Guitar Games Blog

Our guitar trivia game, Trivia Race, is in need of some new guitar trivia. As a classical guitarist, I tend to know mostly classical guitar trivia. So, I thought I’d open it up to all members. Anything guitar-related would be great. If you have some trivia you want to share, send it to me via the contact page and I will include it.

GuitarGames.net creator William Wilson released a new Guitar Game iPhone App titled Guitar Workout. Based on traditional classical guitar exercises, Guitar Workout is a collection of twelve simple games that will improve left hand speed, accuracy, and independence. The games are played with a simulated guitar neck, and red targets that guide you through each exercise. Whether you are a classical, steel-string, or electric guitarist these games will improve your playing.  Guitar Workout is available at the iTunes App Store for $1.99.

-Improve your ability to switch chords quickly.
-Increase your speed for lead and solo playing.
-Current and top speed displayed.
-Realistic guitar response to develop good playing habits.

I’m better at the games than on the guitar. What should I do next?

Learning the guitar is both a physical and mental activity. Our motto at GuitarGames.net has always been, “It’s time for your brain to practice too.” meaning don’t neglect the mental aspect of playing. And many have headed our call, but..Neglecting the physical is not good either! It’s important to follow up the games and courses online with some good old fashioned sight reading. This will connect the mental to the physical. I recommend flute and violin music as a great supplement to reading guitar music. And I recommend learning songs in different positions to challenge your knowledge of the neck. Happy practicing!

Photo by Laineys Repertoire

	photo by terren

The winner of our Birds of Fretopia competition is Michael Moore with a score of 1196! No doubt a fretboard master after all those games. He’ll also be receiving our fashionable T-shirt. Look for another competition soon.

I’m busy adding a progress report feature to Super Scale Trainer. It will keep track of how you are doing on every scale, arpeggio, or interval in quiz mode. I thought I would give letter grades for various categories, like major Scales for sharp keys, major scales for flat keys, minor scales, triads. Also I wanted to put down your best 5, and the 5 that need the most work. Some additional stats like how many questions you have answered total, how many mistakes made, and the number answered on guitar versus piano or note names. The reason I’m writing about it is that should you think of anything you would like included along those lines, now is the time to let me know!

I put together a new chart which shows the names of the notes and their locations on the staff for the first position. Should be helpful for those who are new to reading. Click on the image below to download.

First Position Guitar Notes Chart

Just out is my new video on the Building Blocks Improvisation Method. What is it? A revolutionary approach to improvising on the guitar. It deals with how to improvise with more than one scale / arpeggio and sew them smoothly together. It is called the Building Blocks Improvisation Method because it breaks the complicated subject of improvisation down into small easy tasks.

The process works as follows:

1. Figure out which scales / arpeggios you would like to use for a song. (For instance for the Blues in C you can use the arpeggios C7, F7, and G7)*
2. Pick a position to play them in.
3. Using just the notes on the first string learn the notes mentally. This can be done very easily with our Super Scale Trainer Game mode, which quizes you on what notes are in a particular scale or arpeggio.
4. Learn to play all the arpeggios / scales on the first string only. This is easy if you set up a song in the Super Scale Trainer and play along in Play-Along Mode.
   
5. Improvise using only these notes. Make sure to play the correct arpeggio / scale with the right part of the song. A Play-Along or Jam track is a great way to practice. (Also helpful is a looper pedal)
6. Repeat Steps 3-5 using only 2 strings, then 3, 4, 5, and finally all 6.
7. When you’ve done this you can try learning the scales / arpeggios in another position or try using different scales / arpeggios*.

*(Please Note - We haven’t discussed HOW to pick the right scales / arpeggios, as that is an entire discussion by itself.)

The following videos introduce the Building Blocks Improvisation Method, and demonstrate the procedure outlined above for the Blues in C.

And Part 2:

Question from our CAGED video on YouTube:

very good video, it’s been a while since I bought my membership to you but can you explain why we need arpegios? I’ve never really got what they’re for or where we would use them?

Our Answer:

A great question.  First of all what is an arpeggio? It’s a chord that’s been broken up, where the notes are played seperatly rather than all at once. The word arpeggio means “in the style of the harp”, just picture a harp playing a big rolled chord and you can see the connection.
Arpeggios are useful for the same reason scales are. Primarily because they occur all over the place in music. Almost anytime you play a melody and the notes are not adjacent you are playing an arpeggio. Let’s take a simple folk song as an example. Say “On Top of Old Smokey”. I highlighted the arpeggios in red and the scale parts in blue.

On Top of Old Smokey - Red indicates arpeggio, blue indicates scale.

Why practice arpeggios? Practicing arpeggios is like taking the difficult sections of 100 songs and boiling them down to a super concentrated form. A little arpeggio practice goes along way.
Arpeggios are also used in improvisation. Both Jazz and Rock both make extensive use of them. If you look at a lot of great jazz solos you will see arpeggios all over the place. The simplest use of them is to play the same arpeggio as chord. For instance on a ii V I progression (e.g. Dmi7 G7 Cmaj7) play a Dmin 7 arpeggio over the Dm7, G7 arpeggio over the G7, and a C maj 7 arpeggio over the C. When the key is changing a lot this is a good way to lock in with the chords. One of the biggest mistakes I hear improvisers make is using the same scale over everything and not connecting with the chords. Not all notes in a scale sound good against chords in the same key. Take the C major scale and the C chord. The note “F” is in the scale, but sounds awful if you emphasize it. By using arpeggios you are focusing on the notes that sound “good” with the chord. If you only played solos using the notes of the chord it would get a bit boring, but using them in important places locks the solo in.
A more advance use of arpeggios is to play substitutions. For instance play a minor 7 chord built on the 5th of a 7th chord (e.g. Gm7 over C7, a Pat Martino suggestion) or a maj 7 built on the 7th of a 7th chord (Bb maj7 over C7, a David Baker suggestion) There are lots of others. I like a min(maj 7) chord built a 1/2 step above and altered dominant chord, like Bb min (maj 7) over A7 (Don’t worry if you don’t follow that one). I found that one in a Cannonball Adderley version of Autumn Leaves.
So practice those arpeggios. How you say? With the Super Scale Trainer of course! It has tons of arpeggios to learn and great ways to learn them.

Drum roll please… Staying number one on the charts for the most played game on GuitarGames.net is Birds of Fretopia. Guitar Flash Cards also held its place at second. Fret Tester moved up a notch to third place, while Woody Says (Ear Training) fell two places to number five. New on the top five is the Super Scale Trainer which covers the fretboard as well as theory. Our recent video on developing speed using the super scale trainer might have contributed to the move up. Chord Mines fell off the chart to sixth place.

Why does any of this matter? Well GuitarGames.net decides its next project based on what people show an interest in. So comments as well as game popularity play a large roll in what direction the site takes. Our current direction is putting learning first, with a little fun on the side. Also it seems most people are interested in mastering the fretboard, so we’ll continue to devlop this area. Thanks for playing and for all the emails we receive!