Right now on Amazon: Master the Guitar in 7 Days $.099
Seriously? Wow, why the heck has it taken others so long? And we're talking Mastering the guitar, not just playing it. Here's a dose of reality, it's not going to happen! Yes, you can learn a 2 chord song in 7 days. Will you have it mastered? Doubtful. Is it a song you'd be proud to show your friends? Hey, you guys want to jam on Skip to my Lou? Google play guitar in 7 days and you'll be shocked and amazed at how many courses there are. Here's the hot tip of the day, save your money. Beginning guitar, getting better at guitar, mastering the guitar is a long term investment of time and money. If it were possible in a short time, there would be a lot more great guitar players.
OK, how long does it take?
The guitar is a very versatile instrument. I've had students who took lessons for years, and I've had students who were happy with knowing enough chords to strum and sing some songs. Remember, it's not how long you've played, it's how many hours you put in. I can tell you that it won't be a week or even a month. The big secret is that like every other worthwhile skill it takes time, dedication and practice. Getting by the total beginner stage in about 6 months is a good goal. The most important consideration is how good to you want to be?
Are these courses any good at all?
Surprisingly, I'm going to say yes. I just can't imagine advertising something in that way when I'm sure they all know it's not going to happen. There's good material in a lot of the lessons, there's even good stuff available for free. The problem is in making outrageous claims. Playing and learning guitar without a teacher involves lots of self discipline, the ability to decide if you're doing things correctly, and being able to not want or need any feedback. You can't ask a DVD, a CD or a book a question. Without being able to actually watch a student it's very difficult to help solve problems. So, do you want to save a few bucks and be a do it yourselfer? Or, are you willing to make the sacrifice and spend the time and money to get started the right way?
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
How Many Chords Are There?
Guitar chords posters and wall charts.
In the studio I have a guitar chords poster and am frequently asked if that's all the chords. When I say no, they ask how many chords are there? 1000s! Then they ask how many I know.....1000s. How often do I use that many? Never. Once you have an understanding of music theory and how it relates to the guitar fingerboard, you can not only play lots of chords you can even make up your own. The number of chords you learn isn't nearly as important as knowing what to do with them.
The number of chords you use depends on the style of music you play.
A lot of beginning guitar students as well as more advanced players really only use a relatively small number of chords. For instance, if you play and sing, your chord playing will be somewhat limited by your vocal range. If you like Americana, Folk, Bluegrass or Irish music you'll be able to play using a handful of chords most of the time. Jazz, ragtime, classical and some rock music styles require more chords. I have students who play in jazz band in high school and they are usually pretty much shocked by how many different chords they have to know.
How many chords should you learn then?
Everyone should learn the basic, open position chords. There are many places to find them and that's really the first step. Being able to play major, minor and seventh chords is a good place to start. Buy yourself a chord book and experiment. Just because a particular style uses more of one type of chord it doesn't mean other styles won't use them sometimes as well. There are jazz chords that fit well in different types of music, so you just might want to play a few of them and see what you think.
In the studio I have a guitar chords poster and am frequently asked if that's all the chords. When I say no, they ask how many chords are there? 1000s! Then they ask how many I know.....1000s. How often do I use that many? Never. Once you have an understanding of music theory and how it relates to the guitar fingerboard, you can not only play lots of chords you can even make up your own. The number of chords you learn isn't nearly as important as knowing what to do with them.
The number of chords you use depends on the style of music you play.
A lot of beginning guitar students as well as more advanced players really only use a relatively small number of chords. For instance, if you play and sing, your chord playing will be somewhat limited by your vocal range. If you like Americana, Folk, Bluegrass or Irish music you'll be able to play using a handful of chords most of the time. Jazz, ragtime, classical and some rock music styles require more chords. I have students who play in jazz band in high school and they are usually pretty much shocked by how many different chords they have to know.
How many chords should you learn then?
Everyone should learn the basic, open position chords. There are many places to find them and that's really the first step. Being able to play major, minor and seventh chords is a good place to start. Buy yourself a chord book and experiment. Just because a particular style uses more of one type of chord it doesn't mean other styles won't use them sometimes as well. There are jazz chords that fit well in different types of music, so you just might want to play a few of them and see what you think.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Are You a Settler?
