Recording Tips For Guitarists

Recording music is a totally different beast from playing live. And whether you're going into a big studio or doing it on your own with a laptop and a DAW, there's a few guitar-specific things you can do to make the whole process go faster and sound better.

1. Use new strings - You want your guitar to sound it's best even if you're working with a off-brand copy of Korean knockoff of a Strat. And new strings are the easiest way to improve things. They'll give the engineer a good bright sound to work with. Make sure they're good and stretched out so they don't go out of tune in the middle of the song. I usually put my new ones on the day before recording. If you're doing a lot of recording on a regular basis, make sure to change them every one to two weeks. Otherwise you can end up with different sounding strings on different takes of a song, making it more difficult to edit later.

2. Tune before every take - On a similar note, you should tune your guitar before every take. I'll admit I'm they guy the engineer is always yelling at tune before takes. Extra weird when I'm recording at home. Your guitar probably won't be that out of tune, but keeping it fine tuned will, again, make editing takes much easier later on in the mixing process.

3. Pre-Production - Pre-production is a fancy word for "practice before you get there". You have some leeway here if you're working in a home studio. But if you're paying for studio time, you want to get in and get out as fast as possible. That means having your parts totally down before you step foot in the place. And that means making sure your bandmates have their act together too. And I always recommend playing the song live a lot before recording it, if possible. It will make the arrangement tighter and let any natural changes happen so you can get the best performance possible on tape. It's like letting the song marinate before cooking it.

I made the mistake once of recording a whole song in the key of G. Then finding out that I couldn't sing it in the key of G. We had to record all the pitched instruments again in the key of F. You can bet that cost me a few extra bucks. Learn from my boo-boos young padawan.

What about guitar solos? If you're the type that likes to compose your solos, make sure it's done before getting in the studio. If you like to let 'er rip of the fly, that's cool too. But be sure that you've improvised your solo on that song at least 100 times before recording. If you have to do more than 3 or 4 takes to get a solo you like, you're blowing cash.

4. Leave off non-essential effects until mixing - The cleaner the signal going into the board, the more leeway you have to make changes later during editing and mixing. You want to have a good basic sound recorded and you can add all the gooey reverb and delay you want later on.

So, what's considered essential? Maybe your overdrive or distortion if you're working with a good amp and you want to capture that amp's sound. A real Marshall still sounds better than any Marshall-style plugin. If you're using a wah pedal, that should probably be in the original signal as well since it's a real time effect. In fact, anything that you have to control in real time should be used during tracking. But ditch the reverb, delays, phaser, flanger, and other such things. That all gets layered on later.

Though I will say if you've got a particular pedal that you don't have a matching plugin for, you'll have to record it on the original signal. But, also record a totally clean version of the take with no pedal in case you don't like it later. You can do that either by splitting the signal before the pedal to two tracks. Or you can just play it again.

5. Keep the overdrive/distortion down - Crunchy is good. But when you've got your distortion jacked up too high it will sound like white noise when you record it. It will also sound thin and get lost in the mix. Drop your distortion to half of what you use for live performance. Start there and record some sample takes to see how it sounds. A corollary to this is, let the engineer guide you. Especially if you're new to recording and you can afford an experience engineer, use his expertise and let him help focus your guitar tone.

6. Small amps can sound great too - You don't need a wall of Mesa Boogie stacks to get a great guitar sound when recording. Some of the greatest sounds on tape have been done with tiny amps. Giant amps are used for giant volume. And you don't need that in the studio since you're mic'ing and mixing. If the amp sound good by itself you can work from there and still get a huge sound.

If you are using a larger amp, like a 4x12, mic only the best sounding speaker. Placing the mic closer to the center of the speaker cone gives you a brighter sound. Moving the mic towards the edge mellows it.

7. Use two mics - One close, one far - If you're in a good sounding room or studio, this will give you a nice natural reverb you can mix with the dry signal. Place the second mic about 5 feet from the amp. If your room doesn't sound so hot or you just don't like the sound of it, you can always trash that extra reverb track later.

