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How to Buy an Electric Guitar
For most of us, making any major purchase, such as a new refrigerator, or a new car, is a cacophony of options and confusion; do we want the silver one or the black one? How much can we afford to spend? Will it last over time? If nothing else, we at least know what we need these appliances to do: the microwave needs to make the food hot quickly, the car needs to get us from one place to the other without breaking down. When confronted with the purchase of a new guitar, even experienced guitarists can have trouble deciding what exactly they want and need. However, if you follow a few simple suggestions, you can make your guitar-buying experience a whole lot easier.
Happy hunting! George Nellas gives more tips, ideas and useful links about electric guitars at: http://www.guitar-4u .com
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1959 Stratocaster Vintage Guitars Mid 1959 Stratocaster vintage guitars have a slab rosewood fingerboard with white "clay" position dots. The fingerboard radius of this Fender guitar is 7.25". The bottom fingerboard is flat. Vintage Fender Stratocasters made July 1959 and after basically will have rosewood fingerboards. The neck now has a very thin "D" backshape, by the end of 1959 it gets even thinner. The Art of Music Music is the art of arranging sounds in periodic time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre. A Quick and Easy Composition Method Here's the method I use every time I want to capture an idea. I draw out 8-bars (or measures) first. Why 8 bars? Because it is an ideal framework to work in. Eight bars of music are enough to generate a complete musical sentence and can usually be repeated once or twice. Next, I improvise and see what comes up. THEN I will write down the chords I am playing and the first 2-bars of melody. How to Improvise Using a Few Chords When a painter is getting ready to paint, a color palette is usually chosen first. For example, if a forest is to be painted, the artist may choose browns, greens, and blues for the sky. Once the palette is chosen, it makes it easier to create the painting. Why? Because color decisions are now out of the way. Music, the Spiritual Connection All through the age's music and spirituality as served hand in hand. As for instruments, the earliest is presumed to be, percussions from noisemakers to drums. Breathing Space in Music While most students want to know when to play certain notes and chords, it's equally important to know when not to play. For example, I had a student who knew how to improvise and play in the New Age style. What he didn't know how to do was to allow for breathing space. I tried to teach him that you don't have to play note upon note but allow for some pauses. How Many Guitar Chords Do I Need To Know? Guitar chords, (chords played specifically on a guitar,) differ only from other types of chords by virtue of instrument; they're simply a series of three or more notes played together. These notes don't necessarily have to be played simultaneously, however. Piano on the Right-Side of the Brain Some of you may remember a book titled "Drawing on the Right-Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. Why Play Guitar? As a full-time guitar instructor, I am constantly faced with people in all walks of life who, for all different kinds of reasons, believe that playing the guitar will add something to their lives. Most people that are just starting the guitar for the first time are young (pre-university) although certainly not all. One of my favorite students last year was a 65-year-old retiree who wanted to learn enough to be able to start a bar band with his friends. How to Stop Thinking and Start Playing Learning how to improvise is confusing for most. The sheer number of choices becomes a burden. Should I play this note? What chord next? Where do I go from here? All valid questions newbies (and oldbies) at improvisation sometimes ask themselves. Piano Playing Your Way: How To Have More Fun Playing The Piano Than You Ever Have Before Piano playing doesn't have to be boring. There's no law that says you have to play a song the same way everyone else plays it. By learning some basic music theory and chord formations, you can have the time of your life playing music like you've always wanted to. Growing and Keeping Loyal Fan Support Fan support for musicians is a two way street. You make the music, release the CDs, and play the shows. You need fans to show up at the gigs, buy the CDs, or spread the buzz about you or you don't have an audience. When these two elements are out of balance, your musical endeavors can get sidelined. How To Play Piano Using Chord Symbols Chord symbols (for example, Fm7, Cmaj7 or G6) are a type of notation used frequently in jazz and other areas of modern music to notate chord progressions and changes. This type of notation differs from that of classical music in that chord symbols don't show the function of a chord the way the Roman numeral notation does. Chord symbols, for modern music with lots of changes, are much easier to read. They function as a sort of shorthand for change-heavy music and are written with four chord parts in mind: the root, the quality, the extension, and the alterations. Play Piano As Fast As Possible! One of the rules of practicing we all hear over and over is "Be sure to practice slowly." (I'm guilty of this too!) Often the result of this is a feeling of inhibition, which leads to tedium. Picture yourself filled with excitement and yearning in setting out to learn a new piece. Suddenly a voice from the darkness whispers: "Don't touch those keys! Sit erect, play slowly, stay strictly in time, watch that fingering..." and your smile is gone. I'm beginning to feel a cramp just talking about it. Closet Monsters London Spicoluk Way back in November I found myself at the Casby Awards after party trying to socialize with whomever I came across. One person who I chatted with that night was a guy named London Spicoluk, from the band Closet Monster. At that time I haven't heard of them but I remembered his name and checked out their band out of interest. Right-Hand Techniques for New Age Piano Recently, I had a student ask me to offer some techniques for using the right hand. Usually, it's the left hand that causes the most difficulty but I had to think about it because up till then, I really did not have any "techniques" for the right hand. Dance Musics Most Popular and Enduring Theme: The Declaration of Independence It all started with Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" in 1979, perhaps the biggest fluke in popular music history. To follow up her hit "Never Can Say Goodbye", Gloria's label issued a song called "Substitute". The track bombed. Everyone hated it, including the radio DJs and the public. Then DJs started to play the B-Side track "I Will Survive" and the rest is history. Avoiding Injuries When Playing Guitar To avoid any sort of injuries when playing guitar a common sense approach is recommended. Just what do I mean by that? Effective Band Rehearsal If your band is in rehearsals, either preparing for gigging, or practising new songs to add to your repertoire, the chances are you will have to hire a rehearsal room. The costs of hiring a room can soon mount up if you don't organise your time effectively. You could be wasting time and money going around in circles, with a growing frustration that your band doesn't seem to be making any progress. Hip Hop History Rap music originated as a cross-cultural product. Most of its important early practitioners-including Kool Herc, D.J. Hollywood, and Afrika Bambaataa-were either first- or second-generation Americans of Caribbean ancestry. Herc and Hollywood are both credited with introducing the Jamaican style of cutting and mixing into the musical culture of the South Bronx. By most accounts Herc was the first DJ to buy two copies of the same record for just a 15-second break (rhythmic instrumental segment) in the middle. By mixing back and forth between the two copies he was able to double, triple, or indefinitely extend the break. In so doing, Herc effectively deconstructed and reconstructed so-called found sound, using the turntable as a musical instrument.
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