[jorgemac]

I’m close by in Lompoc. We’ll have to pick together, when you feel more comfortable with your picking.

[jorgemac]

Joe, finger an A chord, strings B, G, D, Fretted on the third fret of your neck. use what I call the triangle finger shape. middle on B/3, index on G/3 and ring finger on D/3 fret.

Strum these 3 strings or use thumb, index and ring finger to pluck the strings. then light lift, less pressure but still in contact with your fretted fingers and strum or finger pick these strings again. you should be getting a muted tone.

Move to the E chord and repeat this and then the B7 chord, another triangle shape

Strings G/2, D/1 and A/2, repeat this. You can mostly use this method of muting when chord strings are adjacent to each other unless you are able to split/move your fingers to cover other chords that aren’t made with strings next to each other.

Palm muting takes much more practice to learn.

Are you located in the 805 area code area? I am located there.

[jorgemac]

Pete, great stuff.

I like the tone of heavier strings but don’t like the fact that the strings take more finger tip pressure to produce that fuller tone of heavier strings.

I started with 10 gauge strings and now usually play .013/56. I found as i increased the string gauge I could put less tension on the strings if I tuned the strings down a half of a note to 1 1/2 notes per string. Much less string tension meant no sore fingers as my tips got used to the heavier gauges.

One of my early rock guitar hero’s was Lonnie Mack, A Memphis picker who was a huge influence on Stevie Ray. i noticed in his song books that he tuned his guitar’s Strings down up to a tone and a half when recording. While trying to learn his songs I began tuning my guitar down to try and emulate his sound. Never did actually copy his tone but i did learn how to tune down my guitar and found I liked the bassier tone this created.

I am currently playing .013 strings and am tuned down 3 half steps, treble to bass C#,G#, E, B, F#, C#. as I like the tone. It is easy to tune your string down if you have a headstock tuner on your guitar. This is an easy way to avoid sore finger tips when to increase the string size on your guitar. Just tune it down for a week as your finger tips will have less tension when holding down the fretted notes. Then you can tune it up a half step a week until you reach normal tuning. I can just capo up if playing with friends and they like the different tone my guitar has to their guitar tone. A nice blend of different guitar sounds.

It is hard to tune lighter strings down more than a half step, as they do not adjust to the less string tension as well as .012’s or .013’s do.

[jorgemac]

JnJ,

I like that, a complicated Zen like simple answer. Much more than just one meaning to your statement.

Just like a good guitar progression. Thanks

[jorgemac]

7th chords are major 7th chords with the 7th note a half step below the root note and the Dominate 7th chord, a whole step below the root note.

Most blues, rock, country, folk songs use the dominant 7th. Some alternate, jazz, classical and americana artist’s use the major 7th chord. I us e both in different contexts of a progression.

The dominate 7th has more of. to my ear, a dissonant tone than the major 7th chords. You definitely want to resolve to another chord to smooth out the progression.

Play a C chord on the B, G and D strings at frets B/5, G/3, D/5. that is a dominate 7th C chord

Now play the major 7th chord on string position B/5, G/4 and D/5. That is a major 7th and sounds almost “sweet’ to me. Both can be used as a transition chord to another chord, usually, for me back to the root chord for the dominate 7th chord and to the minor 6th chord from the major 7th of that key.

[jorgemac]

Feeling overwhelmed, slow down and learn what you can in each lesson, move on as that same lesson will come around again.

For your reading enjoyment. Take it a page or 2 a day and absorb some ot this guitar theory. Again take it slow. If you can’t download, just go to the National Guitar Academy website and tind the theory in the free section.

https://nationalguitaracademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Guitar-Theory-The-Ultimate-Guide.pdf

[jorgemac]

Learning guitar is definitely a challenge. I’ve been picking it seems like forever and tried many different methods to improve my technique’s . This one seems to help me improve without tons of frustration.

All of us are trying to learn and be guitar god’s in 30 days. For some reason that hasn’t happened for me. This same lesson you are working on today will come around again in a few months and you will be shocked how much you have improved. Get what you can from today’s lesson and move onto the next challenge having improved just a little from where you were yesterday.

I am definitely hooked on this style of learning as we are not expected to be perfect with each lesson. We are just expected to put in an honest effort and move onto tomorrows challenge with out allowing ourselves to “hate” how useless our fingers were today.

