On Stringing Your Instrument
by innervoice on Mar.16, 2013, under Guitar
The other day, a longtime student of mine was asking me some questions about maintenance and care of his banjo. As we discussed the matter, it occurred to me that many physical aspects of playing and maintaining an instrument are not addressed as frequently as others. I had been teaching this student banjo for almost three years at this point, and he had progressed from raw beginner to a competent intermediate/advanced player in that time. But we had never discussed how to change strings.
I was kind of flabbergasted when I realized this. I had to have talked about this with him! But as I thought back, and reviewed my lesson material that I had used with him, I realized this was indeed the case. When he was a beginner, his instrument was brand new and had just been set up by the local lutherie* In the first 6 months or so, I was so focused on developing basic rolls and technique that we never broached the subject. After 6-7 months, I noticed some issues with his intonation and action (most likely from the settling in of the instrument) and despite a short discussion of what intonation was, I recommended he take it in for a setup and tuneup. And so on and so forth.
After about a year or so, he was starting to jam with friends and picked up from one of them the gist of how to change strings. He started doing so every 2-3 months or so, using a thread-through-the-post-crimp-and-wrap method that is apparently all over the internet. It never occurred to him to ask me, and I never did mention it. Quite honestly, I was more concerned with teaching him how to play, and hear, and understand. The physical act of restringing was just, well, assumed. Of course, that was a failing on my part, but the fact is, I’m sure that this happens to a number of us.
When he finally did ask me, some three years on, I asked him how he tied a string and he admitted it was a ridiculous pain in the butt. So I decided to spend the lesson changing the strings and doing general maintenance on one of my banjos, while I talked through the process and let him ask questions. By the time we got to the final string, he tied it, and was blown away at the simplicity and effectiveness of the method I use.
To be honest, I had never really considered the mechanics of changing a string. I learned to do it almost 30 years ago, and I’ve probably changed several thousand in my lifetime. (I’m a very regular string changer – 3-4 weeks max on all instruments except bass.) I have no idea where I learned to do it, and I always assumed everyone did it this way.
Evidently not.
In my opinion, there are two ways to tie a string. Right and Wrong. The methods or techniques don’t matter, as long as it meets the criteria for The Right Way.
The Right Way
- simple
- efficient
- fast
- holds tension easily and continuously
The Wrong Way
- complex
- cumbersome or awkward
- slow
- slips or fails intermittently or over time
I will be posting a specific lesson on string changing for each instrument I teach over time. These will also include tutorials on basic and intermediate preventative maintenance and care.
Today I mostly wanted to address the method I use to string guitars, mandolins, banjos and lap steels. I have a different technique for classical (nylon string) guitars, and electric basses**
This diagram was made by my student to double check he was remembering it right. The string always wraps around the post outwards in the direction of the machine head/tuner.
This works for all steel string instruments, whether spun, round wrapped or flat wound.
Thanks to Matt Nelson for his awesome MS Paint skills and diligence.
*Spruce Tree Music & Repair, if you’re wondering. Wonderful sh0p. If you’re ever in Madison, stop in, scratch a dog or two, check out some amazing acoustic instruments and talk shop with Will and company. You’ll be glad you did. **I take my double basses to a bass luthier, it’s just easier. In Madison I recommend the Double Bass Workshop.
Instrumental Tunings
by innervoice on Mar.09, 2013, under Guitar
Experimenting with different tunings is a wonderful way to explore new sounds, concepts and techniques on your (stringed) instrument.
As a longtime banjo player, changing tunings is quite natural to me. It quickly allows you to access voicings that are not easy to reach, or even possible. Because the banjo is normally tuned to a chord, chords and voicings in distant keys can be quite difficult to reach without capos or constrictive closed positions. The standard banjo tuning is gDGBD, or G major. However, many other tunings are common. A great reference for banjo tunings by Zepp Music on their site on this page here. You can also find some great resources at Banjo Hangout*
But alternate tunings aren’t just for banjo. Many guitar players have at least attempted Drop D or DADGAD after being exposed to Jimmy Page’s acoustic work.
Players interested in slide often try out the common open slide tunings.
Open G: D-G-D-G-B-D
Open D aka Vestopol tuning: D-A-D-F♯-A-D
Open E: E-B-E-G#-B-E
For a more technical examination of tunings, the wiki page on guitar tunings is a good place to start. Another quick resource may be found here, with a large quantity of tunings and ideas.
For those looking to go beyond, I have uploaded a really neat pdf given me by a teacher many years ago. This pdf discusses a variety of traditional instrumental tunings for various instruments (cittern, balalaika, oud, etc) and also discusses the theory and how to adapt these to the guitar or other instrments. It includes tons of fingerings and discusses each tuning at great length.
