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Easy guitar lesson

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300px JohnMayer1 Easy guitar lesson

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Major Chord Progression and Minor Chord Progression

The teacher may open the lesson by selecting well known and simple songs for students to play. The students must then write down important chord sequences found within the given song. Each student must possess firm knowledge of the name of each chords and how to fret them. Preliminary lessons on how to fret basic chords, will help facilitate learning.

After repeating the exercise with several other chord sequences, the teacher may encourage the students to analyst the data and look for patterns.

After a discussion and some prompting to help students to discover the answer for themselves, the teacher may explain that the key to a chord sequences is the name of the chord that begins the sequence. In each case, six important chords will be found within each key, three of which are major, and the other three minor.

Chords Found Within Major Keys

The chords found in each row below will always fit together, regardless of the order, but the opening chord, known as the “tonic” or “keynote chord,” denotes the name of the key. For example, in the first row shown, a chord sequence that begins with A major, may contain any of the chords within the same row in any order: Bm, Cm, D, E Fm and Am itself. Some of these chords need not necessarily be used. The result will be a chord progression that fits together well. The same applies to the chords found in the other major key chords.

Playing the electric guitar with easy guitar lessons online can be a breeze if you manage to find the right mentor. With tons of options from beginner guitar courses to guitar lesson DVD, the Internet has made easy guitar lessons online a reality. Most electric guitar players start on their guitar journey with the glorious stardom of their admired bands and guitarists. You stand in front of the mirror playing the air guitar, imitation your guitar idols. This may not be that far achieving the dream is you pick the right easy guitar lesson.

While very glamorous, playing the guitar is not as tough as it used to be because of all the new and creative teaching methods that guitar teachers utilize. While many of your guitar gods play the guitar flawlessly now, many started with traditional lessons that built the foundation. Many of the guitar gods like John Mayer and Jimi Hendrix have expended many years of their time to perfecting their guitar playing. For a start, go online and find an easy guitar lesson course or perhaps a guitar lesson DVD.

After you learnt how to play notes, chords and the rest, here are a few practice tips you can use to bring your skills up to the next level:

Master famous riffs

There are tons of very simple, but impressive sounding electric guitar riffs out there. These are great way to put your basic skills into use and develop it into something a little more advanced. A few very good guitar riffs for beginners are “Smoke On The Water” by Deep Purple, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry and “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Practice them until you are familiar with them but at the same time, do not get too hooked up with playing them too much. Always make it a point to play a greater variety of songs to expand your skills.

Learn tons of chords!

One very often misunderstanding of the basics is that chords are just boring fundamentals. It is true that chords are one of the first things you will learn when you pick up the guitar but they are extensive and is the building block for other techniques down the road. Make sure you command mastery over as many of them as possible.

Practice often with faster licks and riffs

Faster licks and riffs will build up your agility with the guitar while extending your endurance with playing fast notes so you do not get fatigued after playing a demanding portion of a song. Practicing faster licks and riffs is not about just being to play fast, however. More importantly, it is about accuracy and speed combined. What you want to achieve is playing fast notes in succession with pinpoint accuracy as well.

Playing the electric guitar with easy guitar lessons online can be a breeze if you manage to find the right mentor. With tons of options from beginner guitar courses to guitar lesson DVD, the Internet has made easy guitar lessons online a reality. Most electric guitar players start on their guitar journey with the glorious stardom of their admired bands and guitarists. You stand in front of the mirror playing the air guitar, imitation your guitar idols. This may not be that far achieving the dream is you pick the right easy guitar lesson.

While very glamorous, playing the guitar is not as tough as it used to be because of all the new and creative teaching methods that guitar teachers utilize. While many of your guitar gods play the guitar flawlessly now, many started with traditional lessons that built the foundation. Many of the guitar gods like John Mayer and Jimi Hendrik have expended many years of their time to perfecting their guitar playing. For a start, go online and find an easy guitar lesson course or perhaps a guitar lesson DVD.

After you learnt how to play notes, chords and the rest, here are a few practice tips you can use to bring your skills up to the next level:

Master famous riffs

There are tons of very simple, but impressive sounding electric guitar riffs out there. These are great way to put your basic skills into use and develop it into something a little more advanced. A few very good guitar riffs for beginners are “Smoke On The Water” by Deep Purple, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry and “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Practice them until you are familiar with them but at the same time, do not get too hooked up with playing them too much. Always make it a point to play a greater variety of songs to expand your skills.

