Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 24, 2014 at 3:17am

And that's why I said you need a diddley bow ;-). Or at least a fretted canjo. Anything you play on one string will be OK music. You can also alternate which string you use on your wonky 3-string. Pretty soon, you'll find you can alternate notes on alternate strings. Pretty soon after that, you'll find you've magically created scales and melodies. You keep saying you want to play rock. OK, which rock SONG do you want to learn, on one string?

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Permalink Reply by Scruggy on September 24, 2014 at 8:35am

Two many rock songs to mention but to start Boston more than a feeling, metallica nothing else matters, ACDC jailbreak!
I understand the scales going from one string to the next as opposed toing do rai me etc all along the one string!

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 25, 2014 at 10:46pm

You know, I went back and re read this, and came away with this:

String height problem
String buzz problem
String closeness problem

Can you post a few pics of your badly made Git, and measures its scale length (nut to 12th fret and nut to bridge)? Specifically, based on what stated problems you have above, I'd want to see it strung up with all three strings, and check the bridge height and any compensation angle, individual string heights at first and 12th fret, string diameters, nut slots, string break angle over the nut and bridge / saddle, neck back angle if any, how flat and even the frets and fret height are (you can check this with the long edge of a credit card, three frets at a time, by rocking the card to see which, if any, is the highest fret), and fretboard height above the box. First thing I'm thinking is your bridge / saddle combo is of uneven height across the strings. Another possibility is severe neck bow. With pics, we might be able to diagnose the partial unplayability of your git, and suggest some options to make it more playable.

Or you can turn it into a one or two string diddley bow until your canjo arrives...

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 24, 2014 at 3:03am

You're worng. >:-E

(Someone had to...and Wayfinder knows I'm kidding. Sort of. Maybe...)

Meanwhile, in other news, and in case you were wondering, Texas blues wasn't all derived from T-Bone Walker: http://www.wonderingsound.com/spotlight/texas-guitar/

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on September 24, 2014 at 11:36am

Hi Scruggy,

Chords are made up from the notes of the scale. A major chord uses the notes from the major scale, and a minor chord uses the notes from the minor scale.

On a cigar box guitar with G open tuning, the strings are tuned 1 5 1. If you do barre "power" chords you'll be missing 3b, 6, 7b, etc. where all the "flavors" of the various chords are.

Like the others are saying,  you can approximate the more complex chords by doing riffs based on the scale/chord you're trying to do. You can do riffs either across the three strings similar to a guitar at what you could call the "first position" - the first 4 frets or so. You can also do two note chords (dyads) on the first and second strings (the two skinniest ones), up and down the neck.

I'm sure there are other places to play scales and more complex chords, but those are the ones that came easiest to me and what I play the most.

You can make a heck of a lot of great music even with those limitations.

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Permalink Reply by Scruggy on September 24, 2014 at 11:57am

Can you explain the two note chords like give an example as I don't think I've heard much about them?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 24, 2014 at 3:07pm

One way I think about this, in part thanks to The Phrygian Kid, is to consider a 3-string (or 6) guitar as a combination of a bunch of 1, 2, 3 (and 4, 5 and 6, in the case of a 6-stringer) string instruments, all with a variety of tunings. I've been playing standard git for 38 years, and it wasn't until 2years ago, after having been on this site for a year or so, that this finally became clear to me. It would have been clearer had I started out on a diddley bow or 3-stringer before progressing to a 6-stringer. In the case of a G-D-G 3-banger, you have a couple of possibilities for this: a 2-string G-D power chord G5, utilizing the lowest two strings with the lowest G as the root, and ignoring that first high G string; and a "reentrant" tuning, D-G, ignoring the third lower G string. You can play two note, two finger power chords on that G-D all day long up and down the neck at every fret, because of the 1-5 tuning relationship. If you are familiar with the E-G-A, E-G-B-A power chord riff from Deep Purple's classic "Smoke On The Water" (duhnt duhnt dah, duhnt duhnt dah dah, duhnt duhnt dah, dah dah), it's basically the same thing except using 3 fingers, and the lowest 3 strings on a 6-stringer, instead of two fingers and two strings, although you can also do it with two strings and two fingers. Look up the original TV show footage of DP on YouTube, and you get some very clear shots of Ritchie Blackmore playing the riff this way. Just one example of some classic rock for ya ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Scruggy on September 25, 2014 at 11:37am

I always get this mixed up but you say " ignoring the third lower G string" is this lower in pitch string thickest string or the actual lowest string thinnest string?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 25, 2014 at 2:44pm

Lowest in this case means lowest in pitch, the thickest string, the one nearest to you if you are a right hander.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 25, 2014 at 6:49pm

This little point drives me nuts sometimes...in conventional music parlance, low or bottom string means the lowest in pitch, high or top string means the highest in pitch. To me that's totally logical..BUT lots of guitar pl;ayers say "top" string simply because to them, physically it's on the top..ie highest away from the floor.

Ron, in my book you're right, low G is the 3rd or bottom string on a 3 string guitar...I suppose it's because was classically trained (honest!) . For example, with orchestral instruments such as the fiddle, and especially with cello and double bass when you say low or bottom string , it's got to be the lowest in pitch, there can't be any other interpretation. I suppose with the guitar, people just make it up as they go along, and used whatever terminology suits them, which is fine, except when you start talking to other people, that's when conventional names come in useful.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 25, 2014 at 10:24pm

Not only that, but when you look at a pack of 6 guitar strings, many manufacturers now label them E1 ( the thinnest, smallest diameter, furthest away from a right hander, and also therefore, the first, or top, meaning highest pitch), and E6 ( the thickest, largest diameter, closest to a right hander, and thus the last or bottom, meaning lowest in pitch). Believe me this drove me nuts when I was first learning to play, and even now, every time I sit down with a however many stringed git, I still consciously have to remind myself where first / top and last / bottom are.

That's also why I feel it necessary to define it 3 or 4 different ways, by thickness, diameter, pitch, and relation to a right handed guitarist, so there's no doubt what I mean. If I used frequency or relation to middle C, some people would get pissed off ;-).

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Curley on September 25, 2014 at 8:24pm

Yep.

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