lowstring

I have been bouncing around various web sites, forums and bb’s looking for some answers and the best resource I could find as far as this stuff goes is musictheory.net. Although not entirely geared towards guitar, it is still a valuable site to anyone wanting to learn more about music and the theory behind it.

The first thing I am going to delve into is how you go about determining the key of a song, because once you figure out the key, the scales will follow. A capo will just change the key of a song, so obviously knowing the initial key before you change the key using a capo, will help. I found various people asking the same question: “how do I find out what key a song is in” and I found many answers, most were incorrect. Most often the first answer was, find the first and last chord of the song and that will be the key of the song. Obviously this is not entirely true, BUT I would say it is true for 80% of the songs out there. The main problem I see with this approach is there could be key changes during the song, and you would never realize it. If you get called up to jam out a song during one of your friends local shows in front of hundreds of people, and the song changes keys right before your big solo……… you would look like an idiot! Believe me; I have faked my way through many solos, but once the key starts changing and you don’t know where you are, you will be in trouble. Hopefully after reading this, you and I will be able to determine a songs key on the fly just by knowing the chords or listening to it.
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I have been playing guitar for about 15 years now, and like most guitar players I can’t decipher a single note of written music. I took lessons for a couple years, and really wish now that I had stuck with it, or at least enrolled in a music theory class while in school. I am to the point now where I can’t really go any further with the guitar unless I start to understand some of the basics.

If you are not a guitar player, then you are probably wondering how the hell do you write music, or play an instrument without even knowing how to read any notes? Well simple…… guitar tab, or by ear. Taking lessons I learned basic chords, and the pentatonic scales……. The rest I picked up or taught myself along the way by reading guitar tab or sitting in my room till I figured something out. I can tell you what notes or chords are being played on a guitar but I can’t write them down, or read them from sheet music. So you can see how this might hinder someone trying to write songs and record an album.

In an effort to really only teach myself, I am going to start a series of posts having to deal with reading music, music theory, and how they relate to the guitar. I am also teaching myself to play the piano, so this information can only aid that process as well.

Probably the hardest thing to do, and one of the first things I did before I even hit record was: ask myself what do I want this music to sound like? What genre of music would my music fit into? This seems easy right? Well unless you have a band with a well established sound it isn’t that easy. I wrote or recorded many of my initial ideas with just an acoustic guitar and one vocal track. If you are planning to be a folk singer than that is cool……. I wasn’t sure the sound I was going for, but could hear in my head what some of the songs could sound.

I settled on an alternative, folk, rock type sound, at least initially (once you start recording, you will find your sound may change). I think I settled on this sound, partly because: for one, this is the type of music I listen to all of the time, and sonically this type of music is not all that hard to record. There is a certain raw unpolished sound that surrounds this genre, which is good for someone like me that is on a limited recording budget. I am not saying you can rush things and fake your way through things though. You should always take the time to record things to the best of your ability, and the best of your equipments ability.