Practice Note Functions, Not Intervals To Improve Your Ear

Practice note functions, not intervals to improve your ear

By Janus Buch

In my years as a full time guitar teacher it baffles me, that teachers keep emphasizing the importance for singing and hearing intervals in music. My teachers did it at the university that I attended and they continue doing it in music schools and highschools all over the country. I spend countless hours trying to lean it and after leaning it, I haven’t really used it all that much. In my opinion there is a better and easier way to improve your ear. And this is backed up by all the students that I’ve taught through the years. This article aims to explain why intervals is a waste of time and what you should do instead to improve your ear faster and become much more proficient in the musical use of your ears.

Why intervals such.

First of all intervals takes a lot of time and effort to learn. This fact in itself is enough to hate practicing the intervals. But the main reason it is so hard is that when we’re training intervals we’re actually doing ear training in a non-musical context. When we listen to the music we like we are actually doing ear training all along so we wanna train our ears in a way, that complements this and uses the skills that we already have. Let me ask you a rhetorical question. Have you ever listened to a song live and been in doubt when the song was finished and it was time to applaud?

No, neither have anybody else. You can gather 30.000 people in a stadium and everybody instinctively know, when the song is over and when to clap. The reason for this is that everybody has an intuitive feeling of where “home” or the tonics-chord is in a particular song. This is the way music is heard and we wanna use this instinctive feeling in everyone of us to train our ears in the easiest and most effective way possible. In the next passage, I will tell you how.

How to train your ears.

The way you develop a super ear is to train your ear to recognize particular note functions. In other words, what does a root note sound like? What does a major seventh sound like and in which direction does it wanna resolve? The way you do it is to play a backing track consisting of a root note only and and then play, listen to and internalize the sound and feel of all the twelve cromatic notes. The major scale is simply a combination of seven of these notes and the minor scale is another combination of notes. But once you know how all the cromatic notes sound and fell it is much easier to associate the scale with a sound. Or if you wanna make a melody with a specific feel this becomes much easier as it’s just a matter of what note functions to use. Train this method for a month and you will never go back to training intervals again.

About the author: Janus Buch is the owner and head teacher at Bredballe Guitarskole located near Horsens in Denmark. Here he’s offering different guitar programs for the serious guitar player, who are ready to take their guitar playing to the next level. If you are frustrated with the current state of your playing and you are teaching for the best guitar lessons in Horsens, Bredballe Guitarschool is the only place you need to look. Go to our webpage and book your first guitar lesson NOW!

April 3, 2025April 3, 2025

Fending Off Writer’s Block

By Tommaso Zillio

If you ever tried to compose a song or write any kind of music, then you probably experienced writer’s block. This is when you just stare in the void desperately trying to come up with an idea, but nothing comes to your mind.

No matter how hard you stare, the piece of paper in front of you is going to stay blank. No matter how hard you will your mind to be creative, nothing comes to you. This is writer’s block.

It’s not a fun situation to be in.

And if you’ve never tried to write a song… tell you what, you will probably experience the same whenever you want to improvise on your instrument, or do something creative in general.

Now, here’s the thing: the easiest way to fight writer’s block is to do it BEFORE you have it. Hey, if it has happened to you already, no problem: there ARE ways to eliminate it (see below)… but it’s much easier if you start working on it before it happens.

Like an illness, prevention is easier and better than the cure. An apple a day and all that…

So here’s a few short points that can help you:

Either you are writing, or you are judging your writing. Do not mix the two activities. There is a little part of your brain that will criticize EVERYTHING you do, and if you give it an inch it will take a mile. And guess what’s going to happen if you let it run free and criticize everything you write? That’s right: your brain will stop giving you ideas.
Write a little something every day. This could be just a chord progression, or a couple of lines of lyrics, or a short melody. You do not have to remember it, you do not have to record it down… you don’t even have to LIKE it. Just write something until it becomes an habit.
Also (very important): watch the video below where I answer the questions of a young composers regarding inspiration and writer’s block. You will find many things that do apply in your situation.

