Archive for May, 2010

The virtual world is really evolving. Anything you need is now available through your internet. Whether you are an income seeker, online game player or just searching for information, your internet will never fail you. The online world is truly an easy access especially for those who do not have enough time to spare. So if you want to be a guitarist but lacks time, why not use your virtual buddy in learning online guitar lessons?

There are so many sites offering tips on how to play guitar. The strategies and techniques are quite confusing. So to help our fellow guitarist players, here is a list of online guitar lessons and tips accumulated over time and hopefully will help on your guitar needs.

Tip #1: Learn to correct wrong habits. It is necessary to correct yourself as soon as you discover something wrong. Developing habits will affect you in the long run. It is better to change your habits now rather than later when it is harder.

Tip#2: Being able to play a wide variety of music is a sign of a great guitarist. Listen and try to learn some genre aside from your preferred one. Try to explore because you can not be sure of what suits you best unless you try, right?

Tip#3: Experiment on music. You can use your guitar to change a tempo, note or make your own music. Guitar is a very versatile instrument so make it as productive as possible.

Tip#4: Learn slowly but surely. Do not rush your lessons or you might end up developing unnecessary playing habits. A lot of perseverance and patience are needed to be a successful guitarist.

Tip#5: It is better to know how to play one whole song rather than playing a bunch of songs with only a few lines.

Tip#6: Learn from experts. Watch other people play their guitar and ask questions about their techniques. Most people are willing to share their expertise.

Tip#7: Record yourself while playing your guitar. Taping yourself will make you see more of what needs to be developed. Also, it is really nice to have a copy of your playing acts because it will serve as a good memory or inspiration to share with your future family or friends.

Tip#8: Welcome both criticisms and praises. Both are useful. Praises means you are doing well but still be humble while criticisms make way for improvements.

Hopefully, this bunch of online guitar lessons will help you in your musical quest. These are tips given and used by your fellow guitarists. So learn and enjoy!

I know that’s the feeling so many people have from their individual experiences probably from their youthful days of weekly lessons and ever so often, forced lessons. But in all seriousness, it occurred to me that there are really three broad categories of piano lessons: Classical piano lessons, chord or improv piano lessons, and lastly, play-by-ear piano lessons. While some people including many parents may feel that “piano lessons are piano lessons”, the reality is that’s hardly the case and within those three broad categories I mentioned, there can be a wide variety of difference in both content and quality.

If we address the issue of beginners or novice students then, what would be the best route to take should one be interested in taking lessons? I’m also assuming for simplicity’s sake that the lessons are not necessarily private lessons, but let’s open it up to all venues such as internet piano lessons whether online or by purchasing at-home courses and also we can include perhaps self-taught students in the traditional sense who buy theory books and store-bought instructional aids. The point I’m trying to get to though is this- The most well rounded and most thoroughly trained pianists are not only able to read music in a classical sense, but can execute that music in a skillful and musical way. Plus, these pianists have the ability, whether through training or natural talent, to learn songs by ear.

Lastly, they are able to improvise any song at the keyboard based on piano chords. So people like Bruce Hornsby, Billy Joel, Elton John, all of these folks have all those skills and this certainly enables and facilitates their being at the “top of the game”. Jerry Lee Lewis and I believe Fats Domino too, are strictly “play by ear” “raw talent” type players. Jazz players, just as a generality, tend to be highly versed in all disciplines though you still do see and certainly there have always been “raw talent”, untrained brilliant jazz pianists. The $64,000 question for people starting out though is, “what route then should I take?”.

Here’s my take on that question. First off, play by ear, you see courses all over the net for it, is not the way to go if you are going to use it as your ONLY skill. You can not use the examples of brilliantly talented folks who never had a lesson in their life and well, you know that story.

For the majority of folks including myself, if you were starting out, you either should go the classical route to start off or the way I teach, the chord piano, improv way. Play by ear can be simultaneously learned but by no means should it be the main way to learn songs. A great and tremendously valuable skill to have, yes, so start off right from the beginning with instruction on it but certainly do not rely on it as your main course of action. I’ve been playing for a very long time and I mostly certainly use my ear to help learn songs, it is just one of the tools I incorporate in my “toolbox of skills” to play piano songs. Put it this way, learning to ride a bike right from the start without hands on the handle bars would be certainly not the way to initiate your training. However, hands-free riding is very valuable and used by skilled riders and is eventually incorporated as one of the skills in their “box of tricks”.

Now chord piano, piano by improvisation, is the best route to take if you’re interested in playing pop, rock, blues and country. Gospel works well too with this approach but classical does as well for that style. Professional pop pianists almost always use this chordal approach which gives you the freedom to arrange your own songs, make them sound better than the published arrangement and also paves the way for songwriting as well. It is more fun than classical or play by ear.

