Give Me Back My Guitar

“GIVE ME BACK MY GUITAR” .

This is the frustrated grasshopper yelling in continuation of the famous fable “Ant and the grasshopper” .

After starving in the winter, the grasshopper learnt his lessons the hard way. He hung his guitar, put a stop to his singing and dancing. He started leading an ant’s life, carrying heavy loads on his back the whole day.

This way, he could gather plenty of food but after a while he just could not take it any more. He did not want to continue leading an ant’s life. He wanted to go back to playing his guitar and dancing the whole day.

This grasshopper wanted his guitar back but what about us?

Many of us continue to lead an ant’s life. We all have left behind what we enjoy due to our conditioning right from childhood. We in turn impress upon our children that they have no option but to lead a life based on the “ant’s philosophy”, which articulates that:

Hard work is the key to success. Life is not about enjoying but toiling and struggling.

Every second counts. A second wasted is a second killed.

Worrying about the future is more important than enjoying the present moment.

Ancient Indian wisdom strongly disagrees with this philosophy. It advocates a radically different approach. It urges you to ask

Is it possible for the grasshopper to lead a life which it enjoys and still be successful?

The answer is an emphatic yes. In fact Ancient Indian Wisdom goes a step further and says that this is the natural and correct way to live and the easiest way to succeed.

Truly great and successful people are perfect examples to whet this out. Ask them and they will tell you that they have never worked hard, even for a single day.

Day after day, Year after Year, they keep putting more number of hours than most of us but never feel the load. Many of us complain even if we work for a fraction of that time. .

Some of the fables that we have grown up with have been written more than 2500 years ago. In today’s context, some messages might have become irrelevant or even misleading.

To take another example, the moral of the “Hare and Tortoise” story is, Slow and steady wins the race. If the chastened Hare were to race the tortoise again, would you bet on the tortoise?

I would not. After his defeat, the hare is sure to realize that he lost the race due to his own fault and not because the tortoise was slow and steady. This time he would not repeat the mistake of taking a nap before completing the race, leaving the poor tortoise absolutely no chance.

However the fact remains that for generations, these bedtime stories are immensely popular all over the world. There will not be many children or parents who do not know these stories or have not enjoyed reading them together.

It is the popularity of these stories that makes it possible to deliver more powerful and relevant messages.

Hence, this book, which attempts to capture the powerful messages of “ancient Indian wisdom” and conveys it methodically through a set of six all time favorite fables .

GIVE ME BACK MY GUITAR was originally created and shared with my daughter . The stories and their messages had a significant impact not only on her but also on us .

The experience confirmed my view that Bed time stories are highly effective in inculcating the right values in our children and not just for putting them off to sleep . I personally believe that imparting this wisdom is the best gift that we can give to them. The sooner we start , the better.

This is what prompted me to share it with others . While these are bed time stories , the messages are not limited to children but applicable to everyone irrespective of age , gender , religion and nation . It has been my attempt to write this book in a manner that the whole family can enjoy it together

Also , I want the reader to understand that I am neither the origin nor the custodian of this wisdom but just its communicator. It is my humble effort to pass this wisdom to our children.

I am confident that your investment in this book will endear you to the “ancient Indian wisdom “ and subsequently have a significant impact on the quality of your lives .

I have exercised considerable freedom in changing these stories . Also the conversations amongst Sanghamitra ( my wife ) , Sahaja ( our daughter ) have been edited . Not all conversations have actually happened . This has been done to give the whole book a continous flow and highly readable while giving the apt messages .

I urge you to go ahead and indulge in the contents . Please judge for yourself whether this book is useful or not .

I would be grateful for all feedback positive or negative . I intend to continually improve this work based on that .

May God Bless you and your children with lasting happiness , the ultimate purpose of life .. …..

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Guitar Tuners

Tuners are vital for guitarists. Whether tuning by ear or using computer software or a pedal, tuning is necessary before one can maximize performance of his/her instrument and perform at his/her best. Normally, if you play your guitar only on a daily basis your strings will not get out of tone. But if your guitar is rarely used or is in a bad condition or your playing is extremely hard, then most likely you'll need to tune your guitar always. Tip: TUNE your guitar EVERY TIME you pick it up.

For professional tuning, you MUST use electronic guitar tuners. These devices allow tuning with the use of pedals, little boxes, or rack mounted units. There are a number of manufacturers who specialize in these sophisticated gadgets

ELECTRONIC GUITAR TUNERS

• Boss, a division of the Roland Corporation (big japanese company), employs its proven technology in musical equipment and accessories to develop sophisticated tuners - known for their accuracy and superb functionality. One of its renowned inventions is the TU - Series tuners technology, which incorporates tuning accuracy in an ultra convenient tompbox design...ideal to take them into the guitar case everywhere.

