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| Guitar Daily
Just received X_Japaan's guitar. This is a classic example of a teenage punk not knowing how to take care of his posessions - the guitar was dropped on the headstock and he said it broke only at the nut... or so he thinks... I was in the market for an EMG 85 to complement my already abundant stash of 81's. So he agreed to send me the guitar free of charge for just the pickup price. Sounds good to me.
| This is the photo of the guitar just after unpacking. The guitar has been mistreated and there's paint chips, glue (who the fuck glues picks to their guitar?! You use double sided tape!!!), and maybe some bodily fluids... not sure. A wipe down with Goo-gone should do the trick. |
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| As mentioned, the nut is completely screwed. It's broken on the low-E side and also it's basically lost the adhesion. Luckily, pre-slotted graphite Trem-nuts could be had for $10. You could also opt to get them custom cut at NJAMS or L&M... whatever tickles your fancy.... |
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| Now... this is what I call a sticky situation. At first glance (and from X's description) "only the nut sustained damage" (paraphrased). However, upon further inspection, it's very clear that where the nut broke off, there is a small crack propagating down the neck separating the fretboard and nut. Textbook damage for too much force horizontal force applied to the nut. |
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| The plot thickens.... Usually, guitars falling on their headstock will either be okay, or the neck will split. It's one or the other. It's very rare that enough force will be applied just to break the nut. As the following pictures show, this guitar suffered a classic 'blow to the head and splitting of the neck'. |
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As this picture will show, the crack isn't severe enough to break the headstock completely off. This is also an area where the strings help keep the headstock on the neck.
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| Okay... so off to fix it. We whip out the trusty wood glue and clamps - now... this is something to be careful about: there's many types of wood glue. For our purposes, we shall use Pro-Bond (Tite-Bond, Elmer's, LePage also works) since the area of breakage was kept pretty clean and also the strings will hold the neck in place anyway. Just make sure if you're using water soluble wood glue that a) you're not going to leave your car ever (the heat can melt the glue) and b) that you're not subjecting the glue joint to lots of moisture. Too much moisture - especially on a maple neck such as this one - could cause future problems. |
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A couple bonus pics
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| Before we start today, I'd like to clarify something: ei-51 was not involved in the performance of CASS's Game of Seven murder mystery drama. The band that played the ei-51 song was the club's own house band.
Guitar Daily
Alot of people don't realize how easy it is to play fast runs - as long as you develop a strategy that allows you to follow some sort of repetitive pattern. For example, a major 7th chord arpeggio could be played as follows:
E-------------------7-8-12-8-7-------------------
B-----------------8------------8-----------------
G---------------9----------------9---------------
D----------9-10--------------------10-9----------
A-----7-10------------------------------10-7-----
E-7-8----------------------------------------8-7-
Nothing wrong with this at all, it's also a standard way to play the sweep maj7 arpeggio (third inversion & root position depending on if you skip the first note or not). However, for increased speed, this pattern is too complex. A better way to approach this would be:
E--------------------------12-15-12-------------------------
B--------------------12-13----------13-12-------------------
G---------------9-12----------------------12-9--------------
D----------9-10--------------------------------10-9---------
A-----7-10------------------------------------------10-7----
E-7-8---------------------------------------------------8-7-
I strongly recommend playing this out on a guitar and seeing for yourself. What happens here is that since the pattern of a major 7th chord (Cmaj7 in this case) is made up of 4 notes, we choose to do 4 notes per cycle.. and just do it 3 times - since the intervals between each set of 2 strings are the same (remember, on a guitar, all strings are separated by a perfect 4th, except the G and B string). Doing that, you're just repeating the fingering by shifting over (i.e. what you're playing on the E & A string is repeated on the D & G string, just 2 frets over)
With this strategy, we could develop other patterns... say, the A minor scale for example.. what if we decided to play all 7 notes over 2 strings, and then just repeat that fingering pattern:
E--------------------------------------------10-12-13-s15-
B-----------------------------------10-12-13--------------
G------------------------7-9-10-s12-----------------------
D-----------------7-9-10----------------------------------
A-------5-7-8-s10-----------------------------------------
E-5-7-8---------------------------------------------------
E-17-15-13---------------------------------------------------------
B----------17-15-13-s12--------------------------------------------
G-----------------------14-12-10-----------------------------------
D--------------------------------14-12-10-s9-----------------------
A--------------------------------------------12-10-8---------------
E----------------------------------------------------12-10-8-s7-s5-
This is the lazy-man's way of playing fast and without much thinking :) Give it a shot!
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| "¯u±¤¤µ¤é¡A¦]¬°¥¦´N¬O©ú¤Ñ¬ü¦nªº¦^¾Ð ~ °Úª÷" - ª÷Âû2 | | |
| Guitar Daily
Hopefully by now you've gone thru the previous exercise and learned all 5 patterns inside and out. With that, you can now play all 5 patterns of pentatonics starting in ANY MINOR KEY as long as you know the root note position on the low E string (if you don't understand the previous statement, go and review your note names on each string!).
