How To Express Yourself More Creatively With 7 String Guitar
Do you wish you could find a way to come up with new ideas on your 7 string guitar? Many guitarists have difficulty playing creative music on their 7 string guitar after playing 6 string guitar exclusively for years. Although both instruments are similar, there are many new ways you can express yourself on a 7 string guitar that are simply not possible with only six strings. Additionally, there are many new musical skills to master.
In order to become a great 7 string guitar player, you must learn how to get the most out of all these nuances that make 7 string guitar unique. For the rest of this article, I will be showing you various ways to enhance your musical creativity and expression by explaining various approaches for becoming a better 7 string guitar player.
Clean Up Your Guitar Playing By Cutting Out Unwanted Noises
One of the biggest problems for 7 string guitar players is eliminating unwanted string noise. This problem can occur for many reasons including: difficulty adjusting to the wider guitar neck, trouble with muting the extra bass string, or undeveloped string muting skills in general.
Since the 7 string guitar feels very different than a standard guitar, it often takes guitarists many practice sessions before they can play cleanly. This can be a very slow and frustrating process. Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. To clean up your 7 string guitar playing, you will need to dedicate yourself to overcoming this challenge.
Play your 7 string guitar using your normal routine of guitar techniques, patterns, scales, etc. Take note of when the most noise occurs. By listening carefully as you play, you can pinpoint the exact areas in your guitar playing that require the most work to clean up. If you need help to clean up your guitar playing, check out this page on how to get rid of unwanted string noise on guitar.
Play Both Lead And Rhythm Guitar
If you would like to play 7 string guitar more creatively, you must invest time into practicing smoothly ‘transitioning' between rhythm and lead guitar styles. This skill applies as well for 6 string guitar. If you have already worked on this before with only 6 strings, this skill will mostly carry over. However, when playing 7 string guitar, it will be more difficult to switch from rhythm in the lower notes to leads in the higher notes due to the wider guitar neck.
To make improvement in this area of your guitar playing, create two different guitar parts: a rhythm guitar riff (using lower pitches) and a lead guitar phrase (using mostly high pitches). For now, don't worry about making them too complicated. Once you have created both parts, work on combining the two parts together while playing tightly ‘in time' and without any sloppy noises/hesitations during the process of switching from one part to the next. For this exercise, it will be useful to practice with a metronome. Additionally, record yourself playing so that you can listen to any mistakes you have made. This will make it much easier to spot yourself playing guitar ‘out of time'.
Avoid Overuse Of The Low B String
The first thing a guitarist typically does when he/she gets a new 7 string guitar is immediately start playing around with the new string. In most cases, making ‘heavier' sounding guitar riffs often becomes the main purpose that guitar players choose to pick up their 7 string over their 6 string. This is definitely one of the coolest aspects to playing 7 string guitar. However, the problem is that players often end up in a habit of playing the same style of guitar (rhythm) every time the lower pitch range is used. This will make your guitar playing turn stale very quickly. To avoid this problem and play 7 string guitar more creatively, you must focus on playing with the entire pitch range.
Let me explain:
There are various instruments that use a very large pitch range. For example, the piano ranges from very low notes all the way up to very high notes. If you were to imagine a song being played on a piano, how would it sound? Most likely, you would be hearing a mix of low, mid, and high ranged notes. What if the piano song ONLY consisted of the lowest range notes…and lasted 15 minutes? How long do you think it would take before you became bored? Not very long I'm sure. In fact, you'd probably want to add in mid and high range notes pretty quickly to keep things interesting. This is exactly how you should approach playing 7 string guitar. By focusing all your attention on the lowest string, your guitar playing will become too one-sided (and uninteresting). By mixing in the mid and high range, you will help balance out your overall sound.
It is crucial to understand these ideas on pitch range if you would like to create your own music. When I show my guitar students how to write music, I always help them master this area. To learn some new ways to take advantage of the range of 7 string guitar, read this free lesson on how to play 7 string guitar creatively.