Learn tons of chords!

One very often misunderstanding of the basics is that chords are just boring fundamentals. It is true that chords are one of the first things you will learn when you pick up the guitar but they are extensive and is the building block for other techniques down the road. Make sure you command mastery over as many of them as possible.

Practice often with faster licks and riffs

Faster licks and riffs will build up your agility with the guitar while extending your endurance with playing fast notes so you do not get fatigued after playing a demanding portion of a song. Practicing faster licks and riffs is not about just being to play fast, however. More importantly, it is about accuracy and speed combined. What you want to achieve is playing fast notes in succession with pinpoint accuracy as well.

Easy Guitar Lesson For Beginners

If you are just plain fascinated with the guitar and you want to play like a professional, you need to have patience as this does not happen overnight and it requires a lot of patience on your side. Nobody just became a professional guitar player but they did go through this testing period of learning, through which they were successful and this is why you see them on stage now. You need to start somewhere and the best position is to start with easy guitar lesson online.

It is best to choose the online easy guitar lesson available as this will channelize your complete mechanism and will put you on the right track. When you are learning initially, there are certain things you need to keep in mind.

o Make sure you choose your instrument with care. It is best to buy a basic acoustic guitar for the initial easy guitar lesson. You can then upgrade your instrument based on your choice of stream that you want to play rock, blues, and jazz, classical or pop etc. In connection with this you also need to understand the parts of the guitar. If somebody asks you to look at the bridge of the guitar you need to know exactly where to look at.

o Learn your postures and the position of your guitar and how you need to hold the pick or the striker etc as part of your next easy guitar lesson.

o Once you are through with the basics you need to learn to name each string and the name is given because of the sound that is made when you play that string open. So there are six strings of varying thickness to create the different tones. Make sure you learn progressions too as this will help in tuning.

o One of the basic things you need to learn in your easy guitar lesson is to tune your guitar. You can either use the pipe or the piano to give you the tones and this will indeed prove you musical ability as this will prove if you do have the ears for music and tones.

Easy Guitar Lesson – Playing Beginner Acoustic Guitar Effectively At Your Own Pace

Learning to play the guitar can be a hassle when you have to balance work and still rush down to a learning center after slogging in the office for a good 8 hours. Nowadays, a lot of beginners are turning to guitar lessons DVD or online guitar courses for an easy guitar lesson.

The benefits of learning the guitar online are apparent with both learning pace and cost. Online guitar courses now deploy videos to teach students so first time guitarists can easily repeat any part of the lesson they are unsure of. The value of being able to learn at your own pace helps tremendously for newbies starting to learn guitar lessons.

Learning guitar lessons online or with a guitar lesson DVD will typically start with the basics like how to read tablature or tab. Tabs are a simplified numbering system used in guitar playing and was invented for people who are not familiar with musical notes. Not everyone has a foundation in music and tabs can really help kick start the process.

Next, a decent online guitar course will explain to you what notes are and how to play them. This is then followed by simple exercises that utilize these notes. This is followed by chords and then by then, you should be able to play a simple song on your guitar. A good lesson will also have tips and tricks on how you can keep proper rhythm when you’re playing the guitar as well as keep its lessons fun and engaging to discourage students from giving up. The last part about having fun is especially important because there is absolutely nothing stopping you from quitting if you’re taking an online course and a good one will drop you reminders to practice or polls to track your progress.

Learning beginner acoustic guitar can be really awesome because guitars can be brought around events and gatherings and there are always great opportunities to play simple song. In fact, playing for yourself and in front of an audience is quite a different experience so take any opportunity to play for people because it really helps to get rid of “stage fright”. Share your music with the people you love because music is meant to be shared. (Not as in sharing of illegal MP3s online!)

Take your time and look around various online guitar courses that will suit your taste and preference. Make sure that before you pay for one, do yourself a service and read some reviews about the only guitar course that you’ve narrowed down to.

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Online Guitar Lessons – The End of Traditional Instruction?

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300px E Guitare horiz Online Guitar Lessons The End of Traditional Instruction?

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The advent of the Internet has revolutionized guitar instruction. Formal guitar instruction is becoming less and less prevalent. Online guitar lessons are becoming more and more popular. Why is this shift occurring? Why are people choosing online guitar lessons over instructor led courses? There are several factors that contribute to this change. Price and convenience are two of the main factors for this shift.

