Section 1: Getting Started. From The Ultimate Guitar Course by Rod Fogg: From Zero to Hero in a...

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GuitarTHEULTIMATE

Rod FoggCOURSE

ZERO TOHERO IN A

LESSON ADAY

GuitarCOURSE

Rod

Fog

gZERO TO HERO IN A LESSON A

DAY

The Ultimate GuitarCourse is the perfectintroduction to the worldsgreatest instrument. Thisgraded course in modernguitar takes you all the wayfrom tuning to playing realsolos. The lessons, in taband musical notation, areaccompanied byphotographs to help youmaster technique, while theaudio CD lets you check yourperformance and providesbacking tracks to accompanyyou. Each spread contains asingle, self-contained lesson,so you can begin playing on day one. Plus a unique wall chart (seeabove) supplies an instant reference for any scales or chords youneed. Anyone can learn the guitarand the lesson-a-day plan helpsget instant results!

Includes:

One lesson per spread for quick and easy retention Photos throughout to illustrate hand position and technique Color wall chart featuring all the chords and scales you need A 78-track audio CD featuring backing tracks More than 80 exercises in notation and tab

Start Playing Guitar Today!

Rod Fogg is a guitarist and writer, based in London,

England, where he performs, teaches, and runs workshops

in guitar technique. He is the author of The Electric Guitar

Handbook, The Jazz Guitar Handbook, How To Read Music,

and the co-author of Django Reinhardt: Know The Man, Play

The Music.

THEULTIMATE

$30.00 US19.00 UK$33.00 CAN

UPC EAN

ISBN 978-1-937994-33-4

Printed in China

$30.00 US19.00 UK$33.00 CAN

UPC EAN

ISBN 978-1-937994-33-4

Printed in China

DielineJob:12-40346 Title: The Ultimate Guitar Course

01-AC70312 #175 Dtp:221 Page: HB Cover

SECTION ONE

THE ULTIMATE GUITAR COURSE

GETTING STARTEDGetting in tune

Before playing any music, the most important thing is to get your guitar in tune. Track 1 on the CD willgive you notes you can tune to, but it is far easier to use a modern electronic tuner. Some you plugyour electric guitar into, or you can use the sort that clips to the headstock of the instrument and picksup its vibrations. Or, if you have a smartphone, you can probably download a free guitar tuner app; Ihave one on my Android phone and I use it all the time.

With the guitar plugged in, turn your tuner on and play each string, one at a time. Makeadjustments at the tuning peg (follow the string back to the peg to make sure you are turning the rightone) until the tuner indicates that the pitch is correct, usually with a needle pointing to the centre orwith a display that changes color. Check that the tuner displays the letter name of the string you aretuning; if the guitar is new the strings may well be below their correct pitch and need several turnsbefore they are in tune. If you begin to get erratic readings from your tuner, it may be that the batteryneeds changing.

Sitting, standing, and which hand goes whereMost performing on the electric guitar is done standing up, but to put in the hours necessary toachieve guitar-god status it will probably be best to practice sitting down. In either case it is best foryour hands if you keep the guitar neck pointing upwards; somewhere around 45 degrees is best.Whatever you do, dont let it drop below horizontal. You will need a guitar strap that can be adjustedto the correct length. Imagine that the weight of the guitar is being carried by the whole of your back,rather than just your shoulder.

For most guitarists, the left hand holds down the strings on the fingerboard and the right handplays the strings down near the bridge with a pick. Left-handed people often opt to do this theopposite way around, using a purpose-built or converted left-handed guitar. But there is no reasonwhy any one hand should be better at fretting than picking, so if you are a left-handed beginner youmight as well learn to play right-handed. The advantage is that when you go to your local guitar storeyou will find plenty of right-handed guitars, but very few left-handed instruments. Also, if you need toborrow a guitar at a friends house or a jam session, and youve learned to play left-handed, youllprobably find all the guitars are right-handed.

