Improvising

Improvising is the single most important skill in creating original music.
It extends across the board in fields of interest from sports to technology to rocket science. Shouldn't it therefore make sense to learn it and learn it well.
Take a look at the Seattle grunge scene. Started by a bunch of no talent individuals that just wanted to scream about all the er..important problems they were facing at the time. If they didn't improvise their way beyond the portals of death, they became sophisticated Matellicas worthy of giging side by side with real musicians of a classical nature. Perhaps a little demonstration on video may help with the point. But wait a minute, What will i wear? How manny people will their be attending? If I make a mistake. will anyone notice? ...and if so, will I be crucified? Music Improvisation along with any other kind of improvisation can be a way of breaking limiting social thought barriers, the thing that all good music does. If you don't have a musical instrument,start improvising by clapping your hands to your favorite tune. Get the people around to clap their hands and follow you. Congratulations, by improvising, you have become the leader in your own band.

Perfect Pitch

Apparently having perfect pitch has nothing to do with musical talent and more to do with
recognizing sound frequencies. When all of the individual tones of the western music scale are recognizes in the same way that you recognize the people that you are always around, you have perfect pitch. Can it be taught? Well the thing is, you teach yourself by the same method that you teach yourself to recognize things. When you close your eyes, can you tell the difference between the sound of a car going by and the sound of a jet flying over? The faculty that allows you to differentiate between the two is the same faculty that you for perfect pitch. In other words, you already have perfect pitch.

Learn Guirar on your own or pay for it.

Hire a Guitar Teacher or Learn on your Own? by Ralph Serpe

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So you are looking to further your learning as an acoustic guitarist but not sure what to do next? There is a vast array of options available to you and things can get rather confusing. You basically have two options when learning how to play acoustic guitar: Hire a guitar teacher or Learn on your own. This topic is open for debate. Honestly, I feel it really depends on you and your particular needs as an individual. We will explore both options in this article, so that you will be able to make a better decision.

LEARNING ON YOUR OWN

Learning on your own can be broken down into two simple categories: You can either learn for free or you can invest in a home study course.

Learn For Free

Learning for free is definitely a possibility. With the Internet at your fingertips, anything is possible these days. There are a handful of excellent free guitar websites that offer lessons and other great resources for those of us on a tight budget. However, some of these free sites and resources may be difficult to locate and not all of them are created by professionals. So you may find, after some time, that the free route may not be enough or may prove to be too frustrating.

One huge advantage to the free learning, besides being cost effective, is that it gives you the option to test the waters before you invest any money into private lessons or home study courses. Guitar playing is not for everyone. You may find after playing for a short while that your heart isn't into it. In order to become a good guitar player you must be passionate about playing, have patience and dedication. Without those qualities, I am afraid you won't get very far.

Home Study Courses

With the right home study course, learning how to play guitar is very possible, assuming you are dedicated to working hard and practicing. With the right course, you will not only save money (when compared to hiring a private instructor), but you will also be able to learn at your own pace. You also have the option to access the same information whenever you want and for as many times as you want. That is probably the biggest advantage to this option. We learn best by repetition. Sometimes we have to hear or watch something over and over again before it sinks in. With a home study course, you simply pop a cd or dvd in and watch or listen whenever you feel the need. With an instructor you don't have that option.

There are several excellent home study courses available that can be just as effective or better than hiring a private instructor. Courses can cost anywhere from $30 to as much as a few hundred dollars, depending on the quality and content of the home study course.

HIRING AN PRIVATE INSTRUCTOR

First and foremost, this option can get costly. Private guitar lessons, on average, can cost about $15 - $30 for a half hour lesson, and $20 to as much as $75 for an hour lesson, depending on the teachers experience and reputation.

One big advantage to a private instructor is the direct feedback they can provide . One of the most common problems a beginner faces is developing bad habits. A good instructor will help you recognize your bad playing habits and help you correct them on the spot.

Finding a "good" teacher can be a difficult task and you should choose one carefully if you decide to go that route. Even the most talented guitarists, that have been playing for decades, can make terrible instructors, so your criteria for choosing a teacher should not be based on experience alone. You need to find a person that actually "enjoys" teaching and isn't just doing it for a paycheck.

The first thing I would do is to come up with a list of possible instructors in your area.

You can do this by:

Asking Your Friends and Family

A great place to start when searching for a guitar teacher is to simply ask your friends, family or co-workers. You may have a close personal friend, relative or co-worker that has already taken lessons and will be able to recommend a good instructor.

The Internet

The Internet is a great resource for finding possible instructors. You can simply do a search on Google for guitar teachers in your local area. You could also visit guitar discussion groups online and ask around there.

Yellow Pages or other Publications

Grab a yellow pages, newspaper or other publication and search for local guitar instructors that way.

Once you compile your list, you need to make certain you are getting the best possible instruction for your money, so be prepared to ask your instructor a few questions. Ask him or her how long they have been teaching, the teaching qualifications he or she has, the number of students he or she currently teaches and ask for the phone number or contact information of a few of his or her students. From the answers you receive, you should be able to determine which instructor is right for you.