Let me tell you, playing by ear can be really difficult and tedious. We all have to learn that skill but geez, having to rely on that by itself from the beginning is not the way to go. Plus, even if someone has a great ear and a “trained ear” if you are asked to learn 60 songs in the next week, do you think you’d want to start learning them by ear? No, you’d use chord charts!

And finally classical, ideally, a pianist has classical training but one doesn’t necessarily have to start with classical. On piano, I did the “backwards” training route which is by learning improv, chord piano first, and followed that training with the classical path. Also consider that you don’t have to be on a concert pianist path with classical, but the mere fact of being able to read notes, having the ability to bring out the melody, having the ability to play scales and arpeggios (broken chords) smoothly, will only serve to make you into a better, more musical pianist.

You also see really great, self-taught pop and jazz players who have great technique (classical skill) but they basically learned this on their own rather than formal classical lessons. Regardless of how they learned though initially, having that strong technique will always enhance your playing and people will always be aware of what a better player you are with that skill level behind your playing. Of course strictly classical career oriented players usually only study classical performance technique.

So I hope these piano tips will be helpful to those of you starting out or those who started out and feel they began on the wrong path.

To discover the “pro way” to play piano songs using only piano tabs and eliminating the need to read note-for-note sheet music arrangements, be sure to visit Play Piano Songs and the new blog Piano Songs Blog

Piano lessons provide a great advantage for children schooled at home. Because parents are in charge of their children’s schedule and curriculum, homeschool students can set their own pace and spend more time on music than in the public or private schools. In the public schools young children go to music class about once a week. Not nearly enough time to develop their musical talent, and rarely are they able to learn an instrument such as the piano. This is unfortunate because of the educational benefits of piano lessons for elementary school age children. Home school parents, however, can provide all the benefits of piano for their children right in their own home. And there is no reason not to with all the resources available to homeschool parents on the internet.

So gather your homeschool team of friends and discuss this wonderful opportunity. Music is even more fun when you can share it with others. Small groups of children can develop their musical talent using keyboards and ear phones. Today the keyboards available are of good quality and reasonably priced. Create a space in your home and start your own homeschool piano club. Below are five things your children can learn in piano at home.

How to -

1. Set Goals to achieve their music dream;

2. Overcome worries and performance fears;

3. Become more patient with their learning;

4. Be persistent in their lessons; and how to

5. Take responsibility for their success.

These are character traits all children need to reach their dreams. So don’t wait to give your children the gift of music!

Frank put up with music.

He put up with it in a way that a sleeping cat deals with a toddler tugging on it’s tail: ears folded back in distain and tail twitching in obvious annoyance, but stubbornly refusing to move to an uninterrupted space.

Usually Frank blocked out music, and sometimes he just plain avoided it. When he hard it on the speakers at the corner store during his frequent cigarette trips, his hairy ears recognized it as unnecessary noise, a waste of his time and a waste of airspace. He greeted the tune by coughing loudly and nastily, thick phlegm rattling in his ribs, and usually setting off the young nurse in training who worked the cash register late nights.

“Cough’s not getting any better,” she chirped with a sickening, sugary smile to the old man, who usually responded with a well-rehearsed scowl as he snatched up his three nightly packs of life-saving nicotine.

Frank was in his late 70′s and looked far older for the scornful expression he always wore. Though he retired from sales over 25 years earlier, his most unfortunate wardrobe was kept in commission. He was reasonably clean, well, at least for a man who’d never had a wife to nag him to bathe and clip his nails regularly. He was never the marrying type. He wasn’t any type at all. He was simply isolated and closed-minded. He lived alone in a dark basement suite below a dry-cleaning business and kept the yellowed curtains shut even on the sunniest and loveliest of days.

It was on a senior’s savings day in mid-December at the local discount food warehouse when music finally made its way into Frank’s lonely life. He was orcing a squeaking grocery cart burdened with instant oatmeal, Kraft dinner and other gluey bachelor meals past blue-haired matrons buying ingredients for the weekend’s Christmas dinner and other grimacing old men in 30-year-old polyester trousers when something from above him made the fuzz in his wrinkled ears twitch.

It was a high sound, a sweet and lovely sound and it was surrounding him. Frank almost plowed into a pyramid of canned corn for to find the origin of this most pleasing and wondrous noise. A young violinist was busking outside the store as she had been for the past two years, come sun or snow, every weekend. Frank had learned to ignore her squeaks and squawks. But today was different. She was playing a simple and almost ancient tune with fingerless gloves in the winter cold.

The simple melody of only a few notes wafted up and down, but oh, it was so sweet. Frank suddenly realised it was the very tune mother played for him every night as he went to sleep as a small child. Frank’s eyes nearly watered as he abandoned his cart and fled the store for the comfort of his home, away from any more music. Away from his memories.

