What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Guitar question

Patman

Patman

Rodent of Unusual Size
I've been playing my guitar for about a month now... still working from note-based stuff as opposed to chords (finger stretching and gymnastics still have to be learned... I think I can play a D chord though... nice and easy... 2nd fret first string, 3rd 2nd, 2nd 3rd)... anyhow, some of these (easy) song books asks to play a E# (F-flat) at the high end of the G-clef. As far as I can tell, there is no tuning, string, fret combo which can play that E#. Any guitar players have insight on this? Am I wrong somehow? Curious. You'd think an easy song book would refrain from such craziness.
 
Re: Guitar question

theprofromdover said:
There is no E#/Fflat, just as there is no B#\Cflat.
Click to expand...

I suspected something like that... its annoying that its in the songbook... I assume this is something particular to the instrument... flat/sharp is nothing more than a half-way point between the notes. For all I know they're just copying from piano scores or something common to all beginner texts.
 
Re: Guitar question

mookie1995 said:
Use tab. See where the fingers go and stretch/strum
Click to expand...

Tablature (sp?) is the way to go. Took guitar class in college, had a teacher that was tone-perfect (I think that is the term: he could hear a phone ring and tell you what note/key it was ringing in). He said to use tabs, and then branch out from there. I gave the axe up after 3 years, didn't have the patience, but thanks to his teaching, I did teach myself a few songs just by listening and mimicing the notes until I got it right.
 
Re: Guitar question

I've been trying to learn to play guitar and it's dang difficult, makes you appreciate the skills of the musician. I bought one of those beginner guitar books but it didn't make sense till I read some of the comments on this site. Basically it covered the same subject with clarity and verily. It talks about E# F/flat in the 1st lesson at zentao.com, I really liked the music theory lessons which was lot more detailed than the book.

Even with tabs I can't play crap, although I'm finally getting the hang of moving from chord to chord, need to get the strum and timing down which is another thing that looks easy but is a pain.

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/lesson1/index.html#Theory
(there's no such note as B# or Cb, likewise, E# or Fb. There is an exception to this but, that's way down the road!).
Click to expand...

I thought Justin had some easy songs and lessons. "wipe out" looked fun and easy to play with all down strumming but I still can't play it. I hate guitar.
http://www.justinguitar.com/
 
Re: Guitar question

Tundra said:
I've been trying to learn to play guitar and it's dang difficult, makes you appreciate the skills of the musician. I bought one of those beginner guitar books but it didn't make sense till I read some of the comments on this site. Basically it covered the same subject with clarity and verily. It talks about E# F/flat in the 1st lesson at zentao.com, I really liked the music theory lessons which was lot more detailed than the book.

Even with tabs I can't play crap, although I'm finally getting the hang of moving from chord to chord, need to get the strum and timing down which is another thing that looks easy but is a pain.

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/lesson1/index.html#Theory


I thought Justin had some easy songs and lessons. "wipe out" looked fun and easy to play with all down strumming but I still can't play it. I hate guitar.
http://www.justinguitar.com/
Click to expand...

I'm starting to get a hang of fingering the chords... the next step is to remember them by name and then trying to string them together... baby steps... gotten to the point where i can play simple songs note for note... some holiday stuff... not without goofing 80% of the time though. I'm enjoying it though.
 
Re: Guitar question

Hunt up a tab for the Beatle's Daytripper. Easy song to learn, perhaps not to execute well, but at least you can play something that remotely sounds like a song, when you get bored with just changing between chords.
 
Re: Guitar question

E# / Fb ?! They're right, E# is the same thing as F-natural, and as the shirts say to paraphrase relativity: E = Fb. Now, you may see them marked as such, however the tones you hear from E# and Fb are different.

EDIT: Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcryGEw1NY
This shows sheet music with playing along of the Chopin Waltz opus 64 number 2 (one of my favorites). There are plenty of examples of B# and E# (and for those not as inclined with reading notes on a staff, the x is a double sharp, so Fx will sound like G-natural). There are a couple of Fb instances, and will sound like E-natural. However, although E# and Fb do not have the same tone frequency, you will still see them on a staff.
 
Last edited:
Re: Guitar question

Patman said:
I'm starting to get a hang of fingering the chords... the next step is to remember them by name and then trying to string them together... baby steps... gotten to the point where i can play simple songs note for note... some holiday stuff... not without goofing 80% of the time though. I'm enjoying it though.
Click to expand...

Check out Acoustic Guitar magazine. It's a monthly that has lessons, songs etc.
 
Re: Guitar question

Patman said:
I've been playing my guitar for about a month now... still working from note-based stuff as opposed to chords (finger stretching and gymnastics still have to be learned... I think I can play a D chord though... nice and easy... 2nd fret first string, 3rd 2nd, 2nd 3rd)... anyhow, some of these (easy) song books asks to play a E# (F-flat) at the high end of the G-clef. As far as I can tell, there is no tuning, string, fret combo which can play that E#. Any guitar players have insight on this? Am I wrong somehow? Curious. You'd think an easy song book would refrain from such craziness.
Click to expand...

The notes/steps on a guitar are A; Bb; B; C; Db; D; Eb; E; F; Gb; G; Ab and then you start back at A.

The flats are also the sharps of the notes to the left. So an A# is the same note as a Bb. An E# would actually be an F, etc...

The entire neck works this way and relations between/amongst chords are the same.

Once you understand these relationships, it's amazing how easy it is to find notes and chords and change keys etc. When you get to this point you'll be able to see just how many songs are essentially the same as each other.

Good luck and try to stick with it. It gets fun once you get past a certain point and it took me three different tries over about 7 years to get over that first hump.

Picked up Rocksmith (xBox) for my kid and it looks promising. Different from Guitar Hero as you actually plug a real guitar into the game and have to play real notes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top