6

On the left is a tunerwith a jack for you toplug your guitar into. Italso has a built-inmicrophone. The stringis recognizedautomatically, and theguitar is in tune whenthe green light in thecenter is lit, or whenthe electronic needlepoints directlyupwards.

On the right is a clip-ontuner that senses thevibration of the guitarstrings. The displaychanges color whenthe guitar is in tune.Follow the string youare picking back upthe neck and acrossthe nut (the block ofbone or plastic thatkeeps the strings inposition) to make sureyou are turning theright tuning peg.

Guitar Course Section 1 JM 27/11/13 14:53 Page 6

SECTION ONE GETTING STARTED

To avoid confusion, throughout this book we willrefer to the hand holding down the strings as the frethand, and the hand doing the strumming andpicking as the pick hand. As youve probablygathered, the exercises are intended for electricguitar played with a pick, but most of them willconvert quite readily to a steel-string acoustic ormaybe even to a nylon-string guitar. If you dont wantto use a pick, you can try using the thumb and fingersof the picking hand to pluck the strings: this is knownas fingerstyle. Some of the exercises, particularly inthe later stages of the book, are intended to beplayed this way. Study the two pictures below and getused to holding the pick in this way, balanced lightlybetween thumb and index finger. Then listen to CDtrack 01 and take a look at Exercise 1.

Exercise 1: The open strings, staves, tablature, and pulse

We write music on a stave. The top stave in Exercise 1 has five lines and is for standard musicalnotation, which is not unique to guitar, but can be read and played by other musicians such asviolinists or pianists. The bottom stave has six lines and is for a system unique to fretted instruments,known as tablature or tab. Each line represents a string and numbers are used to indicatewhich frets to play. The lowest line is your lowest sounding string and the top line is your highestsounding string. In this case the zeros represent the open strings: the sounds the guitarproduces without any help from the fret hand. So the object of the exercise is to play all theopen strings starting with the lowest sounding and ending with the highest sounding. Just letthe pick fall gently from one string to the next with a relaxed downward movement of yourpicking hand. We call this a downstrokenot difficult, but weve got to start somewhere.

If you take a closer look at the notation stave, you will see that notes can be written on thelines or in the spaces, and that we add extra lines, called ledger lines, to accommodate lownotes that do not fit on the stave. We have also added the names of the open strings of theguitar: E A D G B E. Try playing along with the CD track. It begins with four clicks: count 1 2 3 4 and then begin. You can hear the click carrying on in the background. Keep countingthe clicks so that you play the next note at the right time. Each one of the notes last for fourclicks and is known as a whole note. That makes each click a quarter note. Well see what theylook like in the next exercise.

7

Above left: A goodstrap is essential. Onethat doesnt slidearound is best.

Above right: A strapcan still be useful tokeep the guitar up atthe best angle evenwhen sitting down toplay.

Below left: The pick is held against the thumb by the indexfinger and points directly at the strings.

Below right: If you get it right, the thumb will be pointingalong the strings and the index finger pointing at the guitar.

T H E O R YMusical sounds arenamed after the firstseven letters of thealphabet: A B C D E F G.There are more thanseven notes on the guitar,so after G we begin againon A. We will return tothis in more detail later.


The music is divided up by vertical lines every four beats; these are known as bar lines. There aresix bars in this piece of music and, as in most rock music, there are four beats to a bar. (Sometimesa bar is also called a measure but were sticking to bar in this book.) At the start of the piece thereis this sign: 4/4. We call that a time signature. The top number tells us how many beats there are inthe bar, and the bottom number tells us they are quarter notes; so that means four quarter notes to abar in this exercise.

The clicks in the background introduce the idea of pulse, the steady background beats thatunderlie virtually all music.

Exercise 2: Half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes

In Exercise 2 we are working on developing some faster movements with the pick. Listen to CD track02 and check out the music on the page opposite.In the notation stave the first four bars introduce anew kind of notethe half note. Each one of theselasts for two beats, so counting four beats to a barwe would play on beats one and three. Can youfigure out which note you have to play? The zeroson the top line of the tab stave and the notes in thetop space of the notation stave tell you to play theopen high E-string.

