learning to play a song

Ok, it's time to put all that practice to good use and play a song! You should be able to tackle this after about six weeks. The song is 'Broken strings' by James Morrison. It's played with a capo on the first fret. You can find the full music at this excellent site

www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/j/james_morrison/broken_strings_ver2_crd.htm

you can check out the origonal here .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26PAgklYYvo&feature=fvsr

(I like the bit where his guitar explodes)! in the teaching video below, I concentrate on how to translate the words and chords (there is only one barre chord) into a workable cover. Have fun!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xrM3I4uXV0

Im having some difficulties uploading video's to blogger this week. Hopefully have it sorted by next week!

Strumming patterns

It seems that people are struggling to remember strumming patterns. Here is a vid where I show you a few different ones. You may find it helpful to mute the strings with your fretting hand in order to hear whether you are strumming the right patterns! Don't forget that strumming patterns outside of a song are an alien excersise and so make sure that you listen out for what the rythem guitars are doing in your favorite music. The chord Im using in this vid is the E major open chord but I'm moving it up and down the fret board to create some interesting sounds! try it.

CAPO's

A capo takes the place of your acheing finger and covers all of the strings on a fret so that you don't have to. A basic capo will run you around £3-£5 and they go up from there. They are a pretty vital bit of kit and most songs you will find on the internet will require one.
If you are caught short then you can get away with a brocken pencil and a very thick rubber band as i have done in the picture!

Arpeggios

In this video we rehearse the two basic arpeggios (picking methods) that we have covered in class and have alook at using fingers rather than plectrum to do them. Also we look at practicing changing chords with picking rather than strumming.

Practice moving between chords

It's important to learn to move quickly and smoothly between the different chords. You need to practice so that you are no longer thinking about where your fingers are being placed but that your hand just finds the shapre wituout you thinking too hard about it. This video is a good excersise to preactice moving between the chords at speed. You will find it hard at first but don't get discouraged...every guitarist has been where you are at some point from Jimi Hendrix to Clapton

Strums and twiddles

Every chord has what I like to call 'twiddles' that you can do with it. Simple little riffs that you can introduce into your st5rumming and picking to make it more interesting and varied. In this vid I show you some using D, G and A and also demonstrate some different strumming patterns - enjoy!

Picking styles

Here is a vid about some ways of picking guitar


Try having a go with this picking style. Don't worry if you don't have a capo yet, you can just play it on the normal frets.