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Monday, 25 November 2013

Guitar Workshop e201 : Barre Chords : Holding techniques with major, minor, major 7th and minor 7th on 6th string

Hey guys...

Please go through this 201 sections if you have already attended the guitar sessions in campus, else if you are a beginner, I recommend you stick to the 101 series for the time being.

Back again, this time with Barre chords. In our sessions, all of you had a tough time holding the barre chord. Definitely it will be tough in the beginning but you guys will get a hang of it slowly.

Now, before we begin, be sure to remember the 4 important chords here:
1. The E Major
2. The E Minor
3. The A Major
4. The A Minor

For all of you who are doing this for the first time, don't get baffled or anything, it will come with time.
For barre chords, I need you guys to check out the following two links

For holding techniques:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpMhueVEz2g

For variations of the barre chords:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNe4oHE8WLU

Always remember that to know which is the root note of your barre chord, the only thing that you need to do is know the note that is being pressed by your index finger.

Just for your reference I am sharing a few sample chord diagrams below which you can refer to after you have checked out the videos

First the E major: this is an open chord and the same structure is repeated for all the major barre chords. All you need to do is just move your hand parallel down the guitar fret board:

E Major

F Major Holding Technique


Note that in the diagram to your left, the top string is open. The open top string is the E note right, so you have the E major chord here






 Now the pic on the
 left is how you hold the F major barre chord. Note the fact that the index finger is pressing down on the 1st frets of the 1st , 2nd and 6th strings. The other 3 fingers are basically holding an E major shape, but just shifted one fret down from where we hold the E major.
F Major Finger Position







The pic on the left is a better diagram of the above figure only.  In this diagram, the note played by the top string is an F note, because you are holding the first fret of your 6th string. So.... an F Major chord






Now similarly if you want to hold, say like an A major barre chord, all you need to do is shift down your hand parallel, so that your index finger now holds the A note on the top string(6th string). Walla !!!! you get an A major chord.

Keep practicing... do write back if you get confused.

Sunday, 24 November 2013

Guitar Workshop e102 : Knowing the notes on your fretboard & Tuning your guitar

Hey guys,

Lets take a look at what notes are there on the fret-board. It is very important to know which fret position means which note.  There are 12 notes that you can play on your guitar. Of course these notes start appearing over various octaves. These are:
A,A#,B,C,C#,D,D#,E,F,F#,G,G#

These would be read like, A , A sharp, B, C, C sharp and so forth
Note that we don't have a B sharp or an E sharp
You can also write it as:
A,BbB,C,DbD,EbE,F,GbG,Ab

These would be read as A, B flat, C, D flat etc.
The important thing to notice here is that A sharp = B flat
Now take a look at the below diagram to know the positions of these notes on your guitar string. If you refer to the e101 article, there we have already learnt which string is tuned to which frequency or note. Now using that lets find out the positioning of the remainder of the notes on the fretboard


Take a look at this link below to know how to tune your guitar. For all guitarists it is very important to know how to tune your guitar because the strings have a terrible tendency to fall out of tune.


You can always go and buy a tuner from the store so that its easier for you to tune your guitar. But I would highly recommend that you first try to tune on your own. This will help you get your ear acclimatized to the notes first.


Swagi

Friday, 22 November 2013

Guitar Workshop e101 : How to hold a pic & Knowing the frequencies of your guitar strings

Hi guys,

first things first. Take a look at this video to first learn how to hold a guitar plectrum or what is more popularly called a "guitar pic"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIuk8eBlJn4


After you know how to hold a guitar pic, you should know first which strings in your guitar are tuned to which note. take a look at the below video to get an understanding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4melH6csRw

you can also refer to the below diagram for knowing the frequencies to which a standard guitar's strings are tuned to

Remember this formula to remember the guitar string tunings:

e - every (higher e - the thinnest string)
B - Boy
G -Gets
D -Down
A- An
E - Electric guitar

every Boy Gets Down An Electric guitar
eBGDAE

Guitar Workshop

Hi Guys,

Welcome to Online Guitar Workshop . Thank you all for showing your interest in the initiative. Keep following. I'll try to regularly post new stuff so that you all can keep learning stuff online as much as you can. We will obviously have practical sessions too...

There will be 2 sets of courses..

1: Guitar Workshop e 101 onwards - for beginners
2: Guitar Workshop e 201 onwards - for those who already have had the first round of sessions at infy.

keep following and feel free to write in your comments if you have any..
Happy Learning....

swagi....