Use A Lead Guitar Playing Style On The Low B String
Due to the lower pitch range that comes with the added string, most guitar players consider the 7 string guitar to be geared toward rhythm playing. This causes them to mostly ignore also expanding their ‘lead guitar' techniques onto the low B string. As a result, these musicians totally miss out on all the interesting new guitar licks that can be made (which are impossible to create on 6 string guitar). If you are not confident in your abilities to play lead guitar or use the low B string, I recommend that you find a guitar teacher who fully understands how to teach 7 string guitar, and can show you how to effectively master these areas in your playing.
Use The Low Range To Add Depth To Your Chord Progressions
The 7 string guitar offers many new options when it comes to creating interesting sounding guitar chords. By taking advantage of the low range that comes with the extra seventh string, you can combine standard guitar chords with the sound of a bass guitar. This allows you the versatility to play guitar in many different musical situations. Even though many guitar players consider 7 string guitar to be a "metal only" instrument, the truth is you can use it to play in various different genres from mainstream pop to jazz.
The low B string on 7 string guitar will give your chords a new depth and unique sound that you simply can't get from a standard guitar. In order to hear this clearly for yourself, I recommend turning off any high gain/distortion settings on your amp. By using a clean setting, you will be able to hear the subtleties as you combine the bass string with the other strings of the guitar.
Here is an idea to help you start combining the chords you already know with the low B string:
Think of several of your favorite chords that begin on the A string. Now, use the low B string together with these chords to see how they sound. Start by playing the open string, then experiment by using fretted notes. See how it sounds if you use only the low B string together with the A, D, and G strings in your chords. Then see how it sounds if you only play the low B string with the G, high B, and high E strings. Notice that whenever you play notes that are closer together it will feel different than when you play notes that are farther apart. After playing through this short exercise, think about which of the string combinations sound best to you. Once you have decided on this, you can use this in your music next time you go to improvise or write something new.
The Next Step…
Even though the main ideas of this article are not very hard to understand, the majority of 7 string guitar players do not truly know how to apply them. Over time, as you master the points discussed in this article, you will be able to play 7 string guitar with a much higher degree of creativity. In order to make faster progress to improve on 7 string guitar, read this free lesson to learn how to play 7 string guitar creatively.
In order to become a great 7 string guitar player, you must learn how to get the most out of all these nuances that make 7 string guitar unique. For the rest of this article, I will be showing you various ways to enhance your musical creativity and expression by explaining various approaches for becoming a better 7 string guitar player.
Clean Up Your Guitar Playing By Cutting Out Unwanted Noises
One of the biggest problems for 7 string guitar players is eliminating unwanted string noise. This problem can occur for many reasons including: difficulty adjusting to the wider guitar neck, trouble with muting the extra bass string, or undeveloped string muting skills in general.
Since the 7 string guitar feels very different than a standard guitar, it often takes guitarists many practice sessions before they can play cleanly. This can be a very slow and frustrating process. Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. To clean up your 7 string guitar playing, you will need to dedicate yourself to overcoming this challenge.
Play your 7 string guitar using your normal routine of guitar techniques, patterns, scales, etc. Take note of when the most noise occurs. By listening carefully as you play, you can pinpoint the exact areas in your guitar playing that require the most work to clean up. If you need help to clean up your guitar playing, check out this page on how to get rid of unwanted string noise on guitar.
Play Both Lead And Rhythm Guitar
If you would like to play 7 string guitar more creatively, you must invest time into practicing smoothly ‘transitioning' between rhythm and lead guitar styles. This skill applies as well for 6 string guitar. If you have already worked on this before with only 6 strings, this skill will mostly carry over. However, when playing 7 string guitar, it will be more difficult to switch from rhythm in the lower notes to leads in the higher notes due to the wider guitar neck.
To make improvement in this area of your guitar playing, create two different guitar parts: a rhythm guitar riff (using lower pitches) and a lead guitar phrase (using mostly high pitches). For now, don't worry about making them too complicated. Once you have created both parts, work on combining the two parts together while playing tightly ‘in time' and without any sloppy noises/hesitations during the process of switching from one part to the next. For this exercise, it will be useful to practice with a metronome. Additionally, record yourself playing so that you can listen to any mistakes you have made. This will make it much easier to spot yourself playing guitar ‘out of time'.
