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You are here: Home / Archives for play guitar

Learning Guitar Basics Online

April 30, 2013 by Chris

Music is an expression of the soul. People dabble in different instruments to educate themselves in music appreciation and to create a new form of relaxation.

Learning to play the guitar can be difficult and may require a sense of discipline. Many people have the ability to teach themselves new instruments and with online technology and patients, you can learn to play the guitar online.

Guitar Basics

The first step to learning to play the guitar is learning the basics of the guitar. There are many websites that allow you to research the basic components of the guitar such as each part of the guitar and its function. These websites will offer you all the insight you may need to get familiar with guitar from how to properly hold it, stringing the guitar, and tightening and loosening the strings.

Tuning Your Guitar

The second step to learning to play the guitar is learning to prepare your guitar to be played. Your guitar will have to be tuned every time you play it. Different elements will cause your guitar strings to stretch changing the sound you will get from them. Online resources can provide you with a virtual guitar tuner that you can select your tuning preferences.

Most beginners will use standard tuning which is usually the default setting on most guitar tuners online. The guitar tuners will play each strong for you allowing you to use your ears to compare the sound of the tuner to the sound coming from your guitar. You adjust the sound of your guitar by turning the keys on the top of the guitar loosening or tightening the strings. Tightening the strings gives you a higher sound where loosening them gives you a lower sound.

Reading Guitar Tabs and Chords

The beautiful thing about learning to play guitar is there are two ways to play it. You can stick with rhythm by playing chords, which is where most beginners will start out. Once you have an understanding of the various chords, you can move on to playing individual notes. Part of learning to play any instrument requires learning to read music specific to that instrument.

If you have basic sheet reading skills, learning to read music for a specific instrument is a little bit easier. There are several online resources that can teach the basics of reading music showing note placement on a bar graph.

It is important to have patients when learning to play a new instrument. Though you haven’t learned any basic chords or notes yet, you have started learning the guitar online by getting to know your guitar and the basic functions you will need for when you begin learning to play.

The Internet offers a lot of resources for beginners learning to play guitar that range from Youtube videos, guitar tuners, and advice from professional guitar players. If you have followed these steps in this blog, you have taken the first step to learning the guitar and will be playing in no time.

Robert has over 15 years in the music industry, researching the different forms of music appreciation. Robert has learned to play three instruments through internet resources. He has shared his music experiences through writing for the past three years assisting others in achieving their music goals.




Filed Under: Guitars, Playing Styles Tagged With: basic chords, chords, guitar tabs, guitar tuner, Learning Guitar Basics, Online, play guitar, tuning

So Get the Funk Out

August 16, 2009 by Chris

Get the Funk Out from Extreme is a wonderful piece of guitar work by Nuno Bettencourt (Canadian Guitarist). I’ve loved listening to this song from the first time I heard it and have enjoyed experiencing it many times after that at volume 11 on my stereo at home or in the car!

I re-discovered this beauty while researching some other ways in which to play one of their other songs, Hole Hearted.

Nuno Bettencourt, instructs the viewer perfectly on how to play this one the way he does in the video I’ve included below. I’ve tried his method and it works great until he starts doing all those crazy pull offs and tap on’s that most guitarist use. Honestly, I was never really drawn to this form of playing.

Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that I don’t love hearing this type of playing! It truly gets my blood boiling in a fantastic and enthusiastic way. I kinda wish that I tried it when I was younger but …

So if you’re one of those who are of this guitar ilk, then you’ll flip over this one! Enjoy.

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Guitars, Playing Styles, Songs to play Tagged With: canadian guitarists, extreme, get the funk out, guitar lesson, guitar technique, guitarists, hole hearted, instructions, method, music lesson, Nuno Bettencourt, play guitar, playing, pull offs, Tabs, tap on, technique, the band Extreme, Video, video lesson

I just came back from Dominic Troiano’s house – his old one that is

September 30, 2007 by Chris

I had tried in vain to locate exactly which house the Legendary Canadian guitarist, Dominic Troiano, lived in ever since my neighbour’s son had told me. I kept asking him if he could remember and he kept saying that he’ll someday soon he’ll go around there to try and jog his memory. I’m still waiting on that one Johnny.

A fellow employee in the hospital that I work with was a great friend to my neighbour’s son John. He too also said that he remembers his brother Dominic trying to play guitar. He had told me that they hung around Domenic’s brother and played cards with him for when they were young. I had met him at work one day after John had told me about our previous neighbour and asked him the same question. He had gave me the same response that John gave me.

I, being the very introverted person that I am, talked to everyone in the area that looked liked they lived here for ages. With the same question that I had for John and his buddy in hand, I obtained the same answer over and over again.

Now 5 years later, I stumbled upon the answer on line by chance. My jaw dropped, I grabbed my wife’s Canon camera and got in the car. In case your wondering I took the car because I didn’t want to be seen taking a picture of someone’s in secret. The owners may have thought that I was casing the joint!

Now I’m finally in front of the ex-home of Mr. Troiano. Like a kid at Christmas, I get out of the car and just stare at it. I just can’t believe that I’m there.

dominictrianox400.jpg

He lived at the house on the right hand side of the picture. This is the type of home that is quite common in our area. It’s a semi-detached white house with brown trim. Small front yard with a small parking pad but just knowing that he lived and grew up here made it fell bigger then what it was.

In the front yard there was a middle aged man with his little dog talking to a neighbour. The man looked like a jazz musician and approachable. So what the heck, I might as well get out of the car and talk to the guy.