And if you haven’t written anything today yet… just go do it now! (It’s easy once you get started)

About The Author

Tommaso Zillio is a professional prog rock musician, and enjoys writing helping aspiring composers by writing columns about songwriting.

April 3, 2025April 3, 2025

Sometimes wrong notes are right… if you know what to play after

Sometimes Wrong Notes Are Right… If You Know What To Play After

By Tommaso Zillio

When you start to learn lead guitar, you are (usually) introduced to the concept of “good” notes and “bad” notes. Even if your teacher does not do that (and let’s be clear here, he may have some very good reasons for not explaining this to you at first), it’s quite plain that when you try to play a solo, some notes sound good on a backing track, and other simply sound “off”.

That’s a good “first approximation” to have. Yes, it is perfectly true that some notes sound better than others on a given backing track, and your teacher will help you learn (in case he didn’t already) everything about scales and keys and scale patterns and chord notes. That will help you sound better.

But then again, this is only an approximation. As someone said (this quote was attribute to every other past musician…) “there are no wrong notes, only wrong resolutions”.

But wait, didn’t we say that some notes sound bad on a backing track? So how can there be “no wrong note”?

Yes we did say that. Here’s the point: some notes sound bad on a backing track if you play them BY THEMSELVES. But – and here’s the ‘secret’ – if you play them together with other carefully chosen notes, then they sound good.

In short: one note ALONE may be right or wrong. But add a few other notes around, and the wrong note may just become right because now it makes sense in context.

Now the curious thing that happen when you are able to make the “wrong” notes sound “right” (and I’m going to show you a trick for that below) is that your solos now sound much better for two reasons:

You have more notes available to play, because you can use not only the “right” notes but also the “wrong” ones. This allows you more control and more power of self- expression.
By learning how to make the “wrong” notes sound “right” you learned how to control your soloing better.

These are both two very desirable things to have as a guitar player. And I guess at this point you are itching to see how it’s done. I explain a very simple example in the video below where I show how some metal riffs use “wrong” notes to sound more exotic:

About The Author

Tommaso Zillio is a professional prog rock musician and a regular writer of columns about Music Theory for Guitar.

February 27, 2023April 1, 2025

What It Takes To Release An Album

What It Takes To Release An Album

Are you a musician, looking to release an album or an EP?

If the answer is yes, then roll up your sleeves, because a lot of things will have to get done before the release will actually happen.

First off, I am by far not a music marketing specialist. But I am a part of two active rock bands, who regularly release their music. And I am writing from our first-hand experience about what was needed from us, before the album was actually released.

The choice to be a musician can be scary to some people, especially because most musicians over-dramatize the effort you need to put in to make it work on even a smaller scale.

But music is a business, just like any other business, where – believe it or not – you have to put in the work.

To not turn anyone away: the work itself can actually be very much FUN. The fact is that most of the stress is caused by: over-thinking, no planning and confusion. Write things down, have it all planned out beforehand, and stick to the plan. If you don’t have 8 hours per day to work on your music career, that’s okay, plan your work to get it done in the few hours per week you actually have.

Photo by Ron Lach

From experience, I can tell you that the most stress for us was caused by not having things laid out in front of us. That made us forget important things, and chase last minute solutions.

And trust me, when you need a designer to create an awesome album art, or a filmmaker to make your music video in the last minute, everyone is busy working on other projects. Most of them do not even pick up the phone. It’s like the universe is working against you.

That being said: write things down. This action itself will put your mind at ease and lower the stress. Then you simply start working on it and enjoy the work. Every task you complete, will bring you closer to your goal.

Yes, there will be days, when you will have to shoot music videos for more than 16 hours, but it’s going to be a thrilling experience. You could be at home watching TV, but no, you are actually creating something awesome that will last a lifetime. With that mindset, it’s very easy to get things done and feel good about it.

Masters

Before you release an album, make sure you have the last versions of master tracks on your hard drive. As obvious as this one is, it’s very easy to be chasing after any last minute improvements, run late or miss the deadlines. Remixing, mastering and exporting tracks takes time. And if you are working with professional studio personnel, they might not be available at all times.

