Hey guys, I hope you are having a fantastic Sunday.
One of the hilarious things about writing music is that you can play what you write through the music notation software.
A music notation software or music score software is a program that allows you to write and play music with your computer.
The writing process is usually smooth and amazing, and it is easy to create beautiful, detailed sheet music and tabs. However, when you hit the “Play” button, the music doesn’t sound quite the same as when you play it!
No dynamics, tone, or musicality.
In this video, I will show you the difference between Music Notation Software and a Real Guitar Player.
It’s an entertaining video that will make you smile, so make sure you watch it!
Hey guys, today I want to talk to you about melody and fingerstyle and how important it is to work on your tone, dynamics, and musicality.
In this fingerstyle guitar lesson, I will show you a beautiful melody in A major I wrote a few days ago, and as you learn it, I want you to focus not only on the notes but also on the dynamics and tone you’ll use.
Improving your tone and dynamics is as important as improving your technique and fluidity, yet we spend very little time considering our notes’ quality and timbre.
The technique doesn’t make you unique; tone does; however, they are both essential when it comes to developing your overall skills on the instrument.
It’s the tone that made them unique, and it takes a lot of practice to get there.
Now that you have that in mind, I want you to start practicing and playing, thinking about the notes and thinking about the tone/timbre of each note you are playing.
Use this emotional melody to get started and keep it simple by focusing on just a few notes.
Pluck the strings close to the neck for a dull and mellow sound or play closer to the bridge for a brighter timbre.
Practice your tone and dynamics for a few minutes each session; you’ll be surprised with the results.
I hope you get inspired.
Let’s get started.
The Video
How to Practice this Emotional Melody
Once you decide to improve your tone and dynamics, you should always practice the same melody twice.
For this emotional melody, I would spend a few minutes learning one or two chords and then finding the tone I like.
How to Find your Tone
The tone is about the way you pluck the strings.
If you play the same melody twice, plucking the strings with a different angle, the melody will sound different.
I spent a lot of time trying to find the tone I had in my head, and after a while, I realized that plucking the strings with a 45-degree angle really gave me the tone I was looking for.
Play the melody several times but pluck the strings with different angles. Also, try different positions too. Usually, if you pluck the strings near the bridge, the sound is much brighter, whether if you pluck near the neck, the sound will be duller.
Switch Things Around
Don’t get stuck practicing the same thing over and over.
When it comes to finding your tone, it can be quite frustrating at the beginning, so take short breaks between sessions and don’t play the same thing over and over again.
Make it enjoyable and realistic. Set small goals one step at a time.
Scales are an essential tool for guitar players and music in general. Consider this; almost the entire music system is built on a major scale—chords, intervals, cadences, keys, just to mention a few.
Do you want to improve your technique? Practice scales!
Time to put together a few chords and create a beautiful chord progression. You can learn that from scales.
Today we will use scales on guitar to create beautiful melodies in A minor’s key using a straightforward two-step process. 1) Learn the scale in five different positions: 2) Create beautiful melodies.
We will learn the A minor scale on the top three strings in five different positions then I will show you a few melodic ideas on each position.
We start with the A minor scale because it’s the easiest scale to learn on guitar, and the five positions are easy to memorize. It’s also easy to play the 5th open string (A) and use it as a bass note/chord.
The awesome thing about this exercise is that we can break down each position into 5/6 notes so that it’s easy for you to create simple melodies.
I consider that to be a completely different way to practice and play scales on the guitar.
Maybe we could call it a “Melodic” way to play scales on the guitar.
I hope this fingerstyle guitar lesson inspires you to practice scales more and write your own phrases.
Let’s get started.
The Video
Scales Diagram
Let me show you the five different positions you’ll have to learn to start creating your own melodies.
The scale will not necessarily start from the root note (A); in fact, only position 1 starts with the note A.
Practicing scales starting from a different note that the fundamental will give you a versatile approach when creating the melodies, so embrace the challenge and don’t give up just after a few attempts.
It might take a while before you feel confident enough to play or create the melodies. Understand that this is a pretty challenging exercise that requires fretboard knowledge and technique, and creativity.
Just take things to step by step and focus on one position before moving on to the next one.
Here’s the scale diagram.
From Scale to Melody
Once you’ve memorized all the positions, you’ll be able to play a few melodic ideas.
In this video, I will show you a few examples for each scale position so that you can get inspired. It would then help if you started creating your own melodies and slowly developing your creativity and musicality.
