Guitar Crosscurrents

How do you learn to play guitar chords online? Since January 2005, nearly 1000 people have taken my berkleemusic.com course called Berklee Guitar Chords 101.

Demonstration videos, interactive drills with Flash animation, hundreds of sample sound files and pdf materials provide the course instruction. Guitarists are able to post mp3 assignments using their favorite recording software or through use of readily available freeware. All of the posted musical examples appear in standard notation, with fretboard diagrams and TAB. Great Performance examples, featuring performances by dozens of guitar icons show how the course concepts pertain to the works of everyone from Wes Montgomery and John Coltrane to Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Grouped in sections of 20, online students from all over the world interact in weekly hour-long chats or through discussion forum posts. Everyone in the course is able to hear their fellow class members’ sound files and read the comments/suggestions posted by the teacher.

Putting the material together was a tremendous challenge. In addition to teaching at Berklee for over 20 years, I’ve done clinics in schools and colleges all over the world. There is a set of basic chord shapes that everyone needs. The need for drill and practice to enable guitarists to have true command of these voicings is a perfect match for the infinite patience of the computer. Learning to spell triads, seventh chords, triads over bass notes and substitute chords in a single key takes time. Moving these shapes into all keys adds another challenge.

The reaction has been amazing. For many, the online approach is preferable to private lessons, DVD’s and instructional books. Participants love to see the material organized in an interactive atmosphere, adding teacher feedback, consistent deadlines, weekly recordings and a pool of fellow guitarists from all over the world—all helping to help the participants stay interested in the material. Unlike most classrooms, everyone is ‘called on’ to play their lesson every week. During online chats, guitarists hash out technical problems, in addition to talking about latest/greatest guitar heroes and guitar gear.

Guitarists find that there are few things more valuable than coming up with a solid set of procedures to get sound files online––getting a good sound onto the web is an essential step for today’s contemporary musician.

The course recently received the 2007 award for Best Online Course by the University Continuing Education Association, an international organization that evaluates online courses of all types. Take a look at berkleemusic.com to get a better idea of the enormous potential for online study.

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I’m a guitarist who loves gadgets. Even more than gadgets, I love music. Computers and music are getting closer every day. Nearly every gig I get involves musical charts and CD recordings. I like to use my computer to work the music up to tempo and drill any of the more difficult segments until they feel natural.

Amazing Slow Downer (www.ronimusic.com) is the best musical tutor/practice buddy/sparring partner that I can think of for any musician who with a computer (and $50). It’s software that gives you the power to crack the code on any musical excerpt that’s just out of reach—or a lick that’s made you give up hope.

The software gives you the capacity to change the speed of any mp3 without changing the pitch. It also allows you to change the key without changing the tempo, but without changing the speed.

Designed by a Scandinavian guitarist, it’s set up with musicians in mind—easy to use and brimming with functions. The interface allows the use of sliders or smaller arrow buttons to change parameters on a large or small scale.

Open any CD track or mp3 file through the File menu. Hit the space bar to play. Loops can be of any length. Click the ‘Start’ button to set the beginning of the loop and hit the ‘End’ button for the end. Change the ‘Stretch’ slider to vary from full speed to 400% slower. Hendrix, Beck, or Chet Atkins sound just as great as ever, but much slower, laying their cards out on the table for any guitarist to hear the notes in crystal clarity.

Pitch can be varied by half-steps or incrementally––handy for drop tunings or capo’d guitars.

Key commands allow lightning quick changes. I like to use the ‘X’ key to jump the loop coordinates forward to a the next segment of the same length. If you loop 4 bars of a blues head, hitting the ‘X’ key will move you to the next 4 bars.

Command ‘S’ allows you to export any given segment as an mp3 or aiff file. Teachers can burn copies of solos at various speeds for their students.

All those transcription books gathering dust on your shelves can suddenly be useful when you’re able to slow the music down to your reading speed, whatever that is… Bartok’s Violin Duets are relatively simple for violinists, but too tough for guitarists to read with recordings. It’s much easier to follow musical scores when they’re a bit slower. It’s also gratifying to correct mistakes found in many transcription books—why not work on the right notes while we’re at it? Work things up to full tempo and watch hours of productive practice go by.

Working material up for a concert is much more fun when you’re using recordings in the ways described above. One caveat, however: it is important to break it down to metronome-only accompaniment to make sure that you’re not overly reliant on some facet of the recording that may not be there to back you up during performance. The metronome, while monotonous, can really sound like the greatest drummer in the world when you’re playing with great time.

For whatever reason, I’m always in the process of reading about 5 books at once. I never finish all of them, and the books that are on the list change every week or so, but it’s the way I’ve always done it. I would love to finish all of the books, but I never do.

I’ve been reading Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser’s Art (Jazz Perspectives) by Andy Hamilton. Lee Konitz is a great alto saxophone player who’s turned 80 years old recently. He came to prominence as a collaborator with Miles Davis on the Birth of the Cool nonet project from the early 1950’s. He has a flow of consciousness sort of feel in his playing and his interviews are like that too. With extensive editing and additional interviews with other musicians who’ve played with Konitz, the portrait that emerges is very compelling and alive. A lot of attention is paid to Lee’s impressions of the work of his contemporaries, but my favorite sections involve his discussions of improvisation. One memorable quote: A great solo doesn’t care who plays it—meaning that virtuosity isn’t a requirement for excellence in jazz soloing.

Another book that I’ve been reading is about a virtuoso pianist and legendary teaching guru: Lennie Tristano: His Life in Music (Jazz Perspectives) (Hardcover) by Eunmi Shim. I’d read a complaint about this book on the Amazon.com site saying that the book had too little in the way of personal details and ‘too much analysis of his music and teaching techniques.’ Count me in! I’ve always been drawn to Tristano’s dark intervallic lines—kind of a musical answer to the moody film noir movies of the time.

A huge portion of Tristano’s time was devoted to teaching jazz. Students were required to listen to Lester Young solos, sing along with the recording, sing Lester’s lines without accompaniment, and, finally, put the solos onto the student’s instrument. Great music from the heart—placed there by lots of hard work!

I’ve always loved playing guitar and being involved with teaching. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you’re playing with musicians who love to perform as much as you do.

I’ve worked at Berklee for twenty years now, so I’ve gone through a lot of changes as a teacher and a musician. I’ve worked in Berklee’s Ear Training Department, where I co-authored three books with Scott McCormick. I’ve worked in what was called the Performance Studies Department, where I was honored to teach Jazz Improvisation classes alongside fellow faculty members Hal Crook, Ed Tomassi, Jim Odgren and others. For the last 15 years, I’ve worked with Guitar Chair Larry Baione and 60 other Guitar Department faculty members.

In the last couple of years, I’ve added working online for berkleemusic.com’s Berklee Guitar Chords 101 to my daily routine. Guitarists from all over the world have taken the course and I’ve been amazed by the common ground that all guitarists share. And, I’ve been blown away by guitar heroes who’ve inspired many to higher heights, or to start playing in the first place.

I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and perspectives—letting you know what I see as important to the past, present and future of guitar playing.—or, playing in general. I’ve been deep into a wide range of music and guitarists: Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney—as well as Jeff Beck, Joe Walsh, Mick Taylor and, lately, Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis and many others. Too many to mention, at least for now. Please check back for future blog posts.