| |
| |
|
|
Music Information |
|
|
|
A Dying Cat And A Nylon String Guitar
"Music isn't just learning notes and playing them, you learn notes to play to the music of your soul" - Katie Greenwood. Why are you learning music anyway? Is it to pick up chicks? Is it to fulfill a void in your mundane life? Is it an indescribable calling? I always wanted to learn the drums. I don't know why, maybe it's the aggressive nature of the things. You sit there and bash the crap out of them. As fate would have it I shared a house with Dave, a guitar player, so I decided to learn the guitar as I had my very own teacher living in the next room. Or so I thought. I went out and bought a nylon string classical guitar for $70. I didn't have a clue what I was doing but that never stopped me before. So I went back home with my new guitar in its cardboard box. And with anything new, you want to play with it straight away, as soon as you get it home. I also bought one of those guitar case chord dictionaries. You know the ones, they have a thousand chords in them and they are designed to confuse rather than actually help you. So I waited for Dave to get home from work and as soon as he was in the door I was at him. "I bought this new guitar and I was wondering if you could show me how to play it" I said. He just laughed at me but eventually agreed to show me which chords to learn first. He told me to learn the open chords A, D, E, G, and C. So I did. I spent every spare moment learning these chords. Dave wouldn't show me any songs to play so I was forced to make up my own songs. This forced me to really explore every one of these chords as I thought at the time that I had to include them all in every song I wrote. The songs I wrote were pretty strange to say the least. We were into punk music at that time so just imagine what a dying cat like vocals set to a nylon string out of tune guitar played as fast as a speeding train sounds like and you get the picture. It sounded good to me at the time and I was very proud of my new found ability. It took about three months to get the hang of changing between the chords, and being able to write a song. (if you could call it that). I didn't know it at the time but I had the one thing that was needed that would ensure I would become a good guitar player. That one thing was sheer bloody determination. And the more people told me how bad I sounded the more determined I became to improve. So it doesn't matter how good or bad you are at the moment just play the music of your soul - even if it sounds like a cat being tortured. You will improve as long as you keep trying. Here's a mental exercise for you. Fast forward your mind to 4 years from now. How good a guitar player will you be? The time will pass regardless of what you do. Are you going to keep at it? or are you going to give up? It's up to you. You will be four years older, but will you be four years wiser? John Stockwell is a guitar player and the author of the acclaimed "Mind Over Music for Guitar" http://www.learn-to-play-guitar.net/mindovermusic/, a unique approach to learning to play the guitar by ear for beginners to advanced students.
MORE RESOURCES:
Music - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
RIAA Files Second Wave of Lawsuits The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has launched a second wave of lawsuits against users of internet2 (a specialized high speed version of the internet that makes it ideal for file sharing). By adding 20 new schools to the list, RIAA has greatly expanded the number of students involved in the case. Copyright Basics for Songwriters Should you copyright your song? If you're a songwriter, sooner or later you will probably have some questions about getting your material copyrighted. Since I've already been down this road before, you might be able to benefit from my experience. The Bagpipe and Its History You may have heard that bagpipes are a Scottish invention; you may have heard that they are an Irish invention. The truth (of course) is neither one. Thomas Jefferson and the Chinese Gong While Richard Nixon's diplomatic visit to China may have created a minor thaw in Sino-US relations, he was not the first President to try to get in sync with the Chinese. Thomas Jefferson preceded him by close to two centuries. Defining The True Artist - Do You Have What It Takes? "The real communicating artists seek unique expression. They are not interested anymore in sounding like their heroes, they are searching constantly, developing and refining their own unique voice. Liberate your iPod When Akio Morita came up with the idea of the Sony Walkman all of his colleagues at the thought he was completely insane. The general consensus was that people wouldn't want to walk around the streets wearing headphones. Arpeggios and New Age Piano Playing Chopin used them extensively. So did Beethoven and Mozart. Piano Lessons Can be Fun! There are essentially two ways to learn piano - note reading or chords. For those who want to spend years learning how to play other peoples music, note reading is the way to go. Chords or Melody First... Which is Best? There are basically two ways you can compose a piece of music. The first and most traditional way is to write out the melody and then harmonize it. Motorhead Inferno Motorhead-"Inferno"-Review by Les Lewellyn When David Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame release the sensational CD "Probot" this year it rekindled my metal tastebuds. For those of you not familiar with his project I'll explain. Closet Monsters London Spicoluk Way back in November I found myself at the Casby Awards after party trying to socialize with whomever I came across. One person who I chatted with that night was a guy named London Spicoluk, from the band Closet Monster. How to Create a Multi-artistic Piece - Part II In the last article, the creation of a theme, its development, and the use of a libretto were discussed. As one may recall, the theme is the kernel of a production, which dictates the nature of the piece. Creating Your Own Unique Music Have you ever dreamed of penning your own compositions? Writing music has been a dream of mine for the longest time. And it's a dream I am fortunate enough to have realized. How to Play Piano Using a Few Chords How many chords do you need to create a piece of music? Would you believe that it doesn't really matter and that whole pieces of music have been created using just one chord? For example, if you play a D minor 7 chord, you could use the bass note D to create a drone effect and anchor the whole improvisation. It could last for a few seconds or many minutes. Do You Know What a Didgeridoo Is? Do you know what a didgeridoo is? There are so many things in this life that are unknown to us. I bet you could find out about something outside your normal sphere of vision and experience everyday for the rest of your life and still not get close to knowing about everything out there. How To Play Piano Using Chord Symbols Chord symbols (for example, Fm7, Cmaj7 or G6) are a type of notation used frequently in jazz and other areas of modern music to notate chord progressions and changes. This type of notation differs from that of classical music in that chord symbols don't show the function of a chord the way the Roman numeral notation does. Benatar and Geraldo - Still Rockin on a High Note Most people look forward to the summer months because they bring warmer temperatures, vacations, outdoor gatherings, and longer days. Those are all fine and dandy, but what really gets my fires stoked for the warm season is when the Queen of Rock (a. Legal Music Downloads On July 28, 2004, French Internet access providers and music copyright owners signed a joint national charter aimed at cracking down on illegal downloads and expanding the amount of legal music tracks available online (AFP). This is the latest in a series of moves taken across the world to combat music piracy as production labels see more and more of their profits being lost to illegal downloads of music files. History of the Clarinet From the 19th Century While composers had already begun to write music for the clarinet, such as Mozart with the Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet, it was the 19th century that saw an explosion of use of the clarinet in the music of most composers of the day. This was mainly due to two factors. Music to Echo Your Mood In what way do the kinds of music (rock, rap, classical, instrumental, etc.) change or alter our mood and in what way do our moods effect what music we listen to?Music has been present throughout the history of man.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
