So on the advice of Shane here in the forums, I’ve been working on working playing “music” using the scales I’ve been learning e.g. improv. It still sounds very much like scales but I did my first improv against a youtube backing track was great fun.
Anyway @sclay I tried to limit to one pattern and had some issues so I’ve applied your concept of limiting to play with the notes and rather than using patterns as that mechanic, I focused on two strings only first E and B. I’ve only just opened up the third string G this week.
The two ways I’m practising are:
Improv and just noodling to see what works and what doesn’t sound great.
Playing a known melody and trying to play it by ear.
The second part I’m finding is actually harder because I have to FIND the key first and then play the tune which has little give in playing wrong notes where as improv I have found is very forgiving if you stay in the scale note!!! Even sliding around chromatic notes outside of the scale is forgiving if you skip along!
There are two major hurdles at the moment, finding the key I’m using to play melody quickly and larger jumps on the fretboard - 4+ intervals onwards get a lot harder exponentially to land.
Here’s my video recording update, errors and all! No backing track so there’s no where to hide!
So I haven’t posted for the last 4 weeks because I’ve been struggling to learn something and practising away everyday still
So I finally made a mini break through and through I’d share it because I’m quite a visual person, and my ears / feel just don’t hear or feel what a lot of material online instruct me to do. As a beginner it’s just not there…
The challenge I’ve been having is finding the Tonic / Key of a song so it’s easier to apply learnt knowledge and understand where I am on the guitar neck faster when learning a new song.
Here’s a recording to track my progress and explain my approach if anyone’s interested. Its more of a visual PATTERN MATCHING method rather than relying purely on ears to hear “happy” or “sad” etc.
Also a slight bit towards the end of me dipping my toes into chord melodies I guess. It’s supper basic but progress nonetheless
I enjoy your little forays into this stuff. It reminds me of myself, particularly in my initial 2-3 years. And I’m still at it very much today. We are always learning from everybody.
This sort of self exploration you are doing, and trying to work out things yourself, is enormously beneficial in my view. It will continue to be a great asset as you get more time on the guitar.
One tip if I may re general navigation; octave shapes. These form the core framework of the fretboard. Learning those very well will, over time, provide the logical franework upon whuch everything else is built; scales, triads, chords, and arpeggios.
Thanks for the commentary. I’ve definitely been looking at ways to know the fretboard better. The octave thing is definitely on my to do list because I was watching a clip / interview of some prodigy who was saying to obtain more freedom, they practise playing the same thing across 3 different octaves.
For now I’ll stick to just trying to jump around the fretboard with longer jumps using the root notes as a guide. But it’s in the backlog of things to do at the moment.
Honestly though, all this stuff I’m doing is a leap of faith that eventually I’ll learn songs increasingly faster and play off the cuff simple to medium complexity tunes I hear with chords over the top somehow.
I’ve read quite a bit in the background of other peoples learning logs. Something I’ve noticed is a lot of it’s really structured (I also tried to do this at the beginning). For a lot of you that works which is great.
I’ve also read some logs where some of you struggled with concentrating on practise, which I’ve been lucky to avoid that feeling so far. I wanted to share something I do just as another perspective in case it helps anyone reading this.
My practise is quite unstructured probably 50% of the time. Sure there are times, when I sit there for like an hour and just do one thing. But half the time, I kind of mix everything together and do a “freestyle practise” sort of thing. It’s more for trying to internalise what I learn and have a bit of fun with it.
I feel it’s quite relaxing for me. I’ve put an unedited clip of my practise session, errors and all of what I mean.
Something to note, as I play, all I’m trying to do is visualise the frettboard the whole way and let my ears guide a fair bit. There are plenty of times when I lose track and have to reset.
Back again, another progress update - still enjoying learning the guitar as I did from day 1 (in fact it’s getting more fun since I am building options on how I play). This time it’s really just a recording more for me so I can look back and compare.
I’ve been still striving for my holy grail of playing by ear to be able to replicate what I hear and free play / improv. So here’s my second go at it. It kind of just clicked about 2 days ago and started merging the three things I’d been working on individually:
Knowing the notes on the fretboard
Scales
Octave locations
Anyway here’s my clip, one take, mistakes and all and just doing what is recommended I think in some of the material on the site to “take an idea and play with it”.
I find it really hard to get the perfection that you guys get to when posting play throughs so I’m just exposing what my practise and state of play looks like as is.
No clip today… I don’t really have anything super different to show this time and have just been working things out on how to be more familiar with the fretboard still. I’ve just been playing different bits of melodies all over the neck and trying to mix some triads here and there. But I do have some mental notes that I’ve slowly been weaving in as part of my “exploration practise”.
I’m getting better at jumping between octave notes and using it as a map within the 5 scale position root notes.
I’m starting to figure out which chord is the main CAGED chord that fits over each of the 5 patterns to help give options to recognise where I am faster.
I’ve started to use (i think it’s called) the L Shape pattern because I’m struggling to figure out where I am fast enough when I move horizontally along the fretboard at larger distances.
I’ve been just exploring a basic chord progression and trying to play it everywhere on the neck to see if it helps with recognising shape sequences.
I’m still practising the scale patterns a little and just making sure i start on all the different root notes.
I think 1,3 and 5 put together seems to give me a lot more freedom. Still working on it though.
Also have been just following youtube play along chord songs here and there so it’s not just all technical practise.
So this update is all about my journey to visualise and free play a bit on the guitar. There are kind of three things that enabled me to get to where I am so far:
The CAGED scale patterns
Recognising the root notes and octave jumps (@sclay thank you for the tip)
L Shape box
I think the L shape is more used to find the chords at set intervals and it also is a step towards the 3nps method a little I feel.
Putting it together, I’m starting to be able to mix it all together which feels pretty fun and good.
Just a slight update on my learning journey. Question also for anyone that may want to chime in below
As a reminder, my primary long term goal is to play by ear. One of the things I’ve been working on is being able to navigate the fretboard which has progressed quite well. But I’ve realised that without the starting point (the key) it’s all for nought because then I’m stumbling around until enough notes are hit to recognise where I am.
I tried doing it the “sounds like home” way, but it just doesn’t gel, because all I hear is the melody, so I came up with another “cheat” way that only works with the guitar in hand.
So I evolved my method of doing pattern recognition… whole step and half steps… WWHWWWH. If i play on one string, that pattern repeats so i know the first W in that sequence is the root note / key.
The issue I was having is that it’s still too slow to listen to a song and play, by the time a large portion of a song finishes I’ve barely identified the key properly. Usually to play the melody I would use at least 2 maybe 3 strings because my muscle memory just naturally goes there somehow.
So after applying that sequence to the high E strong, I then applied the same sequence on the B string and internalised the relative distance using the scale patterns. The positions of the half steps give away the scale pattern i’m using AND the key. This is nice because it allows me to attempt to play the basic melody of a song quickly on the fly (albeit very basic)
I’m essentially using the half step as markers on the fretboard just like i would also use octaves i guess.
The concern I have is this deviates from how people find the key, by LISTENING. I’m just playing the notes and LOOKING for the pattern. Is that going to be a problem long term? My approach ONLY works if i’m holding a guitar in hand. I feel like its good enough, but is it a bad shortcut is what I’m wondering…
