Beginners often under-appreciate just how difficult it is to play evenly in time but playing in time is as important as any other aspect of playing an instrument because a universal common denominator in all music is time. Technology has availed both metronomes, drum beat apps and videos with drum beats for free or nearly free. The best free Android metronome I've tried is called “metronome beats”. And for Apple devices, “metronome plus” is great. The first thing to consider when practicing with a metronome/drum beat is volume. Your metronome needs to be louder than you are so that you can clearly hear each click. Another great option to make practicing more pleasant is to play along with drum beats. An advantage of this is that drum beats contain more parts you can take cues from to maintain good timing as compared to a metronome which is typically either clicking in quarter or eighth notes plus it simulates the real world experience of playing with a drummer. YouTube has an incredible number of drum beat backing tracks available and you can specify the genre of music and tempo you'd like, for example: a Chicago blues shuffle at 120 bpm. (beats per minute) Lastly, here's some advice for playing with a metronome: As a beginner, you should practice primarily against quarter notes, that means you will play one note per click of the metronome. Then, when you're consistently good at that, practice playing eighth notes against the metronome in quarter notes and practice quarter notes against the metronome in eighth notes. Playing the guitar or bass is very much an exercise of coordination or synchronization. Your right hand must be synced with your left hand, your pick must be synced with the strings, your left hand must be synced with the strings and the frets and your playing has to be synced with the band and the tempo. In the same way that when you tap your foot, it's down on the beat and up on the ands, (the off beat) your pick too should generally be down on the beat and up on the ands, especially when playing eighth notes. This reinforcement of both your foot and pick being down on the beats and up on the ands will eventually lead to a strong sense of where the beat is, which is critical to becoming a competent musician. Alternate picking (picking down and up) needs to be practiced to the point of automaticity. A caveat with picking down on the beat and up on the ands occurs with quarter notes – I recommend that beginners play quarter notes with alternate picking which puts the down picks on beats one and three and the up picks on beats two and four. Once you've gotten to the point of alternate picking being completely subconscious, then you can play slower quarter notes with down pick. As a frenetic, young musician I was constantly tapping my feet while playing, along with tapping on every surface that sounded remotely interesting everywhere I went. Besides getting yelled at during stage rehearsals in guitar ensemble in college for excessive foot tapping with loud shoes by the director, foot tapping has served me well over the years and it can do the same for you! Tapping your foot while playing can help you keep better time and will engage you with the music more. As a beginner, it's shockingly difficult to keep good time. (most tend to race) I recommend getting lots of practice tapping along with a metronome or drum beat while practicing/playing. Begin by tapping whichever foot feels more comfortable. Tap in quarter notes or if the tempo is fast, tap in half notes so you don't exhaust your foot. Once you're proficient at that, switch to the other foot and once you're comfortable with that try alternating your feet. You can also do these exercises while standing. A final observation you want to be cognizant of is the idea that when your foot is down, that's playing on the beat and when your foot is up, that's playing on the off beat or syncopation. You count this by saying one, two, three, four when your foot hits the ground and when your foot is at the top you are playing on the “ands” (the and of one, the and of two, the and of three and the and of four). Tuning is about as fundamental as it gets, in fact it's so important that I would go so far as to say – if you're not in tune – don't play!
The more you play, the longer you play and the closer you attend to sound, the more you will be able to hear finer increments of pitch and because of this, as a beginner, it's common to think you're in tune when you really aren't. If you always play in tune, you'll have a frame of reference so that you can begin to tell when you're out of tune. I'm going to give you a few tuning exercises, I recommend you do at least one per day. After doing the exercises, check how close you've gotten with a tuner (a high quality, clip on tuner) Exercise #1: tuning off of open strings...four of the six open strings can be matched to the adjacent string below at fret number five (the exception is the B string, the matching note on the adjacent string below is at fret number 4) The other exception is the low E, since there is no lower string you can match that string to either the seventh fret of the A string or the second fret of the D string (those E notes are one octave higher than the low E) Exercise #2: comparing fifths fret to open, adjacent strings above... Again, this works for four out of six strings. The B on the G string is the exception, this is at fret number four. Finally the A on the high E string can be matched to the tenth fret of the B string. Exercise #3: tuning open strings to a note two strings higher...The low E will match the D string second fret, the A string will match the G string second fret, the D will match the B string third fret, the G string will match the E string third fret and the B string will match the seventh fret of the high E string. There are several advantages for a beginner to playing the guitar/bass with a strap.
First off, you'll need to get the right strap for you and your instrument. Depending on the weight of your instrument, I recommend a light, medium or heavy leather strap which will usually run between $15 - 60 depending on quality, thickness and width. If you have a really heavy bass, I strongly recommend not only a thicker strap but more importantly, a wider strap. I suggest getting a leather strap because they tend to be more comfortable on your skin. The length of the strap is another consideration. Many "cool" musicians like Slash or virtually every punk musician wear their instruments very low, which is fine, once you are good! But as a beginner or intermediate player, or if you play a lot of technically challenging music especially with difficult stretches, you'll want to have your instrument higher, around the bottom of your chest. A strap can be helpful even if you're sitting because if it's properly adjusted you'll be freed up in that you won't have to hold/brace your instrument, the strap has that covered. To become a proficient player, you'll have to learn to play by feel more so than by sight (over time) and playing with a strap will keep your instrument upright which in turn will force you to play more by feel. Lastly, I always advise that you practice much of the time standing up. Standing is good for multiple reasons: It really helps you to play by feel, it allows you to move around more freely and standing tends to make you more alert and engaged. |
AuthorEric Hankinson Archives
December 2023
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