Understanding Guitar

Download a Free Lesson from Play It Now Tunes

Frank — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:20:15 +0000

Title says it all! Get it from here: http://www.playitnowtunes.com/

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Looking for Contributors

Frank — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:31:25 +0000

I’m looking for potential contributors to this site. I’d like to get multiple people to contribute learning-guitar articles here. This site is very well indexed by search engines and often comes up in search results.

If you are a guitar teacher, you’d be greatly welcomed. It’d be a great way to get your name out in to the guitar-teaching world.

If you are a current student, then contributing here can be a great way to vent frustration or to gather different perspectives. I’ve also found that it is interesting to look back on your playing history.

If you are a constant player — band, session, etc — writing and contributing here would be a great way to get your [band] name out in to the internet.

If you are at all interested, please e-mail me at Frank[at]UnderstandingGuitar.org. Several spots are open and I really don’t have a maximum.

As an explanation to those who have been following my guitar-learning adventure, I’m enrolling in a Masters of Science of Software Engineering program and expect to have little time for guitar until I complete the program. Since I won’t have time to learn guitar, I also won’t have time to write articles for this site. This gives me two possibilities, tear down the site (I pay money to run this) or allow others to author articles for it. I hope to get authors and continue this site.

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Musicians Think Differently from the Rest of Us

Frank — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:56:36 +0000

I recently subscribed to a podcast entitled “60-Second Psych“. Psychology is among one of my many interests. In the list of previous podcasts, I cam across a podcast entitled “Musicians Think Differently from the Rest of us“.

This was fascinating to me as both a fan of music and someone who is trying to learn to play an instrument. It also helps me understand why learning guitar has been so much more challenging than most of my other endeavor… Click the play button to listen to the podcast.

The original script and the recording itself can be found at: http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=musicians-think-differently-from-th-08-10-06

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Last Lesson with The Music Room…

Frank — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:03:05 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while and I’ve just kept getting pulled away. I’ve completed my lessons at the Music Room and I thought things went well. I spend a lot of time with guitar during this time and actually learned things!

As you might recall from previous posts, I decided to stop attending lessons at the music room because of the amount of time I felt I had to put in to each week to ensure I learned what I was suppose to learn. Ultimately, it left me absolutely no time for all the other things that I had going on. I guess this is the hard part of being an adult learning something like an instrument.

Desire just isn’t enough because that desire needs to be stronger than what you need to sacrifice and for me I was sacrificing too much. Of course, I’m am planning on continuing with the guitar. I will, but I’ve vastly slowed the pace. I doubt I’ll ever be able to play like I wanted to but ultimately, I knew I’d never get there because I tend to be a perfectionist.

I imagine that being a perfectionist has also hindered my ability to play because if I cant nail something perfectly, consistently I keep on it. I wear myself out in this way because I either get tired or frustrated with what I’m practicing.

Anyway, my teacher gave me a few tips for continue to practice. One thing that I wanted to make sure that I post here is that I discussed rhythm guitar with my teacher. Rhythm guitar is a very versatile thing which is why I wanted to cover it. Any time you hear someone solo in a bar or what not, 90 percent of the time they are playing the rhythm part of the song (occasionally filling in with the popular riffs and etc.)

My rhythm guitar sucks. I know it has gotten better since I first started this effort, but it still sucks. I can’t keep time and I have trouble maintaining a pattern. All very frustrating.

My teacher suggested a book called “Winning Rhythm“. I hope to evetually pick this book up and work though it.

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Candle Metronome

Frank — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:51:46 +0000

I saw this post on WonderHowTo.com and I thought that it was clever. Now, obviously, it is not practical but it is still a need idea with cool, interesting results.

Check out the Candle Metronome:

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-a-metronome-with-a-candle-50393/

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Earl Klugh – Living Inside Your Love Earl Klugh is a very good Jazz-Guitaist. The videos are...
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Guitar Exercises

Frank — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:39:37 +0000

Guitar Exercises @ MadStratter.com – http://madstratter.com/2008/12/finger-exercises-practicing-guitarist/

[See the link...]

