Ok, in the previous post we gave you the rules. Those who feel ready to break the rules need to know the ways of shaping a signal. Usually this effect is:
1. Adding to it
2. Subtracting (or ‘clipping) from it
3. Modulating it
Let’s use a distortion pedal as an example. It creates noise by clipping the signal. If you look at the waveform of a guitar signal, this will look like a Sine wave. And the smoother the wave, the smoother and clearer the signal. And now imagine clipping off the tops of the curves – doing a square wave – this is how it sounds distorted.
Ok, and now you modulate a signal so that the amplitude (peaks and valleys) are more extreme, their phase or spacing less regular or the peak frequency response (tone) filtered in or out. This will affect the volume in the first case. And in the second case – this is affecting the timing or regularity of the signal. As far as the third case is taken into account, this is affecting the clarity of the signal.
That is why now we are coming to the conclusion that you basically need to check which effects cause the most significant attenuation in volume. Once this is spotted – chain them in order of most to least.
Also remember that you must balance the location of volume cuts (as well as boosts) against the amount of noise introduced into the signal.
Surely I must say that this is not something 100% fixed. The effects and their placement depends not only on the type of effects, but also the number of effects involved. This is an exciting and very interesting process that will help you to master the true nature of electric guitar.
The freedom which is given by the electric guitar is really amazing. It can create rhythmic or percussive textures and then smooth singing sounds one after another. We can talk about close to limitless combination of new sounds that can be created by playing with effects, amplifiers and types of guitar. When doing the job properly one can create something which will be called his or her personal or signature sound.
This post is a quick tutorial about how to use the effects of pedals. Your best tip and rule to live by is – learn how to chain your effects pedals. Though some guitarists prefer ‘all-in-one’, multi-effect pedal units (and there are many situations when a multi-effect pedal is a perfect helper). But then you are limited by the multi-effects unit capacities.
If you want to properly tweak your sound – then learn the proper chaining of effects pedals from guitar to amp. The rules for the placement of different types of effects in a chain are not something undisputable absolute. But you should better know the rules before you can break them.
Ok, here are some examples of a good effects chain
Guitar – Wah – Distortion – Chorus – Amp + Delay (sent separately through the amp’s effect loop)
or
Guitar – Wah – Distortion – Chorus – Delay – Amp
Perhaps you have noticed that Delay is most often the last effect in a chain. You need to plug from the Delay (at the end of the whole chain) into your amp’s input jack – in case you use a one-channel amp. With two-channel amps, it is recommended to plug your Guitar-Wah-Distortion-Chorus chain into the input jack, while plugging your Delay (separate from the chain) into the amp’s “effects send/return” loop.
For more tips please read Part 2 of Learn How to Play Electric Guitar – Special Tip on Effects
Many beginners’ guitar players wrote to me and ask for advice how to play guitar ‘fast’. I inevitably write them back to ask whether they already play guitar, and just want to be faster on the fretboard. I wonder whether there may be a connection between the two. It seemed far-fetched.
Here are some useful tips:
1. You can learn guitar faster by studying the techniques involved making your overall playing ability ‘faster’, and..
2. You can become a ‘faster’ guitar player by re-focusing your practice sessions on the basic concepts and techniques taught to every beginner.
The reasons for this overlap and can be summed up in a handy acronym: M.O.S.T. — or, “Memorization, Observation and Strength Training.”
Memorization
Failure to memorize is a thing that slows down beginning and intermediate guitar players:
1. All of the notes on the fretboard
2. Chords and scales for the Major and Minor Keys
Observation
Your senses of touch, sight and sound are all involved in playing guitar. As you play, you will no doubt feel the development of ‘muscle memory’ as your fingers play across familiar chords and scales. Memorization is the foundation for observation, and observation is the key to training your mind and hands to work in concert automatically.
Strength Training
Beginning guitarists often struggle to hold down chords, and to play scales with all four fingers. This is simply a matter of building strength, muscle memory and dexterity through consistent and correct practice.
Players who can’t seem to exceed their current speed on the guitar must examine their own technique. The key to learning guitar faster – as well as playing it faster – rests in following the M.O.S.T. formula.
Young guitarists wonder, is there are differences between how to play acoustic guitar versus electric guitar. The answer is: ‘Yes and No’!
Acoustic guitars and electric guitars are identical of how the notes are laid out. Generally speaking, acoustic guitars have heavier, less flexible strings. What this means for you is that you’ll need to build up a bit more strength in your fretting hand in order to play an acoustic guitar. The strength building will take a bit longer. You’ll be able to fly across an electric on string gauges that your average electric player considers ‘heavy’.
Another thing about acoustic guitar is that it’s characteristic sound changes the type of music that sounds best on it. If you’re into ‘death metal’, for example, it’s going to sound completely different when played acoustically.
It is possible to use effects on an acoustic, but you have to create an extra set up.
The first option is to play your acoustic – run through an effect pedal and into a regular guitar amplifier. The second option is to have your guitar equipped with a small ‘pickup’ mic, and wired out with an input jack so that you can plug directly into an amp.
Last but not least, keep in mind that acoustic guitars don’t have ‘moveable’ bridge systems. There’s no ‘whammy bar’ on an acoustic.
Remember the points mentioned above, you can rest assured that learning how to play acoustic guitar is the same as learning to play electric. Wish you luck and perfect play on acoustic guitar.