Do you practice the same songs over and over?
Have you settled into a practice routine that's in your comfort zone? Is playing the same old songs keeping you from learning new material? While it's a good idea to review and not lose the skills you have, you also can improve your guitar playing by working on newer, more challenging songs. I see students who pretty much refuse to move forward once they're comfortable with their repertoire. Or, sometimes they get so hung up on a song they end up in a rut.
Become a pioneer instead of a settler.
While it's not easy to pioneer new sounds, stretching out and playing other kinds of music, listening to different genres, and exploring the fingerboard are all ways to improve your guitar playing. Not sure what kinds of music you'd like to play? Have your guitar teacher play some different styles for you, listen to some of the best guitar players and keep an open mind. There are fantastic guitar players regardless of the type of music they play.
How many of these names do you recognize?
Here's a list of guitar players you may or may not have heard of. Spend a little time listening and learning about them and you just might be surprised as well as inspired. In no particular order and in no particular style:
Have you settled into a practice routine that's in your comfort zone? Is playing the same old songs keeping you from learning new material? While it's a good idea to review and not lose the skills you have, you also can improve your guitar playing by working on newer, more challenging songs. I see students who pretty much refuse to move forward once they're comfortable with their repertoire. Or, sometimes they get so hung up on a song they end up in a rut.
Become a pioneer instead of a settler.
While it's not easy to pioneer new sounds, stretching out and playing other kinds of music, listening to different genres, and exploring the fingerboard are all ways to improve your guitar playing. Not sure what kinds of music you'd like to play? Have your guitar teacher play some different styles for you, listen to some of the best guitar players and keep an open mind. There are fantastic guitar players regardless of the type of music they play.
How many of these names do you recognize?
Here's a list of guitar players you may or may not have heard of. Spend a little time listening and learning about them and you just might be surprised as well as inspired. In no particular order and in no particular style:
- Chet Atkins
- Doc Watson
- Eric Clapton
- Jimmy Paige
- Tony Rice
- Joe Pass
- Django Reinhardt
- Carlos Santana
- Jerry Garcia
- Andres Segovia
- Julian Bream
- Les Paul
Thursday, December 2, 2010
How Do I Know if I'm Still a Beginner?
What makes a guitar student a beginner?
I was teaching the other day and a guitar student of mine, after having played for 6 months, told me he felt like he was still a beginner. My reply? You ARE still a beginner. One of the hardest things to accept about learning an instrument is that you can't speed the process up very much. Yes, you can practice more, take more lessons, do research on the internet and buy books, but your muscle memory has to catch up. So, what does indicate that you're a beginner? If your chords are still sloppy, you have trouble changing from one to the other, your fingers don't move very quickly and you can only play a couple songs all the way through, you're still in the beginning stage.
How do you make the jump?
First and foremost, take a deep breath, relax, and understand that everyone makes progress at a different rate. If you've never played guitar or any other instrument, haven't had a musical background, your parents or siblings don't play, you'll just have to go slow and learn at your own pace. With the wealth of information out there today, sometimes it does more harm than good. More and more lately I have students asking about theory and techniques that really aren't going to be useful at this point. They want to learn songs that they're not capable of playing, and that just makes it more frustrating. The ability to focus, go slow, and really learn a song, concept or technique is where the emphasis should be placed. Getting to the next level requires basic skills, at least an elementary understanding of the music you're trying to play and the ability to play it well.
Don't be tempted to multitask.
Having a clear goal in mind and concentrating on one thing at a time is the best way to make steady progress. Don't worry about trying to master chords, notes, scales, or intervals all at once. Your guitar teacher can help you decide what to learn first. How you start learning guitar depends on what kind of music you like, whether or not you're going to sing and how much of a musical background you have. So work with your teacher on finding what will help you get where you want to go with music.
I was teaching the other day and a guitar student of mine, after having played for 6 months, told me he felt like he was still a beginner. My reply? You ARE still a beginner. One of the hardest things to accept about learning an instrument is that you can't speed the process up very much. Yes, you can practice more, take more lessons, do research on the internet and buy books, but your muscle memory has to catch up. So, what does indicate that you're a beginner? If your chords are still sloppy, you have trouble changing from one to the other, your fingers don't move very quickly and you can only play a couple songs all the way through, you're still in the beginning stage.