I have no idea who the original author or publisher is. There is no information contained in it to identify the work or author whatsoever. If you are the author or publisher, or know who is, please contact me so I can credit the work or remove it as the copyright holder desires. Until then, enjoy.
instrumentaltunings (pdf, author/publisher unknown)
*The Hangout Series of websites is a fantastic resource for all types of traditional folk instruments and styles. I am a regular visitor and contributor to most of them. (No fiddlin’ here) They include ResoHangout (Dobro), Fiddle Hangout, MandoHangout (Mandolin) and FlatpickerHangout (for flatpick and bluegrass guitar)
min7 Arpeggio Study for Electric Bass
by innervoice on Mar.09, 2013, under Bass
Continuing the series of simple down-the-neck arpeggio patterns for the electric bass.
As with all the exercises in the series, the ultimate goal is to develop an automatic awareness and instant recall of the common chord tones for each of the major chord types. Be aware of the patterns, but more importantly, try to recognize the chord tones in relationship to each other – learn to see where the third is, or the seventh, root, fifth (or more…) These are the building blocks for bass figures and lines – whether walking, playing an ostinato, a tumbao, two beat, push or whatever…..
As always, practice backwards and forwards, slowly and with a metronome. If you can, try to set the metronome as the 2 & 4. (So adjust your tempo by cutting it in half and counting the beats of the metronome as _ 2 _ 4)
Update
by innervoice on Mar.09, 2013, under News
Sorry it’s been a few days to get another exercise up…we’ve spent the last week getting our house ready to go on the market. (A trying experience, to say the least – our building has two apartments and a working production/teaching studio in it….lots of scrubbing and sorting indeed.)
I will have another guitar exercise up later this weekend, and also some theory materials. I’ve got a stash of piano and banjo material as well, but I think I want to get some of the basics for guitar and bass out first. Still, I welcome comments or requests for material. If there’s something you’d like to see, let me know.
Thanks to all of you who’ve posted/responded. If you are a teacher, please contact me directly and I will start putting your sites up on the forthcoming links page.
Cheers!
Maj7 Arpeggio Study for Electric Bass
by innervoice on Feb.28, 2013, under Bass
Continuing with the series of Arpeggio Studies we have the Maj7 chords in the lower portion of the neck.
Play each arpeggio figure evenly, forward and backward until you are familiar with the fingering.
1st Pos Chord Studies – Maj7 PDF
Enjoy!
Dom7 Arpeggio Study for Electric Bass
by innervoice on Feb.26, 2013, under Bass
This is an arpeggio study of Dominant Seventh Chords on the electric bass.
While it is labeled ‘First Position’ there are a few fingerings that extend up to the sixth fret and require some hand shifts. My main goal was to offer at least two fingering options for each chord – using both open strings and introducing the basic closed shapes – while allowing the student to stay within the lower 5-6 frets of the bass. It is essential to be fluent in all common chord shapes in this area before moving to the closed chord voicing shapes up the neck.
1st Pos Chord Studies – dom 7ths PDF
Minor Triad Arpeggio Study – Electric Bass
by innervoice on Feb.24, 2013, under Bass
Continuing our series on basic chord structures we have the next type of simple chord, the minor triad.
For more information about this, take a look at the first post in this series.
Practice Suggestions and Ideas
- Work on just a few keys at a time. 3-4 week is plenty if this is new material.
- Learn a single measure at a time before combining them into larger patterns
- Learn the pattern for each measure forwards and backwards.
- Clean and confident technique. Use a metronome. Focus on control and precision, not speed.
- Study the numbers above the staff. They indicate the chord degree of each note. Look for patterns.
- As you play the arpeggios, say the chord degree for each note to internalize the sound of the chord
Bass – Minor Chords (PDF)
Major Triad Arpeggio Study – Electric Bass
by innervoice on Feb.23, 2013, under Bass
To create functional and musical bass lines that truly reflect the harmony and changes, a solid understanding of chord construction and chord families is essential. By learning to outline all of the basic chord types as arpeggios, we develop some wonderful skills:
- We begin to recognize small fingering patterns associated with various chord types.
- We are comfortable executing chord patterns throughout the fingerboard
- We learn the to see the various chord degrees (Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th etc) and their positioning relative to the root on the fingerboard.
- We internalize the sound of the chord to a much greater degree.
I will be posting a several chord tone/arpeggio exercises over the next week. We will begin with the Major Triad. The Major Triad contains three notes; they are the Root, the Major Third and the Perfect Fifth.
