General Music Chat

I have noticed that when I pick up a guitar, nine times out of ten I automatically assume the Am chord position. When I stand at a keyboard it allways seems to be the Cm position. Although obviously I can play in other keys lol, I must admit I seem to be drawn to the minor keys as an automatic starting position. I put this down to the fact that I am a miserable git and love music played in minor. Does anyone else find themselves automatically assuming a certain starting position on their instrument of choice and can you offer a reason why.

ooh been there done that. I used to have a friend of mine tune my guitar before i got there, just so I didn't have to hear the distracting tones.

Try singing the what you hear in your head repeatedly, then try to transcribe it.

If you can't or find yourself getting lost, try recording you humming/singing the important part of it. Melodically, you can get back to it a little easier should you become lost.

You can use the most ice age cassette recorder if that's all you have, it doesn't matter. It will save your bacon and your would be tunes.

Not sure if its mushroom season where you are mate, coz I dont understand your reply. I never mentioned getting lost just the fact that when I pick up a guitar I allways seem to put my fingers automatically to form the Am shape, just wondered if its just me or does everyone go to a comfortable position that they allways seem to find themselves in finger position wise.

Yeah, I seem to start on a barre A major most of the time. Pick up a guitar and that's the first chord I usually go for to see if it's close to in tune, that or Emin. I think 90% of the time it's A though.

I never noticed this until a friend brought it to my attention, after that I started taking note of it, and yep, I usually start off on the same A chord most of the time.

If I think my guitar will need tuning, I usually find my fingers already holding E.
Otherwise, the first chord I'm at is the 1st chord of whichever song is currently going through my head at the time. I'm usually working on about 5 - 10 songs at any given time . . .
And - the first chord I hear can easily distract me away fom any music I'm mentally working on.
If the song in my head seems to be heading towards an Fm#, for instance - then that's the 1st chord my hand goes to . . .

Let me break it down for you, "mate".

Your 1st note, be it Am, is generally your tonic or root note. That would be your 1.

Every heard of 1-4-5? That would designate an Am - D (Dm) - E (Em), possibly a simple Aeolian scale.

If you start at Am, not only are you preferential to that tonic note, but the same key as well.

I find my self fretting a F# 7th sus 4.

Is that normal?

lol For you Wegman, I bet it is.

Not sure if its mushroom season where you are mate, coz I dont understand your reply.

that, was frikin hilarious!

dittoes too, I was having a hard time extracting how that fit the thread...

Thanks for breaking that down for me Captain "mate" nobody has been kind enough to do that for me since my first guitar lesson about 30 years ago. Still dont see the relevance to the thread though, lets assume the instrument is already in tune or should I have made that clear initially?.
At least Pete got the gist of it.
Cheers for confirming the confusion Celtic, thought I was goin mad.

Mushroom season, hilarious! I myself find myself doing an open position G when playing acoustic, E major when playing electric.

Nevermind, you are so good you don't need any anything, right?

That's why I just heard your album/ saw you on MTV. lol

No correlation between starting position and root note, huh>?

Nice twist Jimmy, I didn't think about the acoustic vs electric aspect of guitar. You have made me contradict myself because as an experiment I just picked up my electric, which very rarely gets played, tis not a minor that I automatically assume on that, it is a barred g major. Allways a minor chord on keyboards allways a minor on acoustic yet a major on electric, weird maybe im not such a miserable git when im plugged in lol.