The new song "Volare" is basically easy for guitar 1 and 2 since there are only single notes and simple rhythm. Your SLs and you should be able to figure it out right from first sight reading. We'll aim to finish it by the end of next week.
However, I just find out that Guitar 3 part is a bit difficult since there are weird chords to play. Very weird and I'm sure all of you hate to hear this: "Barre and MORE BARRE CHORD"...so bear with me be patient read through the rest of the post. There is a file in the end of this post for you to download and practice to prepare for Monday session
I assume all of Guitar 3 people know how to read chord chart (Can or not? easy loh)..If you don't then everybody, here is brief tutorail how to read chord chart aka tab those are meticulously typed in text file or recently with higher-tech Guitar Pro software (You will know what I mean if you frequently visit online guitar tab websites)....
Tabs make the process of learning guitar much faster because it points out exactly where you have to put your fingers on the fretboard by using simple diagram instead of throwing a trunk of notes at you and expecting you to sightread yourself and reluctantly decide which fret to press which string to plug (BUT YOUR SLs LOVE TO DO THIS TO YOU.....muhaha). Analogously, If your pursuit of mastering the score is a treasure hunt and your SCORE is a very vague complicated instruction, Tab would be considered as a clearcut map that has been nicely interpreted from your SCORE.
HOWEVER, THIS IS NOT THE CASE where you can completely depend on tabs because of these reasons
- Like instant noodle, tab might be king of convenience but it is not long-term beneficial. As a guitarist, you are asked to read the score/work out the chord yourself. Frequent reliance on tab would deprive you from developing some necessary skills and techniques for a basic/advanced guitarist such as sight-read, recognizing notations, footnotes, deriving chord progression from melody..etc..thus, tab would limit your creativity, flexibility in playing tremendously.
- Reading tabs too often would gradualy induce you the with habit of being lazy and impatient. It's dangerous because we don't want you to be passive and spoonfed. Being passive and lazy is definitely harmful to guitar study as well as other stuff like mugging, reading Harry Potter...blah blah....
- Besides position of the notes, Tab indicates nothing else. Ok lah, some very pain-staking tab might attempt to give you the illustration of beat and rhythm but in diagram, these things would be 1000 times harder to work out than that in a SCORE. At least, you can play the rhymth and refer to the score at the same time. But for Tab, your brain would have to work much harder...then you go berserk...then you smash your guitar against the wall with all the anger...or in a milder scenario, you are just confused, unsure about the rhymth you have worked so hard on.
That's all there is to it. Now let's start the lesson.
In tab, the guitar fretboard is illustrated as below
-----0---
-----1---
-----0---
-----2---
-----3---
-----0---
Dotted line (-------) is your guitar string. The order of strings arranged from top to bottom i.e.
- The 1st dotted line is your 1st string (higher E)
- The 2nd dotted line is your 2nd string (B)
- The 3rd dotted line is your 3rd string (G)
- The 4rd dotted line is your 4th string (D)
- The 5th dotted line is your 5th string (A)
- The 6th dotted line is your 6th string (lower E)
The number in each dotted line indicates the fret to be pressed on in corresponding string. By the example above, it means that
- 1st string: open (highest E)
- 2nd string: press at 1st fret (middle C)
- 3rd string: open string (middle G)
- 4th string: press at 2nd fret (middle E)
- 5th string: press at 3rd fret (lowest C)
- 6th string: open string (lowest E)
-------> It's the C chord in case you don't realize. Note that when all the the numbers are aligned in one single vertical line, they are to be played/plugged/at the same time.
If they are not, look at the following example
---------------
--1------------
---------------
-------2-------
-----------3---
---------- -----
It means these three notes are PLUGGED separately in the order of
- 2nd string: 1st fret (middle C)
- 4th string: 2nd fret (middle E)
- 5th string: 3rd fret (lowest C)
Number 0 means that although nothing is pressed in the fretboard but you have to plug the string that contains it. For example
-0------
--1-----
---0----
----2---
-----3--
------0-
it means all strings are to be plugged no matter if there is or there is not any fret to be plugged in it. In other words, you press chord C and do a upward brush from first string to the last string. (Notice, you can see that notes are to be played separately but you don't know the intervals between them...you might just argue that the length interval is presented proportionally by the gap between the numbers...oh well..then take out your ruler and measure...good luck that you can finish Twinkle Twinkle star tab by next week =D)
Similarly
--0-----
--1-----
--0-----
--2-----
--3-----
--0-----
means you pose a C chord, and plug all strings together. But since it's impossible to plug all 6th string together (You try and see)...it means that you must do a fast strum and make sure all strings are played and produce sound
Whereas
-0------
---1-----
---------
-----2---
-------3-
---------
only means that you press chord C but only plug the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th string
UNDERSTAND? phew...Okie...Let's look at some illustrations to familiarize yourself with tab
G chord (plugged)
----3---
--------
--------
--------
----2---
----3---
D chord + an extra D (plug the first 3 string + open 4th string together)
----2---
----1----
----2---
----0----
--------
--------
D chord strummed
----2---
----1----
----2---
----0----
----0----
----0----
And first line of Twinkle Twinkle star
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
----------0---0---2----2---0--------------------------------
---------------------------------3---3---2---2---0---0------
---3--3--------------------------------------------------3--
------------------------------------------------------------
Okie...So let's assume that you know how to read tab now...And you'd better be since this basic part took up 1 hour of my precious time.
Please be noted that the same basic can be applied to read under-score tab that is edited on such software like Guitar Pro. The only difference is dotted line is replaced by one straight line. So overall it looks like a score with all notes replaced by number (okie, this time the timing is rightly presented but still hard to fast read them) and there are 6 lines in under-score tab rather than 5 lines as seen in normal score. Look at example to see what I mean
Let's move to what Guitar 3 have to prepare
Link
This is the file, available in PDF format....Have fun and wanna see you be prepared for Monday practice...
IT WILL BE VERY TOUGH but I believe we can overcome it :D...Good luck all the fellow guitarists....remember OPEN DAY WILL BE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PERFORMANCE (and it won't be cancelled..this is for sure).....
TU
No comments:
Post a Comment