Any guitarists on FR?

[LouAvul]

I used to play the guitar but broke my wrist, ruptured a tendon, other life events, and quit. I kept the gear (2 Gibsons, a Fender and a Martin, with amps.)

I'm relearning, but from a different tact. I formerly simply learned songs without realizing any principles or theory. Now I'm starting by learning scales. Am pentatonic, for starters.

Question: I know this scale works with songs written in Am, but I also read that the Am pentatonic scale also works in A major. The only difference is the root note.

Am I understanding this correctly?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Any introductory discussion of music theory, even on and maybe especially on guitar, is hampered by the fact that the student has to have some rudimentary understanding of keys, modes, scales, and chord qualities, all at the same time. All of which are kind of the same thing but like many things, it’s hard to hold all those concepts in your head at the same time in the beginning.

Try: playing your A minor penta scale over a G major chord or a C major chord. Others on this thread have reco’d some books which will take you through a whole course of study, which is fine but possibly a lot more comprehensive than you want to get at this point. I am sure there are some “backing tracks” or “rhythm tracks” you can find on YouTube that would be more useful for you. A friend of mine gets a lot of mileage out of a “looper” which is a box that can record you playing a backing track and repeat it ad nauseum so you can play over it as accompaniment. There are several on the market, but they cost, whereas YT is free.

[subterfuge]

Thats the thing. A lot of it is wasted time. All I ever wanted to do was make some noise. That’s why I didn’t study music theory, which I regret. Then I ended up in some bands but there were man many hours of wasted time, sitting around playing the same stuff repeatedly. Not that I regert it. Or regret it.

[dfwgator]

And now that it’s only going to be much harder to make a living as a musician, how many are even going to bother, with more and more music being made via AI?

[dfwgator]

I would have done it just to get the chicks. ;) Like Johnny Cougar sang, “Forget all about that macho s___, and learn to play guitar.”

[subterfuge]

LOL. You and Laz.

[dfwgator]

Of course it probably would have ended up like this....

[Bullish]

YouTube has thousands of tutorial videos for guitar and bass etc. I use them a lot even as an advanced player. Just about any song I want to learn someone has made a tutorial for and lots and lots of vids covering scales and pentatonics and stuff.

Just search on guitar tutorials you’ll find lots.

[Mathews]

You sound like a bass player in the making!! Give it a shot. You probably won’t regret it.

[subterfuge]

Classic!

[Mama Shawna]

Lot of us here at FR play, 46+ years for me. Here’s me in my office playing Ventura Highway. Yes, I get paid to play. https://youtu.be/_ZsSetYMI5E

[kjam22]

Cage method, boxes, patterns, scales…… play what you hear in your head. Learn to get that to come out of the guitar. For me…. After a gig if I had a good stretch of flowing what I hear in my head through the guitar, then it was successful.

[dfwgator]

Poor Steven Bishop.

[subterfuge]

The guy playing the guitar?

[Seruzawa]

Marty Music is pretty good too. I’ll never go beyond intermediate at my age. But I still have fun at it. My dog likes to howl along with the Univibe or Wah pedal.

[caver]

Ha! Thanks for the boost of confidence. Aren’t there a lot of jokes about bass players?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I neglected to mention that not only is the C Sharp versus C natural a source of clash with your key centers, the A major scale will also have a G sharp, versus G natural.

[dfwgator]

I tried to watch Rick Beato’s music theory videos, it all went right over my head.

[Bobalu]

I watch that Andy Guitar guy, he's great.

I learned a lot about open-G tuning watching his videos.
He has a great looking telecaster style guitar, not sure who makes it but it,s nice and is pale blue.

I have two fender telecasters, a surf green one and a black one with a white pick guard... but his blue one looks a lot nicer. Here's a pic of it, note he has removed the low-e string to play 5-string open-g

[Mathews]

Let the haters hate. The Brotherhood of the “E” keeps it real. You got nothing to loose...

[AmericanMermaid]

Yes, he is! I also like Party Marty, who is another good teacher who does a lot of much-loved songs.