Now lets take a look at the next four bars. Thesealso introduce another new kind of note, the quarter note. There are four of these in every bar, one oneach beat. This time we are starting to move across the guitar, using the B-string and the G-string. Allthese notes should be played with the pick, using downstrokes. You can see the sign we use for adownstroke in between the staves in the first bar of the exercise.

8


44&E A

D G B E

w w w

w w w

00

00

00

PRO TIP Low and high: In music, terms like low and high always refer tothe pitch of the music, so the low end of the guitar is near the nut onthe first few frets, where the lowest notes are found. If you read go upone fret it means go one fret higher in pitch. This would mean movingyour hand one fret nearer the bridge and therefore nearer the floor. Youmight have noticed that we have two E-strings. The high E-string is thehighest sounding one, nearest the floor, and the low E-string is the lowestsounding one, nearest the ceiling. Just remember that low and highalways refer to the pitch of the note.

T H E O R YAt the start of the exercise you will see

qq =85. This tempo marker sets the overallspeed of the piece of music at 85 beats perminute or bpm. Rock gives you an idea ofthe style of the piece.

CD

1

EXERCISE 1 CD TRACK 01

J

Downstroke sign

Single eighth note

Beamed eighth notes

Upstroke sign



q=85 Rock

5

9

44&

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0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

0 0 0 00 0 0 0

0 0 0 0

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0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0

0

EXERCISE 2 CD TRACK 02 / BACKING TRACK 03

S O U N D SBoth the rhythm and lead parts on this track wereplayed using the middle pick-up on a Strat through aFender Deluxe Reverb amp.

Moving on to bars nine through 12, each bar contains two quarter notes followed by four of anothernew kind of note; these are known as eighth notes.

When more than one appears together, they are grouped (beamed) by joining their tails together.There are two eighth notes to a beat (that would be eight to a bar), so we tend to count them by

saying and in between each beat, like this:

One-and two-and three-and four-and

So the count for these four bars would go:

One two three-and four-and

Once we start playing eighth notes we usually start using alternate picking. This is where everydownstroke is followed by an upstroke. In bar nine you can see the signs for both downstrokes andupstrokes. Some guitarists call alternate picking economy picking.

9

CD

02/0

3



Exercise 3: Notes on the E-string and B-string

In Exercise 3 we start using the fingers of the fret hand. There is no CD track with this exercise,because the idea is simply to get comfortable using the fret-hand fingers to hold down the notes onthe E-string, and then the B-string, at the first four frets.

On the guitar, the fret-hand fingers are numbered from 1 to 4,starting with the index finger as 1 and ending with the pinky asnumber 4. Place your fingers, one at each fret, copying the picturebelow. If you have particularly small hands, you could try using fingers1, 2, and 4 on the first three frets, and not worry too much about thenote at the fourth fret just now. This will avoid the stretch and help tokeep your hand parallel to the edge of the fingerboard, something allguitarists should aim for. Each finger should be as close to the fret aspossible without being on top of it. If your fingers are close to the fretsyou wont have to squeeze so tightly and you will be less likely to get

fret buzz, where the string rattles against the fret instead of sounding cleanly. Aim to use the tips ofyour fingers.

The thumb goes at the back of the neck, opposing the fingers in a relaxed position opposite thefirst finger or between the first and second fingers. Check out the picture above. Dont get into thehabit of hooking the thumb over the top edge of the neck, and dont press any harder than you need to.

10

T H E O R YThe sharp sign (#) simply means go one fret higher,so F-sharp is one fret higher than F, and C-sharp isone fret higher than C. There is no sharp between Band C or between E and F, as you will see if you lookat a piano keyboard (p19).

T E C H N I Q U EThere is no need to lift your first finger off the first fret when you add your second finger at the secondfret. In fact, it is generally recognized as good technique to keep your fingers down when playingsuccessive notes on the same string, so you should end up with all four fingers down on the E-stringbefore releasing them to place them one at a time on the B-string. With your pick hand you should beplaying downstrokes, smoothly and in a steady rhythm.