How do you make the jump?
First and foremost, take a deep breath, relax, and understand that everyone makes progress at a different rate. If you've never played guitar or any other instrument, haven't had a musical background, your parents or siblings don't play, you'll just have to go slow and learn at your own pace. With the wealth of information out there today, sometimes it does more harm than good. More and more lately I have students asking about theory and techniques that really aren't going to be useful at this point. They want to learn songs that they're not capable of playing, and that just makes it more frustrating. The ability to focus, go slow, and really learn a song, concept or technique is where the emphasis should be placed. Getting to the next level requires basic skills, at least an elementary understanding of the music you're trying to play and the ability to play it well.
Don't be tempted to multitask.
Having a clear goal in mind and concentrating on one thing at a time is the best way to make steady progress. Don't worry about trying to master chords, notes, scales, or intervals all at once. Your guitar teacher can help you decide what to learn first. How you start learning guitar depends on what kind of music you like, whether or not you're going to sing and how much of a musical background you have. So work with your teacher on finding what will help you get where you want to go with music.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Curing the Proverbial "Tin Ear"
Do you insist that you're tone deaf?
We hear it all the time. I can't carry a tune in a bucket, I'm tone deaf, believe me, you don't want to hear me sing. Here's some good news for you: your ear can be trained! The fact is, very few people are truly tone deaf, most of them have just never been trained. If your environment growing up didn't involve music, if no one in your family is "musical", then it can feel like you are tone deaf.
OK, how do I cure it you ask?
If you don't have an electronic tuner for your guitar, go get one now! The last thing you want to do is get used to your out of tune guitar sounding good to you. Practice tuning until the tuner agrees that your guitar is in tune. Now, pick out a song that you know by heart and try to pick it out on the guitar. Keep in mind that it has to be one you're completely familiar with. Happy Birthday, Jingle Bells, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, something like that. Work on it until you're sure it's right, then play it for someone just to be sure. When you can do that, try to figure out a song that's a little more complex. Again, do it until you're sure it's right, then play it for someone.
Keep at it and try tuning by ear.
Now that you can pick out a melody, tune one string to the tuner, put the rest of the strings out of tune, then try to tune it by ear. Check it with the electronic tuner and then repeat. Do this a few minutes a day and before you know it, you'll have a much better ear for music.
We hear it all the time. I can't carry a tune in a bucket, I'm tone deaf, believe me, you don't want to hear me sing. Here's some good news for you: your ear can be trained! The fact is, very few people are truly tone deaf, most of them have just never been trained. If your environment growing up didn't involve music, if no one in your family is "musical", then it can feel like you are tone deaf.
OK, how do I cure it you ask?
If you don't have an electronic tuner for your guitar, go get one now! The last thing you want to do is get used to your out of tune guitar sounding good to you. Practice tuning until the tuner agrees that your guitar is in tune. Now, pick out a song that you know by heart and try to pick it out on the guitar. Keep in mind that it has to be one you're completely familiar with. Happy Birthday, Jingle Bells, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, something like that. Work on it until you're sure it's right, then play it for someone just to be sure. When you can do that, try to figure out a song that's a little more complex. Again, do it until you're sure it's right, then play it for someone.
Keep at it and try tuning by ear.
Now that you can pick out a melody, tune one string to the tuner, put the rest of the strings out of tune, then try to tune it by ear. Check it with the electronic tuner and then repeat. Do this a few minutes a day and before you know it, you'll have a much better ear for music.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
When Should I Start Learning Barre Chords?
What is a barre chord?
A lot of times you'll see an advanced guitar player placing one finger across five or six strings and forming a chord with the rest of the fingers. That's a barre chord. When you remove open strings, (strings that have no fingers on them), everything on the guitar can be moved. This enables you to play the same notes, chords or songs in different sections of the fingerboard.
When do I start learning them?
