Understanding Guitar

One Beginners’ Efforts

I’ve been looking at the details of the Dorian Scale (also known as the Dorian Mode) because I’m trying to go through the Box Pattern.

I found this video that I thought was interesting and wanted to share. While it isn’t specific to the box pattern, it is related to it. This is something I will need to come back to later (if only for the information on improvising)

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 can will 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).

http://blog.littlerockjams.com/2008/01/21/everyone-that-has-been-frustrated-during-guitar-practice-raise-your-hand.aspx

And the following YouTube video was mentioned in the article above. I thought that the video was funny…

Are you familiar with the Song “Handlebars” by the flobots? If you aren’t, I’ve posted it below:

The reason I’m mentioning this song is because, first, I love it. I don’t know why, but I’m addicted to it. I love the trumpet solo that is in the song.

A local radio station, Q101.1, here in Chicago created a parody of the song called C Section Scars. While whether the song is tasteful can be debated I think it is funny and worth sharing… Listen to it below:

If you’d like to download it, you can get it from: http://www.q101.com/airstaff/shermanandtingle.aspx

MusicMoose.org is an interesting yet potentially helpful learn-to-play resource. I call it a learn-to-play resource because they cover a lot of instruments, including guitar, saxophone, and banjo (among many others).

I’ve not spent a significant amount of time bouncing around their site, let alone trying some of their material. However, for the few minutes that I spent looking at the site, I felt it was worth a mention.

For guitarist they have several lessons all further classified. See categories just above the search results for the different classifications.

I just saw this on YouTube… I stumbled upon it really, but I thought I’d share.

I know to some people, this might not be particularly impressive. However, to someone like myself (beginners) this is impressive and it makes you wonder how to get there… Perhaps one day I can post a video like this.