To ease the stress, have the tracks in your hand at least 3 weeks before you plan to release your album.

Names of the songs

Have all the names for the songs figured out, including the syntax. You might want to capitalize each letter in the name, or write everything capitalized, or maybe do something more creative in between.

Plan to have this figured out at least 3 weeks before the release.

Name of the album

Again, an obvious one, but plan to have this one ready beforehand. You will probably need the name of the album for your cover art and PR.

Have this one ready at least 4 weeks before the release.

Order of the songs

Order of the songs is important. It will make your album flow seamlessly, or make it sound repetitive and dull.

One good idea is to try to break similar songs apart. Listen to the end of one song, and the start of the next song. It’s good for them to have different tempo, key, rhythm, and instruments.

Also think about the energy you want the album to have throughout. You usually want to start with some bangers and sneak some slower songs later on. More complex songs work best in the second half of the album. But you can do whatever you want here, it’s your creation. Just think about how the order of the songs will improve upon it.

If you are planning only a digital release, have the order figured out at least 2 weeks before the release. But if you are also doing physical copies, you will probably need the order of the songs printed on the cover, so keep that in mind.

Length of silence between the songs

The silence between the songs is very important for the flow of the album. Once you have the masters, simply listen to the songs in the correct order and think about how shortening/lengthening the silence can improve the flow.

If you want to make any changes, you can do them by yourself using a DAW. Just make sure you export the same format as the files you have received to avoid lowering the sound quality.

Have this done at least 2 weeks before the release.

Album art

You should start working on this as soon as you get the resources you require (album name, song names, order of the songs). This is how your album will be presented to the audience on digital platforms as well as physical copies. Have this one ready at least 2 weeks before you plan the release.

Other resources

Here are also some things you might want to think about before releasing the album. These resources help you promote your album and make online distribution complete.

Photos of you or your band
Singles (pick your singles and plan your release before/after the album)
Music videos accompanying single releases
Lyrics written out (these are usually uploaded to online music platforms)
PR text to send out to the media
Other content for promotion (interviews, reviews, remixes, different song versions – use these to promote the album)

Timeline

Now that you have thought about all of these things that need to get done, put them on a timeline, and stick to the plan. Simply put the deadlines into an Excel file and share it with your crew if you have one.

And that’s it. I hope this gives you a better idea on what needs to be done before you release an album. The key here is to plan your work and work your plan.

About the author

Janez Janežič is a creative guitar teacher, songwriter, and guitarist from Novo mesto, Slovenia. If you are looking for quality, fun and effective guitar lessons in dolenjska region, be sure to look up his guitar school: kvalitetne lekcije kitare v okolici Novega mesta.

September 9, 2022January 18, 2024

Why your music teacher can’t tell you what guitar to buy

Why your music teacher can’t tell you what guitar to buy

As a guitar teacher I teach a lot of beginning guitar students. All of these students are eventually faced with the decision of witch guitar to buy. Maybe it’s their very first guitar or they started out on some cheap crappy guitar and now they want something better. The question of “can you recommend a guitar for me to buy” is sure to pop up sooner or later from these students.

Basically, they want me to recommend a specific brand and preferable also a specific model. Most beginning guitar students don’t feel, they possess the knowledge or skills to pick out their own guitar. This question is fear based at its core. Fear of making a bad purchase, loosing money and not getting a good guitar, but it’s also a fear of simply being in a guitarshop and “exposing” that they are newbies on the guitar. That is the real reason, they want me to recommend a guitar, but the problem with recommending a guitar is twofold.

For one, we are all different individuals so the guitar that fits me in terms of size, sound, playability and so on, may not be a good fit in any of the categories for you. And secondly, even though a brand has a good reputation and creates a lot of quality guitars, there is always the risk, that the specific guitar you consider buying is flawed in some way. So even if I did recommend a guitar, there is no guarantees, you wouldn’t buy a bad guitar. The real value for you as a student is to learn how to evaluate a guitar and this article will give you the main points.