Playing guitar is a very fun thing. I’ve put together some “off-the-beaten-path” guitar lessons for beginners here. These lessons won’t make you a guitar hero, my hope is that they’ll give you some quick insights to advance your skills.
Lesson #1: Fret board Facts
Your fret board is ‘doubled’ at the 12th fret position. What I mean by ‘doubled’ is that all of the open-string notes repeat in the same order (as octaves) at the 12th fret.
If you just strum your guitar without fretting (holding down) any notes, you have the following pattern in ’standard’ tuning: E-A-D-G-B-E. If you were to place your index finger across all six strings at the 12th fret, you get: E-A-D-G-B-E again!
It is useful because it means that the entire chord shapes and scale patterns you learn below the 12th fret are repeated and in the same relative positions. Once you’ve learned how things work from the open position and 1st fret onwards, you’ve automatically got everything at the 12th fret and beyond mastered, too!
Lesson #2: Two-Note ‘Drones’
An experiment for you to try: Play an open ‘D’ note simultaneously with a fretted ‘A’ note on your third string. Keep hitting that open ‘D’ as you move up the D-major scale on the third string. In other words, keep hitting that ‘D’ as you slide your finger up the fretboard from A to B to D to E and so on.
You can do this for the E and A string below as well.
If you want a song to follow along with and practice this technique, check out the early U2 song called “Electric Co.” The Edge is a big fan of these two-note ‘drones’ and used the technique in that song.
If memory serves, ‘Electric Co.’ is in the key of D-major, and the riff progresses like so:
D/A – D/C – D/B – D/E – D/F# – D/D (that second D is played at the 7th fret position) -
D/A -D/C – D/B - D/G (open G on 3rd string) – D/E – D/F#
Hint: You may need to tune down a half-step to get in key with the album version of the song.
Lesson #3: Easy ‘Thirds’ in G-Major
In the key of G-major, for example, the distance from from G to C is an interval of a fourth because C is the fourth note in the scale.
In this example, what we’re actually doing is taking the thirds relative to the chords being played. Go from G-major to A-minor to B-minor. Intervals of thirds for each of these chords are: G/B, A/C and B/D, respectively.
Now, trying plucking these intervals with your thumb and index finger. Start with G on the sixth string and B on the second string, open position. Move to A on the fifth string, open position, with C played on the second string, first fret. Finally, play B on the fifth string, second fret, with D on the second string, third fret.
In ‘pseudo-tab’, the notation would look like this: (6/3 – 2/0) – (5/0 – 2/1) – (5/2 – 2/3). The first number in the ‘fraction’ represents which string to play on, while the second number represents which fret on that string to hold down.
The parenthesis indicate that you should play both strings simultaneously, rather than one after the other.
So, (6/3 – 2/0) means play the note on the 3rd fret of the sixth string at the same time as you play the second string (0= open position).
That’s the beginner’s guitar lessons. Hope you enjoyed them!!!
If you are not familiar with playing guitar at all then cheer up and try to learn guitar chords – they are the easiest things to learn. You just need a good reference, something like a chord dictionary, so you could learn and memorize the shape of any chord you want. Using this information will help you figure out what the different types of chord are and should give you an edge when you’re ready to learn some of the music theory involved in chord construction. Well let`s start to learn by uncovering the mystery of some chord-related jargon.
INFORMATIONG REGARDING THE BASIC CHORDS
The chord which is created from 3 (usually distinct) notes played simultaneously is the simplest. An F-major chord, for example, consists of the notes F, A and C. Note that all of the basic major and minor chords can be created with just 3 notes.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ADVANCED CHORDS
3 notes are not a strict limit for a chord and it is mustn`t be unique for every note. It means that, if you play F-major as a ‘Barre’ chord you will have the following pattern of 6 notes: F-C-F-A-C-F. As the matter of fact you can have a chord with more notes than you have fingers!
The chords which are created by stacking intervals, adding or suspending tones and creating inversions are the most complex. So as you can see a D-major9#11 is built by adding the 7th, 9th and 11th tones of the D-major scale on top of a D-major chord.
If you asking yourself: how is it possible? There are only 8 notes within the scale. No big deal then! It means that the 9th and 11th notes are actually just repeated notes, started from the beginning of the scale. In this case, the 9th note is ‘E’ and the 11th note is ‘G’. Here are some terms for you to start train your memory with music-related terms: augmented (aug), suspended (sus), diminished (dim), add, subtract(-).
TIPS ON POWER CHORDS
Note that power chords are technically not chords in the precise sense because they consist of only two notes. They are actually intervals of what’s referred to as ‘bare fifths’. The bottom (low) strings of the guitar are the easiest place to play them.
If you want to create a ‘bare fifth’ interval, all you have to do is drop the “third” from a basic chord, and just play the root note with the dominant fifth. An A-major power chord, for example, is just the notes A and E. Remember the song “Jessie’s Girl”, by Rick Springfield? The main riff of the song is a progression of power chords. Try playing it in D-major using the following progression of fifths starting from the 5th fret position: D/A, A/E, B/E, G/D, A/E, D/A.
So this is all about the basics. If you felt a desire to find out more about how to create your own chords, you should find some good theory book that will certainly tell you about all relationships between scales, chords and modes.
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