PIMA 101 (Part 2) For both exercises below, there are three guitar parts. The 1st guitar is playing all quarter notes and provide the basic rhythm. The 2nd guitar part is for a basic lead based on the notes within the rhythm chords provided. The 3rd guitar part plays off of both of the first two guitars. This 3rd guitar is more of your accompanying guitar. I want you to practice using the PIMA legend. If you notice, we haven't really incorporated our "A" in PIMA, which is why I want to make sure we've gotten the PIM(A) that has been used so far. Once we start adding the "A" it will get quite difficult so let's make sure we're cool so far. Basic PIMA Legend Note: I've NOT included the "A" this time, as we've not gotten to the A yet in learning fingerstyle using the PIMA method. It's pretty tricky. Just follow this basic guideline for now. Notice that the "P's" are on the Low E string and A string. The "I's" are on the D string and the G string. The "M's" are on the B and high E string. This can be interchanged, but I want to see if you can follow the legend WHILE you are playing the passages using a standard format. It's much harder to do this, but this is actually how it would work if you didn't have me placing the PIMA on the actual tablature within a lesson. guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 1/22
1. C, Dm, Em, F Guitar 1: Guitar 2: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 2/22
Guitar 3: 2. C, G, Am, G7 Guitar 1: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 3/22
Guitar 2: Guitar 3: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 4/22
(Key of A) Basic PIMA Legend guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 5/22
1. A, Bm, C#m, D Guitar 1: Guitar 2: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 6/22
Guitar 3: 2. A, E, F#m, Bm7 Guitar 1: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 7/22
Guitar 2: Guitar 3: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 8/22
(Key of G) This exercise is a little different. I thought this would be fun. What we are doing is taking "Desperado" by The Eagles and stripping it down to the bare bones. Before anyone says that this isn't the right way to play the song, I must mention that it has been transcribed in the key of G, with an intro in D. When you play the song passage, you'll hear the essence of the music come right out, but it's a little different than the original song. The tempo is a smooth 70 bpm, which should allow you to slowly transition notes with ease. I've included both the lead, or accompanying piece, as well as the chords you can reference with the song key accompaniment. In this exercise, the use of low melody notes is a MUST! Remember to follow the low melody note arrangement in terms of note value and it will sound 100% accurate. Remember that the low melody notes will always show 'upside down' in tablature. I'll give a rundown below. The Lesson Here is the lead for the passage: Part I guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 9/22
Measures 1 and 2 We begin the song with a D7 intro using tied eighth notes in all high melody. (You'll know this because the tied eighth notes at the beginning of the passage are actually ON the staff. Remember that a low melody note should show OFF the tab staff.) From the D7, you play the G and G7 using fingerstyle. The low melody note of G on the low E string is played as a half note while the high melody note of G on the G string plays as an eighth note. This is followed by an open G string note using eighth notes, which ties to an open dotted quarter note. Then, the low melody note, played again on the low E string, is played as a half note again. You then form the G7 in fingerstyle starting and ending the G7 chord with eighth notes. Measure 3 Here we have the C to Cm. This should be rather easy, but it's a little faster than the previous measures in terms of note striking. The low melody note on the C chord, played on the A string on the 3rd fret, runs as a half note, and duplicates itself when playing the Cm. Since most of this measure runs right through, the only thing I would pay close attention to is the 16th notes at the end of this measure. The "2" and "0" should be played as such, leading into the 4th measure. Measures 4 and 5 By now you should have started seeing a trend in the low melody notes. Notice that within each measure, you've got two low melody notes. So far, they've all been half notes. Easy huh?! That's the case with these measures as well, so there's no need to explain it again. The last thing I want to mention is to pay attention once again to the 16th notes played at the end of Measure 5 with the added pull off. This should be elementary for you by now. guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 10/22
PIMA Legend: (I snuck an "A" in on you! Remember these are only recommended patterns. You can variate them based on comfort.) Part II guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 11/22
Measures 6 and 7 These are simply repeats of Measures 2 and 3. Easy! Measures 8, 9, and 10 Though there isn't much difference between the eighth measure and the fourth measure, you will need to add the pull off, just as you played earlier, in preparation for the quick time signature change. Don't worry. The time signature change doesn't even feel like one, since it changes to 2/4 instead of 4/4. The only real difference in the 2/4 change is that instead of playing half notes with the low melody, you play quarter notes. Bam. That's it! End the song by going into Measure 10 and playing the low melody note of G on the third fret. Notice that since it shows as a whole note, it will not be upside down. You can't really turn a full circle upside down, BUT it show below the tab staff as always. (well, most of the time, but we'll get into that later). PIMA Legend: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 12/22
Adding Chords Here are the chords associated with the lead pattern: Part I guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 13/22
