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Guitar lesson: What Is The Ultimate Way To Practice On Your Guitar?

by Fat Chords
March 6th, 2011
how to practice guitar
by LShave

Guitar lesson: What Is The Ultimate Way To Practice On Your Guitar?

Is there a best way to practice on your guitar? Of course you have to make your practice sessions effective but could there be a way to practice that is more effective than other ways?

There are many principles involved in an effective practice session and I think some of these are:

1. A motivation founded on a love and passion for the music you can produce on the guitar.

2. An acceptance of the fact that you must practice on that technical level you have reached.

3. A working knowledge of muscle tensions and how to minimize them when you play and how to work on reducing them when you don’t play.

What shall we do until we find the most effective way to practice on the guitar?

When I was studying music at an academic level I many times had the question messing around in my mind about the ultimate method for practicing on my guitar and other instruments I played.

A well renowned jazz tenor saxophonist who was my teacher in jazz improvisation discussed this issue with me as I asked him and he gave me the most intelligent answer I ever heard before or after. He said with a smile, “until you find out the best way to practice, practice anyway!”

How effective can a practice session be?

My humble opinion after much practicing and playing guitar and piano and other instruments and also teaching piano and guitar is that you have to take many things into consideration like the time available, your motivation level, how concentrated you can expect yourself to be and more.

As real growth often is a slow gradual process you will not very often be able to measure the effectiveness of a practice session by how much you have learnt so you have to find other ways to find out if you are effective.

Can you practice too much or too effectively?

It depends on how we define effective practice sessions. If effective guitar practice is to work through a long list of things to improve in your playing and to practice ten hours a day without interruption I guess you can practice too effectively.

This will mean that you practice in such a way that you will get fed up with guitar playing and maybe you will even hurt your muscles and develop an aversion towards guitar playing for the rest of your life.

What is real effectiveness when you practice on your guitar?

Real effectiveness is better measured by how well your practicing methods and results are pointing towards you goals. Without goals you cannot measure effectiveness. The roads to Anywhere are many so to find out if you are on the right road you have to decide your destination.

If your goal is to have fun with your guitar then you have a very effective practicing session if you have fun with your guitar. If that is what you want then it is a worthy goal. I guess you could come upp with more specific goals with deadlines so you can measure them better. But it is up to you to decide your own goals, otherwise the goals will not be effective.

I hope these words on practicing guitar playing will give you some comfort and also help you realizing that when human beings like you and me are involved we cannot definitely say how we ought to play to be effective.

Human beings are funny things that sometimes behave like as if they were identical, but nevertheless they are unique. This also applies to guitar players like you and me. We are different in many ways but I guess we want our guitar playing to contribute to our happiness and joy so have fun and … “until you find out the best way to practice, practice anyway!”!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com


Article from articlesbase.com

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Piano Lesson: How To Improvise The Classical Piano Way

by Fat Chords
March 5th, 2011

Piano Lesson: How To Improvise The Classical Piano Way

Is it possible to improvise on the piano in a classical manner? This piano lesson will help you find out how to cultivate this art and the benefits you reap as a pianist!

Jazz piano improvising is an established art nowadays and much have been written on how to develop improvisational skills in this area.

What about classical piano improvisation?

Many of the methods used for learning jazz piano improvisation can be applied in classical piano improvisation as well.

Many composers like Johann Sebastian Bach, W.A. Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin and others were actually more famous for their improvisational skills during their lifetime.

Personally I have tried to develop this skill and I find it very enjoyable to improvise with classical piano pieces as a basis for creative trips.

I love to improvise in the style of classical composers trying to find myself somewhere among the notes. These special moments are a form of meditation. They clear my mind and also helps me as a composer to stimulate my creative abilities.

The most important reason for developing this skill is that it is fun and very enjoyable. If you learn classical piano improvisation you will benefit from it in many other ways too:

1. It will be easier for you to memorize classical piano sheet music as you will become more aware of what happens when you press down the piano keys.

