Going from acoustic to electric! Any advice!

First off, I am going to be buying a an electric guitar soon (in a few months maybe). I am willing to pay up to £350 for one, enough to buy the standard fender strat or tele. I currently have a £70 westfield acoustic which I'm progressing quite quickly on. First off, what are the main differences between the two types?? I mean, will the quality in sound in the strat be better than the acoustic. Will I be able to change tone and such?? What are pick ups??? Any advice on this will be great :)

Now, onto the sub topic. In the past week I have been practising hard and have learnt almost 5 new songs to heart (rhtyhm). These are : Why worry, wonderful tonight, Yellow Submarine, American Pie and Brown Eyed Girl. The first to songs were finger picking style while the others used new rhythm techniques i.e swing rhythm, syncopation. I also learned a trick called the d run. Anyway, to the point. I wasn't gonna ask these questions in fear of being ridiculed but.....

Can anyone explain to me what scales are and how they work (jargon free would be helpful)?

Is alternate picking using different plucking patterns on the strings eg. g, b, g, e, b, e?

Thanks ::)

its good that ur going to be buying a guitar..in a way be glad u started with acoustic..u will hear ur mistakes bette ron accoustic than elected.. i believe the pickups are used for picking up the amps signal or somtihn.. and a scale is an ascending or descending line of notes..there more to it but i dont know much theory.. alternative picking is just taking the pick and picking in up and down motion over and over and over agin..

It's good that you started on the acoustic because they are harder to play in my opinion. It takes more effort to create a clean sounding note on an acoustic than on an electric.

As far as scales go, just do some reading, search around and you'll find a couple good sites (www.guitarnoise.com) that will point you in the right direction.

Good Luck...

I just read a little about scales and something freaked me out. Do you have to finger these kinda chords

E-----5-------8
B-----5-------8
G-----5---7----
D-----5---7----
A-----5---7---8
E-----5-------8

do you have to finger that chord using all your fingers at the same time. Cos if so i is screwed.

A scale is a descending an ascending pattern of notes.

What you would do would be to play that in order.

Like first hit the 5 then the 8 and then go all the way down and all the way back up. It's all individual notes.

Great. For a second there I actually thought you had to finger a scale like that and hit all the strings indicated at the same time.

Chill dude, take one step at a time.

If you want to get into playing solos and stuff you will want to check out the pentatonic scale and the blues scales (they are nearly identical).

Don’t get overwhelmed, at first you can get buy with knowing just one form and moving it up and down the neck like a bar chord ! Be aware that a pentatonic scale can be played in five different positions over a 12 fret /half step span (one octave)....but don’t worry about it too much yet !

The bit of tab you posted is a blues scale (incorporating a pentatonic scale wit the addition of a "blue" note, don’t worry about that for the time being. Practice it in sequential order from low notes to hi notes and then from hi to low until you know it inside out. Then start playing tunes with it ! It is cool to record a i, iv, v progression (a la 12 bar, like E A B) and then play a minor pentatonic scale (that corrisponds to the key of the progression, like E A B 12 bar is in E, so play an Em Pent / blues scale) over the top of the progression. As you get better at pentatonic scales, you can start to experiment, like playing Em pent/blues scale over the E, an Am pent/ blues scale over the A and…you guessed it a Bm pent/blues scale over the B as the progression changes chords.

You could even search the tricks section of this site using the term “pentatonic”

Hope this helps
S

[Edited by Dr_simon on 05-03-2003 at 11:54 AM]

dude - what you just posted is not a chord - it is a scale (well.. then again chords and scales are the same .. but thats a different topic)

thats just a picture of the notes that are in the scale and where you find it on the fretboard - that doesnt mean that you have to play them all at once - that could only be done on a chapmanstick (MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA)

however - a pickup is a device that turns the vibration of the string into an electric signal which is sent to an amplifier that reproduces the tone. the pickups are the small things that are mounted underneath the strings on the body between where the neck is screwed into the body and the bridge - mostly there are 3 pickups and you can switch between them to create a slightly different tone.

I realise how much of an idiot I looked now. I now know what scales are and what they are used for. I have committed some to memory but I was wondering something....

(I'll just use the simplest Am pentatonic for this)

5-----8
5-----8
5--7---
5--7---
5--7---
5-----8

Now, I can play it going from e to E. How about I just play two strings using all the notes in the scale. Like I only play strings e & g. Or do you have to play all notes in the scale to make it a proper scale. Dumb question but its been bothering me. And is could this be an example of alternate picking in a scale……

Playing a high e, then g, then going to b, then d?????

You ca nplay any given scale al across the fretboard on even one string if you like. The normal electric guitar (with 24 frets) gives you 4 full octaves. you can transpose it to wherever you like aslong as you play the same notes - else you will leave a specific key and enter another key.

Basically i would say you get the guitar, get used to the feel of it, for an electric feels alot different to a classical (the stings are thiner, the space between the strings is smaller, the neck is smaller, etc). Noodle around abit and play a few things that come to your mind regardless of the theorethical background. dont get yourself tied up in too much theory - concentrate on your play and feel first :)

Right. So you can just play one string on a scale? Great.

BTW, I've learnt some riffs now and hammer ons pull offs and all that stupid stuff. When I played cello the first thing they taught you was hammer-ons. It was a different name though.

Legato i guess.

However - be aware of the tuning - for example:

e---
b---
g---
d-3-
a---
E---

..is the same as..

e---
b---
g---
d---
a-8-
E---

..or..

e----
b----
g----
d----
a----
E-13-

Its all the same note - so you can of course play a scale on only one string - but thats .. well. .not realy reccomended for "normal" usage because for a quick scale run you´d have a long way to go on the neck while when changing strings you can rest you hand in the same position.

LIke:

[code]|---------------------0-3-|------------------------------------|
|-----------------0-3-----|------------------------------------|
|-------------0-2---------|------------------------------------|
|---------0-2-------------|------------------------------------|
|-----0-2-----------------|------------------------------------|
|-0-3---------------------|-0-3-5-7-10-12-15-17-19-22-24-27----|[/quote]

First bar is the scale played across the strings and second bar is the same thing played along one string - as you can see the last note is SLIGHTLY out of range *LOL*

LOL, not unless they build a new super 30 fret guitar.

Well - i´ll get a super 36 fret guitar soon :)