Traditional Instructor led courses are great for students who have true musical aspirations. This category includes professional musicians and music students among others. In fact, I do not believe that any online guitar lessons can meet the needs of this category. They need to learn sheet music. They need to learn the minutiae of playing that only a true music teacher can provide. The one-on-one instruction is paramount to their success.

For the category of people who are only interested in recreational play, traditional lessons have long been the only choice. Books and early VHS instructions were fraught with problems. These media were and still are very static and not well suited to then dynamic nature of guitar playing. This category of aspiring guitar players had to invest a lot of money and time to learn the guitar. Lessons can run anywhere from $30 per hour to over a $100, depending on the pedigree of your instructor. Students had to make time in their often-busy schedules for the lessons. Finally most students had to travel to the location where the class was being offered. The costs of instruction got quite high as many lessons had to be scheduled in order to make any noticeable progress. We can see that the above factors, while acceptable to most students with professional aspirations, were often too much for the casual student.

People that want to play recreationally make up the majority of people trying to learn to play the guitar. They need a method of instruction that is not expensive and is convenient. Enter online guitar lessons!

Online guitar lessons offer the flexibility that instructors cannot. The online lessons usually cost what one-hour of instructor led training would. This is very appealing because it is a one-time fee. No recurring expenses that drain your finances over a long period of time. The online guitar lessons that you buy can teach you for months instead of one hour. You get a lot of bang for your buck.

The next benefit of online guitar lessons is that they are convenient. You do not need to travel to any location to learn how to play the guitar. You can do it in your own home. No braving traffic or parking hassles. You are learning in the comfort of your own home. In addition to this, you do not have to have a set schedule to take the classes. Most of us already lead busy lives and have little time to spare. With online guitar lessons you can learn whenever you want. This fun activity can be learned at your leisure. If you can’t do it one day there is no stress. This is supposed to be enjoyable after all, not a stressful time management challenge.

We can see from the points above that online guitar lessons are very appealing to the aspiring recreational guitar student. Since this category of people make up the large majority of potential students, it is understandable that they would shun the heavier commitments required for traditional guitar instruction.

If you are interested in online guitar lessons, consider Jamorama. It is a complete multimedia online guitar course with many more benefits than those listed above, and none of the downfalls of having an instructor.

Learn to play guitar online like the pros. Visit my Jamorama Review to find out how you can be playing real songs in no time!

 

Online Guitar Lessons The End of Traditional Instruction?

Do Music Lessons Make for Smarter Kids?

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?Looks like they do! The most recent issue of the peer-reviewed psychology journal “Advances in Cognitive Psychology” contains a study examining the link between intelligence and music. The researchers asked the parents of 194 boys about their musical activities since preschool, and looked at the boys’ reading and spelling performance. The results concluded:

Intelligence was higher for boys playing an instrument. To control for unspecific effects we excluded families without instruments. The effect on intelligence remained. Furthermore, boys playing an instrument showed better performance in spelling compared to the boys who were not playing, despite family members with instruments. This effect was observed independently of IQ. Our findings suggest an association between music education and general cognitive ability as well as a specific language link.

300px Juilliard Chamber Orchestra Do Music Lessons Make for Smarter Kids?

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Meaning–kids who had been given music lessons had higher IQs, and did better in spelling and reading than kids who were not given music lessons. This was true even when the non-music-lesson-having kids lived in a household with a musical instrument in it.

This is not the first study to show a link between music lessons, academic performance, and intelligence. In 2006, an article published in the Journal of Educational Psychology demonstrated not only that music lessons are strongly correlated with good academic performance among 6- to 11-year olds, but also that the duration of music lessons correlated positively with IQ. Meaning, the better a kid is doing in school, the more likely he or she had music lessons, and, the longer a kid had been given music lessons, the higher his or her IQ. This was the case even when the researcher controlled for differences in the parents’ economic background or own involvement in music abilities.

While listening to music as a child leads to (very, very) short-term gains in intelligence, taking music lessons as a child is associated with small but long-lasting benefits to the intellect that aren’t explained by class, family involvement in education, or other confounding variables.

Some of this makes sense, but some of it doesn’t: It naturally follows that learning to play the piano, for example, could help a kid develop fine motor skills; it’s less clear, however, why those piano lessons might help with spelling.