Notice that all the chords added are played as half notes. That will guarantee that the lead stays with the rhythm. Alll of the chords associated here are literally the basic chord form of the accompaniment that is being played. You can add or remove notes, or create partial chords with this, which I did a little below. As you can see, the Em7 doesn't sound as good with the full chord being played, so I created a partial by simply guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 14/22
removing some of the notes associated to lighten the chord up. If I were to add all the open strings, it muffles the song badly. The same applies with the D7, in which I omitted the open D string note for giggles. We're still playing all half notes. Part II guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 15/22
The only other thing that needs to be addressed here has actually already been addressed, but notice that when we switch to 2/4 time, the chords played with the accompaniment now resort to quarter notes to keep it all together. Finally, the song switches back to 4/4 time, and we end the chord part with a half note. That allows the lead to ring through with the whole note and keeps it from muffling the overall accompaniment. Did you enjoy this exercise? One thing I always want to do is introduce living, breathing guitar work instead of charts,text and chord diagrams to keep this exciting. True fingerstyle guitar can get really frustrating, but I think so far so good with what has been presented so far. This should give you a day or two's worth of practice before we get into the key of E exercises using fingerstyle and accompaniment. (Key of E) This exercise in fingerstyle and accompaniment is really an intermediate one, but if you are in ANY way familiar with scale usage then this should be relatively easy. Again, all fingerings are considered optional based on comfort level. However, when you watch the video, watch how I've seperated each two measure run into logical fingerings. We will be working on "French Suite No. 6 in E (BWV 817 6 Menuet)" by Johann Sebastian Bach but we're going to play it at 80 bpm for now because the original has it set to around 120 bpm, and I feel that is way too fast for now. So, make sure you download the PTB file that I offer. I've removed a few parts that I don't think is appropriate to learn right now. Though this is a solo piece, I've added BASIC accompaniment to it in the Key of E. This one is in 3/4 timing, so watch closely! Here is the tab for the main guitar: Guitar 1 (Basic Lead) This entire passage should be easy, based on the fact that we're using all eighth, quarter, and half notes. There is no need for a PIMA legend in this exercise because it is mostly just a simple "P" and "I" run moving up and down the fretboard. All of these notes ARE able to be fingered, but there may be a stretch at times. guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 16/22
Guitar 2 (Lead and Accompanying) Here I've stayed with the key of E theme. The 2nd guitar is on bottom as you can see. We start off with a standard open E chord, and in the next measure, I've added a simple full alteration to the partials being created in Guitar 1. Notice that there isn't much to it. You just have to play with the lead in finding acceptable notes within the accompaniment. I just added barred position notes. In the third measure, I simply created a partial E barre chord on the A string. DO NOT include the full barre chord or it will not sound right. For the 4th measure, I just added those open E's again. In the measures below, I changed it up a little for you. The fifth measure adds second fret notes on the high E. Easy enough. Notice what I did in the sixth, seventh, and eighth measures. Subtract the numbers from Guitar 1 into Guitar 2 and what do you get? FIVE. Guitar 2 is playing the lower melody (octave) of the same chords played in Guitar 1. Neat huh?! This does not always work, but in this case I think it sounds pretty cool. It adds a thickness to the otherwise open and higher tone guitar. Since the fingerings are the exact same, I didn't include them on the video. Again, all of the notes played here CAN be played, but there may just be a stretch or two that you aren't accustomed to. guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 17/22
I think by now you are starting to get the hang of accompanying, and while these are considered exercises for this category, I think that learning to play fingerstyle and learning the logics of accompanying go hand-in-hand regardless of the topic we are focusing on. (Key of D) This exercise is based on "Whiskey Lullaby" which is a song by Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss. It's absolutely beautiful but quite sad. Here we will be looking at the Verse theme for the song. It isn't real easy, so I've included quite a few notes for it. It may not be one of your favorite songs, but it has some great fingerstyle in it and is tricky enough to give you a challenge, but not too hard so that it becomes frustrating. This passage has two guitars, but the second guitar only comes in near the end of the Verse Theme. They are both tuned to D, A, D, G, B, and E, but Guitar 2 has a capo on the second fret. Verse Theme guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 18/22
Here we begin with a guitar using a bottleneck slide (or any slide for that matter). Guitar 1 is still in the D, A, D, G, B, E tuning as well as Guitar 2. However, Guitar 2 has a capo on the SECOND fret. Though we haven't really covered the use of actual slide guitar, this one is easy, and I've included this passage on the video for reference purposes. guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 19/22
PIMA Legend: guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 20/22
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Video Reference: Much more material is covered in our Fingerstyle 101 DVD. Please refer to Chapter 2 "PIMA 101" on the DVD for additional information. guitaralliance.com/ /test.htm 22/22