Tag Archives: guitar
Guide by the Perplexed — Triad Tirade
“A triad is a simultaneous combination of three notes.” (Ralph Denyer, “The Guitar Handbook,” Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006) The introductory sentence to the “Triads” section of this useful guide distracts me from triads. I’m drawn off the mark … Continue reading
Guide by the Perplexed — More Inconvenience
“It seems I am choosing words that will stand, and you are in them, but if I blunder, it doesn’t matter — I must persist in my errors. (Boris Pasternak, “For Anna Akmatova,” translated by Robert Lowell in “Imitations”) The … Continue reading
Guide by the Perplexed — No Money Shot
An old advertising tag-line for an investment firm was voiced by the British-American actor John Houseman: “We make music the old fashioned way; we earn it.” Houseman, of course, said “money,” not “music.” In my effort to show with strong, … Continue reading
Guide by the Perplexed — Mind Over Method
Pinterest thinks I’m interested in quick-and-dirty guitar: “This article will show you the best method ever of how to efficiently learn and memorize the notes on a guitar neck in the shortest amount of time.” I’ve seen the exact number … Continue reading
Guide by the Perplexed: NODS & Buck-Effing
I’m not a rocker or blues man on a Gibson. I can make a long-fingered foray into the twelfth-fret region, but it’s not fruitful. When I mention “buck-effing” around the fretboard, therefore, only one B-C and E-F pair obtains per … Continue reading
Guide by the Perplexed — Crossed Eyes, Dotted Tees
Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the cloud of unknowing, I shall fear no malaise, for thy clef and thy stave, they comfort me. I pause from the demented abstraction of this serialized soliloquy, this goofy guide, to … Continue reading
Guide by the Perplexed — Consolidation
The OO states uncover a consistency that helps learn what 8 natural notes are produced at 12 fret-based coordinates. Let’s use a notation specifying string-fret, then note. Example: “1-7B.” In the example, the initial digit (‘1’) designates string 1. The … Continue reading