Avoid Overuse Of The Low B String
The first thing a guitarist typically does when he/she gets a new 7 string guitar is immediately start playing around with the new string. In most cases, making ‘heavier' sounding guitar riffs often becomes the main purpose that guitar players choose to pick up their 7 string over their 6 string. This is definitely one of the coolest aspects to playing 7 string guitar. However, the problem is that players often end up in a habit of playing the same style of guitar (rhythm) every time the lower pitch range is used. This will make your guitar playing turn stale very quickly. To avoid this problem and play 7 string guitar more creatively, you must focus on playing with the entire pitch range.
Let me explain:
There are various instruments that use a very large pitch range. For example, the piano ranges from very low notes all the way up to very high notes. If you were to imagine a song being played on a piano, how would it sound? Most likely, you would be hearing a mix of low, mid, and high ranged notes. What if the piano song ONLY consisted of the lowest range notes…and lasted 15 minutes? How long do you think it would take before you became bored? Not very long I'm sure. In fact, you'd probably want to add in mid and high range notes pretty quickly to keep things interesting. This is exactly how you should approach playing 7 string guitar. By focusing all your attention on the lowest string, your guitar playing will become too one-sided (and uninteresting). By mixing in the mid and high range, you will help balance out your overall sound.
It is crucial to understand these ideas on pitch range if you would like to create your own music. When I show my guitar students how to write music, I always help them master this area. To learn some new ways to take advantage of the range of 7 string guitar, read this free lesson on how to play 7 string guitar creatively.
Use A Lead Guitar Playing Style On The Low B String
Due to the lower pitch range that comes with the added string, most guitar players consider the 7 string guitar to be geared toward rhythm playing. This causes them to mostly ignore also expanding their ‘lead guitar' techniques onto the low B string. As a result, these musicians totally miss out on all the interesting new guitar licks that can be made (which are impossible to create on 6 string guitar). If you are not confident in your abilities to play lead guitar or use the low B string, I recommend that you find a guitar teacher who fully understands how to teach 7 string guitar, and can show you how to effectively master these areas in your playing.
Use The Low Range To Add Depth To Your Chord Progressions
The 7 string guitar offers many new options when it comes to creating interesting sounding guitar chords. By taking advantage of the low range that comes with the extra seventh string, you can combine standard guitar chords with the sound of a bass guitar. This allows you the versatility to play guitar in many different musical situations. Even though many guitar players consider 7 string guitar to be a "metal only" instrument, the truth is you can use it to play in various different genres from mainstream pop to jazz.
The low B string on 7 string guitar will give your chords a new depth and unique sound that you simply can't get from a standard guitar. In order to hear this clearly for yourself, I recommend turning off any high gain/distortion settings on your amp. By using a clean setting, you will be able to hear the subtleties as you combine the bass string with the other strings of the guitar.
Here is an idea to help you start combining the chords you already know with the low B string:
Think of several of your favorite chords that begin on the A string. Now, use the low B string together with these chords to see how they sound. Start by playing the open string, then experiment by using fretted notes. See how it sounds if you use only the low B string together with the A, D, and G strings in your chords. Then see how it sounds if you only play the low B string with the G, high B, and high E strings. Notice that whenever you play notes that are closer together it will feel different than when you play notes that are farther apart. After playing through this short exercise, think about which of the string combinations sound best to you. Once you have decided on this, you can use this in your music next time you go to improvise or write something new.
The Next Step…
Even though the main ideas of this article are not very hard to understand, the majority of 7 string guitar players do not truly know how to apply them. Over time, as you master the points discussed in this article, you will be able to play 7 string guitar with a much higher degree of creativity. In order to make faster progress to improve on 7 string guitar, read this free lesson to learn how to play 7 string guitar creatively.
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