• Korg. This world's favorite tuner started introducing excellent tuners in 1999. It came out with the DT-7 GUITAR/BASS chromatic tuner, the first guitar tuner to feature the legendary Buzz Feiten Tuning System. The critically acclaimed DT-7 could be one of the most accurate tuners in the market ever, featuring an ultra - wide tuning range. Later on, Korg introduced the extremely flexible GT-12 GUITAR & BASS chromatic tuner and the OT-12 designed for Orchestra.

Other models that came out were Korg GA30 Guitar & Bass Tuner which features a pitch reference tone and quinta-flat tuning while maintaining functionality and convenient tuning functions in Ultra - Compact bodies.

The Korg CA30 Chromatic Tuner and the Korg TM40 Chromatic Tuner/Metronome; Tuner with Metronome which can function simultaneously or independently, its large LCD-type needle delivers both the accuracy of an LCD and the excellent visibility of a needle indicator. It also has LED indicators that show pitch deviation or blink to indicate the tempo, thus, making the TM-40 a highly visual tool. The superb functionality and the highest accuracy have made Korg tuners a worldwide favorite.

• String Master, is another respected manufacturer. String Master produced the world's first motorized guitar tuner featured in the Guitar One and Guitar Player Magazines. This guitar tuner is very innovative, convenient and could be the friendliest tuner ever invented

• The Qwik Tune QT-11 is the next generation's automatic guitar tuner. Featuring an electronic pitch pipe with an internal speaker it plays E, A, D, G, B, and E tones for tuning reference. It also includes an Off-Meter tuning mode, which detects the string which the user is trying to tune (even if the guitar is severely out of tune). This portable battery operated Guitar or Bass tuner features an 'electric pitch pipe' that plays the note for the user. The user can tune each individual string while the display tells her/him which string is being tuning and whether the note is sharp or flat. The highly sensitive built-in microphone & spèed metering allow easy tuning.

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TUNING WITH COMPUTER SOFTWARE

Tuning via use of software abounds. Free or for a fee you can find various guitar tuners in the internet. These softwares eliminate the need to tune a guitar with an instrument or the conventional tuning by ear. All you have to do is to listen to the sound from the software, play it on your guitar and adjust the tuning machines tension until your guitar produces the same note as the tuner software.Keep in mind that the basic requirement in tuning is to get the same note as the tuner, not the sound because the difference in thickness of strings may cause varying frequencies and sound...just listen to the pitch.

Listen to the tuner and tune your guitar until you hear almost the same sound, though, it might be deeper. This is specially true when you get new strings and tune your guitar immediately after putting them on. Your stings have to adjust to the pressure applied to them so initially your guitar will not make the right tuning, it will sound detuned. But after exposure to a certain limit of stretch, they will hold on to a certain tone. Tip: Tune your guitar and leave it alone for a few hours then tune again and...that's it. After each playing session the strings tend to mantain the pitch with better accuracy and stability.

One of the common (and free) tuners available in the internet is the DGT or digital guitar tuner. DGT is windows software, which allows you to accurately tune your guitar using direct input or microphone. Another free software is AP Tuner3 which supports an improved detection algorithm for low notes for bass and piano. It has a helpful Harmonics Graph window to see the harmonic content of any note. PitchPerfect can also be downloaded for free. It also provides a highly accurate professional tuner with a very simple to use interface. There is more flexibility in the PitchPerfect software because it automatically detects the note you're playing and therefore, you're not limited by standard tunings.

Apart from free downloads on your personal computer,you can also download tuners on your pocket PC or on your ipod. An example of this is the 4Pockets Guitar Tuner. Because it can be downloaded on your pocket PC, you can take the 4Pockets Guitar Tuner with you on your gigs . A high precision real - time guitar tuner,this Guitar Tuner can accurately determine the frequency,musical note and octave for each of your strings. The ability to estimate the note and octave makes this a very useful tool in musical notation and musical learning.

The iRocker is another convenient set of tools for guitarists which you can load on your iPod. iRocker is produced by Talking Panda,the makers of iBar.A great help for beginners, the iRocker includes not only a virtual book with 200 chords and fingerings but likewise a guide to scales. It also provides 5 different chord progressions/riffs that you can play along. Moreover, it contains a set of guitar tuning recordings with a variety of tunings and a basic 10 - speed metronome.

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WICH TUNER IS RIGHT FOR ME?

