I saw this post on WonderHowTo.com and I thought that it was clever. Now, obviously, it is not practical but it is still a need idea with cool, interesting results.
Do you know how to drive a stick shift car or anything with a manual (normal) transmission? If you at least understand the concept of driving a manual transmission car then you’ll probably understand the following analogy.
My guitar education feels like I’ve been stuck in first gear with my engine over revving to making up for the lack of gears. I’ve occasionally made it to second gear but either way I’ve been pushing hard and I feel like I’m not getting very far. I feel like no matter how hard I push each practice session I can only get so far — never where I want to be…
I’ve got two more prepaid lesson left at The Music Room. While they’ve been great, I’ve decided not to renew with them. It is important for me to mention that my teacher is/has been excellent but I feel like I should have progressed further than I have. I attribute this not to the teaching but my inability to focus as much time on guitar as I’d like. Quite simply, guitar is over-occupying my time (even though I want to put in more time). I figure if I’m not in weekly lessons I can focus a little more on other things (like Design Patterns or how Firefox works)… In addition to guitar…
My guitar studies will continue and I will continue to run Understanding Guitar. My plan, in regards to The Music Room, is to take the “ad-hoc” options. With this option, I’ll have to call in to schedule an appointment every week or two. I’m considering this plan a half self-study, have lessons plan.
Earl Klugh is a very good Jazz Guitaist. The videos are worth a listen. From my perspective it is important (and interesting) to watch videos like this to understand what can be done with a guitar. I listen to a lot of Staind, Tool and similar type music but guitar music like this is also important.
A while back, I was talking with my wife and the topic of Persistence versus intelligence came up. This isn’t a topic that I often consider… For no real reason, it just doesn’t cross my mind. (Which guitarists’ mind would it cross?)
My ultimate conclusion on the topic is that you can become intelligence by being persistent. No matter what you are doing or trying to learn, if you keep attacking a subject, constantly trying to learn about your topic of interest you will undoubtedly become “smart” on the topic.
The Fender Custom Shop has announced plans to release a David Gilmour Strat. For those who might be under a rock ( ) David Gilmour is a Guitarist for Pink Floyd. I love listening to Pink Floyd play and furthermore, I love the guitar in their songs…
Shine On You Crazy Diamond is the song that is coming to mind right now; wonderful guitar licks in that song. Wonderful song overall, also.
As a quick summary, it appears there will be two editions of the Fender Custom Shop Guitar. One will be priced at $3999.99 and the other “relic” one priced at $4799.99 (MSRPs, I assume).
As much as I’d like to have one, I won’t be buying one of these due to price (and how clumbsy I am). I chipped my electric guitar the first day I had it.
A little bit ago, I posted about the fact that I wanted to go in a new direction; and I have since started. I got a lot of good recommendations from different people and I appreciate everything everyone suggested.
However, as it turns out I didn’t actually go with any of them… at least not yet. I may revisit other material. For now, I’ve got a book called “Mel Bay’s Modern Guitar Method Grade 1.” I started flipping through it, and decided that this is where I’d start. I have a bunch of books, but for some reason I thought that this one suited me the best for now.
From this book, I’m basically trying to do everything right… I’m going through the exercises, I’m playing everything against a metronome and I’m ensuring that I’m playing the correct notes… Furthermore, this book only presents the material in standard music notations… Reading standard music notation is something else that I wanted to get out of learning guitar; my guitar teacher a while back wasn’t able to help me with that.
I will be focusing on material in this book as well as scales and of course, my quest to nailBm which has been an “issue” for a while. I can play it better, but still can’t change to it quickly enough (for me).
I’ve decide to take “learning” guitar in a different direction. I’ve been thinking about my previous post and decided that I want to focus a bit more on the basics of reading music and playing sheet music. While learning to play music like Staind, Cold, Tool, etc. is what I ultimately strive for, I think that I will only get there if I build a good base by starting with basic sheet music.
Given this I was hoping to get recommendation on different books that cover introducing playing guitar. I don’t want something too simple but not too hard either. After all, I need to rebuild my hands up as it has been a while since I was playing.
Currently, I’ve got a couple of books including “Guitar for Dummies”, a book titled something like “Guitar for Beginners: The Fender Method” and a Mel Brooks [??] book. But there are a lot of different books out there, all with a different method of doing things.
If you used one and would like to recommend it, please post it’s title (and if possible author) below. I would greatly appreciate it and it would be interesting to hear what people have tried. Likewise, if you tried to use a book and it didn’t help you or it was frustrating to read/utilize please post that too. What is bad is just as important as what is good.