Objective and subjective criteria

The objective criteria are simply “does the guitar live up to standard” meaning, does the guitar work as it’s supposed to. There is a ton of easy accesable knowledge on this online. Simply go to yourtube and write “how to buy (insert whatever guitar you consider buying)” and you will get a lot of help. You have to learn what to check for and how to do it. Then you have to go practice it on real guitars without actually buying anything yet. This will boost your confidence, when you eventually are going to go buy a guitar.

The subjective criteria

This is all the “difficult” questions. Do I like the guitar?, does it sound great? play well? and so on. These are all the questions, that beginning guitar players feel, they can’t answer. The truth is, they are the only ones who CAN answer that, as this guitar is for them. We are only judging what you think of the guitar and not how it compares to some kind of arbitrary standard. You are the one who are buying the guitar, you are the one who will be playing it and therefore, only your opinion matters. Start assessing guitar and ask your self three question. Do I like the way it looks, do I like the way it sounds and do I like the way it plays. Rate the guitar on a scale from 1-5 in all cases and you will slowly begin to pinpoint what you feel about a certain guitar and this is what builds your confidence. What you feel, is the truth about that guitar for you and the only difference between a newbie and a pro buying a guitar, is that the pro has learned to trust in whatever they feel or think about a guitar. This is what you need to develop as well. When you have done this, you will never have to ask advice on buying a guitar again.

About the author: Janus Buch is the head teacher and founder of Bredballe Guitarskole in Denmark. Bredballe Guitarskole is located near Horsens and we offer a wide verity of programs to take your guitar playing to the next level. A lot of guitar players find them selves stuck in a rut when it comes to their progress. Even though they do practice and spend a lot of time on youtube lessons, they don’t feel like they are getting anywhere. If this sounds like you, we are able to help you. If you are native to the area, seek you Bredballe Guitarskole for the best value for money guitar lessons in Horsens.

September 9, 2022January 18, 2024

Essential Items You Need When You Buy Your First Guitar

When you purchase your first guitar, you should plan on buying a few other things too. These essential items make starting to play and care for your guitar much easier.

1. Pen and Paper

Pen and paper is a simple thing that is often overlooked. As you learn, you want to get in the habit of writing everything down. You will learn much faster if you write out chords and scales yourself instead of just printing diagrams you found online or constantly looking at books.

Notebooks are also a great place to keep a list of what you would like to learn to play or any musical ideas you have. Keeping a practice journal will also help you see all your progress.

2. Picks

You can never have too many picks. Losing and misplacing picks happens to everyone who plays the guitar. Beginners should try picks with different thicknesses. Most beginners like the feel of medium picks. Many guitar players like thicker picks once they have some experience playing. It is OK to try picks made from different materials and different sizes. Finding a pick you like using usually takes some time and comes down to personal preference.

3. Tuner

You will want to tune your guitar every time you play it. An out-of-tune guitar sounds awful and is no fun to play. There are many different tuners, but all you need to get started is a cheap clip-on tuner like a Snark.

4. Extra Strings

Strings will break. It is not a big deal, but you want to be prepared and have extra strings handy. Even if you are lucky and don’t break any strings, you will want to get in the habit of changing your strings every three or four months. A fresh set of guitar strings will make your guitar sound fantastic.

5. Metronome

Learning how to play in time is essential. The sooner you learn how to use a metronome, the better you will sound. A trained teacher will be able to help you learn how to use your metronome properly.

6. Case

You want to have a safe place to store your guitar. A hardshell case is the safest way to transport and store your guitar. A case allows you to control the environment for your guitar, protecting it from drastic temperature changes, humidity, and dust. You can keep your guitar on a stand or wall hanger, but make sure it is not stored in direct sunlight or by a heat source.

7. Cleaning Cloth

You can buy a cleaning cloth or use a soft material like a t-shirt. Wiping down your guitar after using it will help it look better and make your strings last longer.

8. Amp (optional)

As a beginner, all you will need is a small practice amp. You want to be polite and play at a reasonable volume initially. Many of the sounds that a beginner guitarist makes are not pleasant, but that is just part of the process. Playing through an amp will help you learn how to mute unwanted noises and control what sounds come out of your guitar. You can always buy a bigger amp once you are ready to start playing in a band or doing solo performances.