It turns out that he really is a jazz musician and very well aware of the history of the home. He told me that he has even approached the Troiano family through e-mail to see if they wanted to re-visit their own home! Now that’s a real gentleman.

He said that the home has not been renovated that much and that the feel of the home was almost the same as when he got it. He also told me that he bought it from the Troiano’s. The molding floor and ceiling was original and so was the front door.

After talking for a while, I asked him if I could take some pic’s for this post and he said yes. The thing that got my attention the most was the door. Imagining Dominic going up to that door and opening it sent goose bumps all over me, wow!

So now I know a little bit more about the history of our great neighbourhood and can share it with you all.

Mr Dominic Troiano R.I.P.

Keep on Jammin’

Filed Under: Canadian, Musicians Tagged With: 356 Sammon Ave, Canadian, Canadian Rock and roll hall of fame, Dom Triano, domenic troiano, Dominic Triano Canadian Rock Jazz Guitarist, East york, family, guitarist, Home, house, I Can Hear You Calling, jazz, Joe walsh, Live, Mandala, Music, musician, picture, play guitar, Prakash John, Robbie Robertson, secret, the band Bush, the Guess Who

Part one of trying to win Max Webster Tickets

May 22, 2007 by Chris

Well faithful readers, I am very desperate to get tickets for the super-Canadian Music Event of this millennium!

I decided to go down to Q-107 at the Hard Rock Cafe in downtown Toronto and attempt to obtain some tickets to this cherished show.

I put on my jacket, picked up my guitar and made a sign. I was determined to grovel and beg Kim Mitchel, the D.J. and Mr. Max himself, to give my wife and I tickets to the show!

I finally arrived in front of the street level Q-107 booth with guitar and sign in hand. I just set up my sign, took out my faithful Larrivee L-03 and with Kim Mitchell’s back against the booths window, knocked on the window. He turned around and at first glance he must of thought that I was one of those “more then a little misunderstood” street people.

He then glanced down at my sign and started to laugh! He then started to say, through the glass, “I have no tickets for you.” He then opened a side door and said that the office was now closed, and he said that they should have more on hand”. I then asked him if I could come down this Wednesday and play the song “On the Road” for him and hopefully get some tickets for my effort. He said sure, but said “You would/may have to play it on the air.” I said I’d do anything for tickets.

So please listen for me to be playing LIVE at Q-107 online and click on the “Listen Live” button. I will also try to tape it and put it on another post. Hopefully, if this happens it will be around 6 pm EST.

The pictures should say it all.

Just before I left!

Begging for max webster tickets 3

When I got back from the mighty “Q”

Begging for max webster tickets 2

Keep on Jammin’, cause you never know when you might win some tickets to the original MAX WEBSTER!!!

Filed Under: Canadian, Entertainment, Music, Musicians Tagged With: Canadian, downtown, guitar, Hard Rock Cafe, Kim Mitchell, Larrivee, Max Webster, Max Webster Tickets, Music, play, play guitar, Q107, radio station, rock, rock star, Toronto, win, win tickets

A Realization that I can play guitar

February 9, 2007 by Chris

I was just surfing while listening to one of my favorite Canadian musicians of all time, Bruce Cockburn (B.C.). I came to the realization that I am finally playing like a great guitar player of the 80’s, Mark Knopfler.

In grade 8, a song came onto the music scene that was really new and refreshing. It was a band called “Dire Straights”. The song that caught my ear was “Sultan of Swing”.

The guitar player was just a jammin’ on this tune. His name is Mark Knopfler. This popular song at the time was a song that I just had to play. I was taking lessons from the best guitar teacher of all time, in my mind, C. Peterson. I had requested that he show me how to play this tune and he said that he had already figured it out.

Mr. P. was just unreal at figuring out anything in on guitar. So off he went and started to show me the song. It was fun and challenging to play, just the way I liked it. After a couple of lessons, I could play the song pretty much inside out, which is the way he taught me.

While playing the song for many years, I decided to re-visit this song to see if there was any other way(s) to improve playing it. Mr. Peterson introduced me to the technique that Mark Knopfler used on the song but I thought that this guy was one of those off beat musicians that would fade after a short success, boy was I wrong.

I had listened to this song repeatedly over the years,and I noticed subtle tones that I had missed while playing. When I played it, it had a crisper sounding to it then what he had. His version almost had a muddled sound. In my younger years listening to the song, I had noticed that, and I thought it was just the recording technique at the time and that was it. So I then tried playing it with just my fingers and wow, it was really hard to play.

Being a classical guitar player, I was use to using my fingers but had to use my nails to attack the strings but, this guy used his thumbs and at a lightning like speed during his solo’s to boot! I tried and tried and tried but I could not get the calluses on the sides of my fingers that I really needed to pull of the song so I went back to the original way of playing the song.

Now fast forward to 2 years ago when I fell in love with the B.C.’s style of finger picking. The attack technique used here was different from my classical training but I loved the sound he got out of his axe. It was just plain fun to listen to.

So today while I was surfing and listening to B.C. at the same time, I was listening to this song called “It’s Going Down Slow” and “Mamma just wants to barrelhouse all night long”, from Waiting for a Miracle (1987). Today I can play these ones not bad and I just enjoy listening to them. It was at that moment that I noticed the similarities between both techniques and it had just dawned on me that, I can play guitar.

Keep on jammin’

Filed Under: Bruce Cockburn, Musicians, My experiences, Playing Styles, The early Years Tagged With: band, Bruce Cockburn, Canadian, challenging, finger picking, General, guitar, guitar player, house, how to, lessons, Music, musician, Musicians, play, play guitar, playing, sing, sound, strings, teach, techniques

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