2. You will find it easier to compose your own piano pieces in a classical piano style.

3. You can make up your own technical exercises on your piano on the go.

4. You will understand your piano better.

There are many ways to develop your skill in classical piano improvisation. Let’s see!

1. As soon as you have learned a piano scale try to use it by creating improvised melodies while playing chords or patterns with the other hand.

2. When you learn new chords try to create patterns to play with your left hand as you play improvised melodies with your right hand. A common easy left hand pattern is with the chord C:

C G E G C G E G

3. As you learn to play new classical piano compositions try to memorize beautiful or exciting passages in these compositions and play around with them and try to modify them and improvise over them.

4. Try to create classical melodies at the piano without stopping. In order to learn to improvise classical music you have to practice just that – To improvise classical piano music.

The most basic requisite in order to develop the skill of classical piano improvisation is that you want to learn this art and with this desire you will find ways to practice this art in all your piano playing.

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play piano resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com


Article from articlesbase.com

If you’re left-handed, this next piano lesson should be a breeze! Now that we’ve played our first five piano notes using our right hand, it’s time to learn the NEXT five notes you should learn on the piano using your left hand. Still nothing too fancy at this point, although I did feel a slight urge to begin the lesson with one of my favorite Chopin tunes. As always, you can check out the online version of my free piano lessons at: www.getpianolessons.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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SC-013 • Demystify The Minor Scales 1 (Guitar Lesson)

by Fat Chords
March 3rd, 2011

In this guitar lesson I try and clear up all the confusion surrounding the different types of minor scales. This part 1 of 2.Taught by Justin Sandercoe. Full support at the web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem. And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships. Just tons of great lessons :) To get help with your lesson or song look up the number at the start of the video title (like ST-123 or whatever) on the Lesson Index page. www.justinguitar.com .

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Piano lesson: Learn To Play Mary Had A Little Lamb Without Reading Sheet Music

by Fat Chords
March 3rd, 2011

Piano lesson: Learn To Play Mary Had A Little Lamb Without Reading Sheet Music

In this piano lesson you will learn to play Mary Had A Little Lamb without the use of sheet music. We will be a little bit professional and use both hands!

As you probably know Mary Had A Little Lamb is a popular nursery rhyme. Here is the first verse:

Mary had a little lamb
little lamb, little lamb
Mary had a little lamb
its fleece was white as snow

In When testing his invention of the phonograph in 1877 Thomas Edison used this poem and it became the first audio recording to be successfully made and played back.

We will not use sheet music in this piano lesson. Instead we will use a form of piano tablature or shorter piano tab.

Tablature is a form of musical notation, often with numbers and letters, which tells the player where to place his fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play.

First you’ll have to locate the note C on the piano. On a piano C is the first white key that is to the left of two black keys.

The C we are interested in most is the C on the middle of the piano. This C is called middle C because on the piano keyboard it is right in the middle, near the keyhole.

In our piano tab we will give this C note a number: 1

The white key to the right of C we call 2 and so on. Let’s play some notes:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

When you have played these seven notes you will come to the next C on the piano.

Let’s try to play a bit of Mary Had A Little Lamb:

Mary had a little lamb

3 2 1 2 3 3 3

You can use the index finger on your right hand to play this melody or be a little bit more professional and use your thumb for all number 1, your index finger for number 2 and your middle finger for number 3.

Let’s continue this piano lesson with the next line:

little lamb, little lamb

2 2 2 3 5 5

Use the little finger for number 5 if you want. The next part is the same as the first piano tab:

Mary had a little lamb

3 2 1 2 3 3 3

Now we are about to finish this song:

its fleece was white as snow

3 2 2 3 2 1

How can you use your left hand? Well, you can make this piece a little bit more difficult and also more rewarding to play by using your left hand for bass notes.

The notes from C to the next C is called an octave. You also have these notes to the left of the middle C. We can call these notes the left octave.