The most amazing this about playing melodic scales on the guitar is that you can really start creating melodies using just 2/3 notes.
Don’t play all the time! Instead, use pauses to fill in the gaps between the notes. With time, you should create more complex phrases that are rhythmically interesting and fun to play.
Fun is part of the deal!
I hope you get inspired and get to play more and more of these beautiful melodic scales on the guitar.
Hey guys, today I really feel like playing some emotional melodies on my acoustic guitar. I just changed strings, and I love the sound. I am actually trying a new combination with Elixir 012 on the bass and Daddario 010 on the top three strings. The Daddario is super light, so it’s good to have thicker strings on the bass.
New strings resonate more, and so it is easy to write slow melodies!
In this video, I am playing 6 emotional melodies that will sparkle your imagination.
If you know a little bit about what I do, you probably know that I love to write short musical ideas inspired by emotions/situations.
I find the whole process of writing music to be quite therapeutic and good for the mind. Some people write symphonies, others just short ideas, but the benefit is equal because it’s much more about letting go of all the thoughts and physical sensations and give space only to the music.
I know that it’s pretty challenging to stop or even partially pause our thoughts but trust me, music really helps a lot.
Hello guys, I hope you are having a fantastic day.
We’ve just updated the BlitzGuitar Membership with a new lesson!
You can now access the Melodic Fingerstyle in 8 Bars Program Week 4.
This week we will be focusing on a beautiful classical melody in A minor, which is perfect for beginners and intermediate guitar players.
You can listen to exercise here.
The Video
About the Melodic Fingerstyle in 8 Bar Program
If you are searching for a simple fingerstyle program that can help you with your technique and musicality, I highly recommend checking the Melodic Fingerstyle in 8 bars Program.
Each week we will be focusing on a different technique/musical approach.
The awesome thing about this program is that there are three levels for each exercise.
At the Beginner level, you’ll learn the simple melody.
Once you feel ready, you can move on to the Intermediate level and make the melody more challenging.
The Advanced level is usually quite rhythmic and challenging.
Each level is only 8 bars long, which makes it easy to learn.
Hey, guys, today I will show you this amazing fingerstyle chord progression in A major that will blow your mind.
I love experimenting with chords, and fingerstyle guitar allows you to develop unique, amazing sounding chords that are really only possible when you play in fingerstyle.
The biggest mistake you can make when learning new chords is to open a Ted Greene book, trying to memorize the chords without really put them into practice. You can read twenty chord diagrams, but as soon as you close the book, they are gone!
I use a straightforward approach to learn one/two new fingerstyle chords and combine them with one/two chords I already know.
In the beginning, it’s a nightmare, and I remember struggling a lot, even with just one new chord. Then as I learned more and more chords, the whole process became natural.
Just so you know, I don’t remember all the chords I learned, and I easily forget them.
It’s not a big deal.
They’ll come back to you when you need them, just like when you didn’t play Classical Gas for two years, but it easily came back after a few hours of practice.
I highly recommend you learn this exercise, then take one or two chords and use them in a different chord progression in A major.
Time to play! Let’s learn some beautiful fingerstyle chords in A major!
Good luck!
The Video
Fingerstyle Chords
Let’s get into details.
In this exercise, the chord progression is insanely easy.
We are in A major key, and the chorus goes as follows: A | E | D.
The A major chord will have four different voicings while the E and D only two.
The A major Chord
Let me show you why fingerstyle is so amazing when it comes to amazing chords.
The first voicing is an A major chord with the 9th and 11th. You can call it A add9/11. This chord doesn’t have the major third, so we don’t really know if it’s major or minor, but I think we can agree that it sounds pretty major. The B open string really makes this chord unique!
The second voicing is another Add9 chord with two major 3rd. The B open string gives the dreamy vibe.
The third voicing is a beautiful Amaj7(add9), and this is one of my favorite chords on the guitar.
The fort voicing is Aadd9 with a different voicing. This chord is pretty stretchy, so practice it slowly.
The E and D major Chord
We will also work on two other chords, The E major and D major chord.
Both chords sound beautiful in the A major key and are part of the amazing fingerstyle chords you’ll learn in this lesson.
Make sure you check the tab below to learn the chord progression and all the chords I am teaching in the video.
As always, make sure you take things to step by step and learn one chord at a time before you move on to the next one.
Hey guys, I hope you are having a fantastic Monday.
Today i want to show you a sweet melody for beginners on acoustic guitar.
