Kjell

Okay, maybe not in my sleep, but let me tell you...I never had such an easy time learning anything in my life as I did my good old reliable and trusty nylon 6 string. How did I do it? More importantly...how can YOU do it? Well, it's really easy. Trust me, if a middle age baby boomer can do it...anybody can. In this article, I'm going to share some simple secrets that will show you how easy it is to learn the guitar...without formal training of any kind.

I knew that the last thing I wanted to do was take stupid guitar lessons from some boring instructor...not at my age. So I decided I was going to teach myself. But how? I didn't want to get those dumb home instruction books. I remember the old Mel Bay method. Man was that a drag. No, I needed something that made me want to pick up the guitar each day. But what?

And then it hit me.

What was the end result that I wanted to accomplish? I wanted to be able to play all those cool pop tunes that I grew up listening to. You know, like CCR and The Beatles. Well, why not just start there? Get a hold of some chord charts of these great tunes and muddle through them? Naturally, I had to hear them first so I could get a feel for how they were supposed to sound. Today, that's easy. There are tunes all over the Internet including videos by the score at YouTube.

Well, I started doing just that. I listened to songs, got the chord charts and slowly started to play them. I picked easy ones at first so I wouldn't get discouraged. Gradually, as I started to improve, I tackled some harder songs.

Suddenly, I looked up one day and I was playing stuff like "Killer Queen", "Friday On My Mind" and other really great tunes.

And I never took a lesson.

Trust me...you can do this too. As a matter of fact, if you head on over to my blog, you can see a couple of videos of me playing plus read my review of a really killer home course that is about the most fun you'll ever have.

You too can learn the guitar...practically in your sleep.

To YOUR Strumming Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to hear a middle aged rocker who never took a formal lesson a day in his life? Watch my video at http://myguitarplaying.blogspot.com/ and then check out the best home study course ever created...hands down. You'll be playing like me (or better) before you know it.

The Down and Dirty Earn More Money, Biz Networking and Sales Models for Guitar Effects On-line Businesses 3 Course Pack

Let's face it... sight reading is one of the hardest skills to develop on the guitar.

Most of us have too much fun learning music by ear or just use guitar tabs. But learning how to sight read on guitar can lead to getting gigs and open up your ability to expand your repertoire.

So... how do you get started?

Most guitar methods start you off by learning the notes in the open/first position. This is all well and good, but you should also practice reading up and down strings as well as diagonally across the fretboard.

Before you even try to sight read a piece of music on guitar, here's what you need to understand first:

• The note names on the staff. You need to have these down cold. Just practice naming the notes in order until it's effortless.


• The rhythm. Are there any challenging rhythms, or are you already familiar with all of them? Practice "tah-ing" the rhythm with a metronome. This means to vocalize just the rhythm of the music.


• Where the notes are on the fretboard. Go through the notes in order, name them, and play them on the guitar in the position you're working on.

Only after you've mastered the fundamentals (the note names, the rhythm, and where the notes are on the guitar) should you attempt to sight read the music live.

Always practice slow enough that it's easy, and then speed it up.

Once you've got the hang of a piece of music in a give position, try playing it in another position.

Sight reading on guitar takes a lot of time to get used to, but it's worth it.

Scott Anderson likes to write about music and the guitar.

http://www.squidoo.com/teammethodguitar

Digitech GNX4 Guitar Workstation: The Power User's Guide

Here's a winning combination - Craig Anderton, one of the most respected authors in the fields of music technology and studio recording, has written the definitive manual for DigiTech's GNX4 Guitar Workstation, one of the most popular ''toys'' for guitarists in recent history! The GNX4 combines signal processing, RAM recording, a drum machine, MP3 playback, MIDI sequence playback, a MIDI interface, a computer interface, and more. It brings the guitar pedal concept into the 21st century. This book covers all of the features of the GNX4 in simple language, with examples and photos of the relevant controls, so that any GNX4 owner can get the most out of this amazing tool. The CD-ROM includes several videos, example files, loops, etc. as mentioned in the text.

The bass guitar is a bass stringed instrument played with the fingers either by plucking, slapping, popping, or tapping or using a pick. The bass is similar in appearance and construction like an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and scale length, and usually four strings tuned, one octave lower in pitch than the four lower strings of a guitar.

Materials used for making a bass guitar

The bodies of these special instruments are typically made of wood although other materials such as graphite have also been used. The most common type of wood used for the body is alder, for the neck is maple, and for the fret board is rosewood, though a wide variety of woods may be used to make the body.

Other regularly used woods include mahogany, maple, ash, and poplar for bodies, mahogany for necks, and ebony for fret boards. The choice of body material and shape of these guitars can have a significant impact on the timbre of the completed instrument as well as on aesthetic considerations. Other design options include finishes, such as lacquer, wax and oil along with flat and carved designs. Bass guitar necks, which are longer than regular electric guitar necks, are generally made of maple.

A brief history

In the 1930s, inventor Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, Washington, developed a guitar style electric bass instrument that was fretted and designed to be held and played horizontally. Unfortunately, Tutmarc inventions never caught the public imagination, and little further development of the instrument took place until the 1950s.

In the 1950s, Leo Fender developed the first mass produced electric bass. In the 1950s and 1960s, the term Fender bass was widely used to describe the bass guitars, because of early popularity of Fender in the market for mass produced bass guitars.

Different components of the bass guitar

This kind of guitar uses various components to produce music. Some of these components are strings and its tuning, fret or fretless bass, pickups, amplification and effects.

Frets and fretless bass

Frets are a raised metal strips inserted into the fingerboard that extend across the full width of the neck. On a fretted bass, the frets divide the fingerboard into semitone divisions. The original Fender basses had 20 frets. Fretless basses have a distinct sound, because the absence of frets means that the strings must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the fingerboard.

Strings and tuning

The standard design for the bass has four strings, tuned E, A, D and G, with the original frequency of the E string set at about 41 Hz, making the tuning of all four strings the same as that of the double bass. This tuning is also the same as the standard tuning on the lower four strings on a 6 string guitar, only an octave lower.

Pickups

Most electric basses use magnetic pickups. The vibrations of the instrument metal strings within the magnetic field of the permanent magnets in magnetic pickups produce small variations in the magnetic flux threading the coils of the pickups.

Amplification and effects

The electric bass is always connected to an amplifier for live performances. Electric bass guitarists use either a combo amplifier, which combines an amplifier and a speaker in a single cabinet, or an amplifier and a separate speaker cabinet.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, and synthesizers. You can find the best marketplace for guitars, drums, and synthesizers at these 3 sites: guitars, bass guitars, drums, drum sets, drum kits, and synthesizers, keyboards