About the author: Brian Fish is a professional guitarist living in Northeast Ohio and is an expert guitar instructor at Guitar Lessons Geauga.

February 9, 2021January 18, 2024

How To Stay Motivated To Play Guitar

How To Stay Motivated To Play Guitar

Everyone who plays guitar will at times lose motivation. To some this sounds depressing, but this is a good thing. We all go through it. If we are ready for it, we can use it to our advantage.

You are making a mistake if you’re waiting until you feel motivated to actually take steps to get better on guitar. We can not control whether we wake up one day and feel ready to do all the things we’ve been thinking about doing. It doesn’t work that way. Don’t feel bad about not feeling motivated. It is not possible to feel motivated every single minute of every single day. It is difficult to maintain motivation by yourself.

Find An Expert

It’s challenging enough to try to figure out what you should be playing in order to actually get better. You just don’t know what you don’t know. So, what do people do when they are serious about getting better? It is the same as any area of life. They get a coach, a mentor, or a trainer. They hire a pro with experience getting people results who can lead them down the path to success.

When you have a pro level guitar teacher, you can rely on them to help you on the days when you’re not “feeling it.” An experienced guitar teacher helps you re-focus on what is important, on what you should be doing. Part of their job is to remind you of the reasons why you started taking lessons in the first place.

You’re Not Being Challenged

What I’ve seen in my students is that the problem isn’t a lack of motivation. The problem is that we easily get stuck in a counterproductive thinking pattern. This keeps you trapped in the same place even though you feel motivated to want a different future. A great guitar teacher should deliver playing breakthroughs and change the way you think. A good teacher helps you achieve your goals as well as develop and maintain a healthy mental state. They understand that negative beliefs about your playing will hold you back. If you’re feeling stuck right now, you’re not being challenged in your skills or in your mindset. They help you see what you can become.

It’s About You

If you need motivation, look for a teacher to train you according to YOU and not the same old curriculum used on everyone. Playing scales for an entire class is boring. Playing classic rock music when you don’t care about that style is boring. Learning becomes fun when it’s specific to your needs and musical desires. You see yourself making progress because you feel like playing more and more. With an experienced guitar teacher, there is no end to how much you can learn when you are ready for it. If they are good, they will constantly have more for you at each level and it never gets boring!!! Why? Because they know you. And because they are always going to challenge you to do better. A good teacher will help you see things in a different light so you can apply it to your playing.

All in all, how do you stay motivated with your guitar playing for the long term? Finding and sticking with an excellent guitar teacher is half the battle. They will be coaching you and supporting you every step of the way. Whether you have a bad day, you have a busy work load and any other reason that cause you to just not feel like it. Consistency over time is the key. So when life happens, lean on your guitar teacher for the motivation you need to keep moving forward.

About The Author: Ryan Duke is a professional musician, songwriter, and owner of Supertonic Guitar serving up guitar lessons in Franklin, TN.

February 9, 2021January 18, 2024

4 Beginner Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

4 Beginner mistakes and how to avoid them

By Miika Korte

When you are starting your journey with your new guitar, there are a lot of pitfalls, that you can encounter, which could discourage you from keeping on playing, because ultimately you might realise, something sounds not quite right, but you cannot point your finger on it.

To help you to avoid this really frustrating experience, I summed up a few potholes, that you can avoid right from the start, so that you can play comfortably, even if you are only playing the simplest melodies and chord changes.

Rhythm

A lot of beginners (and intermediates, too!) struggle with keeping rhythm perfectly in time. That means, being able to play every stroke with the exact same time difference, as all other strokes and as they are meant to be played.

A lot of people hate it, but the metronome is a really useful tool, to get rid of such problems. What is more important? An annoying sound every now and then when you are practicing or sounding annoying, when you are playing in front of others?… Right. Thought so 🙂

What you need to do, is pick something you struggle to play, set the metronome to a low speed and just sit there and THINK! Do not play yet. Just try to imagine how what you are playing should sound in synchronisation with the metronome beat. Once you are 100 % clear on that, you can proceed to playing your piece or section of a piece or exercise.

