Question Time! Ear Training; First Guitars and Muse Video Lecture - Guitar

it's going on everybody we're gonna
answer some questions today so please
feel free to leave any questions or
comments you have and I will try to get
to as many as I can
anyways let's get right to it Shaun what
do you think is the best way to train
your ears in order to improve your
perception of music now this is a great
question
learning by ear is a great way to learn
any instrument and training your ears is
a really important thing to do so I've
got a couple of suggestions maybe that
you can do the first thing I can't
stress hard enough is to be able to try
and play what you can hear so any kind
of melody that you can hum or think of
in your head try to play it on a guitar
just by searching around don't even
think about scale shapes whatever it is
kind of like experiment and find it and
eventually your your brain makes the
connections between your ears and your
fingers then you don't have to think
about it anymore kind of something like
like happy birthday or I like like
everybody knows what that sounds like
maybe if you just start trying to like
find the first note in any key you could
be here and you have that and then no
that's not right no that's not right
it's got to go higher and eventually
you'll find yourself guessing closer to
being right than wrong after just doing
it for a little bit what you're doing is
you're just you're training unbeknownst
to you different scale shapes into it
now one important thing to think about
is try to go across the strings I think
the the inclination when you first start
is to just maybe take one string be like
and go up a string but really as a use I
mean that's still good for training your
ears but it is a useful guitar technique
it's gonna be much more efficient later
on and you're gonna be happier being
able to being able to do things in one
handshape so really just kind of hunt
and peck around for different things
another great thing to do is uh like if
you're just like kicking it watching TV
or a movie or whatever there's always
music going on in any kind of media so
if you're watching like a TV show
there's always gonna be some kind of
subtle background music going on and
just having it on your hands and just
try to maybe play notes that are gonna
fit with the music it doesn't have to be
the exact melody of what's going on but
if you just kind of find out using your
ears and connecting with
happening on the TV - what you're
playing you're training yourself to find
what key that song is and stuff like
that even if you're not consciously
thinking about it also commercials
usually will have like kind of annoying
music with like really distinct melodies
in it that's a great way to just try to
mirror what's happening and be able to
translate what's going on in your head
to what you're actually playing now
another thing you can do to really more
formally train your ears is you can get
like an app or something on your phone
like I've got this phone called better
ears it used to be called Cara John or
something but I think they changed the
name on that on the latest update and
what it does is it'll actually play a
tone for you right it'll play like got
like an A or something and it could be
something just like that it'll play a
tone and then it'll ask you what it is
and you can be like a G G sharp a flat
whatever and it'll tell you how close
you are and just doing that for a couple
minutes you'll really start to get an
idea of what different pitches are
because everything in the world has like
a pitch because everything is vibrating
like traffic has a picture air
conditioning home has a certain pitch
associated with it and the more
thoughtful you can be about these things
the better it is for your musicianship
another really cool thing on apps like
that is interval training and I think
interval training is something that
guitar players and generally find really
helpful and what I mean by that is like
if you have them it'll give you I get an
interval distance between you notes like
a and then it'll ask you is that a fifth
is that a fourth and at first it might
just seem like you're guessing but over
time it really tightens your ear and
then you'll be much better at being able
to play what you hear in your head and
that's kind of be able to McCole of any
instrument anyways what did you play at
the three minute 52nd mark it sounded
really cool to me so that you can give
it a lot of questions on some of the
music that I play during the demos and
lessons and stuff and for the most part
it's usually stuff that I've written or
co-written that are in different
projects of mine the song he's actually
referencing is something at a an album
I'm working on right now that has been
like a huge project and undertaking you
should be ready in a couple months but
if you wanted to check out some of the
stuff I've been doing I'm gonna put this
up probably today it's called pack and
go it's a project I've done with a
friend of mine his name is Andreas and
he's a really awesome musician and his
background is like straight up like
Spanish / flamenco stuff and I have more
of like a alt-rock rock background so we
collab
to kind of write a bunch of songs
together get a bunch of local musicians
kind of involved in the recording of it
and we ended up with this kind of fusion
that's just like a really kind of
laid-back chill somewhat jazzy somewhat
alts somewhat Spanish kind of project
I'll probably just throw it up on
YouTube it's on iTunes and Spotify I'll
link you down below I also have a music
video that is potentially very
embarrassing that I'm probably gonna
post later this week so yeah you want to
check that out let me know what you
think that'd be cool
what was your preferred guitar to study
on at first something like that as she
Gibson and I like the Yamaha acoustic
well the thing that I started on
actually was a really cheap Squire Starr
caster is like a strat something like
that and is used and I just got it from
like a friend who kind of tried and quit
and honestly it was really a great great
starter guitar the number one thing
you're looking for in your first guitar
is something this is gonna stay in tune
a lot of the cheaper guitars had it have
a tendency to slip out of tune a lot and
quite easily so when you first start
you're gonna suck at guitar anyways so
it's really detrimental to suck and be
out of tune because you'll be getting
better and you won't even know it
because you're out of tune all the time
so that's why it's really important to
have a tuner with you or on your phone
or whatever to be able to check your
tuning especially in the early days
because then you'll develop better
habits and just kind of like we talked
about with the ear training earlier this
is gonna go really well
the Yamaha COO sticks are awesome
especially for the money I think you can
get them for like you know between
eating them like a hundred bucks used
sometimes even less and really the same
principles apply a lot of people will
say that you should start on an acoustic
/ an electric I don't necessarily think
that's true I mean if you learn one
you're gonna learn the other the reason
they say that is because acoustic
strings tend to have thicker strings so
they're actually harder on your hands at
first and then if you do go electric
it's an easier transition I don't
necessarily subscribe to that I mean
that is true but if you can play one you
can play the other really just get what
you want and what you think you're gonna
be more inspired to play so this week I
want you to listen to a song by Muse
called Knights of Cydonia one of the
greatest songs ever written in my
opinion definitely probably one of the
top five songs about space cowboys
having a laser fight on Mars anyway
besides being an awesome music video an
awesome song was a really good musical
arrangement behind this and it's really
a master class in using a chord
progression and having it start on one
chord and move throughout a series of
chords and modulations to end on a
different chord that you're going for
and then using the whole arrangement and
moving that down two steps I'm gonna
link you to the tab because there are a
lot of chords so it's tough to memorize
at first but they all move in a certain
way and even though it's like a long
progression Lang
it moves with the purpose and if you
actually look at the cores you'll see
that is one long progression that gets
moved down to full steps and then down
to more full steps which eventually ends
up ending on the place that started so I
really think it's just kind of like a
genius rock composition and something
that will really help with your
awareness of just how chord progressions
move so definitely check out muse and
for sure hit me up with any questions
you might have
thanks