So how to explain the connection between music lessons and spelling? Some researchers hypothesize that the connection between music lessons and increased language skills can be explained by a “transfer effect”: Learning to read written music might help a child learn how to read the written language. Learning how to pay attention to musical sounds might lead a child to more easily pay attention to spoken sounds, thereby increasing spelling ability.

Another theory is that music lessons simply exercise your brain and ergo boost your IQ. This would naturally transfer to anything requiring intellectual ability–music, math, spelling, whatever.

But of course, the correlation between music and intellectual ability may just be that–correlation, even when income, education, and other confounding factors are controlled. For example, parents might know their kids well enough to know that they will or won’t enjoy music lessons in the first place, and the kids that enjoy the structure of music lessons might be the same kinds of kids that can enjoy the structured learning environment of school, where “intellectual abilities” are measured.

What do you think? Do music lessons cause people to be more intelligent, or is it just a coincidence?

Do Music Lessons Make for Smarter Kids?

Music Education for Parents: Learn to Read Music with Ease Using a Music Study Guide

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You know how musically trained children read music notes as if they are reading a book. Is it so easy? If you are thinking of sending your child for music lessons, he too will learn reading notes on those magic five lines as easily as them. Is it really possible? Yes, dear parents, it is!

A music study guide will teach your child how to read those notes. If you find your musically talented child a good music teacher, he will blossom into a wonderful music player. But before you plan all your budget and other things, you need to first understand your expectations from musical education.

Parents who don’t know a thing about music lessons think that it is impossible to plan what to expect from music. They are even scared to sign their child up for music lessons as they think he should just play for “own pleasure” and concentrate on public school.

Actually, when they say “own pleasure”, they really mean their own pleasure. It’s they who want to see their child create some music from their tiny fingers and enjoy – only because it looks so cute!

Why are parents who have no idea of music education so scared of letting their child play an instrument or compose music? It is because they think that learning music or reading a music study guide is too difficult a thing and their child won’t be able to do it since nobody in the family had musical talent.

Dear parents, music talent is not hereditary and anybody can learn music and read notes as effortlessly as reading a regular book. Even a music study guide can teach you how to read music!

Learning music begins with learning notes in one octave, then in the next, and so on. By practicing what you have learnt, you can easily start playing the musical instrument of your choice. Of course, since it is a new language your child will need time just like he needed time while learning the alphabets. But very soon he will learn words, then sentences, and then large texts!

The more your child practices, the faster he will learn. The technique of sight-reading will help him learn faster. Although a music study guide is helpful, it is always better to learn from music teachers whether at a music school or at home.

If your child is scared of the big stage or following strict regimes, just hire a private music tutor for your child in the comfort of home and buy a good music study guide.

So, even if you wish to see your child play “for his own pleasure”, it is vital for him to learn to read music notes freely, regardless of whether the music piece is complex or simple. After mastering this essential skill, your child will be grateful to you for giving him this gift of musical training.

Tatiana Bandurina is an owner of Quintecco Educational Products Inc. She develops a new trend in education – Music Education for Parents. For more tips on music study guide, visit http://www.quintecco.com

 

Music Education for Parents: Learn to Read Music with Ease Using a Music Study Guide

Piano Lessons – Kids Do NOT Learn Music Faster Than Adults

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Let’s do some myth-busting, because this is my favorite myth to bust as a career piano teacher. Ready…?
The popular notion that kids learn music faster than adults is… completely false! It’s categorically untrue. Where it has come from over the years is a piece of neuroscience being erroneously applied to a situation in which it has no basis.

What this means is children between the ages of two and six years old have an advantage learning a particular skill called absolute pitch. That means they learn to identify a musical pitch by letter name solely through hearing it, with no reference note given for comparison. They learn to hear and identify a particular sound in the sonority of the pitch and can forever automatically identify that pitch by it’s name with certainty. This is something that about two percent of the general population is born with the ability to do, however, if one is not a trained musician, then no one knows that the ability is there in a person. It is an advantageous ability for musicians to have, yet it is not a hinderance to lack this ability. Additionally, about 85% of professional string players develop this ability just in the course of learning their instrument.

Children between the ages of two and six have an advantage in acquiring this skill because of the rate and amount of brain growth going on in them during that phase of their development. However, they only have the advantage in acquiring this skill during that time if they are taught properly. “Taught properly” in this case means thirty minutes to an hour of instruction every day with a qualified teacher until the skill is acquired. (Repeated tests and experiments have shown that if taught properly one hundred percent of the kids in this age group will acquire absolute pitch.)