Your choice of tuner would depend on your needs – amateur or professional use. You might use a tuner for practicing at home or gigs with friends or you might need the tuner for a larger audience - like performing in a big concert. Regardless of your need, convenience and accuracy, tuners are of foremost importance...you can avail of a wide range of guitar tuners, free or for a fee.

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Learning The Guitar Is So Different Today

Those who know how to play the instrument want to explore ways to improve their playing skills. When learning how to play the guitar you will here guitar jargon, these types of words were created so guitar people are able to communicate with each other in their own context.

The speed and confidence you have in making chord changes is key to mastering the guitar and successfully playing the instrument. You must make yourself comfortable with the position so that you will be able to execute correctly while playing the guitar. The pinkie is not used since it is the shortest finger and is not conducive to playing the guitar. Playing classical guitar is more inclined to figure work and plucking.

Whatever the reason you’ve got the guitar, learning to play online is a must. Let’s face it learning to play the guitar should be fun and not boring or frustrating.

Many people can not learn or find it boring to learn from a book, and many people find that private lessons are much to expensive, there is an alternative learn how to play buy DVD course or by learning online. When practicing playing the guitar each time your practice you will see how it the practicing paid off and maybe one day you will be a great guitar player.

When you first start out learning the guitar the positioning of your hands will feel strange and it will feel like you can’t move your hands correctly, to make this easier it is ok to look at where your fingers are positioned and as time goes on you will no longer need to do this. Learn how to play the guitar the correct way the first time and this will make it easier in the future, if you try to take shortcuts this will not help and actually make it harder for you to learn.

The remedy for this is of course to practice reading the sheet music without looking at the fret board. However, there are many learning processes going on at the same time when you practice on your instrument. A beginner should practice tuning the guitar so that he can become better and better at it. You will need to practice often, try to create a schedule by looking at a calendar and make a plan and stick to it. Most people like to make an appointment so it seems like you cannot miss it. Essentially, effective guitar practice consists of taking four elements of playing the guitar and incorporating them into your practice routine.

When you make preparation, timing, and warming up a part of your routine of how to practice the guitar effectively, you will see how quickly you improve your skills. Please, whatever you do, don’t take up the guitar if you are only going to practice the last hour before your lesson. But it does mean you need to set aside time to practice and commit to actually it.

When first learning the guitar the beginner should begin with the common chords, this will be the easiest way to begin. We've all been there soon after we get hold of our first guitar we know that to play anything people are actually going to listen to we need to "learn a few chords".

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What To Look For In An Internet Guitar Lesson

Purchasing products online can require a little extra care and research to ensure that you are receiving the best product possible. Some people still feel apprehensive about shopping over the Internet, but it really is very safe and provides access to things you simply cannot find anywhere else. For example, a new and exciting trend is online education services, particularly those for playing musical instruments.

If you are interested in discovering some of these innovative and accessible programs, then you are making a smart choice. Here are some tips and ideas about what to look for to make sure that you find the program perfect for you. By ensuring that the program you choose meets these criteria, you will know that you are receiving the best guitar lesson possible.

The first requirement is that the program have been designed by a true musical professional. It is very important that the instructor not be an amateur because as a student your skill level will be limited by that of your teacher. This is why you need to make sure that your guitar lesson package has been written and designed by a pro.

The second requirement that you need to verify is that the instructor is not only a professional musician, but also a professional music teacher. There is a very big difference between knowing how to perform a skill and knowing how to teach others to do the same. A professional will understand that different people have different learning styles, and will be able to provide a guitar lesson to suit every learner.

The third requirement is that you consider how dynamic and creative the program is. It is next to impossible to learn how to play an instrument well from a text based book. Instead, a good program will offer interactive features such as visual aids and audio files. Your guitar lesson package should provide you with clips and examples that teach you how to play by showing you rather than simply telling you.

Finally, an online musical education program will not be effective unless it gets the student playing right away and keeps them playing every step of the program. Learning how to play an instrument is dependent upon becoming comfortable with the actual playing. This is why without active playing, no guitar lesson can be effective.

One system that meets all of these requirements and more is the Express Guitar learning program. This program was created by professional musician and teacher Mike Hayes. As a true master of this instrument, Mike Hayes knows what it takes to turn students from amateurs to pros. Visit http://www.guitarcoaching.com to learn more about this system and other great offers. By finding a program that meets your needs perfectly, you too can become a master guitarist in no time at all.

http://www.guitarcoaching.com located in Queensland, Australia, Hayes is passionate about his work and dedicated to helping students in guitar lessons.

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Tips to learn How to Play Guitar More Quickly

Once you have decided you want to play guitar, you want to learn fast. While nothing happens overnight, you want a way to play guitar as quickly as possible.