If you use the notes 1-7 in the left octave to play bass notes with your left hand we can notate this in the following way:

3/1 2 1 2 3/1 3 3

3/1 means that as you play the first 3 you also play number 1 in the left octave with your left hand at the same time.

The rest of Mary Had A Little Lamb with bass notes included looks like this:

2/5 2 2 3/1 5 5

3/1 2 1 2 3/1 3 3

3 2/5 2 3 2 1/1

I suggest that you play you left hand 1 with your little finger and number 5 with your thumb. This is the whole song and your piano lesson is over!

The best way to practice is probably to take one line at a time and learn it by heart. When you know the song by heart you can play it anytime and anywhere!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play piano resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com


Article from articlesbase.com

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Piano Lesson: Learn To Play Amazing Grace

by Fat Chords
February 27th, 2011

Piano Lesson: Learn To Play Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace for piano is a popular song on the internet. In this piano lesson we will learn to play this song with melody and chords without the use of sheet music. We will start by finding the note C.


The note C on your piano is found on many places on the piano keyboard. C is always to the left of two black keys on the keyboard. Let’s find the middle C on the piano.


The middle C is often called C4 as it is in the fourth octave of an ordinary upright piano or grand piano. It is sometimes called the keyhole C as it is at the same horizontal position as the keyhole on some pianos.


In this piano lesson we will call it C4 and the C to the left of this note we will call C3 and so on. We will now continue this piano lesson by learning the song Amazing Grace. Let’s take a look at the lyrics to the first verse:


Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now am found

Was blind, but now I see


We will play this song in the key of F-major. You don’t need to know exactly what this mean but it still is in F-major anyway.


We will start with the first line:


Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound


Here is the notes to play to this line:


C4 F4 A4 F4 A4 G4 F4 D4 C4


In this piano lesson we will use a type of piano tab that doesn’t indicate the length of the individual notes. You will probably figure out this by yourself as you know the melody!


I feel confident that you are able to do this!


Let’s continue with the next line:


That saved a wretch like me


C4 F4 A4 F4 A4 G4 A4 C5


We will now take a break in this piano lesson and amuse ourselves with three piano chords that you can play with your left hand as you play the melody with your right hand.


The first piano chord is called F-major or just F and it is played with these notes in this song:


F: C3 F3 A3


The next chord is Bb-major. It is played with these notes:


Bb: D3 F3 Bb3


What is the note Bb3?


Well, the ordinary note B3 is immediately to the left of the note C4. Bb3 is the black key immediately to the left of the note B3. Okey?


The third and last chord we will use in this piano lesson is the chord C7. It is played in the following way:


C7: C3 E3 Bb3


If you want to use these chords in the song I recommend that you learn them by heart first. Now we will continue with the piano lesson.


I once was lost, but now am found


A4 C5 A4 F4 A4 G4 F4 D4 C4


We finish this part of the piano lesson by playing the last line of lyrics.


Was blind, but now I see


C4 F4 A4 F4 A4 G4 F4


Our piano lesson on Amazing Grace is completed as far as the piano melody is concerned but if you want to use your left hand to play the chords as you play the right hand melody you’ll find the bonus text here:


I will notate the melody as I did before but at certain places among the notes I will place the piano chords you already have learned after a slash.


When you see a note with a slash and a piano chord after it you are supposed to play the note and the chord at the same time.


Here is the Amazing Grace melody with piano chords:


C4 F4/F A4 F4 A4 G4 F4/Bb D4 C4/F


C4 F4/F A4 F4 A4 G4 A4 C5/C7


A4 C5/F A4 F4 A4 G4 F4/Bb D4 C4/F


C4 F4/F A4 F4 A4/C7 G4 F4/F


That’s it! I recommend learning the Amazing Grace melody with or without chords by heart. You will then have access to it whenever you will find a piano or keyboard to play.

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free piano sheet music and learn to play piano resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com


Article from articlesbase.com

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