Jam Babble

My most recent post was talking about the Jamplay coupon codes you can find out there and I had a couple of emails asking me about which one is the best deal so I wanted to share a little bit more of the break down and what you can potentially save by using these codes when joining.

Let’s first look at the 25 % off coupon.

The regular monthly cost is $19.95. When you use the coupon that drops the monthly cost down to around $14.96. However this is only applied to that initial purchase, so after the first month you’ll pay the $19.95. So for a full year of lessons via this payment method you’d end up paying: $231.41

Let’s not look at the 10% off coupon.

Since we’re comparing 12 month costs, let’s just use the $139.95 annual membership fee here. If you use the 10% off coupon with the $139.95 annual membership you’ll end up only paying: $126.04 for a full years worth of access to Jamplay.

Comparing the two you can see that you save more then $100 bucks for the year by joining up front. This is far better then what you’d be paying on a month-to-month basis. So if you’re gonna be serious and stick around at Jamplay for a while I’d definitely go for the annual membership and use the 10% off coupon. It’s a way better deal.

Without a doubt blues is the most popular sub style of guitar playing. To become a master at the entire instrument can take years to accomplish, but one of the greatest things about the blues is you can get started with some simple tips and techniques. Today I have five essential topics you have to cover while learning, and if you choose to follow them you’ll be propelled ahead of the pack when taking blues guitar lessons.

The Basics of 12 Bar Blues

If there is one essential ingredient in everything blues, it’s the 12 bar blues pattern. There is a bit of musical theory behind the concept once you under it you’ll be able to quickly start playing it right away.

The twelve bar blues pattern is made up of three different chords known as the one, the four and the five of a given key, these are often denoted as the I, IV and V. If one, four, five is new to you then you may want to familiarize yourself with it first, how ever it’s not all that tough to understand.

Below is the simple pattern made up of the one, the four and the five chords for the 12 bar blues:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 4 – 4 – 1 – 1 – 5 – 4 – 1 – 5

In the example above the 1 is for the one chord, the 4 the four chord and the 5 the five chord.

Get to Know Seventh Chords

Seventh chords are a variation of a major chord that sound great when playing a 12 bar blues progression. For example if you were playing A, D and E then change those out to be the A seventh, D seventh and E seventh chords. Generally speaking these chords are note tough to play and can be found at several places on the neck as both open and barre chords.

Understand the Blues Scales

The blues scales are basically a regular pentatonic 5 note scale with a “blues note” added in. Like a regular pentatonic scale you can play these in several positions around the neck in a different key so knowing where the root note is an important part of learning to play lead to a particular 12 bar blues progression.

Don’t Over complicate

if there’s one thing I’ve noticed beginners do is they try to make learning the blues more difficult then it has to be. Generally speaking some of the sweetest sounding blues licks are also the easiest to play. Be sure that you do take some proper blues instruction whether that be from a private instructor or you purchase a blues guitar course.

Use Backing Tracks

If you’re not familiar with backing tracks you should be because they make practicing a heck of a lot more fun. If you’re not familiar a backing/jam track is basically a full band recorded playing a song or progression but without the guitar. You play these tracks on your MP3 player or stereo and then jam along with them as the guitar tracks. This is similar to playing along with other musicians but far easier to organize.

The majority of online guitar lesson memberships offer jam tracks in their practice tools, also most DVD lessons include a CD or two of backing tracks to practice with as well.

Beginner guitarists have quite a few choices for how they learn to play guitar There are dvd courses, private lessons and of course online guitar lessons. Each method of instruction has good and bad points.

I believe that for a motivated self starter online lessons are likely the best guitar lessons out there.

Easy Access

Online guitar lessons are available more or less any where you can get access to the web. Most membership sites I’ve been a part of provide their lesson content in a low, medium and high bandwidth format. That means that you can adjust the quality and size of the video you watch based on the Internet connection you’re using to view them.

Low Time Requirement

Generally speaking most online guitar videos are short snippets about a broad topic. This makes it easy for busy individuals to watch a short video clip rather then have to commit to a 30 minute lesson when they may not have the free time at that moment.

If you only have a very short window of time and you want to watch a quick lesson then these shorter videos make that possible and you can still feel like you’re progressing with your dream to learn the guitar.

You’re In Control

Something I always thought held me back from learning more on the guitar was the fact that I was willing to put in far more work then was required for my one guitar lesson a week. I would go to my lesson on Tuesday night and practice for a couple of hours both Wednesday and Thursday night, and by Friday I was ready for something new but I still have four more days to wait until my next lesson.

Online guitar lessons provide you with lots of content right away so if you’re eager to learn quickly you can, if not then you can take your time it’s entirely up to you

If you’re excited to learn and have the time you can digest 3, 4 or even 5 lessons a week and practice them as well. Of course on the flip side if you’re busy and only have a few 15-20 minutes one week then you can watch a short lesson but not feel guilty about falling behind since you’re entirely in control of the learning process.