And here is the most important part: Record yourself while playing and before listening back, try to imagine what you want to hear, or if you already have a perfect recording either from the music file or the CD or from your teacher, listen to that first and compare. Then try to adjust your playing and get it closer to what you want to hear.

This should get you at least a little bit further, than where you are now.

Flying Fingers

This is a problem I often see with guitar players, who never had any teacher or had lessons a long time ago, most probably with a less experienced or less engaged teacher.

When changing chords or fretting single notes, the fingers fly uncontrolled away from the fretboard when lifted.

That is due to a habit, that developed, because nobody ever told them, how to move the fingers, when they are done with playing a note.

Instead of actively lifting the fingers away from the fretboard, it is enough, to just relax your fingers, so that they now merely float approximately half an inch (1 cm) or less above the fretboard.

Record your left hand on video to be able to analyse your motions properly.

Posture

If you do not get used to the right posture, you open yourself up for tension in your body, that can stand in the way of playing comfortably and without strain in your shoulder.

You do not need to get this perfectly right away, but simply try to pay attention to the following guidelines:

Keep your guitar on your left leg (if you are a left hander, keep it on the right leg) and keep your neck in a 45° angle to the floor pointing upwards.

Your elbow should be relaxed and hanging downwards loosely.

Now one important part about your fretting hand:

Keep the thumb perpendicular in the center, width wise, on the back of your fretboard. Never ever have it parallel, pointing towards the headstock. As a general guideline, your thumb should be opposite to your middle finger.

Lifting fingers of a chord uncontrolled

When playing a chord for a longer time, some students oddly release their fretting hand fingers a little bit in between some strokes, to get some kind of muting effect, but I would recommend not to do so, until somebody who is knowledgeable about it, shows you how to do it properly. Until then, just keep your fingers on the fretboard as long as you do not change a chord and focus on getting the chord changes right!

About the Author:

Miika Korte is the most sought-after guitar teacher in Tampere, providing kitaratunnit tampere for electric and acoustic guitarists, who are looking for lessons, that are based on creative application.

November 23, 2020April 3, 2025

3 Things I Did That Made Learning Guitar Harder And Take Much Longer

By Maurice Richard

Now that I have learned to play guitar at a good level I can look back and reflect and realize I could have made it much easier on myself.

My goal today is to help you avoid the things I did that made learning guitar harder for me and will do the same for you.

I have been teaching guitar for many years now and I see people that still make the same mistakes.

You would think the internet would have made things easier but from my side of things I think it’s made things worse.

Here are 3 things I did wrong that made learning to play guitar much harder than it should have been.

Guitar Lessons in PJ

I Tried To Teach Myself

That was the biggest mistake I made by a long shot.

Sure, I eventually figured it out, but it took years to get to a place where it should take months.

Because I chose this way to learn I ended up taking a very very long time to get where I am today. I still managed to develop my skills to a high level but they could be so much better by now.

Now, it’s not like I did not want to have someone else teach me or that I did not want to pay for that, I actually had no clue you could get guitar lessons.

Everyone I ever knew how knew how to play taught themselves and so I thought that was the only way to do it. I was clueless!

Do not make the same mistake. Find someone to help you as soon as possible!

I Used A Low Quality Acoustic Guitar

This really slowed me down.

Using a low quality guitar is a sure way to get frustrated and slow down your progress.

The guitar I used to learn with was free, but it cost me a lot. What am I talking about? It cost me years of progress and a lot of frustration.

Imagine trying to ride a bike that has mostly seized bearing in the wheels, with pedals that are just a little too far away and a seat that is slightly too high.

Can you learn to ride on such a bike? I am sure it is possible but it will be very difficult to make any progress and could take along time. That’s pretty much what happened to me with this guitar. It was THAT bad.

Even though I was determined to play guitar I did end up quitting/stopping several times out of sheer frustration. I even started to think I did not have the skill or talent to ever learn.

