10/06/2007

Easy Guitar Playing Lessons

By: Ronald W. Firquain

If you have a six-string, a pick and a solid but comfortable armless chair, you are ready for some easy guitar lessons. Here are some of the basic things you should learn.

Know your instrument.
The topmost portion of your guitar is called the head or the headstock. This is where you well find the tuners, which are used to adjust the pitch of the six strings. The long part attached to the head is the neck.

Down the neck is the body of the guitar. If you are using a classical or acoustic guitar, you will find a sound hole in the middle. This serves to project and amplify the sound. Electric guitars, on the other hand, do not have holes. Instead, they have pickups, which intensify the sounds coming from your instrument. Of course, you have the strings that are attached to the tuners, run down over the neck, over the hole and attached to the bridge.

Hold your guitar properly.
The thickest guitar string should be the topmost when you hold the guitar and the neck should be parallel to the ground. The body should rest comfortably on one of your thighs.

Tune your guitar.
Before you can learn how to play the guitar, you will have to learn this skill first. You can refer to a book, an online source or a friend to learn how to tune. You can tune your guitar three ways: by ear, with a piano or a tuning flute.

Next, decide on your fret hand. This is the one that will be spending a lot of time on the neck of your guitar, pressing on the chord. If you are right handed, it is your left. If you are left handed, it's your right hand. Your pick hand is the other hand. This is the one that will hold the pick and strum the guitar.

When using your pick to strike the strings, make sure not to strike too hard or too soft. You are a beginner and need to hear how you sound like. Use only your wrist when you play and not your whole arm. Practice three different strokes on each string: downward, upward and alternate down and up. Once you get the hang of it, you will learn the best pressure to put on the string to produce the proper sound.

Learn the chords.
Get a chord book and begin practicing the chords. You can practice doing them one by one as shown on the book until your mind and fingers memorize them. Only problem is that this can get a little boring. There is just no sense playing a bunch of chords that do not sound like a real melody.

The better alternative would be to learn the most common chords first. These are: C major, D major and G major. Play one chord first until you memorize it and then move to the other. You can then practice moving from one chord to the next, keeping both the sound and the movement as fluid as possible. Practice on songs that play these chords until you have mastered them. When you do, move on to other songs using other chords.

Where to find your lessons online
There are plenty of resources you can turn to for easy guitar lessons books, magazines and online resources. If you want free lessons, here are some websites you can check out for help.

If you know the basics of playing the guitar, this site is a great resource for learning easy songs. Do not worry, because lessons are designed for beginners. A few sessions online and you should learn enough songs to surprise anyone in no time.

Not only does this site feature easy step by step lessons on guitar playing, there is also a link to a page featuring songs made popular in the 1960s. Bring back the groovy years with easy to follow instructions.

All the easy guitar playing secrets you have always wanted to learn are here, plus you get to learn how to play lead guitar. You can also order their instructional CD-ROM to learn easy guitar lessons at your own pace.

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com

Music Video in Movies and TV SHows

By: John Smith

Modern music Video The Beatles was first major motion picture, A Hard Day's Night in 1964, directed by Richard Lester. This video set the basic visual vocabulary in today’s music videos influencing musicians, pop and rock group music videos. Following this Beatles filmed a short promotional films for their songs which were distributed for broadcast on television variety shows in U.S & other countries.

the hugely popular American TV series The Monkees was another important influence on the development of the music video genre The series ran from 1966 to 1968. In early 1967 "Strawberry Fields Forever" and " Penny Lane " by the Beatles took the genre to new heights.

Music Video Download, Rock Music Video, POP Music Video, Hip Hop Vieo, Film Clips, disco, funk, and R&B

Other pioneering music videos made during this time include the promotional films made by The Doors. The group had a strong interest in film, since both lead singer Jim Morrison and keyboard player Ray Manzarek had met while studying film at UCLA.

The animated film Yellow Submarine was an international sensation of 1968. Soon bands like The Byrds and The Beach Boys were also making promotional films, these "film clips" were often aired on pop music TV shows and there were considered as secondary.

