Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dustin Smith on October 9, 2010 at 7:32pm

One thing that truly excites me about CBG is that we are all virtually on the same level. This is probably the only instrument I can think of where nobody is exceptionally better than anyone else. I guess you could call Shane the "virtuoso" of the CBG, but even he says that doesn't amount to much. Ultimately, he just discovered the instrument long before I did and everything is grass roots from the ground up. For me, I don't venture much past 0-3-5-7 which isn't much different than when I play blues on a regular guitar. The difference is, on a regular guitar, it's easier to bend the heck out of the strings and I guess I have more weapons in my arsenal on my regular guitar.

Permalink Reply by Wichita Sam on October 10, 2010 at 12:50am

err, ok, what?... if you and shane are 'on the same level", then let's see some videos..... not being defensive, but I've been onboard for three years with 240 builds and a dozen local paying gigs and I KNOW that I'm not on the same level that shane is.

Anyone who says they are as good as someone else needs to show their chops.... BTW, playing blues is a whole lot more than "bending strings"'''''

or, maybe I just misunderstood your post....

the best,

Wichita Sam




Dustin Smith said:

One thing that truly excites me about CBG is that we are all virtually on the same level. This is probably the only instrument I can think of where nobody is exceptionally better than anyone else. I guess you could call Shane the "virtuoso" of the CBG, but even he says that doesn't amount to much. Ultimately, he just discovered the instrument long before I did and everything is grass roots from the ground up. For me, I don't venture much past 0-3-5-7 which isn't much different than when I play blues on a regular guitar. The difference is, on a regular guitar, it's easier to bend the heck out of the strings and I guess I have more weapons in my arsenal on my regular guitar.

Permalink Reply by Rick Stepina on October 18, 2010 at 5:22pm

Been awhile since I've had time to read up here. Still working at playing, but my abilities make a wounded cat sound like a seasoned player! I'll keep plugging away as long as my family can stand it LOL!!! Keep posting the great ideas, I know they've been very helpful thus far!

Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on December 30, 2010 at 8:10pm

Page one, bottom of the page, about a dozen posts into this thread, Fitzhugh wrote the most straight-forward, consise description on getting started with playing I have seen anywhere to date. Bravo and kudos sir!

I would suggest a ten star salute and a permanent "sticky" post or prominent feature of his post for all beginers in the how to play section!

Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on December 31, 2010 at 2:57am

Yes it is great info .... BUT.

The problem is, it's specific to a 151 tuned instrument.

And only to playing blues ( or what ever ) chord progressions. His advice won't work for a 4 string tuned dgbe.

 

My advice still stands. Learn 3 chords (easy). Play (fun). Add chords ( learn and grow). Play ( more fun). Pick melodies ( growing again).

 

BTW- for those that would rather pick than strum, a 3 string tuned 151 and played like a strummer is the way to go.

Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on December 31, 2010 at 7:45am

Well.... Your post made me re-read the post I mentioned, again, and I dont see such a major disagreement Matt.

The first section "tuning your guitar" is indeed specifically aimed at three string guitar, but I would have to point out that the majority of beginner articles here on building and playing are biased toward three stringers by a large margin. Yes indeed if you are learning to play on something else, that part of the article doesnt pertain to you. But we are also dealing with those who admit they dont even know what a chord is yet, so lets not complicate things more than necessary.

The remaining content pretty much applies to any open tuning, on any instrument and is a great basic outline of how a simple song is constructed.The second section "playing your guitar" indeed does point out the importance of learning common three chord progressions so prevelent in popular music as you suggest, (I,IV,V progressions) and also has a nice basic explanation of some of the terms and descriptions tossed around that may confound and confuse beginners. Indeed learn to tune to an open tuning, learn what a I, IV, V chord progression is (Barred or otherwise as explained in the text), learn what bars or measures are and put it together with a 12 bar progression and you can play basic songs, improvise or just jam a bit and learn your way around the guitar a bit.  Then you might be ready to step up and learn some more theory and techniques by buying Keni's fine series of lessons or something. I dont feel they address the needs of true beginners.

You see Matt, I am not disagreeing with you, nor was that article, in fact, the way I see it we are saying the same thing in different ways. Yes, keeping it fun by keeping it basic at first is important. Otherwise you just might get frustrated and find something else to do. But getting bored and not learning more might also have the same effect.

Artist Formerly Known as Matt said:

Yes it is great info .... BUT.

The problem is, it's specific to a 151 tuned instrument.

And only to playing blues ( or what ever ) chord progressions. His advice won't work for a 4 string tuned dgbe.

