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Lesson 5
Become A Guitarist
5.1 Mentality - Again
I have several old friends who used to play guitar with me when we were young teenagers. During those years, we were all convinced to be great guitarists one day. The guitar was our future. Today, over twenty years later, most of them don't play guitar anymore. And even though they played as well as I did, twenty tears ago, today they would have a hard time even playing the basic C-roll. Interestingly, many of them are very sorry that they gave up playing guitar. But it was not a conscious decision they made - it just happened. And even though you're never too old to start again, it's clear that they have missed many years during which they could have increased their skills tremendously, and those years will never come back. For most of them, that is a reason not to start playing guitar again.
So what went wrong? Why do some people continue to play guitar all their lives, and why do many others stop at a certain point? I don't think it has anything to do with lack of talent, or with frustration. There are certain flatpick solo's played by Tony Rice, that I still cannot play even after fifteen years of intensive practice. This has never frustrated me. Because the pain it takes to learn these very advanced guitar licks, makes even the slightest progress a tremendous source of satisfaction. If one day I can play six notes of Tony Rice's solo in John Hardy, after I managed only five during three years, it will make me feel like I just won a dozen Grammy Awards. A great day!
5.2 Dangerous Periods in your Life
The reason some people give up playing guitar, is because at a certain point in their lives the guitar is not important enough anymore. Over the years, people's priorities change. There are several periods in your life that are dangerous, and I have experienced those periods very consciously. Fortunately, I have overcome them all (so far!).
The first Dangerous Period is when you start to have so much homework that you have to study late. This was never a problem to me, as I interrupted my homework every twenty minutes or so to play guitar for a while, or I studied with the guitar on my lap, just for the touch and feel, which I loved (and still do love).
University is another Dangerous Period that may happen to some of you. Too much other things to do, not enough sleep, not enough money to buy good strings.
Another potential Danger: girlfriends. And of course I should add 'boyfriends', but statistically the male guitarists outnumber the females by a factor of ten. This is not to say that girlfriends are bad for your guitar studies, but some are. I am lucky to have a woman who loves it when I take my guitar and play, and who does not mind when I play the same twelve notes a few hundred times a day, during many months (well, at least she doesn't complain!). But I do remember relationships where the attention I paid to my guitar was interpreted by my girlfriend as a lack of attention to her. Needless to say, that does not help turning you into a great guitarist. These are the moments that people makes choices and set their preferences, and of course the guitar does not always win.
Another Dangerous Period: the start of your professional career (when it's not as a guitarist).
Probably the most Dangerous Period: when you get kids, particularly when the start to crawl around and you can no longer have your guitars lying about in the living room.
Now please don't get me wrong - I am not saying that all the things above are bad or wrong! On the contrary - I have had all of them, and I loved every single moment. But there have been periods where my priorities were set in such a way, that some days I realized I had not played guitar for a long time, and actually very clearly noticed how my speed and skills started to get less. It was my tremendous love for the instrument that always brought me back. Sometimes it was, for example, a guitarist on TV, who made me run up to the attic, get my guitar out of its case, and start a new period. Until the next Dangerous Period started.
The take home message of this all is twofold:
1. Don't worry that your talents are not sufficient to enjoy playing guitar to the highest level. I you really like to play, you will never give up, and you will get better for the rest of your life. Love for the instrument is the most important thing here, it will carry you beyond any frontier you can imagine.
2. When you like the guitar enough to enjoy playing it, but not enough to survive the Dangerous Periods, odds are high that one day you will realize that you no longer play guitar. Some people don't care, and in that case just forget everything. But like I said earlier, many people become extremely sorry they gave up! If you are afraid to end up in this category, here are a few tips:
 Hang your guitar(s) in the living room, at a place where you can easily grab them. Don't put them in their cases, or stow them in a room far away in your house. This will guarantee that you use every single lost minute to grab the instrument and play a few chords. Keep your guitar clean. A clean guitar is more fun to play. Buy new strings on a regular basis. New strings sound great, play smoothly, and that works very motivating. Buy a good guitar! Save some money every month until you can afford a good, professional instrument. Once you own one or more of these beauties, it will become a central thing in your life that you cannot ignore. Keep up your inspiration! Get a couple of good DVDs or CDs and watch/listen often. For example, get Tommy Emmanuel's CD Only and play it in your car whenever you can (warning: you run a serious risk of making a sudden U-turn any moment and race back home to get your guitar!). Put your CD player in the repeat mode. If people traveling with you ask to change the CD after it has played four times in a row tell them to be quiet. 5.3 Alternate Tuning
All right. We have reached the point where I will give you the final push towards the day you will become a real good fingerpicking guitarist. In order to do so, you will have to learn a few new techniques, including hammer-ons, alternate tunings, and some advanced right hand picking patterns. It may take some time before you master them all, but once you can manage these, you will have overcome the barrier to learn many other advanced techniques.
