The beauty of the guitar II.

There are a couple of things that make the guitar a pretty tricky instrument to learn -- the fact that the same note can be found in different places and the way that it's tuned -- but both of these speed bumps are more than compensated for by the beauty of the guitar: namely, the way you can move a pattern of music up and down the fretboard.

I feel for keyboard players. They only have one of each note and the way they're divided into white and black notes forces them to learn different patterns for each key. No so with the guitar. Once you learn one chord shape, you can move it up or down and retain the original quality of that chord, changing only its pitch. The same can be done for any chunk of music, whether its a melody or riff or double stop. This is what makes barre chords possible.

While barre chords are usually seen as 6 note chords -- one for each string -- it's a good idea to break them into smaller pieces. Remember that simple chords require only three notes (the old I - III - V), so there's no need to always be looking for a full barre chord. Any little part of the barre chord will work, and any of these little bits and pieces also move up or down the neck, retaining their original quality. Once the need for that finger to span all strings is gone, they're not really 'bar' chords anymore, but it's important to remember which shape the fragment comes from.

This 'movability' of music on the fretboard is something that becomes easier to use and put into practice once you start to move away from the nut. When I first started out learning guitar, I spent many years just hanging around the first five frets, in familiar open-chord country. Anything beyond the second dot was way too scary and unknown to use and feel confident about. The only time I ever played anything up there was as a barre chord. Melodic playing was out of the question, as I had no idea where the good and bad notes were. For some reason, I thought things were different up there.

They're not. The relationship between strings is identical -- of course -- and any shapes and patterns that apply to the first few frets apply all over. So anything you learn in the friendly first few frets can be played in exactly the same pattern anywhere on the neck. The more you practice doing this, the quicker you'll be free to play anywhere on the fretboard.

Here some things to have a look at and practice (the numbers are your strings from bass to treble and which frets to play. X means don't play.)

Play an open A chord -- x02220
Now forget about some of the strings and play just the little A shape
--xx222x
You're looking at an A triad there, the smallest A chord there is (the order of notes is V-I-III).
Now play this xx422x
That's an A/F# (A over F#) or could be called an A6.
Now alternate between the two: xx222x ----> xx422x ----> xx222x

What you're playing is a very standard rock 'n' roll riff, a chord whose V moves up to a VI and back again.

Now move that little chunk of music -- alternating bass note and all -- up 3 frets. Now you're doing that same riff in C. Move it up another two frets and you're in D. Now it reads xx777x -----> xx977x -----> xx777x.

If you were now to add the notes of the other strings back into the triad, you'd have x57775, a barre chord. This little chunk can go anywhere on the fretboard and always be exactly that: a major chord whose V is moving up to a VI. It will always be able to fill that function in any tune and sound like that in context. If you were in a band playing that while the bass player added the big fat A note under it all, it would be totally appropriate.

If instead of playing the riff, you had been playing a little melodic line around that A shape, you can play the same melodic line in exactly the same pattern up the neck, and it will retain its validity, only in a new key.

Everything is movable.

You will begin to see as you experiment with this that there has to be a master pattern -- which also moves anywhere -- that all the rest is attached to ... a master template. I wrote a whole book about that master template, or at least one way of dealing with it and 'seeing' it. When you think you're at the stage of learning how the whole fretboard becomes as friendly and familiar as the first few frets, drop in for a visit at:
http://www.lorange.kirk.net

The lesson at http://www.guitarforbeginners.com worth checking out if you haven't already. It's probably a bit hard to get your fingers around if you only just started playing, but it's a fingerstyle version of the hookline from Shania Twain's "Still the one". I've had some nice feedback about it so I'll leave it there for a while longer.

Cheers and all the best,

Kirk

http://www.lorange.kirk.net
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com
http://www.bottleneckguitar.com