JFRocks Ear Training 101 Problem page                                                     Copyright © 2005-2006 JFRocks

This page contains no tabs.  This is a page that contains an Audio lesson in mp3 format that contains a riff or solo for you to try to figure out using the tips that Jeff gives you as a guideline.  If this is an older problem and already has an answer page there will be no opportunity for you to submit a tab of how you think this problem is played.  If however it is a new problem and has no answer posted as of yet you will be able to anonymously submit a tab of how you think Jeff is playing the problem.  Be warned these are designed to help your ear and are designed to fool you most of the time.  Please don't cheat and do the answers too fast if they are available.  You are only depriving yourself of a great learning opportunity if you do that. 

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Be sure to listen to the whole audio file.  The answer to this problem will have a video and detailed lesson.

Audio

Contains the problem riff or solo to be figured out

Think you know how this problem riff or solo is played ? Or even what effects may or may not have been used.

Problem Tips: 

Harmonics are a royal pain in the butt.  Most of the people who have been here a while know that I have a great deal of experience tabbing V. H.. material.  Well when I used to do this, I would always get a kick out of going to the various VH forums and reading the debates and nit picks about harmonics and positioning.  I always found it funny but at the same time I can totally dig it. 

The reason for all of this speculation is that harmonics whether they are tap harmonics, or screams or natural harmonics or what ever, can occur in many places.  What I mean is if you are worried about exact positioning you will give yourself one massive headache.  Not to mention the pitches are are deceiving as well. 

I will give you some tips here but, I would also like to point out that it's very important that you know the pitches of the natural harmonics on the fret board.  I cover these in graphic detail on the Beginners 101 CD ROM and I also talk about them on the harmonics lesson here on JFRocks on the JFRocks Guitar Lessons page. 

You must experiment with your guitar and tap harmonics, and sound harmonics all over the place and understand the pitches that are at work.  Thus far in these ear training pages I've been having you focus on picking out pitches of notes.  Well, now you are going to be picking out the pitches of harmonics. 

I will tell you right up front, what I'm playing on the mp3 is very easy to play but the exact harmonics I'm doing have at least 3 possible combinations that occur all over the fret board.  This is because harmonics match all over the place.  For example the harmonics on the 7th fret match the pitches of the harmonics on the 3rd fret.  The 3rd fret harmonics are simply 1 octave higher than the 7th fret ones but the pitches are the same.  Same with the 12th and 5th frets.  Same pitches, different octave.  However, this gets even more confusing when you start adding in tap harmonics which can have the same pitches occurring all over the place on the fret board.  The best you can do short of being the studio with an artist when they record something is to match the pitches on your guitar and play what you hear. 

I hope this problem helps or begins to help with harmonics. 

TIPS

1.  Listen to the problem.  No seriously, I actually mean listen to it, harmonic by harmonic, pitch by pitch.

2.  Figure out if it's done with natural harmonics, tap harmonics, other artificial harmonics like screams or is it a mixture of all of them, what is it.

3.  DO NOT try to match the harmonics with harmonics.  That's only for seasoned pro's with figuring out harmonics.  You need to find the fretted note pitches and match them if possible.  This is the easiest thing to do.  What I mean is, let's say I'm doing the 5th fret 3rd string natural harmonic.  Well that harmonic has a fretted note pitch that matches it and that pitch is G and it's a high octave.  It's either on the 15th fret 1st string or the 20th fret 2nd string.  You will hear notes far better than you will hear harmonics.  Harmonics will deceive you and trust me they mess up a lot of people. 

4.  Make a mental note that some harmonics are too high and don't have a pitch that occurs on the fret board that matches them.  That's fine, make a note of those if there are any and move on.

5.  Once you find the pitches of the harmonics using fretted notes when possible, then match those fretted notes with harmonics and then put the phrasing of the piece together with what you found.

Remember this is just a tip, ultimately do what works best for you.  But the suggestions given above are really in my book one of the better ways to figure out a piece like the one I'm performing here in Problem 11.