During my time with a guitar, I’ve occasionally (who am I kidding, more then occasionally) ran in to music or practice pieces that have frustrated the living heck out of me.
I really not kidding, there are times where I just about threw my guitar because I just couldn’t take it. (Luckily, I never actually did that; but I have felt like it before.)
While you are learning something new, especially something as complicated as learning to play a musical instrument, you canwill become frustrated. It is just a matter of time.
I stumbled upon this great blog post about frustrations, specifically aimed at learning to play guitar. I liked the article and I think it is very worth while to read (regardless whether your instrument guitar).
I was at a Sam Ash^ about 2 weeks ago, shopping around — just looking (at saxophones [the bug is gone]) and I came upon something that really interested me.
It was a small CD (Jewel) case which said “Learn to play this Hit Song!” It was in a display box with several titles named. I scanned through the titles and discovered that they labeled the level of skill required to play the given song…
So I scanned through looking for items marked at “Guitar_Level 1″ which is the lowest level. I ended up with only a handful of selections (like 2 or 3) and all but 1 was of no interest of me (as far as learning the song). That was “Smells like Teen Spirit” as performed by Nirvana.
I decided immediately to purchase it; I had to at least give it a try and it was only around $13.00.
My first impressions when I broke in to the CD and started to listening was positive. However, I don’t like their version of the song (Smells Like Teen Spirit) but that just probably has to do with the fact that I have always much preferred their acoustic or unplugged versions more then the electric (plugged?) versions.
I’ve only been working with it for two weeks. I don’t want to post a “this will work” or “this won’t work” opinion until I’ve spent more time with it; but I did want to let the world know that it was out there.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the concept of a podcast, it is similar to a radio segment but it is pre-recorded and distributed through the internet. Some people (including myself) also consider them a type of “recorded blog.” In case you are not familiar with the concept of a blog, you are reading one.
If you have iTunes installed on your computer, you can subscribe to these podcasts and then listen to them from your computer. Furthermore, if you have a iPod you can then sync iTunes and the iPod and listen to the podcast on your hand held iPod.
Returning to the topic of podcasts as a Learn-Guitar aid: One problem that you might face when it comes to using these free Podcast is, you basically get what you pay for. Keep in mind that this isn’t always the case but also, that they are free… However, as the five on the top twenty are tributes to, there are good ones out there. You may just need to try a few to find one that fits you. I’d suggest that you start with the podcasts on the top twenty list.
I’ve listened to a few but don’t really have any to recommend at this time. Of course, if I ever find one I’d shurely pass it on. (Oh, and I’ve not checked out the aforementioned podcasts yet.)
