Better Guitar - Guitar Songs You Should Learn. There are certain songs that every guitar player should try to learn. Either they are commonly requested or they have cool guitar parts that will expand your playing skills. I am going to list songs in several styles of music and explain why I think they should be add to your “play list.” While most are electric guitar songs, there are some acoustic songs also. Obviously, this type of list won’t ever be comprehensive, and no doubt, many will disagree with my choices — and find many ommissions. This is a huge list and will take most players years to complete (if ever.) Johnny B.
Download GNU Solfege The development of GNU Solfege has moved to Savannah because tca@gnu.org (main author) is stepping down as the only maintainer of the program. Please contact maintainers@gnu.org if you want to take over the job. Download page on Sourceforge.net with all previous versions. GNU also mirrors stable and unstable releases. Some of you will eventually have some problems. Possible resources: Installing Solfege, Sound setup, Mailing lists and Solfege on Win 32 (if you for some reason want to try to build the windows installer yourself. Stable release: Solfege 3.22.2 This is the recommended release for end users. Development release: Solfege 3.23.0 Release notes for the devel branch. GNU Solfege can make use of some external programs for special features. These programs are usually included on your GNU/Linux distribution. sudo apt-get install timidity mma csound lilypond to install all these programs. Installing timidity on MS Windows Create the C:\TiMidity++\soundfonts\ folder. User comments
I analyzed the chords of 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found. For many people, listening to music elicits such an emotional response that the idea of dredging it for statistics and structure can seem odd or even misguided. But knowing these patterns can give one a deeper more fundamental sense for how music works; for me this makes listening to music a lot more interesting. Of course, if you play an instrument or want to write songs, being aware of these things is obviously of great practical importance. In this article, we’ll look at the statistics gathered from 1300 choruses, verses, etc. of popular songs to discover the answer to a few basic questions. The Database To make quantitative statements about music you need to have data; lots of it. We can use the information in the song database to answer all sorts of questions. Let’s get started. 1. This seems like such a basic question, but the answer doesn’t actually tell us much because songs are written in different keys. C (and its relative minor, A) are the most common by far. 2. 3.
30+ Insanely Useful Websites for Guitarists The guitar is an instrument that knows no genre and no boundaries--one of the reasons why it's arguably the world's most beloved instrument. Here are over 30 incredibly useful (and often entertaining) websites dedicated to the guitar and its admirers. Must-see sites 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Soloing 6. 100 Greatest Guitar Solos is a ranked list of the greatest guitar solos of all time with included tablature for each. 7. 20 Greatest Guitar Solos Ever resembles the beginning of the above list, but with crispy and delicious YouTube videos for each entry. 8. Inspirational articles 9. 10. 99 Tips to Help You Play Better features 99 pearls of wisdom from guitar wizards like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Jimmi Page. “Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. 11. Free guitar tabs and guitar chords The online guitar tablature community was in turmoil just a few months ago when the legal status of tabs was questioned. 12. 13. 14. 15. 17. Free guitar lessons 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Guitar theory 25. 26.
Jazz Science | Practice Ideas From the Woodshed Ear training is obviously an extremely important pursuit for improvising musicians. I spend a significant portion of my practice time on ear training activities, and try to find ways to incorporate an ear training aspect into all of my practicing. One of the things that makes harmony so complex is that as you add notes, the complexity increasing in a combinatorial way, not an additive way. For example: If you hear an E against a C, it's one piece of information: major 3rd. If you hear an E and a G against a C it's 3 pieces of information: major 3rd between C and E, perfect 5th between C and G, and minor 3rd between E and G. If you hear an E, G, and B, against a C, it's 6 pieces of information: major 3rd between C and E, perfect 5th between C and G, and minor 3rd between E and G, major 7th between C and B, perfect 5th between E and B, major 3rd between G and B. Et Cetera. I've made a set of audio files (mp3 format) based on an exercise suggested by Rufus Reid. Download file here. PS.
Learn The Guitar Fingerboard Thoroughly in 16 Days Photo by John W. Tuggle If I have to name two things that took my guitar playing to the next level I would say music theory and memorizing the fingerboard. It made me understand the big picture. Combining music theory (understanding scales, modes, chord structure, improvising over chord progressions, etc, etc.) and knowing all the notes on the fingerboard will open up a whole new world. Guitar playing becomes more fun when you know what, when en where to play it on the fingerboard. When you want to know where to play any type of chord shape instantly it’s pretty helpful if know the notes. To know the name of the chord you need to know all the notes on the low E-string. A Bb major chord shape (x13331) can also be played on any fret. To know the name of this Esus2 chord shape: (xx2452) on any fret you need to know the notes on the D-string. The same applies to scale shapes, triads, arpeggios, licks, etc. Here’s how you do it: First things first. Example 1: A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A
Harmonic Progressions | Learning and Loving Music Theory Kelvin, You actually caught a mistake on the roman numerals! Thanks, I’ll have to fix that. The first and last chords of the progression are not 7th chords. Somehow I inadvertently typed “I7″ on the first chord of all the major keys. In the classical tradition, for the sake of stability, the first and last chords of a circle-of-fifths progression are usually triads, not 7th chords. Harmonic Sequences Part 2 In the jazz tradition all chords usually are 7ths, in which case the progression will start and end with 7th chords. Thanks again for your interest and input.