Today's lesson is simpler to understand yet involves more dexterity. This is for people who:
cannot break the speed barrier
stuck with playing the same pent. licks over and over
lack dexterity in finger movement
The exercise involves 2 pentatonic patterns. In this example, we shall employ the I and III patterns (look to reference guide below):
e----------------------------------------------------------
b----------------------------------------------------------
g----------------------------------------5-7-----------7-9-
d---------5-7-----------7-10---------5-7----------7-10-----
a-----5-7----------7-10----------5-7---------7-10----------
e-5-8---------8-10-----------------------------------------
e-----------------------------------5-8----------8-10------
b---------5-8----------8-10-----5-8---------8-10-----------
g-----5-7----------7-9------5-7---------7-9----------------
d-5-7---------7-10-----------------------------------------
a----------------------------------------------------------
e----------------------------------------------------------
and do the same in reverse of course (going back down).
Now, the beauty of this exercise is that it's transferable to all the other positions (i.e. we could use III & IV, IV & V, V & VII, VII & I etc...)! For example, using the next set of patterns (III and IV) we get:
e-------------------------------------------------------------------
b-------------------------------------------------------------------
g----------------------------------------------7-9-------------9-12-
d------------7-10--------------10-12------7-10-----------10-12------
a------7-10--------------10-12-------7-10----------10-12------------
e-8-10-------------10-12--------------------------------------------
etc....
And of course, this works in all keys...
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| Quick plug:
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Please come and support!
Guitar Daily
Okay, back to the lessons.
Today's lesson start with something a bit more melodic and practical -and it will develop into something with an ethnic twist eventually: pentatonics. The heart and soul of every rock guitar player are pentatonics scales. Let's go over the simple theory behind pentatonics first. I'll assume all of you come from a western music background.
Pent = 5, therefore, Penatonic is the 5 tone scale.
However, we will refer to the diatonic (7 tone) scales for reference.
Let's look at the simplest one: A minor scale
notes in A minor: A B C D E F G (A) and so forth
There are 7 distinct tones. For a pentatonic scale, we will only use 5 of those, namely the I, III, IV, V, and VII (1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th of the scale).
Hence, the A minor pentatonic is: A C D E G (A) and so forth.
When playing pentatonics there are 2 different approaches you must learn: playing by shape of the fingering "boxes" and also the notes themselves. It's especially useful to learn the A minor note locations since they have no sharps or flats (accidentals).
The five distinct box shapes are as follows:
How to read this:
The 6 lines represent the strings, with the thinnest high e at the top and thickest low e at the bottom. The 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7's are the NOTES - NOT THE FRETS. The patterns are named I, III, IV, V, VII according to the note in the pentatonic scale that it starts.
Let's do an example. A minor pentatonic distinct notes:
I - A
III - C
IV - D
V - E
VII - G
Therefore, for pattern I, we will be starting on the A position on the bottom e string. The tablature that follows is:
e---------------------5-8-|-8-5---------------------
b-----------------5-8-----|-----8-5-----------------
g-------------5-7---------|---------7-5-------------
d---------5-7-------------|-------------7-5---------
a-----5-7-----------------|-----------------7-5-----
e-5-8---------------------|---------------------8-5-
See if you could visualize pattern one's box pattern shape onto the fretboard while you're playing that!
Now, while you're doing that, you also want to take note of the 1, 3, 4, 5, 7's written.. therefore, you should be reading out the note names while you're playing. So when you're playing the first two notes, you should be saying "A", "C" and etc...
NOTE: Do not continue until you understand the above.
Now look at pattern III. Pattern III is called such since it starts on the 3rd note of the scale: C in this case. If you look carefully and did the above, you would've noticed that "C" was the second note played. So now, you start on that exact "C" and play the pattern by superimposing that box shape onto the fretboard like so:
e--------------------------8-10-|-10-8--------------------------
b---------------------8-10------|------10-8---------------------
g-----------------7-9-----------|-----------9-7-----------------
d------------7-10---------------|----------------10-7-----------
a------7-10---------------------|---------------------10-7------
e-8-10--------------------------|--------------------------10-8-
Two things to notice:
The box shape overlaps! If you didn't see this, look again. All the notes on the left hand side of box shape III overlap box shape I. Keep this in mind
The tones should be exactly the same. If you start at the A and play until the next A, it should sound the same - thus a scale.
We will stop here for today.. this is alot to digest - even for those of you who have already taken lessons on pentatonics. I urge you to learn this and make it part of your active knowledge. In addition, the fingering you should use for this depends on the type of player. Certain players (i.e. Zakk Wylde) tend to use 2 fingers: index and ring ONLY. Paul Gilbert assigns one finger per fret for each pattern. Please leave a comment if you don't understand any of this. But also try reading it over a couple more times first! | | |
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