Can you imagine having your two-year-old in an expensive series of music lessons every day? I thought not. That’s what it takes to develop absolute pitch in a two-to-six-year-old and it is the ONLY portion of learning music where children have an advantage over adults.

What most people don’t know is that adults actually have an advantage over children in learning an instrument, particularly the piano. The reason is adults have a lifetime of musical history, have heard thousands of songs and already know what they like. In teaching adults, I’ve found they learn to play the instrument far faster than the kids. It seems this stored lifetime of loving music is such a powerful advantage that, if the adults practice regularly, they outpace the kids in every skill involved in playing the piano. Hands down, if the adults apply themselves, they win every time.

However, I have also seen that it can be easier to make kids practice daily, especially if their music practice is considered part of their school “homework” in the household. The adults often times have more outside obligations and responsibilities that prevent them from getting daily practice. I have found in fifteen years of teaching over one thousand students that this is the only advantage the kids have over the adults. If you are an adult student, don’t think that you are at a disadvantage!

If you are a parent and have questions about absolute pitch, please contact me and I’d be happy to provide more information. If you are an adult and have specific questions about piano lessons, and how to use all that stored memory to your advantage, please do contact me at http://anaheimpiano.com

http://anaheimpiano.com Athena Murphy teaches piano lessons in Anaheim, CA. Visit her website for her free report “7 Insider Secrets to Getting Your Money’s Worth from Piano Lessons.”
In the past fifteen years, she has taught individual lessons to over one thousand students, including one who went on to become a multi-platinum-selling recording artist. Athena has studied neuroscience extensively for the past twenty years and incorporates all her knowledge of brains and learning habits into her music lessons. If you are in North Orange County or the southern Los Angeles County area and would like more information on lessons with Athena, please visit her website at http://anaheimpiano.com

 

Advanced Guitar Playing

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300px Guitar 1 Advanced Guitar Playing

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Advanced Guitar Playing must include chords, scales, arpeggios, lead playing, guitar theory, fretboard study and more to a level of high proficiency. The advanced guitar player must have a number of concepts and skills as well as a level of comprehension that will provide him or her with an ability to perform on the instrument to an advanced level. Students of all levels whether they are starting out, or have been playing for years, need to know the essential concepts that will make them advanced like the players they admire. There are a variety of teaching tools, methods and practice suggestions available for advanced guitar playing but they generally fall short in ever leading the guitar playing there.

Most guitarist who have spent time trying to learn the guitar have heard repeatedly the importance of practicing to achieve advanced guitar playing ability. But this is often so misunderstood and unapproachable due to lack guidance and training tools available in the “get rich quick” idea, that have been transposed to the guitar in the form of “become a guitar master fast”, mass information dump throughout the web, that guitar students are at a loss for any real substance in the practice area. You must practice on a regular schedule and often. You must practice various skills and music applications. There is much to the subject of practice that is critical to your success.

The degree to which you understand guitar chords, arpeggios and scales is absolutely a main ingredient that you can not take lightly if you want to raise your playing stature to the advanced level. So often the guitarist does not understand the true nature of the guitar , it’s makeup and composition. How to musically apply the chord in the musical styles and at least the proper musical structure that allows one to play with other musicians, write music, or record in a studio as a contributor to the music, is essential to advanced guitar playing. Applying the chords on the fretboard, understanding the variety of ways to view them and the underlying methods to morphing them and expanding or “tightening them up” is a part of advanced guitar playing.

How about guitar ? Well, surely those are covered pretty easily with a few online diagrams and explanations. If you think that is of any value for the advanced player to make use of guitar scales and apply them in significant tonal and functional ways on the fretboard, then you have no understanding of these. The musical foundations, applications, structures, and adaptations of scale theory and the implications on music usage, fretboard application and modifications are far beyond what a scale is or for example, “how to play a minor pentatonic solo”. Guitar are a whole other area of study and comprehension that again is far more than the typical arpeggiation of a chord. Various simple patterns and cool riffs in no way constitute the melodic reasons, musical theory, and fretboard structure that reflect the world of arpeggios for advanced usage. The advanced guitar player must be able to use the guitar fretboard, to a degree that makes them in charge of the instrument as opposed to the instrument being so available yet so inaccessible.