Fortunately, the desire was very strong and I never totally gave up trying.

If I was to start all over I would do it with an electric or at the very least a high quality thin-body acoustic guitar. I highly recommend this for you!

Hired Untrained Guitar Teachers

When I finally clued in that you could hire people to teach you how to play guitar I did not do it right away.

I had other priorities and for whatever reason, I honestly can’t remember why, I chose not to get a guitar teacher.

It wasn’t until I started to put my kids into music lessons that I finally decided to give it a try.

I found out very quickly that not all guitar teachers are the same and that they do not always know how to help someone reach their specific goals. My experience was not good.

I later found out these guitar teachers were not trained. They were really good guitar players but they did not learn how to teach from anyone and just tried to figure it out on their own.

That would explain things.

Guitar lessons in petaling jaya

One Thing I Finally Did To Help Me Learn To Play Well

Yup, I made a lot of mistakes trying to learn to play guitar. I’d like to say I made them all but that would not likely be accurate. But I made more than my share of them!!

Once I did that long enough and got so frustrated that I was ready to quit guitar for good, I finally sought out a great guitar teacher.

It was out of desperation because in the back of my mind I suspected I would just find more of the same teachers I had already had experience with.

Fortunately, that was not the case. This time I sought out someone who had a lot of experience teaching a lot of students already. Someone who had helped people like me and which implied he could help me.

After some time, I found what I was looking for. This teacher understood me, could relate to me and my struggles, was trained as a teacher and had already helped many others do what I wanted.

So, I signed up and the rest is history! He is still my teacher today and my playing keeps improving!

You need to find this kind of teacher!

About The Author:

Maurice Richard is a professional guitar teacher that operates out of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has been a member of an elite guitar teaching mentorship program since 2007 and has taught many people how to learn to avoid things that make it harder to learn guitar.

September 4, 2020September 4, 2020

A Good Way To Understand Rhythm Notation

A Good Way To Understanding Rhythm Notation

Ever thought to yourself ,is rhythm notation is important to learn? Today I’m going to talk about how to understand certain rhythm notations. First, let’s talk about quarter notes, a quarter note is a note that has a value of one beat. Here is an example of what quarter note looks like:

So now we’ve talked about quarter notes, let’s take a step back and talk about whole notes. What is a whole note? A whole note is a note that has the value of 4 beats, this means you play the note and let it ring for 4 beats.

You’re probably wondering, why rhythm notation is important. A couple of things that make rhythm notation so important are, you will know at the exact time when a note needs to be played, this will make it so you don’t have to keep listening to that part of that song that you’ve been trying to nail for weeks. Also over time, when you learn enough rhythm patterns will be able to pick them out of your favorite songs. This in terms, means that you will be able to learn songs much faster.

Here is what is called a half note, a half note is a note that has a value of 2 beats.

A way to look at this is to take the duration of a whole note and cut it in half that’s how long you should play a half note for. Next, let’s talk about eighth notes, eighth notes are a subdivision of a quarter note. What that means, is two eighth notes equal one-quarter note, here is an example below.

Now we’re going talk about time signatures, today we’re just going to talk about 4/4 timing, this also called common time. So let’s talk about the top number, the top number four means there are four notes in a measure and the bottom number means what kind of note value gets the beat, which in this case, the note value is a quarter.

Let’s talk about now another time signature that is very common, this is called 3/4, this time signature is known for having a waltz type of feeling. The top number means there are 3 beats in this measure and bottom means the value of those beats are quarter notes.

One last thing I want to talk about today is quarter rests. What is a quarter rest? A quarter rest is a period of silence that lasts the same length as a quarter note.

So why is this stuff above important? All of the things that we talked about today is important because it all relates to rhythm and understanding how to read rhythms. Rhythm is by far one of the most important subjects in music. So here is an exercise you can do and you won’t even have to have your guitar to do it. Take the material above and write out as many variations you can think of.

About the author, Zach Payton is a guitar teacher based out of Lewiston Idaho, that likes helping his students become musicians.