On the week ends I have taken most of the offered skill challenges and know that I improve a little each and every time I pick up a guitar.

[jorgemac]

String arrangement are

1st Treble E string

2nd B string

3rd G string

4th D string

5th A string

6th Bass E string.

So if i suggest treble E/3 thar would be the 3rd fret of the treble E string fret for fingering position.

I started so long ago that I can’t remember if G was a hard one or not. Pete gave you excellent advise. Because there are 4 g notes available in the 1st 5 frets there are various ways to play the G chord.

You can play a G5 chord on E/3, B/3 and the open G string.

Another G chord is G/3, B/3 and G/4. There are other ones too . But It is importsnt to learn the 1st “folk” versions.

G/3, A/2 and Bass E/3 was the first one I learned

[jorgemac]

Perfect explanation JnJ. Thanks

[jorgemac]

Pete makes a good point. I do this all of the time learning a song with vocals.

1st it helps you know where the chord changes are when singing. If you are having timing problems, like I did for years, I finally gave in an started practicing with a metronome. The first few sessions really showed me how weak I was and at times still am, either rushing the timing or being to slow or putting chord changes in the wrong location. It helped my singing to. When to pause, when to stretch out a word, etc.

You can slow down Tony’s video lessons which I always do before actually practicing Thursday and Friday chord reviews. I just put the video on half speed Watch his strumming patterns, put it on pause and Tapping my foot practice what he just did.

Put your ego in your back pocket and actually, slowly practice what your are viewing.

I break my actual practice times, Not the video portion but my actual time I have a guitar in my hand down to 20 minutes or less depending how close I am coming to a good replica of the lesson. I usually do the lesson 3 times a day and improve with each session but the metronome is almost always being used.

You sound like me, have a good idea of all of the pieces needed to pick and grin, just need help in where to do what.

[jorgemac]

Too true J.J.

the scales stay the same in each key, just the sharp/flats change fret positions.

Dm key Or a Am key use the same notes of there own scale. 1, 3b, 4, 5, 7b.

The fret locations change for sharps and flats in each of the 2 keys.

[jorgemac]

I’m in my 1st year and do wish it was still available.

[jorgemac]

Real life is full of constant irritations. Being older I usually let the irritations slide by the wayside. Love what you do and what you have nursed and built over the years. A few hiccups are expected. Life isn’t a box of chocolates. Sometimes sand gets mixed in. Keep on chugglin.

Now, if you would add a couple of new songs a year…

[jorgemac]

Great comments from a lot of different sources. I’ve always had a problem holding onto the pick. The “recommended” way to hold the pick seems, to me, to be the thumb and index finger at an angle and to learn to hold the pick with a light grip.

Like a lot of you I was always having to adjust and reposition the pick. After many years of fighting this issue I purchased a few Dunlap Prime Tone 1.5, 1.0 and .75 large triangle style picks . The 1.5 I use regularly is huge and I use and thumb and 2, yes 2 fingers to hold the pick fairly firmly.

Because I mainly am a Hybrid style picker, which means that I use the pick for strums and also finger pick a lot while still holding the pick, I have learned to release the 2nd middle finger from the pick to do the finger picking or split double stop spaced string picking.

I have been doing this for almost a year now and have become comfortable with the dual style picking format and the thumb and 2 finger pick hold. No more uncomfortable picking holding issues.

[jorgemac]

Just saying that if you know the actual note under your fretted finger it will help make your guitar playing learning curve move along a little quicker. There are a lot of important parts to learning to pick cool sounds. If you don’t know where you are on the fret board it will take you much longer to advance your learning curve.

I could talk about music theory For a long boring time, If you fret an D chord on the 2nd and third frets what note in that chord is under each fret. 3 notes usually make up any major chord, the root note the 3rd note of the scale and the 5th note of the scale. Which scale note is under each finger? the root note is located on B/3 fret, the 3rd of the Chord is located on the E/2 fret and the 5th of the chord is located on the G/2 fret. Id you wanted to use that chord shape and play a D minor what finger do you need to move and where do you move it to? Again if you know the fret board you can salve this easily. Just move the E/2 back to E/1 and you are playing an D minor chord’

If you move that chord down the neck 2 frets the order will be the same but the chord will be a E chord. What finger do you need to move to make the E chord a E minor chord? just copy what you did t0 change the D to D minor. Again if you know the fret board it all makes sense.