Guitar Lesson Seven

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Guitar Lesson Seven - Music

So far, within the music section of each lesson, I have only shown you bits and pieces of various songs. In this lesson we are going to learn the whole thing.

The song I have chosen for you is The Joker by the Steve Miller Band. This song is very simple, but it just goes to show you that sometimes the simplest things can sound really cool.

The Joker can be broken down into just two basic parts that are used throughout the song.

Verse:

The verse section consists of a funky sounding riff built from notes in the F major scale.

This riff just repeats over and over until you get to the chorus.

If you want to get fancy, you can add this on to the end every other time:

Here is an mp3 of the first verse: Joker Part 1

Listen to the file and try to play along until you get the feel for how the two parts work together.

Chorus:

In order to play the chorus section of this tune, You will need to make friends with the barre chord. Barre chords are an essential tool for guitar playing, but they tend to give beginners a lot of trouble. If you find it difficult to get all the notes to ring, you need to practice the chords daily until you get them happening. This can be frustrating, but there is no other way. Every guitar player has to go through this torture.

The chords:

The F chord is the toughest to play, because the index finger has to barre across all six strings. This is compounded by the fact that the chord is played at the first fret, which is the most difficult position to play a barre. If you can't get this to work, try playing the chord at a higher fret and work your way down until you can play it at the first fret.

The Bb and C chords are pretty easy. You just have to be careful not to play the low E and high E-strings. Most beginners tend to lay their ring finger across the high E-string as well as the D, G and B-strings. This is not a problem so long as when you strum the chord you stop the pick short of striking the high E-string. You also have to be careful to miss the low E-string when you strum. This takes some getting used to, but give it a little time and you will not have any problem.

For the Csus4 chord, just hold your fingers the same way that you would to play the C chord, but add your pinky on the 6th fret of the B-string. Don't play the high or low E-strings.

Now, in order to show you how to play the chorus section, I need to introduce you to a unique style of music notation. This style is called rhythm notation. It is used specifically for showing guitar players the strumming rhythm of a chord progression.

This style of notation looks pretty much the same as standard notation as far as note values and time signatures are concerned. The difference is that rhythm notation does not concern itself with pitches. Instead, you will find that the pitches are dictated by the chord symbols above the staff.

The chorus section of The Joker looks like this:

Each chord is played for four sixteenth notes. Use a down-up strum pattern (alternate strumming), and concentrate on making the chord changes.

Play all four measures through and then go back to the first measure and play through again, but replace the 4th measure with this:

That makes nine measures in all for the chorus section.

Pay close attention to the rhythm in measure nine. Notice that the 4th sixteenth note is tied to the 5th. Remember that a tie means that you only strum the first note of the pair and hold that out for the duration of the two notes. Strum the last measure like this: down, up, down, up - up, down, up, down, and hold the last strum for two full beats. Just keep your hand moving down-up, but make the 5th strum (down stroke) in the air instead of hitting the strings with the pick.

Now, the F, Bb and C chords are major chords. It is common practice to leave off the major. If someone tells you to play an F chord, it is understood to be major unless they say minor, diminished or augmented. You'll get used to it :-)

Here's an mp3 of the chorus: Joker part 2

Work with it until you can make the chord changes and strum the rhythm in time with the recording. If you want to try your hand at playing some lead licks over this chord progression, try working with the F major scale, but avoid the 7th interval. That note sounds out of place in this song.

Click here for a printable text version of the lyrics. (Hopefully the RIAA doesn't come knocking on my door like they did with the OLGA.)

If you don't already have the full recording of this song, I recommend that you get it, so you can play along with the entire song. Click here to buy Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits at cdnow. There are a bunch of great tunes on that album.

This lesson is divided into five parts:

Theory Part I

Theory Part II

Technique - Left Hand

Technique - Right Hand

Music

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