Where do I start

Travisthedog

So been playing in my band for about 14 years an we are pretty successful on the local circuit o pubs wedding and parties.

Firstly - I'm a drummer by trade, and then a self taught guitarist.

The time had come to step it up a bit though. I'm not naturally talented and learn most things by ear - if you asked me to play something in the key of G I wouldn't know where to start - I've no idea about modes and I know the penatatonic scale - roughly.

Ask me a to play a specific chord like a Gm7 and although I probably play it - I wouldn't know what it is.

Are there any online tutors or tools I can use? I work away from home an awful lot and could utilise the hotel room down time by trying to sharpen my act a bit

I've tried local guitar teachers in the past but they never really know what to do with me as I have 14+ years of bad habits!!!

You lot seem to know what your talking about - can anyone help???

randomhandclaps

Regardless of what you feel are your current limits you obviously possess enough skill to be in your make a relative success of your situation.  One question would be are you looking to learn to just improve yourself or is there a specific something you feel you need to be able to do to push forward from your current gigging perspective? 

If it's solely self improvement then it's open house.  However if there is something that you feel would help your band improve try and target that initially.  There are plenty of guys who make a success at being really good at a limited set of things.  What specifically would you like to be able to do that you currently can't?

octatonic

Study the major scale, how to harmonise the major scale and how to modulate through all keys using the cycle of 5ths.

It is better if you have someone to take you through it, rather than working it out yourself.

You can do it alone- but it is harder as you won't know when you are missing an important fact, or getting stuff wrong.

monquixote

As Oct says. 

Learn the Major scale then learn how chords are made out of the major scale. 

Then learn that the major and minor scale are the same just starting on different notes.

This will teach you just about everything you need to know for basic music theory. 

I wrote an article intended to be fairly approachable about why most songs have pretty much the same chords in them.

http://www.easyeartraining.com/learn/four-chords-and-the-truth/

mike_l

I'd start with learning scales. Both pentatonic and diatonic, and major/minor.

And the names of the notes.

As you can already play to a good gig-ready level I wouldn't worry about techniques.

and as Oct says harmonise/modulate them

Start with C major, and use the modes exercise I put up elsewhere. Then using the same exercise do it in different keys. It'll help your ear.

To start you off the chords from a Cmajor scale are

C - Dm - Em - F - G - Am - Bdim - C

Then add extensions to the chords (7th 9th etc) And learn where each note of the chord is in the shape (C-shape 1/3/5/1/3 or C-E-G-C-E low-high)

fnpt

Just go to Justin Sandercoe's web site and follow his course with different levels for begginers and intermediate players.

Misterg

St. Justin's 'Practical Music Theory' is good for the basics mentioned above. It's a tenner to d/l the pdf file, but well worth it IMHO

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/PR-010-PracticalMusicTheory.php

/fanboi_mode

close2u

BIG BIG plus 1 for Justin Sandercoe

Buy a bundle for yourself for christmas ...  http://justinguitar.com/en/PR-099-ProductPackages.php

you could do with

Master the Major Scale

Really Practical Music Theory

Blues Lead

Beginner & Intermediate Courses

Really Useful Strumming Techniques (I and II) ... this'll tie in with your drumming skills

and then some other stuff will keep you happy for some time to come

http://justinguitar.com/en/PR-099-ProductPackages.php

 

EricTheWeary

Having had a basic knowledge of music theory for many years I realise I would have been much better developing my ear so I would gladly swap!

In many ways music theory is better at explaining what you have done rather than helping you create something new, a little music theory can actually be downright inhibiting. Western music theory is a better match for classical music, nursery rhymes and hymns than it is for blues based modern pop and rock and sometimes you need quite complicated theory to explain what is perfectly simple on the fretboard.

Having said that I played in a band with a keyboard player who had a great ear but no theory knowledge at all. Really amazingly little.In practice this was a communication barrier. If you said 'can we do a stop on the fourth bar' or 'do a chromatic run from the E to the A' this was a foreign language to him. So, some basic vocabulary and knowledge that is common to players across different instruments and levels is a useful thing.

Not that I am saying more in depth theory is somehow useless, that would be ridiculous. I think @randomhandclaps hit the nail on the head. Ideally you would think a bit more about what you need to understand the theory for.

close2u

EricTheWeary said:

Having had a basic knowledge of music theory for many years I realise I would have been much better developing my ear so I would gladly swap!
 

Justin has that covered too ... lessons on ear training

http://justinguitar.com/en/AU-000-AuralTraining.php

 

Basher

Travisthedog said:

I'm not naturally talented and learn most things by ear

That, to my mind, is a contradiction.

IMO Naturally talented people seem to have the ability to learn by ear. Cloth-eared fuckwits like myself are constantly relying on charts, diagrams, tabs and the like to make sense of it. 

As an example, I doubt that Paul McCartney was trying to write in specific modes when he came up with some of those killer melodies. 

You have 14+ years of bad habits fantastic experience as a musician. This is worth more than all the lessons in the world could teach you. Absolutely nothing wrong with learning some theory. At the very least it's a kind of shorthand that will enable you to communicate with other musicans more effectively. Far easier to say "G minor 7th" than "that slightly wistful sounding one with a barre across the third fret where you don't play the second most thick string".

Apart from that, it's just a case of what you're objectives are. If you want to sit in with a smoking jazz quartet then you are going to need to put some savage time into learning theory. If you're writing your own songs that you will play and record then you might not need to do anything. I'd guess the approach will be somewhere between the two!

Travisthedog

Love it @basher

Your description of Gm7 is absolutely how I would describe it to another guitarist!!

Basher

Travisthedog said:

Love it @basher

Your description of Gm7 is absolutely how I would describe it to another guitarist!!

I have a friend, who is a great musician, who speaks this way.
We've had hours of endless fun mixing up the E strings, along the lines of:

Friend: You just play the notes on the top string
Me: Errr, I thought this was a bass run into the G chord

Friend: Yes, a run into the wide fingers with no middle bit chord, that's why I said the top string. It's on top. The skinny ones are on the bottom
Me: OK. So I play open, second fret, third fret on the sixth string?
Friend: No! The first string

Me: Sorry, I usually call the low E the sixth string

Friend: The low E must be the lowest string on the guitar so it's the highest sounding one - that skinny one that breaks when you do that stretchy thing with them to make the sound go up. The fat one is the first one you come to as you strum, so that must be the first string. 
Me: ......err.......

Travisthedog

Absolutely priceless mate!!!

sted

Learn the five pentatonic positions on the fretboard and all your root positions in every key, learn the CAGED system for moving chords about, learn the seven church modes, put it altogether. Voila.

Well not voila but thats enough theory to cover just about any eventuality for an average guitar player.