 

My advice still stands. Learn 3 chords (easy). Play (fun). Add chords ( learn and grow). Play ( more fun). Pick melodies ( growing again).

 

BTW- for those that would rather pick than strum, a 3 string tuned 151 and played like a strummer is the way to go.

Permalink Reply by Fitzhugh on December 31, 2010 at 10:29am

Mark Bliss, thanks for the kind words on my post! It's worth the effort if someone learns from it.

TAFKA Matt has a good point, and I should have written it more broadly, or at least have stated the narrow focus in the beginning. I'll try and rewrite it soon.

I'm sure there are lots of good posts with info for the beginner, but this site is falling victim to it's success, stuff gets lost due to the sheer volume, even with search. I think we need a wiki style portion of the site for documentation. 

 

Anyhow, DGBE is the same as the first (highest) 4 strings on a guitar, so you can use guitar chord charts and ignore the two lowest strings. You can also use baritone ukulele chord charts. I uploaded one I found at http://www.thecipher.com/ukulele_434_dgbe_chords.html

 

Alternately, you could tune the high string up a whole step (two frets) to d, an octave above the lowest string (the same pitch as the low string fretted on the 12th fret). That gives you the top four strings of spanish tuning, aka open G.

One of the benefits there is that super simple one finger barre chords are major chords, though the root is on the 3rd (G) string, not the 4th string. In other words, the chord is named from the note you're playing on the 3rd string. If you are playing by yourself it won't really matter, follow the post linked above, most of what I wrote will apply.

Keni Lee Burgess sells a series of video lessons via ebay and disk 5 covers this tuning. Search youtube for samples of his videos. I can't compare to Bluesman Jag's CD. 

 

So... my not so informed advice for the beginner with a four string:

if you want to play blues easily with mostly barre chords, strumming and slide, start with that open G tuning. If you want to learn the chord fingerings now and play most any song from a song sheet that shows chords, trade those easy chords for more easily playing in different keys and go with the DGBE tuning.

Only remember, they are just a moment's retuning apart. You can try both or switch between the two repeatedly.

Attachments:

• Basic_UkeChordsDGBE_Cipher.pdf, 526 KB

Permalink Reply by Fitzhugh on December 31, 2010 at 4:52pm

by the way, I meant to write "tune DOWN to D" not up. The high string drops two frets worth to D. yeah, I learned the alphabet and know d comes before e, but it was a long time ago.

Permalink Reply by Wicked Moon on March 4, 2011 at 11:46am

Ok, stupid question.... On the 3 string chord chart, what do the open circles mean on the frets?


Jared King said:

3 string chord chart.pdf


DAEchordchart.pdf


I, too, suffer from this difficulty. The first thing I can recommend is watching Shane's video series here on the Nation. Practice the plucking that he uses, with the thumb plucking the top two strings in turn and the index finger plucking the bottom string.

Next, practice scales. He shows you both the mid-eastern and blues scales. Do them until they are second nature. I'm at that point, and I'm now figuring out what's supposed to be next. I'm going to order Keni Lee Burgess's DVD on 3 string cbg playing, which I think he sells for $9.99 plus shipping. I've tried watching some of his youtube videos, but he's way too technical in those for people like us with little musical experience.

Also, you can see the attached pdf files that will give you a general idea of chords for different tunings. I'm tuned AEA, so they're not much good to me.

Once you get those first two down, shoot me a PM, and I'll come back here to post where I am.

I've been at this for a month, and I'm starting to get frustrated with the lack of simple teaching stuff that is out there for people with no experience. It seems that the assumption is that everyone migrates over to cbgs from six-string guitars, which certainly isn't true.

Good luck

Permalink Reply by Richard G Caudill on March 26, 2011 at 4:02pm

ABSOLTELY GREAT !!!!!! I needed this badly  and is super east to understand

Fitzhugh said:

Here's a few quick-start suggestions, you might be past this, or might want simpler, let me know if you do.

TUNING YOUR GUITAR:

Before anything else, tune you guitar. Assuming it is tuned the way I expect, you'll hold the lowest (called 3rd) string down at the 7th fret and tune the middle (2nd) string so it is the same pitch. You'll hear "beats" when they're close but not in tune. Get it as close as you reasonably can, it makes a difference. I find it easier to tune the string up to the correct pitch instead of tuning down, even if I have to drop it down below the correct pitch to do so.
Next, fret the middle, 2nd, string at the 5th fret and tune the high (1st) string so that it is the same. If done correctly, it is now the same note as the 1st (lowest) string, only an octave higher. Verify this by fretting the 1st string at the 12th fret (aside: the 12th fret, which again is an octave higher than open, is right at the mid point in the string - file that away somewhere where it competes with forgotten phone numbers).