8. Double track to thicken - This is the studio equivalent of a wall of Marshalls. If you want a big thick sound, double track your guitar parts. While you could just cut and paste the track, it's the tiny variations in performance of multiple takes that really work nicely to beef it up. Do at least two tracks. Or go whole hog with the old Metallica trick of layering 30-40 tracks of the same guitar part. Just make sure the rest of the instruments don't get lost in the mix. You and I both know the guitar is the most important but sometimes your bandmates thing they deserve to be there too. (wink)

Learning to perform in a recording studio has a learning curve just like learning to play live. These tips will give you a good start to getting your hit song recorded so the whole world can hear it.

The Steely Dan Mu Major Chord (And Beyond) for Guitarists, Part One

In doing some musical web-surfing I've stumbled upon several articles regarding the Steely Dan Mu Major chord. Being a big fan of the Dan, and a jazz guitarist, it's certainly a harmony I'm familiar with, yet I find it fascinating that a cluster of notes commonly found in jazz years before Can't Buy A Thrill should garner such interest, particularly from guitar players. Perhaps it's because rock guitarists need to re-think their approach to voicing these chords.

Let's look at the characteristics of rock guitar chord voicings. Be they common bar chord forms, power chords, major and minor triads on sets of 3 or 4 strings or 1st position voicings using open strings, rock guitar chord voicings almost always contain a root and 5th, with one or both often being doubled [or even tripled]. Even 7th or 9th chord voicings include the root and, sometimes, the 5th.

Essentially, the Steely Dan Mu Major chord, as found in their earlier work [up to and including Katy Lied], is a major triad with the major 2nd added and voiced closely with the 3rd. The inclusion of this major 2nd interval poses fingering problems for guitar players. If we think in terms of reducing these to 3 note voicings, however, the mu major not only becomes playable [with a finger stretch], but opens us up to many other harmonies.

Let's take, for example, a simple G major triad, voiced G B D from low to high, on strings 4, 3 and 2. By stretching the 4th finger to A on the 7th fret [replacing G] we have a mu major root position voicing minus the G root. This voicing can also be played on strings 3, 2 and 1 [10th position].

It is possible to voice these mu major triads in first and second inversion. In first inversion, on strings 4, 3 and 2 [B D G], replace B with A, D with B and retain the G. In 2nd inversion, same strings [D G B] replace the G with A. Root position is the voicing we typically find in the music of Becker and Fagan, however.

These 3 note voicings are extremely versatile. As we're now relying on the bass player to sound the root of the chord, our voicings can serve different functions. For example, our root position G mu major chord functions as the Imaj chord in the key of G when our bass player plays G. However, with E in the bass, it can sound like Em11 [E A B D]. In fact, this chord can assume different functions with almost any bass note in the key of G, and with some non-diatonic bass notes as well.

We can extend the Steely Dan Mu Major Chord concept to minor triads as well. In part 2, we'll examine the evolution of this concept in Steely Dan's later work, and explore other ways of voicing these and other jazz-influenced chords used in the music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan.

If you like the sound of the Steely Dan Mu Major chord, and are interested in hearing music with jazz-influenced chord changes, Peter and the Wolves are offering a free single for download, entitled Love/Hate Thing. It's pop music with jazz influence. Check it out at http://www.peterandthewolves.ca/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pete_Foret

About Pitch

Pitch is about how high or low a note is. The most important component of music is sound. Without the notes of different pitches, we couldn't have music.

When you hear two different sounds produced by a musical instrument, let's say a piano, then you'll hear one of the sounds as being higher or lower than the other.

Now sounds are not high or low in the sense that we're speaking about different heights but rather sounds that give a feeling of highness and lowness in relationship to each other.

When children hit two sticks together, like a drum, they do not hear a pitch that matches a certain note. They can create very interesting patterns and cool rhythms with drums but kids can't play a tune like "The Farmer and the Dell" or any other song.

