Our family has traveled up here to Lancaster to visit family and friends for the holidays. Is practice and writing on hold? Not likely. I couldn't find my Korg metronome that I usually travel with, but I still manage. I have just tailored my practice to not focus or rely on the metronome. Make sure your practice schedules are flexible!
So what do I do with no metronome seeing how I said its imperative to practice with one? Well that's just one aspect of my practice. Theory plays another huge part. One of the best books I ever purchased was Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry. A little knowledge in theory would help before you buy this book. Knowing about scales and their construction...major and minor mainly.
So what's with me harping on this book and how do I use it?
Each day in my practice, I pick a chord out of the book and play it. Strum it, smack it, arppegiate it, finger pick it...just identify its qualities and what makes it unique. I then go through and do the same with the chord in every instance on the fretboard. Just like you can play an A5 power chord on the 6th string or 5th string. Then I go through and play it in every inversion everywhere I can on the fretboard. This can take a chord that might sound dissonant in one instance and sound wonderful in another. If you play a chord that sounds dissonant, you can also identify that dissonant note and play the chord as normal, but throw the dissonant note an octave up. Usually that space opens up the chord and removes the dissonance...think of piano.
So today, my chord of choice was Asus. What does that mean? A normal Barre chord is usually spelled out in scale degrees as 1,5,1,3,5. If you replace the 3rd with a 4th it becomes a suspended chord. So an A barred chord in 5th position, starting on the 6th string is spelled A,E,A,C#,E,A or 1,5,1,3,5,1. Let's take out that C# on the 3rd string at the 6th fret and replace it with a D on the 7th fret. Now we got an Asus. Simple right? Well I found one in Chord Chemistry that looked interesting. I will have to describe it as I can't figure out how to draw chord diagrams on here. 5th and 4th string 12th fret, 3rd string 9th fret and 2nd string 10th fret. Spelled I, IV, V, I or A, D, E, A. You can also throw on the 1st string 9th fret C# which was your 3rd and it sounds pretty good. Again, this is where that separation comes into play, you now have a C# and a D in the same chord. No interval is more dissonant than minor second (half step). But because they have have this octave seperation , it works.
So as soon as I started playing around with this chord, I noticed as most guitar players would, that two of the notes reside on the 12th fret. The twelfth fret is the same as the open string an octave higher and also is a harmonic sweet spot. You can gently touch the string, not pushing it at all, and pluck it and move your hand away and it should keep ringing that 12th fret note as if you had fretted the twelfth fret note. I love using harmonics as they ring for a long time, or are supposed to, and they can add such a unique dimension to melodies. I spent about 10 minutes with this chord and its flavors and new song has been born!!
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