Let's start with the alternate tuning. The EADGBE tuning we have used so far is the most common tuning for guitar. It's very versatile, and works fine for everything from Haydn to hard rock. However, there are also many alternative ways to tune your guitar. Often these alternate tunings are not as versatile as standard tuning, but more dedicated to specific styles (such as Celtic, bluegrass, jazz or slide guitar). They can be very inspiring and surprising, and allow you to play chords and tone combinations no-one could ever play in normal tuning.
The tuning we will use in the rest of this lesson is CGDGCD, also called Orkney Tuning, which is indeed much easier to pronounce. This tuning is very suited for Celtic fingerstyle guitar, but versatile enough for jazz, blues or folk.
        C G D G' C' D'
Click the strings to hear the correct tuning G
You need a Media Player to play the MP3 files. You can download one here.
Get your guitar, and tune it according to the scheme above. From standard tuning, the changes for each string are as follows:
E string: down two full tones (four frets)
A string: down one full tone (two frets)
D string: leave as is
G string: leave as is
B string: up a half tone (one fret)
E' string: down one full tone (two frets).
If you can't manage to tune your guitar to this new tuning, ask a friend (or otherwise e-mail me).
Next, we are going to learn a new right hand picking pattern. It's pretty advanced, so take your time learning it. The tab is as follows:
 Note: to be played in alternate tuning, CGDGCD!
As you can see, unlike in the previous tabs, here we have also notes with one single vertical line. There is nothing complicated about that - these notes just last twice as long as the ones that are connected. So the rhythm of the picking pattern above goes like:
Tom, tom, tom-tom, tom | tom, tom-tom, tom-tom, tom-tom.
The MP3 below lets you hear the real thing.
This is what it should (eventually) sound like...
Don't get frustrated after you listen to the MP3! If you have problems with this picking pattern, just start with the first two beats (thumb on the low C string, and then the combined DG with your thumb and your index finger), and repeat them slowly. until you can play these smoothly. Then add the next two notes, and again, repeat them all until you can play them smoothly. Gradually, increase your speed. Don't rush! Finally, add the last note of the first bar (thumb on the low D string, fretted at the second position).
It is important that you don't give up if you still can't play the pattern after an hour or so. Try again later, next day, whatever, but keep on picking until you can play it. Eventually, it will come. The process of continuing to play picking patterns that you cannot play smoothly is extremely important to develop your skills. The frustrating feeling of not being able to play what you want (sometimes it almost makes you feel dizzy when you're trying really hard) is exactly what you need, as THAT is what indicates that your brains are being programmed to play the new patterns. So see the repeating failures and the nasty, frustrating feeling as a stimulation to continue - because they mean you are making great progress!
Also, don't be surprised if you pick the pattern pretty well, but one day later you seem to have lost it. That is perfectly normal. Just keep on trying, this time it will come back much faster. If you forget picking patterns after a few days, it simply means that you did not practice enough yet on that particular pattern. One day, if you keep on playing, they will be etched in your brain so hard that it will take at least 1000 years to forget them. Enough for a life time! So keep on practising until you can play the picking pattern above smoothly and as fast as the MP3, and then come back here to continue this lesson.
5.4 Muted Bass Picking
At this point you should be able to play the last picking pattern smoothly and up-to-speed. Perhaps you will notice that my playing, as recorded in the MP3 above, still sounds quite different. The secret: Muted Bass Picking, or MBP. MBP is a picking method where you (slightly) mute the three bass strings with the base of the palm of you hand. To do so, you rest your hand on the guitar's bridge, and just press the base of the palm of your hand (more or less where your palm joins the wrist) right on the top of the guitar bridge, touching the three bass strings.
 Muted Bass Picking
Don't overdo it! Just touch the very end of the three bass strings - don't touch the remaining strings. You should tumble and rock your hand a little to get the right position. The WMV file below may help. It shows how I pick three bass strings and three treble strings, once normally, and once with muted bass strings. This should give you a basic idea of the MBP principle.
This WMV file is 157 kbyte,
and takes 28 seconds to download at 56.5 kbit/s
The effect of MBP playing is multifold. It allows you to play the bass strings harder than usual, without having them blur all over the other tones. It keeps the tones separated, creates 'air' in your music (even at high speed fingerpicking), and - if played properly - creates a great beat. Here is another example of the effect of MBP.
"Tumbo"
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