The fingers should be close to the frets. Squeeze gently with your thumb on the back of the neck.



11

&E

open stringF

first fretG

third fret

F-sharpsecond fret

G-sharpfourth fret

&B

open stringC

first fretC-sharp second fret

D third fret

D-sharpfourth fret

w w w# w w#

0 1 2 3 4

w w w# w w#

0 1 2 3 4

EBGDAE

3 5 7 9 12 15

F GF# G#C DC# D#

EXERCISE 3 NOTES ON THE E-STRING AND B-STRING

A fingerboard diagram showing the notes on the first four frets ofthe E-string and B-string.



Exercise 4: Picking on strings one and two

Exercise 4 is a straightforward study in coordinating the placing of the fret-hand fingers withdownstrokes from the pick, this time with a backing track. Remember that when the music is movingslowly, and the quarter note is the fastest note, we tend to stick to using downstrokes. The fret handplays the notes we learnt in Exercise 3, but keeping to the first three frets to avoid any problems withstretching at this early stage.

In bars three, seven, and 15 we have the note F-sharp played twice. Notice that in the notationstave we only need to put a sharp sign in front of the first F. The sharp affects any notes of that pitchfor the entire bar.

There is one new rhythmic value: the dotted half note. Putting a dot after any note adds half itsvalue. So if we put a dot after a half note, which is worth two beats, it will now be worth three beats.Most of the bars of this exercise use this note valuethere is a quarter note on beat one followed bya dotted half note on beat two, which rings on through beats three and four. Check out the CD trackand when youre ready play along with the backing track.

With the new dotted half note we now have rhythm signs for four beats, three beats, two beats,one beat, and half a beat.

12

T H E O R YNotice that there is no rhythmic information in the tab stave. It is possible to write rhythms on the tabstave, but when there is a notation stave (often referred to as dots by musicians) tab rhythms arenormally omitted to avoid unnecessary duplication. So you can read your rhythms from the dots andread your notes from the tabor better still read the whole thing just using the notation stave. Acommon approach for guitar players who cannot learn to read music, or do not want to, is to learn themusic by ear from the CD track and then use the tablature to guide their fingers to the correct notes.

S O U N D SThe lead part on this track was played on a Fender Telecaster using the bridge pickup through a RolandJazz Chorus amp. This amp has a built in chorus effect which is used to provide movement to theotherwise static long notes in the exercise.

CD

04/0

5



13

q=80 Spooky rock

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# 0

0

1 1 2 2 3 3

# 0 0 1 1 2 2 0 0

# 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3

# w0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 0


CD

04/0

5



Exercise 5: Blues on the E-string and B-string

Exercise 5 uses the same set of notes as Exercise 4, but gets things moving a little more quickly witha faster tempo and lots of consecutive notes on each of the top two strings. Dont be tempted to playall the notes with finger 1, or to use only fingers 1 and 2. It is best to stick to one finger per fret; so useyour first finger at the first fret, second finger at the second fret and so on. Keep the fingers close tothe guitar and make small movements. If the fingers feel stiff at first it is simply that they are not usedto moving on their own. Work on it, and theyll get better.

Remember, in bars five and six the fourth note is F-sharp, because the sharp sign in front of thesecond note affects every F in the bar.

The exercise is 12 bars long, after which there is a double bar line; these are often used to markout sections in a piece of music. Then there is one more bar to bring the music to a close, in whichyou have to play two notes at once. Just use a downstroke. Two notes played at once are sometimescalled a double stopa term we have borrowed from classical instruments like the violin. We alsosometimes call them a diad.

This exercise uses a form known as a 12-bar blues; its blues in style, and its 12 bars long. Theform is commonly found in blues, rhythm and blues, rocknroll, and classic rock. When guitarists jamtogether they often use a 12-bar blues, taking it in turns to solo or play rhythm. Each time through the12-bar is known as a chorus. Well be learning some ways to play the rhythm track in Section Four.On the backing track (CD track 07), there are three choruses, so you can play the piece three timesif you wish. Well come back to this track in the future and use it to practice blues and rock soloing.

