Notes and Lines

Guitar fretboard notes

We meet a lot of new guitar players who need to learn the guitar fretboard notes so we created a handy and free guitar fretboard notes diagram that can be downloaded from our website.  Our suggested approach to learning the notes is to start with the low E (6th string) and learn these notes by playing the root notes to chord progressions of music you love.  Do this while you play along with the radio or to a CD/MP3.  Once you know the 6th string you actually know two strings, since the high-E string is the same as the 6th.  Then learn the 5th-string, the open A string.  If you've already learned any barre chords you probably know some of the 5th and 6th string notes since these are the roots of the chords. 

Next, learn the 4th string, the open-D.  Note the relationship between the 6th string and the 4th string, where the same note appears within two frets of each other.  Again, practice playing the notes in time with music, playing the name of the note that corresponds to the root (name) of the chord.  This will get you used to knowing the note names quickly.  Use a similar approach to learn the notes of the 3rd and 2nd strings.

Two Things You Probably Don't Understand About Learning to Play Music

Part of our business is a music school for children, so we interact with a lot of kids and their parents on the topic of how to learn to play an instrument.  Our approach emphasizes playing in a band with a goal of performing for an audience, so with new students our focus is on playing versus theory.  Some parents seem to wonder if a de-emphasis of theory is a good idea, or ask why we don't use more books or printed music with new students.  I was pondering how best to explain this one day while driving my daughters to their ice skating lesson and then chilling (literally) in the bleachers to watch.  As I sat there chatting with some other parents it occurred to me that none of these parents thought an ice skating book was necessary.   Why?  Because they see ice skating as primarily a physical activity, not a mental activity, and that’s what I think they misunderstand about learning to play an instrument – this is a physical activity.  I’m speaking here of new students, where the majority of learnings are physical.  Our drum students are working on building strength and endurance in their arms, and coordinating hands, arms, legs and feet.  Our guitar, bass and piano students are developing speed, flexibility, strength and agility in their arms, hands, fingers and wrists.  Now as students advance we introduce theoretical elements, but to continue the metaphor, we don’t want to teach ice skaters about wind resistance until they can reliably go around the rink.

So, the first thing parents don’t understand about learning to play an instrument is that this is primarily a physical activity.  I think this understanding is particularly important in understanding what is needed in practice.  Like any physical activity, the best learning happens with repetitive practice followed by an interval of rest – then, as they say, wash, rinse, repeat. 

The second thing parents don’t understand is how much training of the ear is necessary, and to help their children develop their ears.  In our program, where the emphasis is on playing in a band and performing, students need to hear chord changes as they happen, and to develop the confidence to trust that they know where they are in a song.  A band can’t stop and restart for one member who’s lost their place, particularly during a performance.  This is why we emphasize learning their parts by ear, rather than playing from printed music.  When you have to be able to play your part without the crutch of a printed score in front of you, it drives the development of the ear and listening skills.  At a basic level, training the ear can be learned by learning songs and identifying parts while listening to music.  Identifying that a tune is a 12-bar blues is a good starting goal.  At a more advanced level, ear training can get quite advanced and a means to introduce theory.  The jazz blog, “I Was Doing All Right”, has free ear training tools that are good for this purpose, as a well as being a good source for jazz improvisation. 

Nothing satisfies parents of music students more than hearing their child actually play music.  Parents can help achieve this goal by emphasizing the physical aspects of learning the instrument, and helping their child learn the basic listening skills required of musicians.

The Mental Game of Music Practice

I once took a weekend music theory class given at the famous Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and during the class breaks the students got together in the cafeteria. Posted on a column one week was a handwritten note, quoting some esteemed character in the school as having said "Practice is a sign of insecurity!" Beyond the initial chuckle this evoked, the quote has stayed with me over the years because it captures so much of the mental baggage around music practice - "You need to practice x minutes each day," "If you don't practice enough, you'll be bad," "I hear that so and so practices 8 hours every day, I'll never be as good as he is," "Only perfect practice makes perfect," etc. With all of these messages coming from teachers, parents and other musicians it's no wonder that music practice is such a loaded topic for many music-makers and those who gave up on an instrument. I can easily imagine that within the high-pressure halls of a top music school that some students would be practicing just to practice, with no objective in mind other than the need to spend more time practicing. So with all this in mind, in this post I'd like to share a few things I've learned on the mental game of music practice.

There are no wrong notes

There were two monks in a monastery doing their daily rituals.  They were about to bow to their deity.  One got on his knees and said "Oh master, I am nothing, I don't exist, all there is is You."  The next monk bowed down even lower and said, "Oh great one, I am less than nothing!  I don't exist and I never did.  You are all there is!  In the corner, a janitor was sweeping the temple and watching the monks.  He thought to himself, "Hmmmm, that looks pretty good!  I think I'll try that."  He walked over to the deity and bowed while the monks watched him.  He said, "Oh, mighty one, I too am nothing, you are everything."  As the two monks looked on with disdain, one said to the other, "Humph!  How dare he!  Look who thinks he's nothing!"

This joke is from a book I've been re-reading lately titled "Effortless Mastery - Liberating the Master Musician Within" by Kenny Werner.  I like to go back to this book every so often because it's such a classic on opening up the creative pathways, and musicianship in general.  Werner's primary message is that opening up the creative pathways is mostly about not closing them - not delivering those internal messages to ourselves that say we're no good, or somebody's better, or we sound bad.  Werner relates a feeling that probably resonates with many musicians:

"I was always either very high or very low.  When I would hear a pianist play better than me, I would want to die!  I would literally feel worthless.  I had come to rely so heavily on my talent for validation that I couldn't face not being God's gift to music."

Most musicians got into playing an instrument because of their love of music.  But their joy of listening to music is often trampled by the pain of hearing someone who plays better than they do.  As Werner relates:

How to Practice a Musical Instrument (or help your child practice)

When I look back on my guitar-playing “career” of nearly 40 years (I started very young), I can divide the time into two major periods.  The first, lasting 30 years, was before I learned how to practice, and the second period, for the last 10 years, was after I learned to practice.  Yes, it took me 30 years to learn how to practice.  It never even occurred to me that I might need to learn how to practice.  I had taken lessons with several teachers over the years and none had ever mentioned anything about how to practice, just that I needed to do it.  I’m stunned by this realization, and yet it is true.  Had I learned how to practice earlier, I would have improved my playing immensely and made much faster progress.  It was only my intense love of the instrument and my desire to play that kept me at it, even though my practice was so ineffective. 

Even more tragic is that nearly every music student I meet, adults and children, including those going to weekly lessons with a teacher, lacks the same understanding of how to practice.  And the biggest tragedy of them all is that learning how to practices takes about 10 minutes.  I suspect that the lack of knowing how to practice causes many would-be musicians to quit early on, and believe that they lack talent or ability, all due to a missing 10-minute lesson.