As an independent musician, several factors can disrupt your career. Maybe you’ve got a day or night job, social obligations, you’re in school, or other responsibilities that take top priority. So how will you create more time to focus on your talent? Just like any other endeavor, you need to create time for your creative work. How much you devote will mainly depend on the demands of your non-musical life. With this in mind, it’s …
Classical Guitar A Practical Guide – New Book Out Now
View Post20 Essential Guitar Chords for Beginners
If you’re new to playing the guitar and wondering what chords are suitable for a beginner guitarist, look no further. I’ve got you covered in this lesson… and then some. [Update] Since I wrote this lesson last year, I’ve written an accompanying chord book that goes even deeper. The Beginners Guide to Chords (35 pages) $9.99 You’ll find no shortage of downloadable guitar chord charts and graphs flying around the internet, so what makes this …
6 Simple Ways Parents Can Support Their Child’s Guitar Lessons
As a music teacher and private lesson instructor for a while now, I’ve taught them all. From ages 7-70, I’ve seen students become proficient on guitar no matter what their background. The challenges from younger learners are much different than with older ones. The sad thing is the reason most of the younger students (18 and under) quit is because of the parents. Without realizing it, parents may be hamstringing their child’s learning potential. With …
How Some Of The Most Famous Guitarists Learned To Play
Guitar lessons online for beginners are a great way for people to learn to play the instrument today. Thanks to the rise of the Internet, the possibilities are endless. However, this has not always the case, and some of the most famous guitarists today never had the option of online music lessons. With that being said, read on to find out how they learnt. Let’s begin with Kurt Cobain. He received his first guitar from …
WristGrips – Compression Therapy for Guitarists
How’s it going in the practice room today? I had an action packed January full of gigs that concluded yesterday (Sunday) with the 5th of 5 straight gigs in a row. Now, if you’re a Rock Star doing a 90 minute concert or an original, regional band pulling a 45 minute set, chances are you may stop playing before the pain sets in. If you’re like me pulling 3-4 hour cover gigs, 200+ days per …
10 Essential Guitar Scales for Beginners
If you’re a beginning guitar player, you’ve probably heard the word “scales” before but may not be sure where to start. If you’ve tried a few, you may be wondering what the point is to this often tedious guitar playing chore. There are a few reasons why adding scales to your practice routine is super important: Scales build technique, strength and coordination in both hands on the guitar. Scales are the basis for all melody, …
40 Day Guitar Practice Challenge
Are you ready to take your guitar playing to the next level in 2020? Let’s do it together! New Years resolutions can be cliche but what’s wrong with trying to better yourself, whether it’s a hobby, your health or the desire to become a better guitarist? For beginning guitarists, improvement can be a measured by leaps and bounds almost daily. For intermediate and advanced guitarists those jumps in technique and musicality can be few and …
5 Ways Guitarists Develop A Better Ear
One of the most important skills you can develop as a musician is a “good ear”. The ability to match pitch and audiate on the guitar is fundamentally important in all aspects of your playing. Developing your ear will make your improvisation more creative and melodic, as well as improve your composition and make learning and accurately playing any piece of music easier. While some musicians are lucky enough to be born with perfect pitch, …
HX Stomp Review – Guitar Gear Gift Ideas
As Thanksgiving and Black Friday approach, we’re all getting ready for our holiday gear shopping, whether for ourselves or the guitarist in your life. If you’re like me, you do most of this shopping online. At this point in my guitar playing career, I really don’t feel the need to go to a big chain music store and listen to some kid (who let’s face it, doesn’t know as much as I do) demo and …