How to read sheet music... a free course. The Mystery of Sheet Music To many people, reading sheet music is an intimidating, mysterious activity. But it doesn't need to be! It's actually quite simple, once you understand the secret behind it. At "ReadSheetMusic.info," my desire is to teach you how to read sheet music as quickly as possible. I'll take away the mystery, and put reading sheet music within your grasp. Since 1999, I've made this course available at www.notationmachine.com. In any case, there is enough information to easily get you started reading sheet music right away! Jason Silver How To Read Sheet Music... a Free Course click here to download our free Ebook! All you ever wanted to know about sheet music and how to read it. How to Read Sheet Music - by Kevin Meixner Start the Course How to Read Sheet Music - by Jason Silver Start the Course
How to be a Rock Star in 5 Minutes: The 4 Chords to Stardom Sharebar Many of the greatest rock and pop hits from the past 40 years only use the same 4 chords. THE SAME 4 CHORDS. So if you were every thinking of being a rock or pop star, well then all you gotta do is keep writing sappy love songs using these same 4 chords until you make that hit! This was so famously exposed by the great Axis of Awesome in this video: (We made a video playlist of all these songs for your pleasure here: We’re going to show you what those chords are, what they look like on guitar and piano so you can get jammin! We have to thanks darthgabriel97, he spelled what the exact chords and variations you can use: “B Abm E F# but they are using E B C#m A. For Guitar I think I got this right. Here’s B, Abm, E, F# (C Major, A Sharp Major, E Major, F Sharp) Here’s E, B, C#m, A (E Major, B Major, C Sharp Minor, A Major) – THIS IS THE PATTERN AXIS OF AWESOME USES Here’s C, G, Am, F (C Major, G Major, A Minor, F Major) For Piano 30h!
Music Monday: Best Basslines Happy Music Monday! Today we're gonna talk about basslines, those things you never notice unless they're very, very, very good. But when they are, boy do they improve a song, right? Scott's picked five good ones but overlooked several on purpose, in hopes you might call him out on what he's missed. Go on, start taking notes so you can put him in his place. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead Go find someone who likes The Smiths, and they'll talk for hours about the band. Off to a good start already! Hey! Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holla) I had to limit each artist on this list to one song only, otherwise What's Going On would have taken five slots by itself. Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion There aren't very many times a bass player gets to do a solo as an intro, so that should help illustrate how beloved the low end of "Sweet Emotion" has become. The Who - Boris The Spider Yes, I've skipped a few great ones. Muse - Hysteria Bass tracks normally aren't paced like guitar solos.
The Aesthetics of Popular Music Popular music is widely assumed to be different in kind from the serious music or art music that, until very recently, monopolized attention in philosophical discussions of music. In recent years, however, popular music has become an important topic for philosophers pursuing either of two projects. First, popular music receives attention from philosophers who see it as a test case for prevailing philosophies of music. Even now, most philosophy of music concentrates on the European classical repertoire. Although the category of popular music presupposes differences from serious music, there is limited consensus about the nature of these differences beyond the near-tautology that most people prefer popular music to art music. Among the topics that have benefited from this reconsideration are the nature of music’s aesthetic value, music’s claim to autonomy, and the ontology of music. Table of Contents 1. Gurney is not entirely negative about popular music. 2. 3.
Guitar Chords Magic | Free Guitar Chords | Guitar Chord Charts 10 Essentials On Guitar Improvisation Photo by Simone13 AKA John Pastorello Besides writing and playing songs I just love improvising. When I practice improvising I always first pour myself a cup of green tea, I put on some folk music (e.g. Other times I practice melodic patterns, triads, arpeggios, licks, everything that will spice up my improvisation skills. Improvising is one of the most fun and fulfilling aspects of guitar playing, but also something that requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Here are 10 basic essentials that will help you become a better improviser. 1 – Pentatonics / blues Learn to play the pentatonic/blues scale all over the neck in all five shapes. 2 – Major Scale Next to the pentatonic scale, the major scale is the most important scale to learn. Once you can play the scale in all positions, connect the different positions with each other. The most exciting and challenging part is learning how to improvise with the scales. 3- Melodic patterns Example: Major scale = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Play The 7 Modes in 7 Days (Tabs Incl.) Photo by Marta Monleón Modes are used in all kinds of musical styles like Jazz, Rock, Metal, Flamenco, etc. They create a certain mood or feel to your playing. If you feel like you are stuck playing solos using just Major/Minor or Pentatonic/Blues scales all the time, you’re ready to call on the modes and dive a little deeper. When I first got introduced to modes I was a little bit overwhelmed, but also excited to explore this whole new world of boundless possibilities. I soon realized it’s all about the journey and not the destination, so enjoy the process! There are 7 modes which can be derived from the major scale: 1 – Ionian 2 – Dorian 3 – Phrygian 4 – Lydian 5 – Mixolydian 6 – Aeolian 7 – Locrian Each mode starts and stops on a different note within the major scale. In this post we take the C major scale to explain the modes, but you can derive the 7 modes from any major scale in any key. I challenge you to understand the basics and work your way through each mode in 7 days.