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There are more guitar styles in today's musical
world than
sheep in New Zealand!
Yet, regardless of style or genre, the instrument
is the same.
Ok, granted -each style has its specific techniques. Each kind of
guitar allows slightly different possibilities. Add electronics, and
the number of sounds you can produce grows wildly.
Basic Principles
However, they all share the same basic principles.
If
you
understand your instrument, you will unlock all the secrets behind all
styles. And learning the fretboard is the single most useful thing you
can do to that end.
Even so, learning the fretboard is also the single
hardest
thing to do, when it comes to learning to play guitar. Or so
they say!
Most methods suggest using rote learning to
memorize the names
of notes on the fretboard. They then suggest further rote learning to
memorize a myriad patterns: chords, scales, modes, intervals,
inversions... you name it!
The crux of the matter is that we need a system.
We need to understand the basic principles of music theory.
And not only from a theoretical stand-point. We need to assimilate them
with our ear and our whole body.
Getting the Whole Picture
Once these points are clear, we can start to
analyze resulting
patterns on the fretboard from a wider perspective. We were
looking at trees in the forest before. Now we can get the whole
picture; understand it, grasp it, make it ours.
After that, learning all the different styles is
easy. Any of these styles will fall neatly within those possibilities. What
could be easier?
Yet, be warned, if you try to master guitar styles
without
first having understood the principles, you're in for real trouble!!!
About the author:
Alexander Cortes is a composer and guitarist with
a wide range
of interests, musical and otherwise. He currently lives in Mexico,
where he travels the deserts, the jungles, and the beaches for
inspiration.
He is editor of an online resource for guitarists
seeking new
solutions to age-old problems:
Visit Guitar Theory in Depth for more on learning
the guitar fretboard.
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