There are three things you must have if you want to be successful at learning the guitar. Now these aren’t concrete items you need in order to learn most effectively, rather these are elements that you must look for before you can start taking guitar lessons online.

The Right Instructor

It doesn’t matter if you’re enrolling for private instruction or joining an online guitar course, either way you need to have the right teacher for your playing style, expectations and personality.

Well you might say, if I’m taking lessons online what does it matter? Well trust me if you watch a video of someone who annoys you you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Right Style

Do you love hard rock and metal? Or is softer acoustic and classical tones more your style?. Which every style you enjoy take this into consideration because chances are that’s the way you’ll want to learn guitar. Sure when you’re first starting out you must learn the basic chords, notes and scales. How ever learning these on an electric guitar with distortion would be ideal if you love hard rock and metal, but a nightmare if you enjoy acoustic sounds.

Right Program

So we need the proper teacher is important as well as the style of that teacher, it’s not time to consider the medium with which you will learn.

Some people like watching videos on their PC, these people would likely enjoy a online guitar lessons course. Then there are others who can’t stand the thought of watching videos online and would much rather use their TV, for these folks a DVD course would make more sense. Finally there is a group, albeit smaller, that would prefer having a book to learn from and read about the techniques and theories on the guitar, for those people an ebook or lesson book from your local music shop would serve the purpose.

Choosing your form of instruction based on your preferred style of play, personality and way you learn best will give you the best chance at success while learning guitar

While Guitar Players have basic scales to practice, drummers have rudiments to build a solid foundation. What exactly is a rudiment? Why do you need to know rudiments? How the heck do you use them once you know them? Each one of these is a great question, and a question we’ll answer in this article. I’m going to provide an overview of what drum rudiments are, how many there is and what good they are to you, and hopefully after reading this article you’ll be enticed to seek out more information about drum rudiments to improve your durm skills.

How Many Rudiments Are There?

In total there are currently 40 different rudiments recognized by organizations across the world. The list started out with an original 13 rudiments put out by the National Association of Rudimental Drummers. They added an additional 13 rudiments and the Percussive Arts Society later again added another 14 to the list of 26 making the full 40 rudiments we recognize today.

At their most basic level rudiments are the basic patterns played on a drum kit or practice pad to improve stick control, speed and wrist movement. There are more advanced rudiments which require you to play them on your full kit and you’ll begin to recognize that these patterns are the building blocks of many drum patterns and beats in popular music today

Ideally a beginner should start with the practice pad before moving over to their full drum kit. This ensure that the technique is at the forefront when learning each pattern and speed and sound are secondary.

What’s the importance of learning Rudiments?

A good analogy of learning drum rudiments is a professional hockey player who hits the gym every day. While there spot is hockey they still spend hours doing weight lifting, resistance and cardiovascular training which helps them with speed, endurance and strength when playing their primary sport.

The above analogy holds true for rudiments and drummers. Learning, practicing and mastering all 40 rudiments provides you with superb stick control, wrist strength and speed. These skills when done even on a parctice pad transfer over to your drum kit when you’re ready to play. It can be easy to get tied up in the idea of “playing” the drums all the time, but if you don’t put some foundational work in once and while you can fall behind.

Options for Learning Drum Rudiments

There is no shortage of videos available on websites like YouTube that will teach you the 40 Drum Rudiments, of course some of them aren’t always correct or good quality. I believe the best way to master all 40 drum rudiments correctly is to spend some money on a quality drum course which has a focus on proper technique and covers all 40 rudiments in detail.

While most information is available for free learning everything from a professional instructor with the right support materials has it’s advantages and can help you improve your understanding.

Do you know what the second most played and learned instrument is behind the guitar? It’s the piano and the way we learn it is drastically changing these days.

Just as how we converse and interact with others and do our banking is changing thanks to the Internet and other communication advancements these same technologies are changing how we learn as well.

It could be learning the guitar or how to swing your golf club better to break 80 we’ve never had so much knowlege at our finger tips. You can get a piano course for less than $20 bucks a month and teach yourself how to play faster then ever before.

Since it is so easy to find instruction, lessons and videos for just about anything you can think of we’re faced with a multitude of choices which makes learning anything some what difficult.

It used to be if you wanted to improve your golf game then you’d take lessons and practice, practice, practice. Today you can watch some lessons online about how to chip and putt better and then move right along to a video on how to play your first chords on the piano followed by who else knows what.

Our span of attention to things is shrinking and it takes a special type of person who can focus in on a task as hand to get it done. Most of us who want to learn something new fall in love with the idea of it but can rarely, if ever get past that stage because something else catches our attention before we ever get the chance to learn the first thing we were interested in.

So while no ones arguing that shopping online, gaining a connection with old friends and family members sometimes half around the world and in some instances improving productivity in some instances isn’t great there are a slew of other side effects that our instant knowledge world has left us with.

Could it be that we’re breading a society where ADD will become the social epidemic of the next generation?.

