Do you play guitar or piano for a hobby and are not really interested in practicing tons? You’ve got to read this article! (Well, at least half of it.)

A lot of people who play aren’t planning on becoming professional musicians. That’s OK. There is a lot of value in playing an instrument as a hobby.

Here is the link to the article “Slowly But Surely”.
I found this article in Taylor Guitar’s publication of Wood and Steel, volume 70.  It is by Shawn Persinger.

If you play an instrument (guitar, piano, ukulele, bass) as a hobby, just once in a while, or even just wish you could play, this is a must read.

Hal Stead

A root position chord is a very stable chord. It’s like a pyramid.   You can play a root position chord all day and it doesn’t feel like it needs to go anywhere.

An inversion of a chord is different though. Let’s use the C chord as an example again.

C – E – G   These are the notes in the C major triad.

Here are the notes in the C Major Scale.  C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C

The C is the first note, or First Degree of the scale. The D is the second note, or Second Degree of the scale, and so on.

C D E F G A B C
1 2  3 4 5  6  7 8

You can see here that C – E – G, is 1 – 3 – 5 in the C major Scale. We call the 1, the Root, the 3, the third (3rd), and the 5, we call the fifth (5th).

Root Position - When the root of a chord is in the bass this is a very stable chord.

1st Inversion – When the 3rd of a chord is in the bass, it is called a 1st inversion.  A C chord with an E in the bass is a 1st inversion chord.   C/E
When we hear this kind of chord we expect the music to move to somewhere else.

2nd Inversion – When the 5th of a chord is in the bass, this is called a 2nd inversion. A  C chord with an G in the bass is a 2nd inversion chord.   C/G
This kind of chord is very unstable. It wants to move. When hear a chord like this we expect the music to go somewhere or to resolve. It feels like we’re hanging on a cliff and we need some resolution!

We could also say that a 2nd inversion chord is like an inverted pyramid.      Very unstable.

For instance a C chord is made up of these three notes: C – E – G

The C is the root of the C chord. Every chord has a root. The root corresponds with the name of the chord. The D chord root is D. The E chord root is E. The F minor chord root is F, and so on.

Here are some more examples:

Cm7 – C is the root.

D9 – D is the root.

Bm – B is the root

Gmaj9 – G is the root

Now to answer the question: What is a root position chord?

When the root of a chord is in the bass then it is a root position chord. This means that when the lowest note is the root, then we have a root position chord.

That’s it. Now you know!

So, one note is not a chord, but two notes can be when the listener hears them together.

There are four different kinds of chords:

1. Major
2. Minor
3. Diminished
4. Augmented

In popular music, rock, country, folk, blues.. we hear mostly major and minor chords. When you listen to Classical and Jazz then diminished and augmented chords come into play more often. (This is a generalization of the styles and there are exceptions to all of these comments.)

In college I started studying music theory from the Common Practice Period. “What is that?” You ask… Well, it is the study of music from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. (Roughly AD 1600 to 1900) We do this because most of the music that we listen to and that we hear on TV, radio, and in the movies has it roots in the Common Practice Period.

For example, let’s make a definition for Rock Music.

1. Let’s make the music tonal. (More on that term later.)
2. We’ll use an Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, and a Drum Set.
3. Let’s turn the instruments up higher than 95 db.
4. The Electric Guitar will be set on distortion and not on a clean setting.
5. We can have a singer, or not.

We could go on and on defining this style. It can be very complicated. Mostly though we’re going to stick with analyzing the actual music and talk about the basics: scales and chords, how they work, and why.

Get this kind of stand if you want your music to continually fall onto the ground whether there is a breeze or not. My opinion…

This is the kind of stand you want if you are serious about putting music on it and having it stay in one place.

That’s it. The druable music stand is made by Manhasset. It goes up and down easily, won’t fall over, and lasts virtually forever. Love these stands.

The secret to making progress on your instrument is to play every day. Make a commitment to play a set amount of time every day. It doesn’t have to be a long time but it needs to be a goal that you can hit daily. Start small… like 10 minutes a day. This means that whatever you have going on in your life you will practice this amount every day without fail.

Here’s a couple of personal anecdotes:

In 1976 and 1977 I was in a band that played mainly in the Los Angeles, California area. I was a vocalist and played lead guitar. We had gigs every week for a year and a half. We played 4 to 6 nights a week. That comes out to be between 20 and 30 hours of performing a week. That was not including practice time for me which varied widely depending on what songs I needed to learn. I also had a part time job at UPS working about 20 hours a week.

When I was in college (1980-1982) and a piano performance major, my set practice time was 2 hours a day minimum on the piano. Since I also took voice lessons my minimum there was a half an hour a day. I was also in the A Cappella Choir so that meant I had a quartet practice commitment of 3 hours a week besides learning music on my own. Adding all of that up we get 20 hours and 30 minutes of minimum practice time every week not including going to classes with homework and study time.

1. Technical Exercises  – These are designed to better your technique on an instrument. Scales, chords, playing etudes designed to improve muscle memory and coordination, etc; this is what we are talking about. You can also make up exercises from difficult passages in pieces that you are working on.

2. Review Pieces – Play pieces that you want to remember. Review your favorite songs and passages of songs so that you can increase memory and technique. You have spent time learning to play these so don’t loose them. Make a repertoire list from these pieces and songs. Drop whatever pieces that don’t work for you anymore. If you want to go back to them later then it won’t take as much time learning them again as it did the first time. I’d say about a 10th of the time.

3. New Material – New material is defined as a piece that you don’t know very well, or part of a piece that is hard for you and are just getting to know.

Now how do you break up your practice time? Let’s say you are practicing 1/2 hour a day. Spend 5-7 minutes on Technique, 10 minutes on Review, and then the rest of the time on new material. If you’re practicing for an hour then double everything: 10 minutes on technique, 20 minutes on review, and then 30 minutes on new material.

• Remember to write down your review pieces so that you can remember them. This will be your repertoire list.

After you get done officially practicing and you still want to play. Do whatever you want! Enjoy yourself ! Remember that making a commitment to practice a set amount every day will make your practicing effective.  Have fun!

If you keep breaking the same string in the same place all the time and it happens often, have a guitar tech look at it to make sure that there isn’t a problem with your guitar.

Hal Stead

If you’re practicing or playing for a half hour or an hour a day, change your strings every three months.

Also, if a string breaks, and it has been more than a month since you put strings on, just change them all.

Strings on a guitar get little dents in them from the frets and they pick up oils and dirt from your hands. Over time the strings loose their harmonic brilliance and and become less true.  Meaning that they don’t play in tune. When strings are not true anymore and they become dull sounding that’s when you need to change your strings.

Hal Stead