A few sleepless days passed and Frank awoke in a mad mood as usual, not knowing or caring it was Chrismas morning. He immediately began looking for a plastic lighter which he was sure he dropped under the bed in the middle of the night. His joints and muscles ached in protest as he got down on all fours to retrieve the escaped tool for his dirty habit. His eyes narrowed on a dark shape under the iron bed frame. He reached out tentatively past the dust bunnies and pulled out a black, coffin shaped box about 2 feet in length.

It was his mother’s violin. “Esther Smith: Leaf Rapids, Manitoba” was hand-written on the tag attached to the handle of the case. His hands shaked as he opened the case to find the violin sleeping serenely under a silk scarf. His mother’s scarf. She left it to him this way so many years ago.

Frank remembered the last time she played it, lying in bed frail and pale. It was just before his sixth Christmas and he didn’t understand why mother couldn’t get up and celebrate the day; he didn’t understand sickness or death. Mother pulled the bow weakly across the strings, but still the old instrument cooed like a soft white dove. She played the song that only a few old fiddlers still knew from their homeland, a song that was almost entirely lost with their relocation to Canada and that only a handful of players knew.

“Mother is tired dear,” she coughed. “Please put my violin away for me.” He obeyed. “And Frank,” she said. “Make sure that it never stops singing.” As he left the room Esther Smith fell into a peaceful sleep and never woke again.

The violin was the only thing he was allowed to keep when the social workers took him. He put up a such a strong fight that three grown adults conceded and allowed the child to take it on the long rail trip to BC. Frank was then passed from distant relatives to cousins and then on to foster homes until he was grown. The violin always stayed with him, but also stayed shut away in its box.

For the first time in over 70 years Frank opened the violin case and discovered a completely unexpected Christmas gift from above. He smelled his mother’s scent on the silk scarf cocooning her violin. And there, kneeling beside his bed on the cold, wooden floor, Frank wept for the loss of his mother for the first time.

The violin consumed Frank. What used to be days of chain smoking and literally watching the wallpaper peel away from the wall became days of scratching the bow across the strings, experimenting and improving. As winter passed he treated the violin to a new set of strings and a polish and the bow to a new ribbon of white horsehair. Soon he opened the curtains and let the new spring sunlight warm his skin and glisten off the tiger-striped grain of the instrument. The violin and Frank both seemed to have awoken from a long coma and were enjoying their new life together.

As the months and years went by, Frank found he no longer made any late night trips in the snow to the corner store for his cigarettes, but rather trips to the library to get his eager hands on more sheet music. He whistled chirpy tunes at the bus stop and made converation with people he used to pass in silence. He taught himself the scales and the notes and a healthy vibrato until one day he was producing a sweet tone.

“Now it’s time to play her song,” he smiled to himself.

His old, arthritic fingers found their way expertly around the fingerboard and suddenly he was playing Mother’s homeland song. He had tried all those years to force the song out of his out for fear he would feel the pain of his loss, but the music was still there. It was waiting to be born from his hands.

This same song had revisited him at the grocery store that fateful day several years back and wouldn’t leave his mind since. After all that practice he was finally playing it and was giddy with joy and disbelief. His grimace was permanently replaced with a grin of satisfaction and joy.

Frank’s newfound happiness survived the grueling tests at the hospital in the coming months. Music notes swam in his head like golden coy when his doctor explained how the cancer was spreading. Frank was in another world, a world of music and wonder, and death didn’t scare him anymore. His had learned to live and it felt as if not even death could take that away from him.

Once again he found himself fighting off adults who later resigned to let him take the violin with him into the intensive care ward. He played it for the other dying people and for himself when the others were too tired or weak to listen anymore. He prayed that the music might touch their lives as it touched his.

At night in the darkness and silence Frank reflected how the violin had changed his life and connected him to his mother in a way he had never imagined were possible. It was like he was breathing the same air she was. The violin was a conduit to her spirit and memory and her love. His only regret in life now was that he hadn’t discovered it all sooner.

It was on a snowy Christmas Eve night that Frank Smith stopped breathing and passed away, peaceful and contented. The morning nurse discovered the violin, wrapped in a sweet-smelling silk scarf inside the relic of a case. An envelope accompanied the package.

“May this violin find its way to the musician whose music found its way to me,” it said on the envelope’s face. Scribbled beside it was the name of a supermarket. The card inside read, “To the kid with the fiddle: Merry Christmas! Make sure that it never stops singing.”

Merry Christmas to All!

Musicians and collectors alike can enjoy antique violins. These violins can be hundreds of years old and can sell for thousands, if not millions of dollars. Antique violins are artifacts of the past as well as beautifully made musical instruments. There are a wide variety of antique violins available, some of them one-of-a-kind treasures.

Many early violins are extremely valuable. The original King Charles IX violin made in 1564 by Andrea Amati is priceless. Other violins made in later years of the same century can sell for millions of dollars. Violins made by such world renowned makers as Amati, Stradivari, Vuillaume, Amati, Bergonzi, Guarneri, Gasparo da Sal