14

T H E O R YTheres one new element in the notation stavethe curved line that joins together two notes of thesame pitch in bars four, eight, and twelve. Its called a tie, and makes the two notes into one long note.It is a way of writing a note longer than one bar or, as in this example, lengthening a note beyond thebar line.

T E C H N I Q U EIn bars three and nine there are pick directions. Notes on the downbeats are played with downstrokes,notes on the upbeatsthe and that falls between the four beats of the barare played with anupstroke. Weve already met this basic principle for guitar picking and we will stick to it for most ofthe book.C

D 0

6/0

7



15

q= 110 Medium blues

5

9

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&

# #

#

w

0 2 3 2 0 2 3 2 0 2 3 2 0

# # # w0 2 3 2 0 2 3 2

0 2 3 2 0

# # # w ww

0 0 1 20 0 1 2 0 2 3 2 0 0

0


CD

06/0

7



Exercise 6: String crossing, top three strings

Playing repeated notes on the same string, as in Exercises 4 and 5, is easier than moving backwardsand forwards from one string to another. Exercise 6string crossingis intended to get you workingon moving the pick back and forth between adjacent strings while also adding fretted notes with thefingers. We will be using the open G-string and the note A on its second fret, as well as the top twostrings from Exercises 4 and 5. The backing track is CD track 03, the same as for Exercise 2.

At the beginning you can see the instruction Let ring It is easy to let the notes ring on whenyou are playing open strings, but once you begin to use your fingers to fret the notes it is importantto get them on their tips so that you dont accidentally touch a string thats meant to be still sounding.You have to hold the string down through the whole bar as well. The sign sim means in the samewayso carry on letting notes ring over each other for the whole piece. Aim for the same effect thatyou hear on the CD track.

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Keep your fingers on their tips so you dont touch the openstrings when theyre meant to be ringing on.C

D 0

8/0

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17

q=85 Rock

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9

11

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10

10

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02

02

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Exercise 7: Notes on the G-string

Exercise 6 is about learning the names of the notes on the first four frets of the G-string. We have seenthat that a sharp sign (#) means go one fret higher. In music we also have a flat sign (b), which meansgo one fret lower. So G-sharp is the same note as A-flat, and A-sharp is the same note as B-flat. Inthis exercise weve used both names side by side. When they appear during the course of a piece ofmusic, sharps and flats are known as accidentals.

We have seen that a sharp or flat last for the whole bar, so wealso need a natural sign (), which cancels a sharp or flat. One ofthese will crop up in a later exercise, but you can see some here,before the second-fret A and the fourth-fret B.

If we take a look back at Exercise 3, the F-sharp on the secondfret of the E-string could have been written as G-flat and the C-sharp on the second fret of the B-string could have been called D-flat. When we start learning about keys and key signatures we willdiscover that there are certain times when it is correct to use asharp and certain times when it is correct to use a flat. In themeantime get used to the idea that some notes have two names.

One other thing to get used to is that almost every note on theguitar is available in more than one place. In this exercise we cansee that the note B on the fourth fret of the G-string is the samenote as the open second string we have been using in Exercises4, 5, and 6.

18

&G

open stringA

second fret

G-sharp or A-flat first fret

A-sharp or B-flat third fret

Bfourth fret

w w# wb wn w# wb wn

0 1 2 3 4

Keep the fret-hand fingers curved, close to the frets and on their tips.

EXERCISE 7 NOTES ON THE G STRING



Exercise 8: Notes and rests

Some of the funkiest rhythms and grooves work because of the silences that separate the notes. Sowhen it comes to rhythm, a silence is as important as a note and in music we need a way to write asilence. In Exercise 8 we have all the note values we have come across so far, from eighth noteslasting half a beat to whole notes lasting four beats, with the sign for their equivalent rest writtenunderneath. A rest is the technical name for a silence in music.

