A new guitar often needs 'setting up'. This is a little like getting a car that has never been 'tuned' and never having it serviced.
Guitars are precision machines that need to be operating at their best to make it as easy as possible to play, and to make the guitar sound as clean and 'in-tune' as possible.
A good guitar technician (www.walcott.guitars.com.au) will look very closely at your guitar and all of the variables that can be changed.
Aspects such as the neck relief (bend), neck tilt, nu...
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So, I am writing this little blog as someone who read many years ago that versatility is a key way of both enjoying music and making a living from it.

Do you need to be able to play every genre and style flawlessly?  Ah...no.

But..we need a little bit of an idea on many styles to be truly versatile.

I know musicians who are fantastic in a cover band situation and take time to learn the parts of every song their band plays. Unfortunately, this doesn't always translate well when required to sight ...
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The Circle of 4ths (or 5ths)

The Circle of 4ths contains a huge amount of information when we understand it in some depth. 
A songwriter may know nothing about the circle of 4ths but use it all the time in their songs. It is particularly useful in performance, composition, playing by ear, improvisation, arranging teaching and general understanding of music.


After playing music for many years, the circle of 4th's has become second nature as so much music uses the movement laid out in it. For exam...
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Big Band
Over the years I have noticed that many school big band charts are virtually unplayable for the guitarists. (Particularly for middle school aged students!) This is largely due to the commonly used keys and the extended chords that are often present in such charts. 
An easy option is to use tritone shapes. These are often the 3rd and 7th of the chord and the extensions are handled by the piano and horns.

The example below shows an easy way for a guitar player to play the chords shown (mo...
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As a general suggestion, allow a few beats for your guitarists to go from chordal playing to single notes and vice-versa.
This would be a challenge.

A better way to write it would be:


Usually it is best to allow your guitar players time to transition from the larger strumming action to the smaller and more precise picking action. 



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Arranging for guitar is a very complex and involved subject, so we will handle it in small chunks. Here are some basic 'rules'. 

These are generalisation but are usually applicable to most high school aged guitarists. There are, of course, exceptions.

1. The guitar sounds an octave LOWER than it is written.
   
2. The open strings are tuned high to low E B G D A E. (Other tunings are possible but standard is still 'standard'!)
3. Cluster chords of 2nds may be unplayable. 
4. Keys of F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb are very diff...

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Chord spelling with what?!
If you ask most guitarists what the notes are in a particular chord, be prepared to wait a while as they form the chord on the instrument, figure out the name of the open string, count up the number of frets, calculate the note (probably missing some flats or sharps in the process) and give you the answer like this. D major = F# D A. While this answer is correct it has taken about 60 seconds to figure out, and the notes are not in root position (1 3 5).

When I studied...
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Why Electronic Tuners Are Not the Complete Answer.

When I first started work in a music shop, one of my jobs was to tune each guitar every day. This was before electronic tuners were just starting to become available. Now, of course, people just clip on a tuner and away they go. 
While electronic tuners (tuners from now on) are great in many ways, guitarists tend to tune the open strings and hope for the best. Unfortunately, when the guitar is slightly out of tune many players can't tell just b...
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