While you will still have to work at your lessons to learn how to play guitar, here are some tips that may help you catch on more quickly and see more progress.

Have a Chord Chart Reference

When you are learning to play guitar, you should always have a chord chart reference nearby. Most guitar shops have these for sale. Some are a single page that has been laminated. On it are a series of pictures that show where your fingers need to be in order to play a note. While you will be learning these chords in lessons, it helps to have a visual reference as you try to play guitar between lessons.

Focus on Your Hand Positions

The most important thing to get right when learning to play guitar is the locations of your hands on the guitar. This can take some time to get them right, as it always feels odd to put your hands in the positions necessary to play properly. Take your time and keep looking at your hand positions to make sure they are correct.

Pace Yourself

Don't get frustrated if you aren't able to play guitar as quickly as you would like. Like all things, learning to play guitar takes time. You need to be patient and allow yourself adequate time to learn.

Also, don't try to learn too much too fast. If you push yourself too hard to learn to play guitar, you may make it harder to learn. You should work on each thing you are learning until you have it down perfectly before moving to something new. Trying to learn too many things at once can become confusing.

Listen For Guitar Sounds in Music

While you go about your daily activities, listen to other guitars. There are always guitars being played in music. You should listen to these to learn guitar sounds. Study what other musicians are able to do with their guitars. There are different ways to strum a guitar. There are also numerous other sounds that can come out of this instrument. The more you listen to other guitars the more you will begin to understand the sounds you will be able to make with yours as you continue to learn.

About The Author:
Guitar Lessons Singapore is the Only Guitar Agency In Singapore. Master The Guitar Quickly And Easily. Fun & Inspiring Guitar Lessons. Call Audrey @ 6844 8985. Learn more at http://www.guitarlessonssingapore.com

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Blues Guitar – A Brief History

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, blues guitar players like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Robert Johnson, and Lonnie Johnson were the influential performers of the day. They used a slide which was often made out of a knife blade or the broken or sawed off neck from a bottle. Most of the music was improvised, and unaccompanied. The form of the songs were loose, and were rarely, if ever, played the same way twice.

As the 1940’s came, the jump blues style characterized by big band music sequestered the guitar to the rhythm section primarily. The primary influence of this era on blues guitar is that it heavily influenced the development of what would later be known as rock and roll, or rhythm and blues.

After World War II in the 1950’s, blues guitar became electrified and amplified. Starting in Chicago, this new electric blues was characterized by the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reed. All of these players grew up in Mississippi, but migrated to Chicago. The bands typically had, in addition to the electric guitar, harmonica and a rhythm section of bass and drums. Sometimes there would also be a saxophone, though it would be relegated to a rhythmic support role.

B.B. King and Freddie King were also making names for themselves at this time. They were somewhat unique at the time because they did not make use of the slide to play the guitar. B.B. King has long been considered one of the greatest blues guitar players of all time. Freddie King has often been called the King of the Boogie Woogie guitar.

While Chicago had it’s own sound in the 1950’s, some other artists such as T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker were creating what some call the California Blues style. T-Bone Walker was born in Dallas, while Hooker was born in Mississippi. The California Blues Style that they helped to forge was smoother than the Chicago Blues and is somewhat of a melting pot for Chicago Blues, jump blues, and some jazz swing.

Starting in the 1960’s, Caucasian audiences gained more interest in blues guitar thanks in part to the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and what was later to be called the British Blues Movement. Bands such as Fleetwood Mac, Cream, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, the Rolling Stone, and the Yardbirds were performing classic blues tunes in addition to their original tunes. Many of these artists inspired American blues-rock artists like Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, and Johnny Winter.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Luther Allison where creating what is called the West Side style of Chicago Blues. Their bands were dominated by the amplified electric blues guitar and heavily influenced later artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Lang, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

Since the early 1980’s, the blues has enjoyed quite a resurgence in America. The Texas Rock-Blues Style of Stevie Ray Vaughan and The Fabulous Thunderbirds brought the blues to American rock radio stations. Eric Clapton, who originally gained his fame with Cream and John Mayall, continues to make great blues guitar albums and even recently recorded a set of old Robert Johnson classics. Many famous, legendary blues guitar players such as Buddy Guy and B.B. King continue to share the stage with the new generation of blues guitar players like Robert Cray, Joe Bonamassa, and Walter Trout.

Griff Hamlin is a professional guitar player. He has just released Playing Through The Blues, a book on learning to play blues guitar. Visit http://www.playingthroughtheblues.com for more information.

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What You Should Know About Beginner Guitar Chords

One of the biggest mistakes a new guitarist can make at the start of their musical career, whether for profit or pleasure is to go out and look for or buy a compendium book of six thousand chord shapes and all the variations and permutations that are involved.