On the guitar, it is important to play the reststhat means making sure you have released a frettednote or silenced an open string so that we hear a silence and not an unwanted note ringing on. Moreon this in the next exercise.

19

&Eighth note:half beat

Quarter note:one beat

Half note:two beats

Dotted half note:three beats

Whole note:four beats

&Equivalent rests:

J w

Sharps and flats and the keyboard

For historical reasons we think of the musical alphabet asstarting on the note C. The distance from C in this diagramof a keyboard to the next appearance of the note C is knownas an octave. The black notes on a keyboard are the sharpsand flats. As we mentioned before, there is no black note(sharp or flat) between B and C or E and F. The distancefrom C to C-sharp (or D-flat) is known as a half step and isthe same as one fret on the guitar. The distance from C to Dis known as a whole step and is two frets on the guitar.

D # F # G # A #

B bA bG bE b

F G A B CC D E

C #

D b

T H E O R Yif we play all the white notes from C to C we get a C major scale; we will cover major scales later in the book. If we played allthe notes, both white and black, we would produce a chromatic scale. There is a chromatic scale starting on G coming up inExercise 10.

EXERCISE 8 NOTES AND RESTS



Exercise 9: Blues in E, top three strings

Exercise 9 is a blues-based tune using most of the notes we have learntso far on the top three strings, so you will be working on fretting notesaccurately with the fret hand while also picking the correct string with thepick. In most music, melody notes are played fluently and joinedtogether. In this exercise many of the notes are separated by rests. Listento the CD track to hear the strongly rhythmic effect of this style of playing.

To silence a fretted note, release the pressure from the fret-handfinger so that the string is no longer making contact with the fret, butdont take the finger off the string.That should silence the noteimmediately. Silence open stringsby touching them lightly with thefret-hand fingers or with the pick.Experiment to see which oneworks best for you. At the end ofthe exercise there is a chordthree notes played at oncewith adownstroke of the pick.

20

q=110 Straight boogie44&

#

J

#J

#

J # J #J #

J

0 10 2 3 2 0

0 10 2 3 2

0

T E C H N I Q U EThe pick directions may seem random but in fact theyre based on the idea that your hand is movingrhythmically back and forth in an eighth-note rhythm. As before, downstrokes are on downbeats andupstrokes are on upbeats.

S O U N D SThis one was played with a Telecaster guitar on the bridge pickup. The warm, fuzzy guitartone comes from a small tube-amp turned up loudan effect sometimes known asoverdrive.


T H E O R YWhen the notes of a piece ofmusic are played smoothly orjoined up we say it islegato. The oppositecutoff or separated notesisstaccato. Many words weuse in music come from theItalian language, althoughperhaps more in classicalmusic than in rocknroll. Youoften see the word legato inguitar books and magazinesdescribing a particularly fluidstyle of guitar solo.

PRO TIP Try not to get caught up in looking atyour hands. If you know the music,you can play looking at your frethand. If not youll need to look at themusic and play the guitar by feel.Its best not to look at your pickhandyoull soon learn to find thestrings accurately if you persevere.When youre confident with a pieceof music, practice without looking ateither hand; this will let you makeeye contact with your fellow bandmembers or your audience on a gig.

CD

09/0

7



21

5

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# J #J # J # J #J # J

1 20 2 3 2 0

0 10 2 3 2 0

9

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b

# j # j J w

www#

0 0 03 2 2 0 1 2 3

0100

EXERCISE 9 CD TRACK 09 / BACKING TRACK 07 continued

CD

09/0

7

Exercise 10: G chromatic scale

As a way of revising all the notes we have learned so far, and of introducing scales, we are going to learna chromatic scalethats the name for a scale that has all the notes including all the sharps and flats.

There are many different types of scale in music, some of which can be very useful to the guitarplayer as they are used for making up riffs and soloswe have some coming up later. Chromatic scalesare useful as finger exercises and as a way of showing the logic of where notes are on the guitar.