Wind instruments come in different sizes with each playing at a different pitch. To make it easier for players to change from one to another, each written note is played with the same fingering on each instrument but sounds a different pitch.

To understand more about pitch, let's begin with the names of notes. Musicians use seven letters of the alphabet to name pitches: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, but there are many more pitches than just seven. There are low Cs and some very high Cs.

So this depends on the octave where they are located. As you play all the Cs on the piano ascending to the right, each note becomes higher and higher in pitch. When you play the black keys on the piano, they will have different pitches, too.

Some folks can immediately name the notes they hear. We call this perfect pitch. When folks with the gift of perfect pitch look at written sheet music, they can hear in their mind what the pitches of the notes are.

Mozart was one who had perfect pitch. He could listen to a performance of a rather long work and then later right down every note. He could immediately name any note played on the piano without looking at the keys. I am a huge fan of ear training. Test yourself by having someone play a note, perhaps a major or minor chord and guess what the name of the note is without looking. Pitch will always vary according to the frequency of vibration.

The Notation of Pitch (The way music is written down.)

Five parallel horizontal lines with intervening spaces are used to notate the pitch tones. We call this a staff. So the staff is used to notate the property of sound called pitch. Written on the staff, with notes fitting in on the lines and spaces, you read the notes from left to right. As the notes go toward the top of the staff their pitch gets higher.

Our system of notation originated many centuries ago in Europe when tonal materials were much simpler than now. Modern notation is an imperfect, but nevertheless effective, visual representation of the "high" and "low" effects produced by tones of different pitch. Rewriting music at a different pitch is called transposing.

Many songs are made up of notes of different pitches. You can tell the pitch of the note by the way its written. Others that have perfect pitch can see the written note and hear its pitch in their head perfectly.

Basic Tips When Teaching Yourself to Play the Guitar

Learning how to play the guitar is not as hard as one might think, because the guitar is a very versatile instrument it can be taken almost anywhere with you. Also since the guitar is a fun instrument to play the enthusiasm people feel often helps you stay disciplined. So with that in mind you may just end up taking it with you to some places you wouldn't take a piano or drum set.

When trying to learn how to play the guitar you must set aside some time for practice, you will need to spend a fair bit of time playing to become great, however you can get quite good with just 20 minutes every second day, but only if you're organized and ready to practice. Online guitar courses are great for quick lessons, and you can repeat the lessons over and over again if necessary.

Strengthening your fingers is a very important thing to do when trying to learn how to play the guitar. Your fingers are basically the most important thing so you should work on different exercise techniques to keep them loose and agile, thereby increasing your speed and dexterity. You will also need to build up padding on the end of your finger tips, and the only way to do that is to practice on a regular basis.

Learning the names of the all the chords and notes is not necessarily a requirement at first. When starting out just focus on a few chords and get used to where your fingers go for each one. Focus on changing between these three or four chords first. You will be amazed how many songs are just a three of four chord progression.

Playing by ear is a good thing to learn and it can help you if you plan to perform in front of people or when you're ready to start ad-libing. A great online guitar course I tried had a fun software that helped you learn what notes where being played, it made the learning fun. I can image how tedious it would be to have an instructor teach you how to play by ear.

It is very difficult to not get frustrated when your just starting out, remember you will not become a professional overnight. As you practice you will start to notice that certain things just get easier, you will begin to surprise yourself and do things you could not do the last time you practiced. It will take time but, you will get it. Getting guitar lessons online is one thing that could help you a great deal by watching an instructor play notes on screen that you can review and replay as many times as you want is fantastic. Keep yourself motivated by setting certain goals and when you make them set new ones.

Using the internet to help you learn how to play guitar is great. There are online e-Books that are great and there are online guitar courses that you can go to when you need help. So now, go learn how to play the guitar and remember to keep practicing. Practice will make perfect.