Any guitar player who can play some chords and some scales, even in the open position make think this isn’t so important, as some great song writers and guitar songs have the music played in one area of the fretboard. And that can be true in regards to song writing and band success, but also this more limited playing is in no way any guarantee at all of success either. In fact advanced guitar playing allows the guitarist to play more “intermediate or basic concepts” better and in more musical ways.

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How to Determine My Child’s Readiness to Learn Music?

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300px Juilliard Chamber Orchestra How to Determine My Childs Readiness to Learn Music?

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When should the mother enroll their child in a formal music lesson? The answer is that it depends on the child’s readiness to learn music. The child has to have the interest and is mentally and physically capable and ready. Some music teachers suggest enrolling the child when she reaches the age of 8. Others say 5 rather than 3, for in this age, the child has developed the control of the hand movements. Some mothers start enrolling their child when they are able to read letters and recognize numbers.

As a parent, you should know whether your child could endure a half hour of lesson or not. Another important idea is that the child has to overcome the separation anxiety stage before starting because this could affect the cooperation and attentiveness of the child in the learning process. Children grow and learn at different rates, so what is right for one might be disadvantageous to another. Mothers could determine when should their child be enrolled in a formal lesson based on their observations.  They need to be sensitive enough in order for them to know the perfect time.

Interest will serve as the motivation for your child to start and as she goes through the progression of learning. A mother could start developing the interest of the child while she is still pregnant. It is scientifically proven that the child can hear even she is still in the womb of the mother and that the child could develop a taste on music later on. Sing and dance with your child your favorite songs and music. These can create to your child happy memories. Influence you child with your interest in music. Teach her with action songs or you could bring her to music concerts and orchestra. In these ways you are introducing to her the different rhythms, types and concepts of music.

Everyone has his own talents and gifts but these needs to be nurtured and developed. Parents have to take part in harnessing the talents of their youngsters. As a parent, you have to support your child and try not to fail to praise them every time they do well on their performance. Give them the opportunity to play in some occasions such as family gatherings.

Never put too much pressure on the child. They may lose their interest and could also cause stress to them. Children could learn easier and faster when you make the lesson more enjoyable. They will be more cooperative and you are letting them learn in their own creative way. Good and expert tutor is another significant factor that could affect in maintaining the interest of the child in learning to play an instrument. He must know how to create a fun but productive learning sessions.

How to Determine My Childs Readiness to Learn Music?

The Modern Guitar Lesson

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Most people know what the typical music lesson experience is like. After teaching for 7 years in studios and music stores, I know all about it. At the very least, one can imagine what it’s like. You get in the car hoping to get there in time and realize you are low on gas. A parent has to load the van with a child or three. You get to the studio, sit and wait in the front room with many others while you wait on your teacher who is running a little late with his current lesson. You pass the time wishing some of these kids would sit still while reading a four month old issue of Time Magazine. After all is said and done, you have lost over an hour of time for a 30 minute lesson.

Why?

“Well, the kids really like it and it gives them something to do other than Guitar Hero.”

“I really want to learn how to play the guitar, but I can’t afford to pay someone to come to my house.”

“What? You got a better idea?”

Yeah. I do. Web cam guitar lessons. I’m not talking about buying prerecorded videos. Web cam lessons are live, one-on-one lessons just like the ones in the studio. Only instead of driving to a studio or store to take lessons from a teacher who doesn’t seem like he or she wants to be there in the first place, you are in your own home. You don’t have to pay the high price of the typical house call lesson and due to the lack of overhead, it’s cheaper than most studios and definitely cheaper than your average music school.

The best part about web cam guitar lessons is the convenience. Not only do you not have to drive to the lesson, the web cam lesson lends itself to a very flexible schedule. You see, when you buy music lessons from a school, you are not just paying for the lesson itself, you are paying for the block of time. You know the policy: If you miss a lesson, you still have to pay. Not so with the web cam lesson. You don’t pay for a block of time when you purchase a lesson. You pay 100% for the lesson. When you buy a lesson, it is yours to take whenever you want. Let’s say you buy a package of four lessons. You have the freedom to take the first lesson this week, then the second one 2 days from now, or two weeks from now. No more worrying about missed lessons. The scheduling is as simple as making a hair appointment or scheduling an eye exam (but it’s more fun).