Learning Guitar is Becoming Increasingly easier thanks to new technology. It wasn’t all that long ago that kids were going to take guitar lessons after school from an individual, now they’re rushing home and turning on their computer to watch video guitar lessons.

It’s happened quickly but online and dvd video instruction is surpassing private lessons as the preferred method of learning guitar for students both old and young. Why? Well like everything else we’re find it easier and faster to handle this part of our lives with the assistance of computers,and the Internet.

An online guitar course which is done entirely via the Internet and a computer costs far less then private guitar lessons and does not require the student to leave the house. Also since it’s a self study program students can watch lessons and practice when it’s right for them, no schedules..

Another point is that the best guitar lessons online are often taught by teachers who are far more skilled then those you could find locally to teach you guitar as a beginner. So choosing to learn online can be as much about saving money as it is about the speed with which you learn and the quality of the instrument.

How does this shift affect music schools, stores and instuctors?

Enrolment is lower then it used to be at many music stores offering lessons, how ever this is primarily in the mature student market (those over 30 years of age). Younger children and teenagers, or possibly their parents, still seem to be embracing the private lesson model.

There is a group of instructors who have started creating their own lesson videos and either posting them to video websites such as youtube or their own websites and blogs. This offers an additional revenue stream for many of these teachers who may teach guitar full-time. It may be a great business decision for them as they can reach more people online then they possibly could locally and videos can teach more then one person at once.

Changing chords is something a lot of beginners struggle with. I have me theories that beginners tend to try and change chords too quickly while they’re learning. By this I don’t mean physcially too fast but rather too soon.

In order to be efficient at changing chords, especially while strumming, you need to first be profeccient in playing and strumming the chord on it’s own. I’m a big believer in breaking down skills on the guitar into baby steps then piecing all those steps together to create the full picture, so lets do that with chord changes.

As I already mentioned you need to be able to make the chord shapes and strum them well before you can think about moving between them. Once you’ve got that down I want you to take the strumming part out of the equation.

Let’s say you’re trying to switch from C to G. Stop strumming and just practice moving your hands from the C shape to the G shape back to the C shape etc. The movement is the same whether your strumming or not but by stopping strumming you’re allowing your brain to focus just on the chord change and manuvering your fretting hand. Once you feel comfortable with it add a straight strumming up down up down up etc. To the mix.

A couple of points to note, if you stumble switching the chord shapes don’t worry just keep on strumming. If you continue to strum steady you’ll get in the habit of being able to leave your strumming hand on auto pilot and worry about moving your fretting fingers around.

Last but not least don’t try to learn too many changes at once. Focus on one chord to one other chord at a time. Then worry about creating chord progressions you change between. Breaking the technique down almost always works for new skills on the guitar and if your patient it will work for you really well.

Other Posts:
http://guitarlessonreview.net/669/learning-the-guitar-fretboard-notes/
http://www.youguitarist.net/291/how-you-can-benefit-from-the-caged-guitar-system/

Palm Muting is a great skill that I don’t think is used all that often. I use it a lot since I enjoy playing acoustic songs that use the guitar as a rhythm instrument as well (think tunes a la Jack Johnson).

To use palm muting what you want to do is use the fleshy part of your palm below where you thumb joins your hand and place that over the strings just above the bridge. When you do this you reduce the amount of noise that comes from the strings since they are not allowed to shake as much as when there is no hand pressed against them.

By varying the pressure and location of your palm you can get some really cool tunes out of your acoustic or electric.

This technique takes sometime to master and you need to play with it but it can allow you to create some great rhythm parts or mix up a cover tune you might already know and love to make it your own.

Other Posts:
http://www.pianoplayingtips.info/beginner-guitar-lesson-on-learning-the-notes-on-each-guitar-string
http://www.guitarlessonscritic.com/blog/learning-guitar-string-notes-first-step-to-a-solid-beginner-foundation/

I grabbed this idea from the author over at Acoustic-Guitar-Blog, it was a solid enough idea that I wanted to pass it along to you guys.

If you haven’t been playing long you may not have run into the problem of your guitar slipping off your leg. It happens a lot if you have a pair of dress pants on or a fabric that isn’t denim. There is a quick solution to this how ever and it’s something I probably would’ve never thought of had I not come across this post.

The author there talks about using a piece of shelf liner that’s cut out to go on your leg first then place the guitar on top of that. It creates a non slide surface for you to rest your guitar on. The idea seems awesome and I’m going to try.

I often have issues with my guitar sliding on my leg when I’m really getting into a tune and stomping my feet.

Another idea was to use a thin peace of rubber like a bathing or swimming cap. Anything that’s thing enough to not be obtrusive and can fit right underneath the guitar between it and your leg will work.

Other Interesting Posts:
http://www.guitarlessonscritic.com/blog/intro-to-the-caged-system-locating-all-major-chords-on-the-guitar-neck/
http://guitarlessonreview.net/682/easy-guitar-tuning-without-the-need-for-an-electric-tuner/
http://www.pianoplayingtips.info/3-speed-exercises-to-learn-to-play-guitar-faster