You will instantly be overwhelmed with way too much information and thoughts of dread at the amount of time and effort involved in what you want to achieve. Learning all those shapes and fingerings is a massive undertaking and you will never finish it anyway.

Most musicians seem to make the assumption that they have to know all the music before they can create any for themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth, you do not have to learn all of those chords before you can start to play the guitar or any other instrument for that matter.

You must have heard about songwriters who have created songs with only three chords, the Beatles for instance. Thousands of songs have been written with 3 chords, so for the time being, three chords is all you are going to need to concentrate on. You will make much better progress by learning familiar 3 chord progressions and familiarising yourself with the structure of how the chords work together than trying to learn hundreds of chord shapes that don’t have any relevance to one another or that you can’t relate to.

Here are a few areas that you may not have thought about but will advance your playing a lot quicker than just knowing a bunch of fancy chords.

1. Pick a few easy chords that you know you could and would like to play. Lets take a C Major chord as our example as this is almost a standard army issue chord that everyone uses or will come across at one time or another throughout the coarse of their playing.

2. Focus your time on learning how to get your fingers from that chord shape to the next shape, i.e. C Major to G Major. Speed is not what matters here – just a smooth action or change over.

3. Use a drum machine or metronome at around 80 – 90 beats per minute and strum all the strings of one chord and then move to the next. What you want here is to just listen to the sound you are creating. This will be satisfying to begin with for you to know that it is possible for you to make some music. Also you will be gaining finger strength and building muscle memory. The next time you come to play these chords you will find it gets easier and easier to play. If you keep learning new chords all the time to begin with you won’t make any significant improvement.

4. If it is possible, you need to record what you are doing into your computer or tape player. Listening back to your playing the next day will benefit you tremendously. I must admit that you might cringe a little bit at your own playing at first, but if you take the plunge you will make the decision consciously or unconsciously to want to get better, quicker. In a very short time frame, you will get use to hearing what you sound like, that is when you will start to have some real fun. You will start to generate your own ideas.

5. Stay relaxed while you play and don’t force yourself to do anything. Ten minutes of focused practise at a time will yield far more results than mincing about for a few hours with no focus.

If you are one of those people who will do what is discussed above, you will instantly be in front of the pack. Go to any music shop and listen to the new guitarists sitting their showing off. Most of them are playing a bit from here, a snippet from there, there is not much that is refined or practised. This habit can be with them for the rest of their natural playing life.

If you start out gradually and focus on building slowly on what you have previously learnt, chord by chord, your playing will be much more confident, natural and above all, worth listening to.

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Play The Guitar By Starting With Chords

Learning to play the guitar is at the top of the ‘to do’ list for many of us. In fact many are investigating the right place to get resources to help make their dream of playing the guitar a reality. But wait. Don’t run out and buy training materials or courses just yet. Don’t start working with your beginning training materials just yet. There are some critical items to get out of the way before you are ready to move ahead. To find out more, read on. In this article I present play the guitar by starting with chords.

Before you start training to play the guitar, let’s start with a quick question; the song that you are playing on your guitar consists of what? The answer is notes. Notes are the very basis. And notes combine to create chords. In fact a chord is really just a group of notes all played together. As many beginners soon discover, playing most songs requires that you know and can play chords. And when you do this correctly the sound is pleasing to the ear!

Most beginner training material or classes begin with some easily created chords. As you play the guitar you’ll soon learn the simplest guitar chords. The good news is they don’t require the use of very many of your fingers. They are ‘G’, ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘A’ and they take only three fingers.

As you begin to play the guitar you will learn to press down on the proper strings on the fret, on the neck of the guitar. Be sure to push down firmly, but not too hard. Then all you need to do is strum the strings directly in front of the hole found in the body. Sure it might take a little practice to become comfortable, but soon you’ll have one chord, then two and soon you’ll have all of the simplest guitar chords at your command.

It will take a little practice to find the right position for each hand and your arms. Your body will tell you when you have found the right position. You’ll know the wrong positions because of fatigue, aches and pains. Adjust your positions to help relieve the pain. Remember to expect some discomfort as your body gets adjusted to this new endeavor you are just starting.

Start your practice as you play the guitar with simple songs. They should have few chord movements. Practice, practice, practice. Try closing your eyes while you play. Replay each song until it is memorized and you are comfortable playing it. Practice until your fingers and hands seem to know exactly where they belong throughout the song. That’s when you know you’ve got it and are ready to move on to the next challenge.

To your success as you learn to play the guitar!

By: Bob Hamilton

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