The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

I like this question: "If you were banished to a desert island, what records would you bring?" One reason why I Iike this question is because it encapsulates a concept about music that most people normally miss: Music is an escape. The desert island question asks us quite simply what records we couldn't live without. These are the records that steady and center us. These are the records that we could theoretically use to escape the doldrums of living on a desert island, where we would apparently have no other entertainment.

It wouldn't be a surprise to me if someone had named Sgt. Pepper as a desert island record. The Beatles are well-known for many reasons. For lack of a less pithy explanation, they were able to help a lot of people forget about their troubles with their music. Playing guitar along to their music is like getting a transfusion of this escape. It's highly recommended! Similarly, playing the chords to a Rolling Stones' song on your own is far, far different than playing along with their recording. There is a push, a rush, a beauty to songs that we miss if we just played the chords and strummed at any pace we feel like. I am certainly not knocking anyone's desire to make a song more personal, don't get me wrong! Playing along with a record however is the best way to feel that escape, to feel why a song is awesome. Not surprising either that it's a fantastic way to get better at guitar.

My desert island picks? Well, I would have to say that Sigur Ros's Parenthesis album would most certainly make the cut.

Hard chord progressions pop up from time to time. About the only thing we can count on is that they will show up, and that they will stretch our technical ability. Here are some things I do when a chord progression is giving me difficulty:

1. I will take the chord progression completely out of context and make it without any rhythm at all. The presence of rhythm on any chord progression adds a subtle stress on the player. "I better get this right or it will sound bad." Taking the progression out of context in this way helps tremendously. Bonus: You could watch TV while doing this.
2. Look in a mirror at your jaw. Do you notice any movement? If you do, there is probably tension there. To understand this point better, read this blog post.
3. The order of the fingers arriving to the new chord is the least looked at aspect of playing chord progressions. If you see your fingers not getting to the new chord all at the same time, then perhaps you need to take the chord further out of context and rhythm. Playing chords is often like hopping and skipping from one to the other. All the fingers need to land all at the same time.
4. Graceful Degradation of rhythm. If you are ready to add rhythm, make sure to allow yourself to go slow if you need to. If you aren't quite up to speed just yet, it's okay to go slower! Just make sure you aren't forcing it.

Enjoy!

Strumming loudly has it's place, but what does it accomplish? If we are talking about rock and roll, it accomplishes a lot. Of course, there a lot of power and aggression with strumming loudly. People like the sound of aggressive strums especially when playing music with more energy. However, there are other situations where strumming with a bit more control, a bit less volume, and playing a bit more "cloud-like" is appropriate. The following entry is all about understanding what strumming loudly does, as well as reasons for easing up on the volume.

The following are some not-so-good consequences of strumming loudly:

1. The left hand usually tightens up. This is usually an experience factor, meaning that it's possible to play loudly and not have the left hand tighten up when one has a bit more time on the guitar.
2. Since the left hand is tighter, the pressure used on one chord is immense, and it makes getting to a new chord a bit more difficult.
3. Every buzz, at the result of finger positioning not being close to the fret, get's magnified.

The solution? Like all of them, this is something I wouldn't have ever figured out if I didn't teach: Play guitar like a nice rolling cloud is ambling over the country side. Of course you can also get in touch with your inner zen, reach satori, and/or levitate. Those might help, and if you figure any of those out let me know. Especially the levitate part. That would be really cool and I would love to have a nice new party trick. Anyhow, just imagine the cloud going over the country side while strumming and watch what happens. This has the effect of making most fret buzzes dissapear, loosening up the left hand, and giving you more control over strumming and changing chord progressions.

As the title of this blog suggests, the mindset a person gets into when strumming a guitar is analogous to Harry Houdini. We sort of dissapear into the music, and magically reappear after the song is done. The more that time stops when you or I are playing guitar, the more fun it probably was. Even more so, perhaps we become like Guitarzan.

One thing that gets overlooked in guitar strumming is how and where to emphasize a beat. Four-Four rhythms tend to sound blocky. Usually each beat gets an emphasis. To get a greater and more effective rhythm, it sometimes helps to pick only one beat to emphasize. Often it's the first beat, at least in a lot of rock.

It's fun to experiment with. Since it's a subtle thing, my suggestion is to listen carefully for how other artists will play a song. Better yet, listen to Spoon's new record. He restructures different rhythms all over. Fun listen too.

There really isn't a wrong way to hold a guitar pick. That's the good news. The rub is that it does take some getting used to, whichever way is chosen. I've seen quite a few ways to hold a guitar pick. The following pictures are what I see a lot when I teach.
Choose your own adventure.

When it comes to strumming a rhythm, there are two tricks I share with people learning. First, observe people who play acoustic rhythm guitar, but really to zero in on their tapping foot and their strumming hand. The movements of the two are very coordinated, and both up and down together. Then, mimic it. Forcing the two movements to be together, the hand down with the foot down and vice-versa, tends to create a very solid rhythmic foundation .

This doesn't always work. If you think about it, there are two things a person has to do. There is strumming and there is the coordination of the foot and hand. If someone is having trouble with this strumming, I'll ask them to direct their attention to the movement of the hand and the foot together and pay no attention to the strumming altogether. If this coordination happens, then it is easier to play rhythm. It's funny. Ignore the strumming and rhythm gets better.

The reason? The actual strumming is often secondary to a good pulse. Mistakes are inevitable in any musical situation. Keeping the pulse even if the strumming isn't working keeps a song in rhythm. If a person internalizes the pulse, it will feel like they have the song even if they mess up. The pulse is a very good thing.

Maybe that's why I can't stop tapping my foot after a song has finished?