So the choice is now yours. Only you can determine which option is right for you. Some of us simply cannot afford to hire a teacher, so the choice is rather simple. Others are simply unable to learn on their own and need the guidance and encouragement that a teacher can provide.

I wish you luck!

About the Author

Ralph Serpe is Webmaster and Founder of http://www.learn-acoustic-guitar.com. Visit us today for more free acoustic guitar lessons.

Guitar Tabs for Beginners

Guitar Tabs For A Beginner by Ricky Sharples

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Guitar tabs are the easiest of the two ways for a beginner to learn to read music. In order to read standard musical notation the beginner needs to understand a little music theory and learn what all the notation symbols mean but with guitar tabs, instead of notes you have numbers that simply tell you where to put your fingers.

Here is a guitar tab showing a basic single note version of the Smoke On The Water riff:

E -----------------|---------------|----------------|------------|

B -----------------|---------------|----------------|------------|

G -----------------|---------------|----------------|------------|

D -0---3---5-------|-0--3---6-5----|-0---3---5------|---3----0---|

A -----------------|---------------|----------------|------------|

E -----------------|---------------|----------------|------------|

Just play the riff in your head for a minute and then pick the notes on the tab. The dotted lines represent the strings on your guitar - the bottom line, marked E, is the sixth string - the low E on the guitar and the top line is the first string.

As you play the notes one after the other you will begin to recognize the riff. If you can't hear the riff in your head, however, you will have to use some guesswork to make sense of the tab, and even then your interpretation won't be too accurate.

The reason a beginner to the guitar, or anybody else for that matter, can't play the guitar from tab without already knowing the song is the lack of a way of including note values on tablature. I have seen some tabs with E for "eighth" or Q for "quarter" above the fret numbers on tabs. This is probably the best way of telling the guitarist the length of the notes.

So, let's use guitar tab to start playing some songs for beginner guitarists. Well, we have to find some suitable songs, and this is where the conventions of popular music play into our hands. Most of today's music can be played using a very limited number of chords and any individual song is quite likely to only be using three chords. So if you don't know many chords at the moment you will still be able to start learning some songs, and at the same time learn chords that you can use to play more songs.

What you are looking for is a few songs that you are familiar with so that you can learn them from guitar tab. The tabs you use should also include the names of the chords you are to use to accompany the song. To give you a general idea, bands you could start looking at to find guitar tabs for beginners are Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Beatles, Green Day, U2, Coldplay and Nirvana. If none of those bands appeal to you look amongst traditional folk songs like Greensleeves, Pallet On The Floor or Cocaine Blues.

About the Author

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.




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The perfect tone on a new guitar.

Coil's instruments are designed by University of Maryland engineers to let players find what they have in mind.
By Susan Kinzie
July 10, 2009
Bruce Jacob had a few songs he wanted to record, tunes that had been jangling around in his head for years. He bought a guitar, but the notes he played never sounded as good as the music he had imagined.

Here's how Jacob, 43, describes the sounds a guitar makes: "If you have a bunch of paints, you can create any paint you want from the three or four fundamental colors. With guitars, it's the exact same thing. You can make any sound you want out of three or four colors. But most guitars have one color."

So the University of Maryland engineering professor decided to create a better guitar, attacking an elusive aesthetic problem with a series of math equations, a circuit board and wiring. He and a couple of his students crammed a dizzying number of variables into a simple product that he hopes will allow any player to capture just the tone desired.

Jacob and the students launched Coil, a company that uses the patent-pending electronics they developed to customize the sound in guitars. He has received office space and a research grant from the university, which wants to promote entrepreneurship, but the risk is his and his partners': They have staked about $100,000 on the venture.

Now he and his partners are waiting to see whether the Korean-made guitars with the electronics they designed will sell, starting at $1,000 or so. The school has announced the launch of the website where the guitars are sold. But will guitar enthusiasts buy it?

If the technology really lets someone get the tone they want, "they'll sell a million of them," said Rick Hogue, owner of Garrett Park Guitars in Maryland.

Musicians trying to define tone are by turns eloquent and tongue-tied. "Tone is -- it's a quality you're trying to achieve. It's a derivative of skill and passion. You're always looking for it," Hogue said, adding that he wouldn't be in business if tone weren't so elusive. "People look their whole lives for that tone they had one particular night, or the tone in their mind. [Jimi] Hendrix said he couldn't get all the things out that were in his head, he couldn't play everything he heard."

That's what Coil is trying to create with its guitars. "These things are pop-culture icons, but 90% of them are electrical engineering and mathematics," Jacob said.

But musicians are more traditional and skeptical than one might think, said Michael Molenda, editor in chief of Guitar Player. "There's been no real good new designs since 1950," Hogue said. "Rock 'n' roll was born on those instruments."

Besides, the last thing most musicians want is some soulless, complicated machine that doesn't sound authentic. You can see it in any music store, Molenda said, as people pull guitars off the racks and play them for a minute or two. "They either speak to you or not," he said.

Kinzie writes for the Washington Post.

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