This one begins on the open G-string and goes up one octave to the G on the top string.Chromatic scales can start on any note, and its normal to play scales up an octave or two and backagain. In the notation stave we go up in pitch using sharps, and down using flats, which helps to makeclear that black notesthe sharps and flatshave two names. Theres no backing track for thisexercise so practice it and bring it up to the speed of CD track 10. The small numbers beneath thenotes on the notation stave are fingeringsthey tell you which fret-hand finger to use. (Youremember? 1=index finger, 4=pinky).

T E C H N I Q U EThere is a technique that we use on guitar whenever we are playing scales or single-note lines. Theidea is not to remove fingers from a string if the music is rising in pitch until its time to start playing adifferent string. This is how it works, starting with the first note of the scale. Play the open G-string andthen hold down G-sharp with your first finger; leave that finger in place when you play the A with finger2, and leave both fingers in place when you play A-sharp or B-flat with finger 3. Then release all threefingers at once as you play the open B-string. Keep them close to the guitar so you can continue up theB-string adding and holding the fingers one at a time and releasing all four as you play the E-string.When you reach the top note of the scale you should have three fingers on the E-string; release themone by one to descend again.

This may seem complicated, but its not so hard, and in fact reduces your workloadinstead ofthinking about taking a finger off as you put another one down, you just leave the fingers that arealready there in place. Then you think release fingers as you move onto the next string.



22

q=80

3

44&0 1 2 3

0 1 2 34 0 1 2

3

& 3 2 1 0 4 3 2 1 0 3 2 1 0

#

#

#

#

#

0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3 40 1 2 3

b

b

b

b

b

3 2 1 0

4 3 2 1 03 2 1 0


CD

10

Here are the notes of the first four fretson the top three strings.

EBGDAE

3 5 7 9 12 15

F G

G#Ab

F#Gb

G#Ab

C DC#DbD#

EbA BA#Bb

PRO TIP As you play all the notes from your open G-string to the third freton the E-string see if you can say aloud the note names. Say them in full:G, G-sharp or A-flat, A, A-sharp or B-flat, and so on. This is a great way tomemorize the guitar note names.



Exercise 11: Octaves

In Exercise 10 we played a one-octave scale, so this could be agood time to explore what an octave is. The same letter nameat a different pitch is one way of putting it. If you play Exercise11 you will hear the gap (or interval as it is known in music),between two occurrences of the notes G, D, and A. The first noteis an open string and the second note is a fretted note, and thetwo notes are then played simultaneously. Notice how, whenthey are played together, the two notes seem to merge into one,even though they are clearly of different pitches. It is thissimilarity that allows them to have the same letter name.

23

q=8044&

0

3

0

3

0

3

0

3

0

2

0

2

T E C H N I Q U EWhen using a pick it is not easy to play two notes simultaneously if they are not on adjacent strings.You could use a big downstroke and mute the string in the middle with a spare fret-hand finger. Youcould also put the pick down and use your thumb of your pick hand to pick the low note and your indexfinger to pick the high note. The method we use on the CD track is to use the pick on the low note andthe middle finger of the pick hand on the high note. Using the pick and fingers at the same time issometimes known as hybrid picking and is often used by country guitar players.

T H E O R YMusical sounds are waveforms, and waveforms havefrequency. Each time the music goes up an octave, thefrequency of the note doubles. Frequency is measured inHertz (or Hz), and is the number of complete cycles of thewaveform per second. The frequency of your open A stringis 110 Hz, the octave up (on the G-string) is 220 Hz. Theoctave above that note, which would be on the fifth fret ofthe top E-string, is 440 Hz. This is the note that anorchestra tunes to at the beginning of a concert and isknown as concert pitch.


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Exercise 12: Rocking the first position notes; top three strings

If you are playing notes with the first finger at the first fret, the second finger at the second fret, andso on, we would say you were playing in the first position. If your first finger was at the second fret,with the other fingers occupying the succeeding frets, we would say you were in the second position.On a typical modern guitar with 22 frets you can potentially have 19 positions. Guitar positions can bevery useful for describing where on the guitar to play a piece or a sequence of notes.

