RICHARDS' MODIFIED TUNING FOR ADAPTED GUITAR A MODIFIED APPROACH TO GUITAR INSTRUCTION FOR MUSIC THERAPISTS AND MUSIC EDUCATORS WADE M. RICHARDS, MT-BC Richards’ Modified Tuning For Adapted Guitar An Approach to Guitar Instruction for Music Therapists and Music Educators Wade M. Richards, MT-BC Edited by Michelle Erfurt and Sue Tyler Weatherell Published by Time for Music 58 Parkside Crescent Rochester, New York 14617 © Copyright 2010 Time for Music All rights reserved. Table of Contents Introduction ♩♩♩page 3 The F#m7 Chord ♩♩♩page 19 Common questions ♩♩♩page 3 Playing Power Chords ♩♩♩page 20 Outline of the book ♩♩♩page 5 The Moveable Major Chord ♩♩♩page 21 Guitar Chord Chart Key ♩♩♩page 6 The Moveable Minor Chord ♩♩♩page 22 Tuning ♩♩♩page 7 The Moveable Seventh Chord ♩♩♩page 23 The D Chord ♩♩♩page 8 Playing Pentatonic Patterns ♩♩♩page 24 The A5 Chord ♩♩♩page 9 Movable Major Pentatonic ♩♩♩page 25 The G Chord ♩♩♩page 10 Playing Modes: Mixolydian ♩♩♩page 26 The D7 Chord ♩♩♩page 11 Playing Modes: Lydian ♩♩♩page 27 The C5 Chord ♩♩♩page 12 Playing the Blues Scale ♩♩♩page 28 The E5 and A5 Chord ♩♩♩page 13 Skill Strand ♩♩♩page 29 The Bm Chord ♩♩♩page 14 Richard’s Modified ♩♩♩page 31 Tuning Fretboard The E7 or Em7 Chord ♩♩♩page 15 Appendix Table of Contents ♩♩♩page 32 The Dm Chord ♩♩♩page 16 Appendix 1 ♩♩♩page 34 The Gm Chord ♩♩♩page 17 Appendix 2 ♩♩♩page 35 The G7 Chord ♩♩♩page 18 Chord Chart Reference ♩♩♩page 36 The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 1 The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 2 Introduction Welcome to Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adapted Guitar: An Approach to Guitar Instruction for Music Therapists and Music Educators. This book introduces a new and exciting world of guitar playing! You will discover how this method can help make guitar playing more accessible for new students or students currently struggling with standard tuning. If guitar is not your main instrument, you may find that this tuning will make guitar playing and improvising easier for you! Wade Richards, LCAT, NMT, MT-BC Common Questions What is the Richards’ Modified Tuning? Modified Tuning (or alternate tuning) for guitar is any tuning that is different from standard guitar tuning. Standard tuning from the lowest string, to the highest string, is E A d g b e′. The Richards’ Modified Tuning’s unique design allows for easy-to-use one- and two-fingered chords, as well as simplified fretboard fingerings and patterns for scales and modes. Why use the Richards’ Modified Tuning? In many instances traditional guitar chords can be difficult for new students to play successfully. Standard tuning may have a few options for simplified one-finger chords like C and G, but are still limiting since basic chord progressions can not be executed without including three-fingered chords. Open tunings, or tunings that produce a chord with open strings, have limitations if the student can not effectively use a guitar slide or bar across the strings with their finger. Adaptive guitar devices that fit onto the guitar can assist in playing more complete chords with only one finger, but the quality of the chord sound is often dependent upon the coordination and finger strength of the individual. In many cases, the sound produced with an adaptive device can be substandard, or lack the authenticity of playing the instrument. Who is the Richards’ Modified Tuning for? The Richards’ Modified Tuning is designed for individuals with learning differences and needs in cognitive, emotional, social, and/or physical areas. I have used this tuning with children, young adults, adults, and seniors with autism, learning disabilities, cognitive delays, developmental disabilities, health impairments, physical injuries, arthritis, traumatic brain injures, dyslexia, physical disabilities, cerebral palsy, and emotional disabilities. The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 3 How do you decide who needs to use the Richards’ Modified Tuning verses standard tuning? The easy answer is assessment! I always carefully assess a new student interested in learning to play the guitar. Usually a basic conversation about the guitar with the student yields some insight into their limitations, frustrations, and/or their goals for playing. Others have never picked up the instrument and so I begin to assess them for common problem areas with standard tuning and take these difficulties into consideration. For those with physical limitations, common problem areas may include: dexterity, size of fingers, finger sensitivity, pain management, injury, arthritis, or visual-motor accuracy. Emotional issues may include: negative past experience with formal lessons or playing, a high level of frustration, a lack of confidence in their abilities, or a