Hello all! I put my guitar down for the longest time. Then I ran across Syns videos and it has inspired me to pick them up again! I got really frustrated trying to figure out scales a couple years ago. Hoping now that I'm a bit older and more disciplined that I can get back into it. I was thinking of just starting from scratch completely, back to the begginer videos. Any advice for a returning player?
Getting back to it!
- Thread starter Brian G
- Start date
I think that's a pretty good thing to just go back to basic! But also, don't forget to have fun with guitar. Yes, watch the beginner lessons (lessons are down at the moment but we will have them back up asap) but also, don't hesitate to just play along music that you like and just have fun with it! But just know that if you need anything, I'm sure there always will be someone in the forums who will be happy to help!
Welcome! Some advice I could think of right now is the scales are variations of the Major Scale so that's where to start. Practice with a metronome or steady beat. Recording yourself to watch/listen so either you or others can see/hear what's good and what can be improved on. Play sometimes with a clean tone to hear how things ring, could be unwanted noise that's hard to hear with distortion on. Do stretches and set limits to the time spent learning, focus may go and something like the stuff needs to settle. Learning is different than jamming out. I also am somewhat a returning player cause had some type of apathy for nearly 2 years, since learning here I noticed lot's of improvement.
Thanks for the advice! So far iv been able to pick up I would say 40% of the song iv left off playing. I guess my ultimate goal is to be able to improvise on any song. Unfortunately I never learned to read music or understand tabs, I simply have been playing by ear. Seeing as how the lessons are down, any advice on a place where I might find a guide on major scales?
To read tab, the numbers means the fret, if they are stacked on each other the notes are played at the same time like a chord. Tabs are written so that the low E string is on the bottom so it's like the fretboard of your guitar is facing in front of you upside down. That's kind of the base of it, there's more quotation markings that eventually should try to understand, possibly a legend key online with descriptions. Things like bends, palm mutes etc.
The Major Scale is like Do Rae Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, so you find the first Do you want and climb up to the next in pitch. Could start any string, I saw earlier there's a tab of it starting on one string in lesson 7. I think it was the C Major scale to learn first cause there's no Sharps or Flats to start. Try to remember how it sounds so it's easy to find eventually. It's also playable in boxes/positions, on one string and I haven't tried it yet possibly string skipping and intervals.
When I'm jamming with a song usually I end up with a group of notes that sound good and I think that's a scale
maybe it's a lot at once
The Major Scale is like Do Rae Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, so you find the first Do you want and climb up to the next in pitch. Could start any string, I saw earlier there's a tab of it starting on one string in lesson 7. I think it was the C Major scale to learn first cause there's no Sharps or Flats to start. Try to remember how it sounds so it's easy to find eventually. It's also playable in boxes/positions, on one string and I haven't tried it yet possibly string skipping and intervals.
When I'm jamming with a song usually I end up with a group of notes that sound good and I think that's a scale
maybe it's a lot at once
Actually this makes quite a bit of sense to me. I didnt realise it was ment to look like you were looking down at the guitar so that's very helpful. I'll give C Major scale a try this weekend since I'm off for 4 days and see how it feels. I appreciate the help, thank you so much!
So, Iv definitly made progress as far as scales go now I think. Since the lessons have been down here I found someone named Steve Stine on YouTube. He gives excellent explanations. You know it's funny iv dabbled in guitar for almost 30 years but I never understood where all the notes were on guitar. He definitely dumbed it down for me. So now iv got C Major and Minor Penatonic first position down pretty easy. I didn't realise there was 5 positions so now iv got a ton more work to do 
Figuring out the positions took less time then I thought it would, just an evening. However now that I know them, I feel like bringing them together is going to be very tricky. And I feel like iv gotten to this point to fast, there has to be something I'm missing. Obviously I have only played them in the key of A. Any advice on practicing these positions and tying them together? Maybe a couple songs that have emphasis on all the positions of pentatonic? So I can grasp the idea of what it is I'm trying to build
They connect at points and can even move mid scale. I'm not 100% sure but practicing these same scales with different key backing tracks gives differences, like modes, but that's probably wrong. There's tracks with only F playing throughout only and it's good to test how it could sound over F for example. Something like that.
I'm not thinking too clearly now, my bad
PG said something like the CAGED chords connect at the outer ends of the chords going either way. I don't know if that helps you some.