I always think that the most important thing to do when you are a beginner is to practice musical stuff.
Scales, arpeggios, and mechanical exercises are great and always useful, so I highly recommend that you spend time practicing these.
Simultaneously, though, you need musical exercise that can help you with musicality, tone, dynamics, and performance.
There are thousands of songs you can learn, and these are welcome, but you also need song-like exercises designed to help you with a specific technique.
With this sweet fingerstyle melody, I want to help to improve your musicality.
We will learn the melody twice. The first time plane simple, then we will add a few extra notes to make it sound more sweet and musical.
The second section can be challenging as you will have to learn a few stretchy chords but the challenges are necessary if you want to improve your technique and overall playing.
Take things to step by step and learn one chord at a time.
No need to rush.
Good luck, guys.
The Video
Sweet Fingerstyle Melody in D minor
Let me give you a few tips on practicing this sweet fingerstyle melody so that you can easily overcome the challenges and get the most out of the exercise.
Step 1 – Learn the melody.
When I was a beginner, I learned this approach called “melody isolation,” which changed how I learned difficult and challenging melodies.
It’s a fundamental concept in which you practice the melody without any other note or chord.
Let me show you how you can do that in this first example.
The first part of the melody is played using bass and melody. In this section, we will only play the melody in red and avoid the bass notes.
The second section is a bit more challenging because there are more notes and chords, so we have to select the one belonging to the melody only.
This is a fair example.
Step 2 – Practice one Chord at a Time
Another important step when learning a melody for beginners is to practice one chord at a time.
This is a pretty obvious thing to do, but many guitar players end up reading the exercise from top to bottom without really focusing on the challenging parts.
Isolating each chord will give you a better chance to improve your every bar better and quicker.
Hey guys, today I will share with you these powerful exercises that will challenge (and motivate) many of you.
I was thinking about how easy it is to transpose the same melody on two octaves on the piano. Each octave is the same, so you can learn the melody one time and move it up and down without changing the shape or fingering.
With the guitar is a completely different story.
You can play symmetrical phrases with the same shape, but that doesn’t apply for melodies played with open strings, so everything we play in the position I (first three frets of the guitar neck) includes open strings will have a different shape when transposed one octave higher.
In this exercise, we will be learning a set of melodies on two different octaves.
It’s a great way to improve finger dexterity, musicality, and versatility, plus it’s super fun to play.
As always, take things step by step and learn one melody at a time.
Let’s get started.
The Video
How does it work?
The goal is to repeat the same melody on two octaves.
Sounds easy but trust me, it isn’t. It will take some practice before you can actually play the whole thing fluently.
Let me show you how it works.
The red square shows you the first melody. It’s a simple progression of notes using fretted notes and open strings.
The yellow square is the same melody but one octave higher.
Notice that the yellow square looks completely different from the red square even though it is the same.
How Should you Practice
There are a few things I highly recommend you do when practicing this exercise.
Left hand: Use the same fingering shown on the video. Don’t end up playing the melody with just one or two fingers. Use all four fingers.
Another thing you could do is to practice one octave at a time. In that case, you will learn all the phrases in one octave before move on to the higher melody.
Today we kind of combine both with this badass rhythmic chord progression in A minor.
We will be playing a bunch of badass chords that are challenging and super rhythmic.
They are also fun to play and extremely motivating, so I recommend checking the first minute of the video.
There are two different sections.
The first section includes add9 and #11 chords and a plucking pattern in 7 and 5.
The second sections will be played using simple triads and a rhythmic pattern in 3.
Such a challenging exercise requires a lot of detailed practice, so make sure you practice one thing at a time before moving on to the next thing.
Grab your guitar, and let’s get started.
The Video
The Chord Progression
Section 1
The chord progression for section 1 is Am – F – G.
We will transform the chords into something more interesting: Am (add9), F(#11), and G major.
The rhythmic chord progression will be really challenging, so I highly recommend you start by learning the chords before applying any plucking pattern.
Here’s the chord progression.
The Plucking Pattern
The right hand is going to be the most challenging part.
We will be learning two different patterns, one in 7 and one in 5. The patterns should be played as evenly as possible and with a continuous flow.
Check the tab below.
Section 2
This section will focus on simple triads to be played on three sets of strings.
This is probably my favorite part because spread triads are my favorite type of chord.
You can perform the triads in two different ways.
I highly recommend that you start with the chords only. Pluck each chord together and memorize the chord shape and changes.
Once you feel ready, try to apply the arpeggio pattern.