If you are thinking about guitar lessons for yourself, your kid, or someone you know, the web cam lesson is worth a shot. Just because the teacher is not physically in the room doesn’t make it less effective. There is as much interaction as a “normal” guitar lesson. Using technology for music education is getting more and more popular. Taking advantage of it makes for a cheaper, more enjoyable experience.

 

Andrew Wilson (The Music Corner) – Professional guitar player and instructor. View video guitar tips, get information on web cam guitar lessons, and check out the blog.

 

Piano Lessons – Reading Music and Playing the Instrument Are Not the Same

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Despite how traditional piano lessons are taught, it’s important to distinguish that reading music and playing the instrument are actually two completely different, and mutually exclusive, elements of music instruction. They are different skills, and in fact, have nothing to do with each other.

As a lessons consumer, particularly a parent, it’s critical for you to understand that. Let’s say you are a non-musician seeking piano lessons for your child and your are thinking “I want my child to learn to read music.” What’s really important to understand about this is that reading music happens in the brain in totally different parts of the brain than those that have anything to do with hearing and understanding music or playing the instrument as a tactile experience. Although reading music and playing music are related, they are absolutely not the same skill.

What it takes a student to learn how to play the piano is completely outside the domain of what it takes that student to learn to read music. Written music is a language, the same as any other written language and learning to operate in that language requires that it be taught separate from learning the instrument. This is despite the fact that in most traditional music lessons, particularly piano lessons and school band programs, the teachers try to combine playing and reading into the same task. This is why so few music students end up as proficient readers. Most children who really want to play will instinctively sacrifice reading skills to improve their playing skills.

This may lead you, the parent, to ask “Does my child really need to learn to read music?” Truthfully, it’s not necessary in order to learn to play the instrument. There are many players who do not read music who are far better players than those who do read music. In fact, many of the household names in both popular and classical music do not read, yet are tremendous performers and artists.

However, there are significant advantages to learning to read music. If you are thinking “Maybe I don’t want to put upon my child that they have to learn to read music” understand, if taught correctly, it will provide advantages.

Children who start piano lessons at very young ages are often taught to read music before they learn to read their native language, so it can be learned by anyone who applies themselves and is given encouragement and coaching in making it easier and fun. Understanding the difference between those two skills goes a long way in clarifying what is to be accomplished in studying the piano. It is also much better for both the parent and the student to understand that reading music is not the same as playing the instrument so that everyone, student, parent and teacher are clear about the goals of learning to read music.

If you have questions and you are now wondering what to do, contact me through my website at http://anaheimpiano.com and I’d be happy to give you some assistance that addresses the players in your house. There’s not one solution that works for everyone, so I’d be happy to address any individual questions you may have.

Willing to Improve Your Music Skills?

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Anyone can learn music. What is needed is willingness to learn and determination in pursuing what you have started. If you have a deep love for music, you can defeat all the obstacles you will encounter as you go along your music lesson journey. In addition, music lessons can boost your self-esteem. Learning music will, as well, contribute to a more enjoyable social life.

After you learn to play an instrument, you could enjoy yourself playing in the company of friends or even alone in a place where you could freely express your feelings and emotions. Many people who really love and want to learn music are afraid to take steps to improve their skills. They are influenced by a lot of factors. To name the few are; an hour of practicing every day, making time on the regular schedule; and the amount to pay the instructor or an institution.

Others are discouraged by the thought that they are less talented and don’t have the natural skills to play an instrument. However, there are still those who are determined to reach their heart’s desire. They seek help and sometimes do the learning by themselves. In addition, many mothers now know the benefits of enrolling their child in music lessons. People who learned music in their early age have shown an increased working memory capacity and increased learning skills.

The initial query of a person who desires to learn music is “Can I do it?” or “Can I reach the end of this whole thing?” If the answer has been realized, the next would be the concern of how to get started. There are different ways you can learn music. From books, CD’s and DVD’s, music instructors or you can enroll in schools. You need to be wise when making a choice. CD’s and books are helpful for those doing self-study. If you wish to find an effective instructor, look for a person known to have a passion for music and teaching, and most importantly with the same aspirations as you have. He or she knows what you need to learn.

Effective instructors are those who keep the students motivated throughout the learning process. Students, especially children, really like it when they are engaged in activities where they can apply and show what they have learned. A music school which aims to teach the fundamentals and solid principles of music to their students is sometimes the best place to hone your talent and musical skills.

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