Posts

SMG Guitar Lesson #2: The Five Octave Positions

/in /by

The following is an excerpt from my “Hello Guitar” Guide to Getting Started

* Note: occasionally in this post, you will see a lower case “b” next to a note name. This means that the note is “flat.”

Given any note or chord, there are only five positions on the guitar neck from which it can be played. This is an incredibly useful tool considering that there are over 3,500 chords and over 550 different scales that can be played on the guitar. Yet, everything you will ever do on the guitar boils down to understanding these five simple positions. These are the five positions from which a given root note is played with at least one other octave. (Root notes are the notes that define a chord or scale at its foundation. For example, in the C Major chord, the root note is the note C, from which, the rest of the chord gets its name.) In this book, I have labelled these as positions one through five. Add them to your warm-up routine and spend as much time as needed to get familiar with them. We’ll be using these positions quite a bit throughout this book as we learn how to construct numerous scales and chords. Position 1 occurs when the root note is located on the top, bottom, and fourth string. 

octave position 1 for guitar

Helpful Tips for position 1:

  • There is one fret in between the root notes on the first and sixth strings and the root note on the fourth string.
  • There is one string in between the root note found on the 6th string and the root note found on the 4th string
  • There are two strings in between the root note found on the 4th string and the root note found on the 1st string.
  • The notes on the top and bottom string of a fret are always the same root note.
  • In the open position, the notes E, F, and F# occur in position 1

Tour Diary: Sheffield

/in /by

A short video from our trip up to Sheffield back in February – a concert which was part of our Green Tour initiative which saw the OAE ditch individual cars in favour of coaches and trains. Though we now know that trains are noisy places in which to film interviews… turn the volume up to hear Ceri at the start! Sadly we didn’t get footage of the venue evacuation, we were too busy wondering what on earth was happening…



Matthew Truscott on Purcell’s emotional depths and Handel’s borderline smugness

/in /by

Now you get to hear from a player rather than just office bods! In this latest vid OAE leader Matthew Truscott talks about the concert he has devised and is directing at Kings Place on 9 April, – a programme which features Purcell, Bach and Handel, including how the concert fits into the Baroque. Contrasted. theme of the festival.

Next up, another round of Baroque trivia.



OAE staff natter about Baroque. Contrasted.

/in /by

We let three OAE office staff loose on camera to talk about our concerts at Kings Place this week – and here are the results. There is some logic to this as the staff have all been closely involved not just with co-ordinating running and marketing the events but also with devising some of the more unusual events, such as Barqoue from Scratch and Sing Baroque! Have a watch and do come along this week – and if you recognise us from the video do come and say hello! Next up is another video with OAE leader Matthew Truscott talking about the programme of Bach, Purcell and Handel he has devised for the festival.



To Paris with the OAE: a video diary

/in /by

Here’s a little video diary from our trip to Paris back in January, when we took a supersized OAE there for a concert of Wagner, Liszt and Mahler with conductor Vladimir Jurowski and mezzo soprano Sarah Connolly. We armed Communications Director William Norris with a video camera, and here are the results:



OAE Released: Cover art

/in /by

Through the history of recorded music the cover artwork on a CD or LP has always been an important part of the finished product, and in the pop world in particular, there are have been some truly legendary and iconic designs – just think of Abbey Road, The Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper and Nirvana’s Nevermind. The fact I don’t feel a need to post pictures of these to remind readers is a testament to the way their cover art has entered the popular conciousness.

It has to be said though that classical music hasn’t done so well with its cover art (though do feel free to tell us about any of your favourite covers) and it’s probably easier to find some really bad cover art than anything really distinctive. There are some exceptions of course (two of my favourites being the Virgin Ultraviolet range and Decca’s Argo line, both now out of print, and some more in this blog article) but they are the exception and not the rule.

So when we came to produce the first CD on our OAE Released label we wanted to think long and hard about the artwork. We tasked the designers, Harrison and Co, with coming up with something that would be very ‘OAE’ – distinctive, different, something that would stand out from other CDs and tie in with the Orchestra’s values. Importantly the artwork would need to be a distinctive series – so that while each CD would look different they should also be recognisably from the same stable.

The designers came back with a range of options and there were two frontrunners for us, but we ultimately went with an alphabet theme…in the video below designer Chris talks through the different options he came up with, including the one we eventually picked.

The first CD on OAE Released, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers is out now and can be bought through our website.

William Norris, Communications Director