{"id":605,"date":"2010-09-27T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/?p=605"},"modified":"2011-04-22T14:57:42","modified_gmt":"2011-04-22T20:57:42","slug":"music-theory-for-worship-muscle-memory-for-guitarists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/music-theory-for-worship-muscle-memory-for-guitarists\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Theory for Worship: Muscle Memory for Guitarists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/acoustic_guitar_sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-627\" title=\"Muscle Memory for Guitar\" src=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/acoustic_guitar_sm.jpg\" alt=\"Playing the Acoustic Guitar\" width=\"595\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/acoustic_guitar_sm.jpg 595w, https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/acoustic_guitar_sm-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 595px) 100vw, 595px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One important part of learning how to master an instrument is developing your muscles to instantly know where chords, notes, and scales are on the instrument in order to play them without any effort of thinking about them. <a title=\"Music Theory for Worship - Muscle Memory | I am an Offering\" href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/music-theory-for-worship-muscle-memory\/\" target=\"_blank\">We learned about what muscle memory is last week and applied it to playing the piano<\/a>. Let&#8217;s take a look at some general exercises guitarists can use to develop muscle memory:<\/p>\n<h3>Acoustic\/Rhythm Guitar<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a title=\"Practical Music Theory Tips - Chord Progressions and Vamping | I am an Offering\" href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/practical-music-theory-tips-6-chord-progressions-and-vamping\/\" target=\"_blank\">Practice progressions<\/a><\/strong><strong>.<\/strong> Find the I-IV-V progression in every key you can play with open chords (chords like C, G, D, E; played in the first position of the fretboard) and run through them over and over daily.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Start strumming.<\/strong> Find new strumming patterns to use and work the muscles of your right hand so that they get used to the pattern.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Place your Pick (and your fingers)<\/strong> &#8211; Train your fingers on your strumming hand to know where each string is so you are able to call out specific notes within the chord. \u00a0Practice playing each chord with just your fingers so you are able to develop more finger-picking technique.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Break out of the low position of the fretboard.<\/strong> Start learning how to play chords in different shapes and positions higher up the neck. \u00a0Once you&#8217;ve done that&#8230;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Electric\/Lead Guitar<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Know how to play each chord in a different shape and position on the fretboard.<\/strong> Each chord shape can be moved up the frets in order to play it in any key. \u00a0Play every different shape and inversion of one chord over and over until your muscles know exactly where to find it in each position. \u00a0Once you&#8217;ve done that, put the different shapes together in progressions in each position by knowing which shapes to use together with each other.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Practice scales. <\/strong>If you want to be a good lead guitarist, <strong>you must know your scales. \u00a0Period.<\/strong> All solos and lead lines are built off of some form of scale. \u00a0Learn major, minor, pentatonic, blues, and every other scale possible. \u00a0To develop your muscles to the point of recognizing where your fingers go, start by playing one type of scale over and over again <strong>very slowly<\/strong> until you&#8217;ve mastered it at a certain speed <strong>(set your metronome and don&#8217;t stray from that speed until you can play the scale with no mistakes!) <\/strong>Once you&#8217;ve mastered the scale at a slow speed, increase your metronome slightly and practice it at that speed until you have no mistakes. \u00a0Keep doing this and gradually increase speed as you perfect the scale. \u00a0Then move on to a different scale type and start the whole process over.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A great resource for\u00a0<a title=\"Acoustic Guitar With Paul Baloche Modern Worship Series (DVD)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B001IX44HS?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=iamanoff-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B001IX44HS\" target=\"_blank\">learning to play acoustic guitar for worship can be found here<\/a> (affiliate) and <a title=\"Electric Guitar With Paul Baloche &amp; Ben Gowell Modern Worship Series (DVD)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B001IX44I2?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=iamanoff-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B001IX44I2\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s a great resource for playing electric guitar for worship<\/a> (affiliate).<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not a master guitarist by any means, and I&#8217;m sure this is just scratching the surface for what you can do to develop muscle memory on the guitar.<strong> Long-time, experienced guitarists &#8211; what do you do to develop muscle memory?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(Photo by <a title=\"Guitar | Creativemyk.com\" href=\"http:\/\/www.creativemyk.com\/gallery.aspx?id=4381\" target=\"_blank\">Asher Lohman<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 5px 5px 0;float:left;height:50px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/music-theory-for-worship-muscle-memory-for-guitarists\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"595\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One important part of learning how to master an instrument is developing your muscles to instantly know where chords, notes, and scales are on the instrument in order to play them without any effort of thinking about them. We learned about what muscle memory is last week and applied it to playing the piano. Let&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,33,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-worship-leaders","category-music","category-training"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1748,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamanoffering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}