Check again by strumming all open a few times. Does it sound OK? If not, repeat. You can also find videos on youtube to tune to by searching something like "how tune 3 string cbg", but they might tune to a pitch that doesn't work well with your guitar's set of strings. The builder will probably have told you what tunings will work with the strings on it now.

PLAYING SOME MUSIC:
As for playing music, first just try playing something that will sound vaguely familiar, since these are chords used together in so many many songs. It's called a I-IV-V chord progression. I'll come back to what that means shortly, but for now you're going to play and not worry about meaning. I do need a way to tell you what to play, though, so...

I (roman numeral there, not letter) means play all strings open, left hand does nothing but look cool and hold up neck
IV means left hand frets all strings at 5th fret (yes, "four" is at "fifth" fret - again, will come back).
V means left hand frets all strings at 7th fret


1) Strum the open strings a few times, trying to play something vaguely in rythm. That's the I (one) chord (again, will explain that below)
2) Strum all the strings fretted on the 5th fret (use finger or slide). That's the IV chord
3) Move up two frets and strum all strings fretted on the 7th fret. That's the V chord

Now combine these in various combinations.

Each roman numeral represents one measure here, which means strum that chord four times in a row, so
IV
means fret all on 5th fret and go "Strum strum strum strum"

Try the following:
I, IV, V, V and repeat
Or
I, IV, V, IV
Or
I, I, IV, V
and so on.

BASIC 12 BAR BLUES CHORD PROGRESSION:

Once the above feels right, try a simple 12 bar blues progression (bar here is just another name for measure):

I, I, I, I

IV, IV, I, I

V, IV, I, I

Remember, each individual roman numeral represents one measure, and while measures can be made up of different numbers of beats, and the basic beat used can have different values, the most common one is 4/4, where there are four beats per measure. So, in tab format, the above would look like:



I I I I
|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|
|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|
|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|


IV IV I I
|-5--5--5--5-|-5--5--5--5-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|
|-5--5--5--5-|-5--5--5--5-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|
|-5--5--5--5-|-5--5--5--5-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|


V IV I I
|-7--7--7--7-|-5--5--5--5-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|
|-7--7--7--7-|-5--5--5--5-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|
|-7--7--7--7-|-5--5--5--5-|-0--0--0--0-|-0--0--0--0-|

Google "how to read tablature" if you need help reading the above, or just ask, I'll be happy to explain. If you google it, though, remember that the explanation probably ues normal 6 string tab in the examples. The concept is the same, just fewer strings AND the strings are tuned differently.

Notice I haven't used any note names here. That is because the interval between notes is often more useful to work with than the notes themselves. You can play the same progressions above and they'll work regardless of what key your guitar is tuned to - in other words, regardless of whether your guitar is tuned AEA, DAD or GDG, etc.

The I IV V progressions in each of the 12 keys are:

A, D, E
Bb, Eb, F
B, E, F#
C, F, G
Db, Gb, Ab
D, G, A
Eb, Ab, Bb
E, A , B
F, Bb, C
F#, B, C#
G, C, D
Ab, Db, Eb

(cut & pasted out of laziness from http://www.zebrakeys.com/lessons/beginner/chords/?id=10)

So, if you're playing a guitar tuned AEA your I IV V chords are A, D, E:

And 12 bar blues in A would be:
A A A A
D D A A
E D A A

... and so on. Again, the note names kinda matter less than the intervals. To play blues chord progressions you need to know what key the others are playing in, and then you just play the notes.

If you are playing 12 bar blues in B, for example, you could just move all three chords up a couple frets each, so that you are playing the I on the second fret, the IV on the 7th fret and the V on the 9th fret, all still played with barre chords.

You can do a lot with these barre chords, but you'll want to learn other chords. Just like with barre chords, how you can play the same "shape" up and down the neck to make different chords of the same type, you can learn other shapes and move them up and down the neck. Probably the three most important to learn would be Major, Minor and 7th. I'll try and write up about those too if you like. Please tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, if you need something more complex or simpler.

Permalink Reply by Richard G Caudill on April 5, 2011 at 4:41pm

I read it also ,, needed this info   ,, making the transistion from 6 to 3    tks

Permalink Reply by Fitzhugh on April 6, 2011 at 6:19am

I'm glad it is still helping folks. PM me if you have any questions about the post, and remember it is for 151 tuning, as was pointed out above, though much of the info in useful more broadly.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page