Practice Suggestions and Ideas
- Work on just a few keys at a time. 3-4 week is plenty if this is new material.
- Learn a single measure at a time before combining them into larger patterns
- Learn the pattern for each measure forwards and backwards.
- Clean and confident technique. Use a metronome. Focus on control and precision, not speed.
- Study the numbers above the staff. They indicate the chord degree of each note. Look for patterns.
- As you play the arpeggios, say the chord degree for each note to internalize the sound of the chord
Bass – Major Chords (link to PDF)
Major Scales for Electric Bass in All Keys
by innervoice on Feb.21, 2013, under Bass
As with my post of major scales for guitar, this is not meant as a definitive resource for all fingerings and scale positions.
This is intended to give the student a solid grasp of a basic pattern and fingering for each of the major scales. The second repeat for each key completes the scale pattern across or down the neck to ensure the student has all the available notes under his or her command.
Recommended Use: Practice a key or two per practice session until the scale figures can be executed at tempo both cleanly and musically. Focus on clarity of tone, ease of motion and proper technique for both the left and right hands.
This is also a good scale warmup before a practice session for more advanced students. Completing the entire exercise with repeats at tempo requires a fair bit of hand strength and endurance.
Major Scales for Bass (PDF)
Major Scales For Guitar in All Keys
by innervoice on Feb.19, 2013, under Guitar
Over the first few months of this blog, I’ll be posting a variety of exercises, drills, etudes and other material for a variety of instruments – primarily bass and guitar, but also some banjo, uke and piano material – as well as concepts and exercises in music theory, improvisation, composition and practical musicianship.
As I figure out how this whole internet thing works, though, I’ll be starting with some of the basic material I’ve developed for my students. Most of this work is grounded in building strong fundamentals – scale and chord concepts and patterns, left and right hand technique, and an introduction to some of the core concepts of modern musicianship.
The Major Scale is one of the most important scales in Western music – it forms the basis for Diatonic harmony and is familiar to most everyone upon casual hearing. We’ll discuss all the implications of the major scale at a later time; my intent at this point is simply to introduce the basic structure of the scale and offer a variety of positions in which the scale may be found on the guitar. I’ll add the scales for bass shortly.
Western music is built upon a 12 tone system. The distance between each of the twelve tones is called a semitone or half-step. Two semitones make a whole tone; two half steps make a whole step. The major scale consists of a specific pattern of whole and half steps that give it its unique sound. The scale can built from any of the 12 tones. Whichever tone is the starting point is known as the tonic, the root or the one, depending on who you’re talking to. Therefore, there are twelve possible major scales.
Note: There are actually more possible major scales than twelve by name. In fact, the accompanying pdf’s for this lesson have more than twelve scales! They are included to familiarize the student with the common keys and to fulfill my OCD need to have equal sharp and flat key in an exercise….
However, there are only twelve distinct major scales by pitch. This is because sometimes the same things can have different names when seen in another context. The patterns are the same, but the name and reference is different. Scales (and chords/notes/etc) that have the same pitch or quality but different names are known as enharmonic equivalents. We’ll discuss that later.
This is by no means an exhaustive scale listing – it is merely two different positions of each scale. The intent is give the student some basic options for playing each of the 12 major scales in 2 octaves. It also serves to introduce several of the common positions/patterns in which the scale appears on the neck of the guitar. The majority of these positions are closed patterns. This means that they do not contain any open string notes – they can moved up or down the neck to play a different scale using the same pattern fingering from a different starting fret/note. You will notice that several of the scales are merely previous patterns played on a different fret.
Learn and practice the major scale in all keys. For beginners, use this as an opportunity to develop familiarity with the sound of the scale in different registers and the feeling of playing in different places on the fingerboard – developing basic fingering and playing technique while becoming more familiar with the sound of the scale. This simple exercice will also serve as an easy scale warmup for the intermediate player.
One piece of advice I give to many of my students is to start associating the scale fingerings with numbers, or Scale Degrees. As you play the scale, say out loud the scale degree of the note you are playing. Starting from the root, or the 1 of the scale, the next note is 2, then 3, etc. until you reach the octave, which is 8 as you count but would be 1 again in terms of the scale degree. This is very helpful as you move forward and start learning to build chords and alter them. Each scale degree has a unique sound and relationship to the 1, and to the other degrees in the scale.
It is recommended that you work with a metronome, and start with the slowest setting at which you can execute the scale with precision, clarity of tone and complete control. You should aim to be able to execute the entire exercise with repeats cleanly at the suggested tempo of 120 bpm.
Major Scales for Guitar
I hope you find it useful. Cheers!
