If It Seems Impossible, It Probably Is
I learned to play guitar by spending a lot of time with my ear to the record player. Later, when I began teaching and wanted to show other people how to play songs they liked, I dug even deeper into transcribing. It would be hard to overestimate the value of practicing transcription, but it’s safe to say that the practice made me a much better guitarist and teacher. In addition, the benefits extended into multiple areas of musicianship, regardless of the instruments I worked with.
One of the most helpful lessons I learned, though, was guitar specific. In the early years, I would sometimes succeed in transcribing a complex instrumental, only to be disappointed as I began bringing it closer to performance level. I just couldn’t seem to get those few particular transcriptions reliably clean and accurate, regardless of how much I practiced. At some point it dawned on me that the player in the recording just might not have that much more strength, stretch, and speed than I, and something else might be going on.
I decided to return to deep listening, but with a more relaxed and open mind. When I did, I invariably found that if I changed the fingering, the tuning, or the position I was playing in, things got easy! In other words, when it seemed like something was impossible`(or at least unlikely) for me to execute well on the guitar, it probably was—the way I was doing it.
Possible Ways to Find Possible
The most common fix for the seemingly impossible involves using a capo. There are keys that are easy to play on the guitar—and keys that are not! If you’re dealing with unreasonable keys, a capo can often solve the problem.
When you’re trying to determine the best place for the capo, listen for the highest note and the lowest note. Place the capo so that you can reach both of those notes while playing in a “guitaristic” key, like C, G, D, E or A. Sometimes you’ll be able to reach all of the notes easily by using the capo in more than one place. In that case, do some deeper listening to determine the relationship of sounds across the strings.
The next possible solution is to retune your guitar. You may be surprised at how often those cool sounds you’re trying to replicate come from one or more strings being retuned. Again, listen for highest and lowest notes and for the sounds across the strings. If the lowest note is lower than your low E string, you know you are at least dealing with a dropped 6th string, if not a completely different tuning. If you hear certain notes that provide a drone or a pedal tone, staying consistent as the melody moves freely in different positions, you will also have a clue. You can increase your ability to recognize these things by playing in different tunings.
If your problem is technical, check your fingering. Fingering plays a critical role in playing clean and fast, so it pays to give it your attention!
Then There’s YouTube
If you’re only interested in songs that you can learn from online tutorials, you may not feel a need to work through these types of challenges. But even if that’s the case, you’ll improve your ear and learn a lot about your guitar by considering the possibilities. And, if you ever want to play the sounds in your head, rather than just the ones your fingers have memorized, you will appreciate them even more!
The Takeaway
Sometimes you just have to practice harder and smarter. Other times you just have to discover the easy way. Be open to both and things will go better!
Want to learn how to figure out things like this for yourself? Check out the tutorials in the Virtual Studio!
