at the
headstock. Maple fretboards usually require a special
"poly" finish to prevent the strings from contacting the
raw wood.
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=========================
HeavyGuitar.com Ezine TAB
=========================
Dear HeavyGuitar.com Ezine subscriber... now is your
chance. Request and receive the most accurate TAB from
the hottest fret-burning classic rock masters, or the
latest releases.
Please email your requests to:
richard@heavyguitar.com
We will start featuring your requests with the
commencement of the HTML version HeavyGuitar.com Ezine,
coming next month.
Richard Daniels introduces the Universal Fretboard Call
System to all e-zine subscribers and students: Blues
lesson included.
First off, I really want to thank you personally for
joining the very special, limited group of friends and
students that subscribe to my online e-zine, Welcome.
Since I started teaching guitar professionally twenty
years ago, a rather persistent, seemingly simple problem
continues to raise its head: communicating to the
student exactly where to play an example on the
fretboard. Both teacher and student both have
practically identical fretboards, but there always seems
to be a difficult bridge to cross when it comes down to
the real nuts and bolts of getting the student's fingers
into the correct position.
Nobody knows the limits of the various media used to
teach guitar better than I. You can't hear books, but
they are great for charts. "Running time" media like
video, CD etc. have the problem of running past your
attention. Moving or still pictures of the hand playing
a note on the fretboard naturally hide the real action
of the string being pinched under the finger: The hand
is between the camera lens and the real action, and the
pick hand is two feet away making the action happen. You
see, I have thought this whole thing over for many years
and here is what I have come up with to work towards a
solution: A Universal Fretboard Call System that simply,
quickly spotlights a specific note's position and makes
it clear to both student and teacher precisely where on
the board a study is taking place.
Here is how it works: The system employs a three word
"call", where the first word indicates the string used,
the second word indicates the fret employed, and the
third word indicates the finger used to play the note.
This is a simple "string/fret/finger" call system that I
am going to use universally for all future teachings
that appear in e-zine lessons, and my print and video
media presentations.
First word: String
Second word: Fret
Third word: Finger
Now all of this seems simple enough at first, but to
effectively use the system we have to explore a few
points. First, the six strings are numbered from high to
low, from thick to thin. High E is 1, the second
thinnest B string is 2, G is 3, D is 4, A is 5, and the
low E is 6. Bigger string-higher number, thinner string-
lower number. The good news is that there are only six
numbers here to consider.
The second word of the call indicates the fret position
numbers spanning from 0 thru 19 (24 for extended
fretboards). The number 0 will refer to a sting played
open. Common fretboard markers are placed at the 3rd,
5th, 9th, and 12th frets on most guitars.
The third word of the call, which indicates the finger
employed, will use the words index (I), middle (M), ring
(R), pinky (P) in order to get the information across.
Understand that most of the time that the call will be
reduced to just two words, and that the finger reference
will only be used when necessary. Techniques such as
bending or pulling are not addressed directly in the
call.
The reason that I am using the word Universal to name
this system is because I want to be able to use our
system to commonly name a note on anybody's fretboard no
matter what guitar they may play. A call of 3/12/index
will always refer to the same note. You can begin to see
why, after all this time teaching, I am seeking out and
developing a system that ties all fretboards together.
When you are speaking to a friend on the phone, do you
want to say "I am talking about the note played on the
second thinnest string, at the 12th fret, playing with
the index finger" or do you want to say "go to
3/12/index." After we use it a while, you will see that
it is not only more direct, but it is easier to focus or
"see" a note in your mind using the system.
Another reason for using the word Universal to describe
the system is that I want to apply the call across the
board in all of my teaching that requires me to explain
hands-on playing, as opposed to general theory. In the
future, the call will be used in:
1. The paragraph text of e-zine lessons, books, and
papers that are part of my teaching. All printed matter
will employ the call.
2. Spoken word CDs will employ the call in the common
narration. The call will then usually refer to a
cross-referenced printed diagram, or use of the same call
in a printed text.
3. The narration of digital video publications will use
the call to clarify a note position, and once again
cross-reference other places where the call appears
in text or diagram form.
The use of the Universal Fretboard Call System is an
"acquired taste." You will become familiar with it only
through use. I look forward in the future to producing
plenty of essential discourse that uses our Universal
system to help you to truly understand the playing of
your instrument. Now we will look at a tab example that
spells out the A blues scale to see how the call system
works, and get a quick lesson in blues guitar to boot.
Bar #1
8 5
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8 5
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7 5
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7 5
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7 5
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8 5
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In the above tab diagram you see the most common
pentatonic blues scale box in the key of A across the
5th fret. The tonic A notes are located in three
positions: 1/5/index, 4/7/ring, and 6/5/index. The fifth
of the A major scale and the second basic ingredient of
the A major chord is located in two positions on 2/5 and
5/5. The A power chord is found on 6/5/index and
5/7/ring. There is a lot of info in the first bar if you
really pick it apart. This simple box represents one of
the cornerstones of basic rock lead guitar. You must
know this box if you are going to go forward with your
playing.
The second bar shows the "passing" note between the 4th
and the 5th of the major scale that is frequently used
by blues guitarists and piano players to roll between
these two primary major scale degrees. This "middle"
note is often included in common blues scale usage. Do
understand, however, that this note is not actually in
the blues scale. Technically, this note is named the
flatted 5th and appears on 4/6 and 5/6 in the second bar
of the tab.
The third bar demonstrates the inclusion of the two
notes presented in the second bar into the blues box
outline shown in the first bar. Play the first bar
through enough times until you get the hang of it. Then
try the third bar, which includes the flatted 5th in its
makeup. The note on 4/6/ring is commonly bent upward a
half step until it sounds the "real" fifth played
normally on 2/5/index. This, of course, is the heart of
the famous Chuck Berry lick we all know. The note on
5/6/middle is usually not bent, but is quickly run over
as the middle note of a triplet between 5/5/index and
5/7/ring.
I hope this short lesson gives you a quick look into the
mechanics of the blues scale, and introduces you to the
Universal Fretboard Call System which we will be seeing
more of in the next e-zine. Talk to you then
Richard Daniels
********************************************************
Dear reader, that wraps up this month's issue of
HeavyGuitar.com Ezine. Please send your questions, and
your TAB requests. We'll see you next issue.
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Cordially, Richard Daniels, Heavy Guitar Company /
Richard Daniels Productions. Voice: (610) 869-5885
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