As a general rule it is best to play the guitar in position and to avoid sliding the hand around asmuch as possible. A common rookie error is to move the hand around so you can use fingers 1 and2 when you should keep the hand still and use the weaker fingers, fingers 3 and 4. If you use them,theyll get stronger.

Exercise 12 is a legato solo tune for the top three strings in the first position. Together withExercises 5, 6, 9, and 10 it works to build dexterity for the fret hand and coordination between the pickand fret-hand fingers. In bars four, eight, and 12 it will be tempting to use finger 1 at the second fretand finger 3 at the fourth fret (in other words, to use second position fingerings) but unless your handsare really small you should stay in the first position and use fingers 2 and 4 at the second and fourthfrets. Gradually, your hand will get better at stretching.

24

T H E O R YThis exercise introduces the dotted quarter note, one and a half beats long. (The quarter note is onebeat, and the dot adds half its value.) Looking at bar one, we would count: one two and three four,playing the dotted quarter note on one and the following eighth note on and.

T E C H N I Q U EPick directions are given only wherenecessary in this exercise as youveprobably got the idea of alternatepicking by now.

With practice you can get used to opening out your hand andusing one finger per fret.

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25

q=85 Rock

5

9

44&

&

&

j

J J #J #0 2

0 0 1 3 1 30

0 2 4

# # #

0 02 0

3 3 1 00 0

3 12

42 2

# # # w

3 3 2 00 3 3 1 0

0

0 03 1

0 2 2 04

2 3


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Exercise 13: Shadow Walk and all the notes so far

Exercise 13 is the last exercise in Section One, so congratulations on coming this far. Its a long one,featuring groups of legato eighth notes, quarter notes, and some quarter note rests. It includes everysingle note you can play in the first position on the top three strings. That means you will need to useall four fingers of your fret hand, making smooth, fluid movements and keeping the fingers close to

the guitar. Pencil your own pick directions in if you need to, keeping to the idea ofalternate picking. You could also write in fingerings for the fret hand if it would help.

If you find the piece a challengewhich its meant to beslow things downa little and keep working on it. Remember you dont have to finish an exercisebefore moving onto the next one, but you should always keep returning to workon anything you found difficult.

During the course of this opening section we have learned holding the pick,the numbers of the fret-hand fingers and the names of the open strings. Welearned about tab, bars, bar lines, time signatures, and the names of all the notesin the first position on the top three strings, including sharps and flats. We havecovered the note values from eighth notes to whole notes and learnt the functionof dotted notes and ties. Most of all, we have learned to pick and finger notesaccurately on the guitar and to coordinate the two hands. The next section builds

on this and covers the notes on the lower three strings.

26

q=120 Shadows/surf style

5

44&

&

#

20 1 0

2 0 20

2 0 20 1 0

2

23

23

20 1 0

2 0 20

2 0 20 1 0

23 0

0 0

PRO TIP Always break a longpiece down into shortersections for learning purposes.As music very often uses four-bar phrases it can be a goodidea to try learning a piecefour bars at a time.

S O U N D SWere in surf guitar territory, inspired by the twangy guitar music of the early 1960s. This piece alsomixes in some of the melodic style of The Shadows Hank Marvin (listen to their Apache for thistracks inspiration). On the CD we used the bridge pickup on a Strat and added some reverb and afluttering delay effect. Hank would have used a mechanical delay unit like a Meazzi Echomatic.


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27

9

13

&

&

# #

3 01

0 1 1 03

2

03 0

12 0

22

# # #

3 01

0 1 1 03

1 24

2 3 4 0 4

17

21

&

&

#

20 1 0

2 0 20

2 0 20 1 0

2

23

23

#

20 1 0

2 0 20

2 0 10

03 1 1 0

2

EXERCISE 13 CD TRACK 13 / BACKING TRACK 14 continued

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