I guess it is an established fact that guitarists often are poor sight readers. Maybe not you but the rest of us!
One reason why it is difficult for many guitarists to read sheet music is that you can find the same note on different strings. It is pretty easy to master the notes on the first four frets on your guitar but when you reach the fifth fret you have to decide on which string you are to play a note and you also have to find the fret. Making decisions has never been easy!
When playing in a major scale, only seven notes are used, out of a total of twelve. The five notes that remain are said to be out of key, and should be avoided in standard playing unless following a structural change in the accompanying rhythm or chord progression(s). To understand how you can use the excluded five tones, you must first change your perspective on the nature of keys.
The great motivator Earl Nightingale came up with the following definition of success… Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. I love that definition! What does this definition mean to you? Let’s take a closer look at the worthy ideal part of it…
Please spend a few minutes writing down what the words worthy ideal mean to you. To me it is my vision of perfection…a vision of how I would ideally like things to be.It is a vision that I find inspiring and energizing!
When memorizing music there are several things you can do that will make your job that much easier. Memorizing music is important as most people know you play better when having the music in your head rather than having your head in the music. So where to start when memorizing music effectively?
I agree with Fred Noad, when discussing memorization in his book, Solo Guitar playing, he states…Learn to play a piece from beginning to end with absolutely correct fingering and with complete continuity (however slow) before committing it to memory.
In many articles on the net on learning to play guitar you will find many article authors stressing the importance of setting goals. Well, it would be interesting to find out if you can learn to play guitar without goals. Let us investigate the matter!
I have many memories of my first attemps to play the guitar. Like many boys I had many interests like reading, playing piano, singing, listening to music, athletics, chess, stamp collecting, painting and other things at different times. Playing guitar was just one of them.
Are you passionate about playing your guitar? Do you find yourself eager to learn new things? Do you get excited when you hear a great guitar lead or a beautiful fingerstyle guitar solo? The degree of passion you have for the guitar will usually become evident by examining the level of commitment you have to practice!
The very first guitar I ever played was a Candy Apple Red Fender Stratocaster. It was love at first touch. I wanted that guitar SO bad. I grew up listening to Eric Clapton, David Gilmore and Jimmy Hendrix, and during my college years I was a huge fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn. The Fender Stratocaster was the guitar of choice for these incredible guitar players and many more.
Flamenco guitar is an art that it is hard to master. But is it possible to play a flamenco guitar melody that is easy to learn for a beginner. Come and see!
Flamenco is a song, music and dance style which has its roots in Moorish and Jewish musical traditions.
Flamenco culture has become one of the icons of Spanish music and even Spanish culture in general.
The flamenco guitar comes from the lute and is made of Spanish cypress and spruce and is smaller than a classical guitar with a sharper sound.
Do you find it easy to write songs? Too easy? Well, I at least have had a problem with this.
If you would visit our home and my garage you would find a lot of unfinished songs and a lot of manuscript paper with some notes on them showing that I wanted to say something with music but never finished it.
Maybe you always finish your songs, record them or have well documented lists with your songs for easy access. That’s the way I work now but obviously didn’t work before.
One of the most popular guitars today and one of the best is the Fender Stratocaster. It has been around for years and has established a well known reputation for having an original sound and been great to play. Many top guitarists of the past and present played Strats - Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, the list goes on and on. All of these artists have that beautiful tonal sound of a Strat but when you hear each one, you can tell the difference between them, and that’s the beautiful thing. The Fender Strat gives you such originality while having that beautiful tonal sound no other guitar has.