Guitar Books Topic Talk #1: Musical Goals
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Quick advice, tips, and tricks for improving at fingerstyle guitar, ukulele, etc.
In order to progress as a musician it is important to have clear long-term and short-term goals. This is relevant not only to fingerstyle guitarists and fingerstyle ukulele players, but to all aspiring musicians regardless of their chosen instrument or genre of music.
Figure out what your long-term goals are. Make realistic short-term goals that help you progress towards those long-term goals. In a future Tone Talk episode, I’ll talk about building a specific daily or weekly practice schedule to achieve all of these goals. In yet another future episode I’ll talk about choosing and maintaining the right repertoire to help you achieve these goals.
You can learn to play music by simultaneously using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.
My eBook: Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to joemcmurray.com... to purchase a pdf of my eBook. Learning to arrange melodies will also help your fingerstyle songwriting and your understanding of the inner workings of fingerstyle guitar.
My music is available on all streaming platforms - links on my Linktree page: linktr.ee/joemcmurray
Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album was released on January 19, 2024. Watch the first single, "Open Road," on UA-cam here: • Joe McMurray - Open Ro... .
Riding the Wave and Acoustic Oasis: my first two fingerstyle guitar albums.
Great advice! Please make more videos if it’s possible.
Hey thanks! I'll absolutely make more videos!
Hey this is great advice Joe! I love playing my guitar, so it never feels like “practice “. However, I find myself spending time going over what I already know and never really growing. Thanks, I think this would be a good format to add to your book reviews!
Thanks for watching and commenting! The larger your repertoire, the harder it is to find time to learn new things. I'll be discussing how to deal with this in upcoming videos. I will keep doing the reviews, but I'm looking forward to more of this format as well - much less prep!
@@JoeMcMurrayMusic Great idea for a future video, Joe: how to continue practicing a growing repertoire while also learning and developing new material. Looking forward...
@@anneberkeley7411 That will be in Topic Talk #3!
Looking forward to it, Joe! Meanwhile, loving the Chet Atkins book I bought after hearing your review. Fantastic for developing righthand technique.@@JoeMcMurrayMusic
Thank you for this nice new series of videos. As a late beginner my short term goals are improve my technique (using a classical guitar technique book), starting repertoire (using the gigging guitarist book) and I also want to start with a sight reading book. For the long term goal, I am still narrowing which specific fingerstyle style I want to focus on. Everything is interesting to me but life is not that long :) Traditional American music caught my attention so I am switching from the Alfred method book to David's Hamburger fingerstyle book. Fingerstyle blues is another genre I will try.
I have had a lot of progress on my guitar journey and at the start I had goals but not anymore. Now I just enjoy plucking those strings. I don't see myself as a musicians and don't want to head in that direction. Maybe that is what makes the difference. --- Since I started 1st March 2023 with acoustic guitar, I have composed my own stuff, as I didn't find even one single teacher interesting, as it was all about playing other peoples compositions. --- In this sense I skip the "musician" and call myself an artist and composer instead. ------- The biggest problem have, is actually to find a proper teacher, which actually could help me, despite having no goals. ----- It's somewhat bizarre, but I happily keep plucking those strings and have both joy and good progress. Can't really complain 🤣😂 However, I do think music teachers more than often are stuck within a small box, from where they are supposed to help people play music and not be creativity killers. --- Well, just my take on things. Maybe time to reinvent both the approach and especially the theory. ---- Western music have 12 tones and those are just shuffled around. Very poor compared to music from India and other countries and cultures.
I'm glad you are enjoying your playing and composing! Sounds like you are a naturally creative person. Many of us don't have that natural ability or inclination to create something completely new without some sort of framework. Learning music theory, other songs, technique, etc. can give us a starting point and creative direction. For instance, I don't teach scales for the sake of playing scales, but 1) so that a student learns a group of notes that create a new sound or mood (i.e. the Lydian scale creates a cool dreamy mood; the Mixolydian and major and minor blues scales create a bluesy sound) that they can use to experiment or compose, and 2) to develop finger dexterity (you need your fingers to be able to physically execute the sounds you hear in your head).
If you are satisfied with your compositions and the sound of your playing, then you are probably doing what's right for you. If you want a teacher who will teach you more about composition, find one who has written compositions that you admire.
@@JoeMcMurrayMusic - Thanks a lot for your reply!. --- One who have written composition I admire.... hmmm...... Erik Satie, J.S Bach, Ravel....... yeah, you know....they are all long gone. ----- I will not say I am satisfied with my compositions and the sound I play. But from what I can, it is excellent. Things get more and more advanced as I go along. I also make my own backing tracks for practice and did already after first month. ------ I do still miss a person, that somewhat have the ability to point me in interesting directions. -------- I have already spend around $2000 USD on teachers, which have been a complete waste. ------ What I am teaching myself is technique, finger dexterity as you mention and the like. I already have a pretty good foundation in theory. --- I didn't choose the usual chords to start with, like A, D, C, G and E. ----- I went for sounds I like, Am, Dm, E, Em, C, C7, D7, A7. DMaj9 and so on, and from there listened to which chords sound good together. I quickly stopped using the usual progression as I felt them extremely boring. ---- Couple of days ago I wanted to go further with different rhythm, so stumbled on Bossa Nova. Very simple and easy and got inspiration and today I made a backing track and already done some practice using finger picking style together with it. Works wonderful. ----- Also when I play the very simple I can do atm, other people actually find it soothing and nice sounding. So it's not only me who can hear it's valid ok - good music. Nothing special but also nothing that make people cringe. ------- I still miss a teacher who would dare to take the challenge and not try to persuade me to play other peoples composition.... 🤣😂🤣 Also I am not interested in a composer as a teacher. I can already do that. ---- What I am looking for is a teacher who can basically help me speed up what I am already doing. Without having to play all these beginner pieces that are usually presented. --- so maybe a teacher who teach techniques is what I am really looking for......correct me or guide me in right direction. Also takes a teacher who can see the potential of a student. See through the layers. I guess only few such teachers exist. --------- About scales as example. I started with scales also, as that's what teachers teach. But what is the point learning scales if not able to make a melody out of the notes in a scale?!. ---- Also staying within the same key and time signature is boring. So composing from theory is pointless, unless wanting to sound like millions of others.
@@JoeMcMurrayMusic --------- I want to thank you again. Because it actually made me reflect much deeper into what I am really looking for in a teacher. ----- Your reply might have been much more valuable than it might seem at first. ----- You might actually be a blessing after all! thnx a lot! ❤🙏