need for a more improvisational mode for self-expression. Cognitive limitations might include: difficulty with memory recall of chord shapes, a big gap in chord change time, or impulsivity. Social issues may involve: a desire to just “jam” with friends, or not wanting to be compared to other players. Once you start the Richards’ Modified Tuning method, can a student transition to standard tuning? Yes. Since I developed the Richards’ Modified Tuning I have successfully transitioned two students to standard tuning. Their fine motor skills and dexterity increased so dramatically using the Richards’ Modified Tuning that they were able to transition to three-fingered chords. Their level of frustration and confusion had decreased while their fine motor skills had increased greatly from their original assessment. Both students were able to process that the standard guitar tuning had its own set of rules and chords and were able to differentiate between the new set of chords and the previous ones learned with the Richards’ Modified Tuning. The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 4 Outline of this book This book was developed to provide the guitar teacher, music educator, or music therapist a basic introductory guide into the Richards’ Modified Tuning method. The beginning of this book outlines the basic chords in the Richards’ Modified Tuning and gives suggested application and song ideas. Most song ideas include the title of the song and the artist/performer that made the song famous. Following the basic chord sections, there are a variety scales, including: pentatonic, Mixolydian, Lydian, and blues. Some of the scales are easy to play in their configuration, and some offer a challenge for the advancing student or teacher. Appendix 1 (p. 33) provides a sample lesson instruction sheet. There are ideas written in the application, songs, and practice areas to demonstrate how to organize and design your lessons. Appendix 2 (p. 34) contains a blank chord sheet for you to copy and use for your lessons. Notice that the chord diagram is blank. By having the student draw in each new chord being learned, you are promoting tactile learning. The Chord Chart Reference (p. 35) at the end of the book is a handy resource, showing the most commonly used chords in this tuning. The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 5 Guitar Chord Chart Key The chord diagrams used in this book closely resembles standard chord charts used for guitar. The grid includes the lowest string on the left to the highest sounding string on the right. A black dot on the fretboard means to place your finger between the frets and press down. A black “X” means do not play that string when playing the chord. One difference in the chord diagrams in this book is that the symbol “O” is not used to show that an open string should be played. If an “X” is not present, play the open string for that chord. The finger goes directly behind the fret, so in this diagram, the finger is placed behind the 2nd fret. I sometimes place labels on the side of the guitar and number each fret space to help the student find that space easily. when no “X” is when marked present, play this with an “X”, do open string not play that place your finger between the frets string x x x nut fret 1 lowest fret 2 sounding string fret 3 fret 4 D G d e a dʹ The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 6 Tuning I would suggest using a chromatic tuner when tuning to save time and effort, especially if you will be moving between tunings frequently. The tuning for the strings from lowest to highest is as follows: Tuning 6th 5th 4th 3rd 2nd 1st string string string string string string Standard E A d g b eʹ Modified down to down to stays on down to down to down to D G d e a dʹ Can I tune the guitar without a tuner? Yes, as long as you tune the lowest string to D you can tune using fret-interval tuning. Tuning 6th 5th 4th 3rd 2nd 1st string string string string string string Modified D G d e a dʹ Interval play the play the play the play the play the tuning 5th fret 7th fret 2nd fret 5th fret 5th fret method to tune to tune to tune to tune to tune the G the d the e the a the dʹ Are my strings apt to break from constantly retuning? No. I can’t remember ever breaking a string while moving between the modified tuning and standard tuning. This is likely because all retuned strings are moving down in pitch in the Richards’ Modified Tuning and are not higher in pitch than standard tuning. Retune slowly when moving back to standard tuning to avoid sudden stress on the strings, and your strings should last just as long. The Richards’ Modified Tuning for Adaptive Guitar 7 The D Chord X X In general this is a nice chord to begin with when first starting to play in the Richards’ Modified Tuning.