Learn Guitar Online, Van Morrison – 3 Tips For Acoustic Guitar

By Mike P Hayes

Bright Side Of The Road, Gloria, Moondance, Brown Eyed Girl, Have I Told You lately, who doesn’t have a favorite Van Morrison song? Like Cat Stevens, Don McLean and James Taylor, Van Morrison’s songs sound great with just one guitar, you don’t need a band to enjoy these great songs.

Another neat thing about Van Morrison’s material is that there’s something for everyone … “Moon Dance” for the Jazz fans, “Gloria” for those who enjoy rock, and “Have I Told You Lately” for lovers.

With songs like “Brown Eyed Girl” in your guitar repertoire you will be the life of the party. Here’s 3 tips to help to play professional versions of Van Morrison songs.

Tip 1: Open Chord Voicings – Moondance – minor seventh chords

The key to playing songs like Moondance is playing open voiced minor seventh chords. Every popular song has a musical ID, it may be a lead guitar riff, a unique sounding chord progression or a particular rhythm, something that immediately enables the listener to identify that song.

When a song is well written it only takes 2 or 3 seconds for the listener to know what song is being played, even without the vocals.

With Van Morrison’s “Moondance” the first two chords correctly played is all we need … the chords are Am7 to Bm7, now while there is nothing new about these chords, it’s the way Van Morrison arranges the notes in the chord that makes the song instantly recognizable.

What do we mean by open voiced chords? The first step is to know what notes are used to build each chord, Am7 = A, C, E, G / Bm7 = B, D, F#, A.

Notice with the chord spelling for each chord how the notes are arranged in an alphabetical style sequence: Am7 = A then the next note that occurs in the chord is C then E etc, obviously certain
notes of our standard alphabet have been omitted, but you get the idea, study the Bm7 chord to make sure you understand the concept.

When the notes for each chord are arranged in alphabetical order this is called “root position”, our next step is to create four part open voiced chords.

Four part open voiced chords are usually played upon the 6th, 4th 3rd and 2nd strings. The 5th and the 1st strings are muffled by the fingers playing the other notes.

The idea is to avoid note duplication. By using chord-structures that have no duplication of chord tones it is much easier to alter the basic chords to form further altered chords.

Example of a “Am7″ four part open voiced chord: A=6th string, 5th fret, G=4th string, 5th fret, C=3rd string 5th fret, E=2nd string, 5th fret. This is the first chord for “Moondance”, move this shape up two frets and you will have the second chord Bm7.

Tip 2: intervals – thirds – Brown Eyed Girl

Brown Eyed Girl has a simple yet effective lead guitar introduction that instantly identifies the song.

If you played the intro as a single note melody in the key of “G” the notes would be as follows: B, C, D, C, B the next phrase would be E, F, G, F, E then back to the first phrase B, C, D, C, B and finally F#, F# G, A.

This single note melody is then supported by adding additional harmony notes played underneath the melody. The harmony notes are placed at an interval distance of a third below the melody.

To work out the harmony notes simply count backwards from the melody e.g. to work out the harmony note for the given “B” melody note count back three. B=>A=>G.

Here is the first five melody notes B, C, D, C, B, the harmony notes a third below indicated by [ ].

B [G], C [A], D [B], C [A], B [G},

Tip 3: chord progressions – 1-3-4-5 Bright Side Of The Road.

Learning to recognize chord progressions of by ear is a great way to remember songs.

Each key has a series of chords that are created from that particular scale.

In the key of C the basic chords are C, Dm, Em ,F ,G , Am ,B dim.

C = chord 1, Dm = chord 2, Em = chord 3 ,F = chord 4 ,G = chord 5, Am = chord 6 ,B dim = chord 7.

The opening chord progression for Van Morrison’s “Bright Side Of The Road” is a 1-3-4-5 progression which when played in the key of C becomes C-Em-F-G. This is the same chord progression Van Morrison uses for the opening chords of “Have I Told You Lately”.

So you can see, by identifying the sound of chord progressions it makes the process of learning new material much easier.

Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at:
=> http://www.guitarcoaching.com

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Beginners Guitar Lessons, Scales – 4 Tips to Get the Most From Your Lead Playing

By Mike P Hayes

Learning guitar scales can be frustrating and confusing for the beginning guitarist. Often the student simply doesn’t know where to start.

How important are scales?

It appears that learning and understanding scales is vital to becoming a better guitarist, how many scales should I learn and which scales should I learn first?

Good questions, the truth is scales re important, they’re like our musical alphabet. The thing to keep in mind is that you only need to know a few scales, guitarists often become obsessed with practicing scales and over their real purpose which is to make music.

Here’s a list to help you choose what scales to practice and eliminate the confusion.

Tip 1 — Select a style

With literally thousands of scales to learn the first thing to do is decide on which style of music you want to play. Certain scales are more applicable to particular types of music e.g., the minor pentatonic scale works well for rock, blues, metal music…mainly songs with power chords.

The blues scale is used mainly for rock, blues, metal music while the major pentatonic scale is mostly used for country, pop, country rock …generally songs with open chords.

Of course, I’m generalizing here, you can use any scale you wish for any style of music, however some scales work better than others. The idea is to use the correct musical alphabet (scale) for the style of music you want to play.

Tip 2 — start on the keynote

Simply running up and down a scale won’t produce any meaningful music no matter how fast you play them. It won’t communicate anything to the listener.

The idea is to train our brain and fingers to make musical decisions, which note do you want to play next? Where is the note I’m hearing in my head is it higher or lower than the previous note?

To get this brain — fingers connection practice starting on the keynote of the scale and decide whether your next note is higher or lower than the keynote.

The keynote is the first note of the scale, e.g., the keynote for the A minor pentatonic scale would be “A”.

Tip 3 — record a background

Once you have decided on a scale to practice, record a background in the key you want to practice. The recording does not have to be elaborate, a simple acoustic guitar will work fine.

Record the backing track for 5 to 10 minutes duration, this will give you plenty of time to practice and try out your ideas.

A good idea is to try and play just one note (the keynote is an idea choice for this), practice all different types of rhythms, slides, bends etc., to see how creative you can be.

Recording a backing track is very helpful as you will find that you react differently to certain chord textures, the same note will sound different when played against a variety of chords.

Tip 4 — learn all keys

Guitarists should practice their favorite scale(s) in all keys, this is especially important when working with singers.

Each key has it’s own personality, certain keys have a warm feeling, while others are bright.

Try playing a “G” minor pentatonic scale over a recorded background in the key of “G”, then, play a “B” minor pentatonic scale over a pre-recorded background in the key of “B”.

Scales can “free your fingers and freeze your brain” the whole idea of scales is to help you play music. Think of music as a language, scales are our musical alphabet, knowing the alphabet is just the beginning, it’s how we use the alphabet to communicate that’s important.

These ideas will help you develop your own style and soon you will be transferring the music you are hearing in your head onto the guitar.

Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at:
=> http://www.guitarcoaching.com

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