Many students try to learn too many things too fast, leading to frustration and confusion. I try to get my beginning guitar students to wait until they've learned the basic chords, can change smoothly and can make them sound nice and clear. Learning guitar is difficult enough in the beginning without making it even harder by trying to play things you're just not ready for.
What's the difference between barre chords and power chords?
The main difference is that power chords are really not chords at all, but rather what we call intervals. A chord needs to be made up of 3 or more different notes. Power chords are what you hear in the background of many popular rock songs.
So the take away from today's post is to remember that learning guitar is going to take time. You definitely don't want to have to try learning something only to find out that you weren't ready for it.
A lot of times you'll see an advanced guitar player placing one finger across five or six strings and forming a chord with the rest of the fingers. That's a barre chord. When you remove open strings, (strings that have no fingers on them), everything on the guitar can be moved. This enables you to play the same notes, chords or songs in different sections of the fingerboard.
When do I start learning them?
Many students try to learn too many things too fast, leading to frustration and confusion. I try to get my beginning guitar students to wait until they've learned the basic chords, can change smoothly and can make them sound nice and clear. Learning guitar is difficult enough in the beginning without making it even harder by trying to play things you're just not ready for.
What's the difference between barre chords and power chords?
The main difference is that power chords are really not chords at all, but rather what we call intervals. A chord needs to be made up of 3 or more different notes. Power chords are what you hear in the background of many popular rock songs.
So the take away from today's post is to remember that learning guitar is going to take time. You definitely don't want to have to try learning something only to find out that you weren't ready for it.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Getting Acquainted With Your Guitar
The Body.
The body of the guitar has some straight forward names. The top, the back and the sides. An acoustic guitar has a wooden bridge, a bridge saddle, the piece of bone or plastic that the strings rest on, and either bridge pins or a tailpiece. Bridge pins hold the strings in, the tailpiece is metal and the strings run through it and then over the bridge. The soundhole, as its name implies, is where the sound comes from. Most steel string guitars also have a pickguard. It's there to protect the top of the guitar from pick scratches from overly active strumming.
The Neck.
No, it's not the handle! The neck is the long, skinny piece of wood that attaches to the body. There are usually either little dots, big dots or fancy inlays on it. These are not just decorative, they're position markers and you use them to find your way around. On most guitars they're at the 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th fret, and many guitars have others as well. The frets are the little metal bars that look like lines. You press the strings down between them to make notes.
The Peghead.
That's the place at the top where the strings attach to the tuning pegs. A lot of guitars also have little plastic cover that houses the truss rod. The truss rod is a metal bar that runs the length of the fingerboard, inside of it, to keep the neck straight. Even though your new guitar will come with an allen wrench and a little instruction sheet, leave the adjustments to a professional. The tuning keys or tuning pegs, are the knobs or buttons that you use to tune the guitar. That little plastic piece that the strings pass through is called the nut.
Not all guitars will have all of the parts, but they'll have most of them.
The body of the guitar has some straight forward names. The top, the back and the sides. An acoustic guitar has a wooden bridge, a bridge saddle, the piece of bone or plastic that the strings rest on, and either bridge pins or a tailpiece. Bridge pins hold the strings in, the tailpiece is metal and the strings run through it and then over the bridge. The soundhole, as its name implies, is where the sound comes from. Most steel string guitars also have a pickguard. It's there to protect the top of the guitar from pick scratches from overly active strumming.
The Neck.
No, it's not the handle! The neck is the long, skinny piece of wood that attaches to the body. There are usually either little dots, big dots or fancy inlays on it. These are not just decorative, they're position markers and you use them to find your way around. On most guitars they're at the 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th fret, and many guitars have others as well. The frets are the little metal bars that look like lines. You press the strings down between them to make notes.
The Peghead.
That's the place at the top where the strings attach to the tuning pegs. A lot of guitars also have little plastic cover that houses the truss rod. The truss rod is a metal bar that runs the length of the fingerboard, inside of it, to keep the neck straight. Even though your new guitar will come with an allen wrench and a little instruction sheet, leave the adjustments to a professional. The tuning keys or tuning pegs, are the knobs or buttons that you use to tune the guitar. That little plastic piece that the strings pass through is called the nut.
Not all guitars will have all of the parts, but they'll have most of them.
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