Instant gratification is the new mode even for musicians: You hear a song that you would love to play you do a lyrics and chord search on Google, which returns your search with a slew of options to learn from. No more waiting for Christmas, or a special event like a birthday to get a songbook as a present from your parents or girlfriend. Learning to play the basics of a string instrument today has become much easier. If you have an internet connection that gives you access to thousands of youTube videos and other websites that show you the chords and lyrics to your favorite songs and you’re committed to learn, you’ve got it made.Ī newbie does no longer need to go the book store and spend $20 a pop on a songbook, that only covered one or two songs you’d really liked to learn. By the 1980s this had become the norm and produced players like Eddie van Halen, Steve Vai, Gary Moore, Stevie Ray Vaughn and many others. Guys like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix stood out because they focused early on the combination of using the CAGED chord system in cooperation with their pick hand. Early Guitar Heroesįor many early rock and blues players in those days the focus was on the chord hand, with little attention to rhythm (strumming) hand techniques.
Originally country music was known for the expression: Three Chords and the Truth while Delta Blues could be referred to as Three Chords and the Blues. No, in those days, we learned to play tunes by taking a song like “House of the Rising Sun” by Eric Burton and the Animals, because it had a myriad of chords, versus the simplicity of a 12 bar blues using E, A and B.
( Photo caption: A handwritten lyrics book and some typed set lists from a band I played in from 1966-1969 primitive compared to now). If you were lucky and attentive in music class you might have picked up that there was a tone progression called do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti, representing the root notes for every chord. At best you realized that a guitar, as all other string instruments, has a neck, that offers ONLY 12 notes that are repeated in octaves horizontally and vertically across the strings and fretboard. Music theory up until then, especially for the new genres, was quite limited. Nobody who started out referred to a song in the key of A-B-C-D-E-F or G.Ĭalling the chords by numbers such as 1, 4 and 5 was unheard of. Pentatonic scales, diatonic scales, major scales and minor scales or modes were Greek to you as you tried to figure out the chords to a song. You had little knowledge of music theory and why certain chord groups go together. When at first a chord was too difficult, you replaced it with one you felt close enough to the original and slightly adjusted the singing if necessary. That’s when and where you learned.īack then, we went to lots of live concerts and watched guitarists do their thing and tried to emulate what they were doing when you got back to your room. Making music is a social thing and especially in the early days of classic rock, it was all about the gathering. You found others to play with and learn, or you went to a teacher and took lessons, often boring you beyond the passion for music. Well in the early days of rock and roll, r&b or blues, options were severely limited. If you’re a newbie and have to go through the entire learning process before you can impress yourself and others with your talents, you may want to consider one on one guitar lessons.If you’re already pretty advanced because music has been an active part of your life and you want to take yourself to the next level, your quest might be to find your best options? You made the decision and bought a guitar, or a banjo, a mandolin, or ukulele, because you wanted to learn to play it and enjoy live music.