In some of the other lessons there's exercises that connect them nicely, I forgot which ones. They are laid out progressively.
One pattern is like 3 slide to 5 hit 7 then up a string 5-7 and repeat the pattern up the neck and on the B string need to go up a fret more cause the layout.
I'm not thinking too clearly now, my bad
PG said something like the CAGED chords connect at the outer ends of the chords going either way. I don't know if that helps you some.
In some of the other lessons there's exercises that connect them nicely, I forgot which ones. They are laid out progressively.
One pattern is like 3 slide to 5 hit 7 then up a string 5-7 and repeat the pattern up the neck and on the B string need to go up a fret more cause the layout.
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Ah ok, so I know how to play those. And yeah I saw that they look pretty much identical to the scale. So if im reading what your saying correctly, the 2 connection points seeing as how it's a Barre chord, would be wherever my third and fourth finger land on the chord If im moving forward, or reverse if im going back? This very well could be ground breaking for me, im pretty excited 
. Wish I could watch PGs videos!
. Wish I could watch PGs videos!Yeah the outmost edge note, on some chords it looks obvious like the open D chord shape looks like the bottom of the Barred C chord shape.
I've been trying to connect dots sometimes exploring.
I think it's a few lessons further from the first Major scale lesson, it's probably good to start with the chord shapes maybe they're familiar.
The videos are about CAGED all those chords connect at the edge going up and it's the same chord tone but different shape, I forgot what chord it is.
Got to sleep ttyl
I've been trying to connect dots sometimes exploring.
I think it's a few lessons further from the first Major scale lesson, it's probably good to start with the chord shapes maybe they're familiar.
The videos are about CAGED all those chords connect at the edge going up and it's the same chord tone but different shape, I forgot what chord it is.
Got to sleep ttyl
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So iv been practicing minor pentatonic scale, getting the positions down and what not. For the first time I was able to do improvision and it actually sounded really legit! Pretty excited about it. My next question would be, iv done C Major scale, pentatonic positions 1 - 5, what should be my next goal to improve my playing? I'm sure speed comes with experience to some extent, but I definitly want to aim towards a shred style of play eventually. Thank you guy for helping me out these past few weeks as well!
I'm not sure, maybe try the arpeggios in the CAGED lessons and the minor ones. The double stops are really nice, it's where I feel lacking at the moment.
Could do chromatics to start building up speed and hand syncing also. While practicing try to do the reverse too, could be a lot of things like starting with an upstroke instead of down or the scales for examples. Moving the same thing around works in most cases too cause it's like going up or down in pitch.
If it sounds off to you usually moving a fret nearby fixes it, I think it's cause the B turns to C and E to F rule.
I'm not a teacher and think it's difficult
There's scale/chord formulas
So like altering the Major scale with the formula
If I remember it right the Major chord formula is 1-3-5 of the scale and to make it Minor you make the 3rd note Flat so it becomes 1-2-5.
Flat is like lowering the note 1 tone/fret Flattening the sound
Could do chromatics to start building up speed and hand syncing also. While practicing try to do the reverse too, could be a lot of things like starting with an upstroke instead of down or the scales for examples. Moving the same thing around works in most cases too cause it's like going up or down in pitch.
If it sounds off to you usually moving a fret nearby fixes it, I think it's cause the B turns to C and E to F rule.
I'm not a teacher and think it's difficult
There's scale/chord formulas
So like altering the Major scale with the formula
If I remember it right the Major chord formula is 1-3-5 of the scale and to make it Minor you make the 3rd note Flat so it becomes 1-2-5.
Flat is like lowering the note 1 tone/fret Flattening the sound
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The way I remember it is B and E don't get Sharps. So if your guitar is tuned to E then you start with an open 6th
E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# Then after that it's all octaves. It's pretty easy to remember if you coordinate major notes with fret numbers.
E 0
F1
G3
A5
B7
C8
D10
Obviously this is only on the 6th string, but the theory applies to all strings if you can remember that B and E are half steps (notes with no sharps)
E F F# G G# A A# B C C# D D# Then after that it's all octaves. It's pretty easy to remember if you coordinate major notes with fret numbers.
E 0
F1
G3
A5
B7
C8
D10
Obviously this is only on the 6th string, but the theory applies to all strings if you can remember that B and E are half steps (notes with no sharps)
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