As you may have gathered from some of my previous columns, I have never put all my energies into learning scales. I found years ago that to be thinking chords is far more informative than scales. They are the next level up to my way of thinking. By that I mean that chords come from the scale, not the other way around.

I think my problem with scales was that I could never relate them to the fret board. I knew from all my practice and reading up on the subject that there were several positions for the same scale, but for some reason my dyslexia where notation is concerned kept me from ‘seeing’ it.

That is, until the day in about 1977 my good friend and wonderful guitarist James Kelly showed me a little exercise while we were waiting for a session to start one day. As he showed me, the mists of ignorance melted away. He said it was his way of getting his fingers limbered up, but for me it was a revelation into the workings of the guitar.

I would have posted this as a lesson long ago, but it was just too difficult to explain in words. I recently downloaded a program called Gif Builder and I can now create animations. I’ve been working on GuitarForBeginners.com, making up animations for that site, and I remembered the exercise shown to me all those years ago, so I decided to turn it into an animation.

The example posted demonstrates only one octave of (4) ascending scales. You should be able to do a couple of octaves and you should be able to play up and down and around the scales. Also I have shown four scales. You should be able to keep going up through all 12 until you arrive back at your starting key.

Go to http://www.onthenet.com.au/~kirkclan/ and find the Stretching Exercise link on the main slide page. I guarantee, if you haven’t seen this yet, it’ll keep you on your toes for the rest of your playing life.

In other news, http://Guitarforbeginners.com is up and running and I’m asking for all the feedback I can get.

I think there are some more instrumentals up since last post. http://mp3.com/kirklorange Most are free downloads, all are slide guitar.

Just two responses to the bottleneckguitar.com sub-domain offer, which still remains: If you’re a slider and you want your own page with YourName.bottleneckguitar.com address, go and apply at http://bottleneckguitar.com

And, as usual, if you’re still wondering what the trick is to deciphering the fretboard, come visit http://www.lorange.kirk.net and order my book The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book :-)

All the best from Tamborine Mountain
Kirk

http://www.lorange.kirk.net
http://guitarforbeginners.com
http://yourmusicontheweb.com
http://mp3.com/kirklorange
http://bottleneckguitar.com

Stay tuned to GNW for more great free advice in KIRKS CORNER coming up in future editions! Don't forget you can win Kirk's book, PlaneTalk, just by signing his guestbook.

PlaneTalk is a comic-strip conversation that takes place on a plane between a seasoned guitarist and a guy who gave up trying to figure it out. The pro lets him in on a secret, a shorthand way of thinking of music and the guitar, a simple trick. The reader gets to listen in as the lesson unfolds...

See a PlaneTalk cartoon sample

ABOUT KIRK
"I moved to Australia from Canada in 1974 after spending time in London. I lived in Sydney until about five years ago, when I moved north to Tamborine Mountain, near Brisbane. I've been in of dozens of line ups, several of my own bands, recorded with scores of Australian artists and contributed to hundreds of TV and radio commercials and many movie and television soundtracks."

"In 1984 I released my solo album 'No Apostrophe' which is now available from my site. It went top twenty in several Australian cities, but was never released overseas. You can listen to it here.

"In 1996 I wrote and illustrated PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book, which I market on the internet, and I'm putting the finishing touches on the instructional video which will demonstrate in sound and pictures the TRICK to understanding the layout of the fretboard, the simple visualization technique described in PlaneTalk".