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Thoughts…

Frank — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:47:04 +0000

Do you know how to drive a stick shift car or anything with a manual (normal) transmission? If you at least understand the concept of driving a manual transmission car then you’ll probably understand the following analogy.

My guitar education feels like I’ve been stuck in first gear with my engine over revving to making up for the lack of gears. I’ve occasionally made it to second gear but either way I’ve been pushing hard and I feel like I’m not getting very far. I feel like no matter how hard I push each practice session I can only get so far — never where I want to be…

I’ve got two more prepaid lesson left at The Music Room. While they’ve been great, I’ve decided not to renew with them. It is important for me to mention that my teacher is/has been excellent but I feel like I should have progressed further than I have. I attribute this not to the teaching but my inability to focus as much time on guitar as I’d like. Quite simply, guitar is over-occupying my time (even though I want to put in more time). I figure if I’m not in weekly lessons I can focus a little more on other things (like Design Patterns or how Firefox works)… In addition to guitar…

My guitar studies will continue and I will continue to run Understanding Guitar. My plan, in regards to The Music Room, is to take the “ad-hoc” options. With this option, I’ll have to call in to schedule an appointment every week or two. I’m considering this plan a half self-study, have lessons plan.

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Last Lesson with The Music Room… I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while...
Friday Night; Lesson Tomorrow Morning It is Friday Night here in Chicago; tomorrow morning I...
Return from Vacation; Guitar Catch up… My wife and I got back from vacation last weeked....

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Return from Vacation; Guitar Catch up…

Frank — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:22:18 +0000

My wife and I got back from vacation last weekend. We had gone to Mexico for 8 days and for the entire 8 days I didn’t touch a guitar. I had a surprising desire to play and fiddle on a guitar. Ultimately, I did make it the entire eight days without going though guitar withdrawal.

Now that the vacation is over, I’ve been trying to get back in to the groove of daily guitar practice. Even though while I was on vacation I wanted to play guitar, it has been a challenge to go back to my guitar routine (not to mention my work and general-life routine).

I started by re-practicing most of my “harder” material. I only had to go back a few pages in my book. I started with a slower tempo and was able to play though the Ode To Joy without a problem. The Ode To Joy was a milestone marker for me. I quickly worked the tempo back to what I was playing it at — 95 BPM.

After Ode To Joy, I picked up where I left off. I progressed further and I’m now in to playing the High E, B, G and D strings while sight reading whole, half, quarter and eighth notes. That is amazing progress for myself. A few weeks ago I had huge trouble with just the High E and B strings (while sight reading)… I was always fumbling either my fretting or picking hand and screwing something up.

I am also suppose to memorize the following pattern as it is suppose to help with finding chords and other musically important information.

A C E G B D F

In upcoming posts, I’m hoping to be able to explain why memorizing this pattern is useful. From what I understand right now, it has to do with chord theory. Keep an eye out for more in this.

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Guitar, Music and Stress!

Frank — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:55:44 +0000

I was right! Guitar and music in general does reduce one’s stress! Check out the article at Dy-sphoric:

http://dy-sphoric.blogspot.com/2008/12/guitar-music-and-stress.html

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Last Lesson with The Music Room… I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while...
Return from Vacation; Guitar Catch up… My wife and I got back from vacation last weeked....
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Earl Klugh – Living Inside Your Love

Frank — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:00:59 +0000

Earl Klugh is a very good Jazz Guitaist. The videos are worth a listen. From my perspective it is important (and interesting) to watch videos like this to understand what can be done with a guitar. I listen to a lot of Staind, Tool and similar type music but guitar music like this is also important.

Earl Klugh -- Living Inside Your Love

Earl Klugh -- Rayna

(I can’t embed the above videos because embeding is disabled.)

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Thoughts… Do you know how to drive a stick shift car...

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