The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert mixing concert footage with clips incorporating camera tricks, special effects, and dramatizations of song lyrics such promotional clip continued to grow in importance, with television programs.

In 1966 in Australia promotional films by Australian pop performers were being made on a regular basis such as The Masters Apprentices and The Loved Ones.

Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon also made important contributions in their films with Surf film.

ABBA, the Swedish music group used promotional films throughout the 1970's to promote themselves in other countries when traveling or touring abroad.

Hip hop music is a style of popular music is made up of two main components: rapping (MCing) and DJing (audio mixing and scratching). Along with break dancing and graffiti (tagging), these compose the four elements of hip hop, a cultural movement that was initiated by inner-city youth, mostly African Americans and Latinos, in New York City in the early 1970s. The instrumentation of hip hop derives from disco, funk, and R&B.

Article Source:http://www.superfeature.com

A Short History of Guitar

By: Rocky

The guitar is an amazing musical instrument with ancient roots and used in a huge variety of musical styles today, it is also called as solo classical instrument. It is most well known as the primary instrument in blues, country, flamenco, rock music and many other forms of pop. The guitar normally has six strings, but four, seven, eight, ten, and even twelve string guitars are as well available. Guitars are actually made and repaired by lutheirs. Guitars could be played acoustically or they may also rely on an amplifier, which usually allows for electronic manipulation of tone. The electric guitar was established in the 20th century, and had a huge profound influence on popular culture.

In many of the history books, even some which are highly rated, you would come to know that guitar was invented by the classical-era Greeks. This is in fact due to a simple mistake. The Greeks had an instrument that they called as “Kithara”. As this was a stringed instrument and as the name also resembles very closely that of guitar, historians tend to assume that it was a guitar. The Kithara was actually a sort of Lyra or Harp, which has nothing to do with a guitar. Also, if you view at ancient Egyptian paintings, you would see many musical instruments that could be easily be mistaken for a guitar. Even by those who have been playing the instrument for twenty years.

Another fact is that quite often, in these ancient paintings, the instruments in question were used as spiritual objects and were not even played. Through rigorous study, it becomes obvious that the guitar is not actually an ancient musical instrument.

Closer to us in time, most of us would believe of the lute as a direct (straight) ancestor to the guitar. You can consider that as the “father” of the guitar. The lute, this instrument favored by troubadours of the dark ages and the revival, more closely resembles a contemporary bass than a guitar. Usually, it had four strings, which needs to be plucked; one could not strum a lute.

The body of the lute was oval and the back was rounded, kind of like an Ovation guitar. This results in that the lute was not actually a loud instrument. Hence, it could not be played in any type of band setting.

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com

Guitar Videos - Fast Way To Learn Guitar

By: Henre Lobus

Early guitar players earn my great respect for they master their craft in a long and tedious way. They must have devoted most of their time learning techniques in trial-and-error basis. Guitar players like B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, and others are among the respected names where history testify their superior skill in playing guitar.

Not so long ago, if you want to learn to play guitar you need to buy instructional books with lots of images so you can see how a technique is done. Moreover, you need to watch concerts and see how your favorite guitar player do his riffs. I myself, with an experience of over 15 years in guitar playing, bought a lot of books and watched concerts to improve my skills.

Nowadays, the strong emergence of internet plays a vital role in exchanging knowledge fast that includes acquiring skills from other guitar players who have gone through the long process of learning. A brilliant medium to learn guitar as quick as possible is watching instructional videos which are widely available online. From beginner to a more advanced lessons. Availability comes also to a plethora of genres.

Nevertheless, you can still learn from books and images while reading guitar tabs but not as fast as watching videos. This is due to a fact that you see immediately where fingers should be on the fretboard and how the other hand strikes the strings in motion. Believe me many guitar players today attribute their success to instructional videos. Lessons in DVD and subscription are the choices for videos. If your pocket does not permit you to purchase one, might as well search the internet for free ones. But of course, you may have lots of videos at hand but if you do not practice and stretch your patients you have no where to go.

Article Source: http://www.superfeature.com