Guitar Lovers

My uncle taught gave me my first guitar lesson at age 7, and many of the tips he shared back then have continued to stick with me. It turned out that while we both have musical tendencies in our blood, we don’t learn in the same way or at a comparable pace. He has an impressive ear for notes and melodies and is able to replicate most songs after hearing them just a few times. I’m not like that at all.

Maybe it’s because of my classical piano training, but I need to be able to see notes in front of me. Playing by ear just doesn’t work until I’ve got a song down cold. That’s why a guitar tuner is so essential to my playing. It would take me far too long to tune the guitar during a performance without some aid. Perhaps some day I’ll develop a better ear, but until then I’ll have to rely on technology.

When you think of electric instruments, the guitar and bass probably spring to mind immediately. It may come as a surprise that the mandolin – an instrument so often associated with delicate, classical songs – has also been amped up in a number of classic rock and roll standards. Seeking a bridge between the hard-edged electric side and the softer acoustic side of their classic third LP, Led Zeppelin employed an electric mandolin on the old traditional “Gallow’s Pole.”

But perhaps the most famous use of the electrified mandolin came a year later on Rod Stewart’s quintessential album Every Picture Tells a Story. “Maggie May” remains an FM radio staple to this day, and its innovative mandolin solo is easily the most distinctive feature of the flawless composition. It just goes to show that aspiring rock musicians can benefit from adding a bit of variety to the standard guitar-drums-bass lineup.

As a young child, I grew up listening to some of my parents’ old records. They had a full complement of Beatles music and some stuff by The Beach Boys. But I wasn’t immediately drawn to the Fab Four’s pop craftsmanship or the sunny surfing anthems coming out of California. Instead I turned to the monster guitar riffs supplied by The Rolling Stones and The Who.

My musical tastes evolved as I got older, of course, but the electric guitar is still my favorite instrument. The versatility of an electric ax is impressive as well. It can be utilized for jazz noodling sessions and Delta blues licks alike. When I pull out an electric guitar, I like to emulate my childhood gods by unleashing a monster solo. Guitar music transports us to another place and time; for that, I will always owe the electric guitar my allegiance.

The violin is a four-stringed instrument that is played in a wide variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, folk, and rock and roll. In fact, a fiddle is actually just a violin being played as a folk instrument. The violin has long been one of the most important instruments in classical music because its tone stands out above other instruments, making it optimal for playing the melody. It is also extremely agile when played by an expert, allowing him to execute rapid and difficult sequences of notes.

Unlike a guitar, a violin has no frets to stop the strings, so a player must know exactly where to place his fingers on the strings to play well. If you’re a beginner, you can use tape or white-out on the fingerboard to mark proper finger placement. However, this is sometimes discouraged because it trains the player to play based on sight rather than sound. Also unlike the guitar, the violin is played with a bow that usually consists of a stick with a ribbon of horsehair strung between opposite ends. Rubbing the horsehair over the strings makes the noise you hear when the violin is played.

Last year, a guitarist named Dave Carroll was travelling across the country with his band. He was waiting for his flight to leave Chicago when he notices the baggage handlers throwing guitar cases to each other – his band’s guitar cases! Upon arriving in Nebraska, he discovered that his Taylor guitar had been smashed. United Airlines did nothing to help Carroll, despite his repeated requests and complaints. So he recently wrote and performed a song called “United Breaks Guitars,” which got more than 3 million views in its first 10 days on YouTube.

United Airlines has probably learned its lesson after the whole world knows that its employees broke someone’s guitar. But the point of this story is that not everyone will handle your guitar as carefully and lovingly as you do, so you should invest in a good guitar case. Even though Carroll’s case didn’t prevent his guitar from being ruined, his situation was the exception – few people would actually throw someone’s guitar like that. In general, a good guitar case will prevent damage to your guitar. Don’t leave home without one!

A mandolin’s typically hollow wooden body has a neck with a flat (or slight radius) fretted fingerboard, a nut and floating bridge, a tailpiece or pinblock at the edge of the face to which the strings are attached, and mechanical tuning machines, rather than friction pegs, to accommodate metal strings. Like the guitar, the mandolin has relatively poor sustain; that is, the sound from a plucked string decays quickly.

A note cannot be maintained for an arbitrary length of time as with a bowed note on a violin. Its small size and higher pitch makes this problem more severe than with the guitar, and the use of tremolo (rapid picking of one or more pairs of strings) is often used to create a sustained note or chords. This technique works particularly well with a mandolin’s paired strings, where one of the pair is sounding while the other is being struck by the pick, giving a more rounded and continuous sound than is possible with a single coursed instrument.

Traditionally, heavy metal bands play a step or two down from standard tuning. Though some may dismiss metal as a bunch of noise, listening to a band like Slayer, early Metallica or even newer bands like The Bled or Killswitch Engage will let you know that these guys can play as well as any bona fide blues guitarist.

The major chords are typically E or D (the latter being the most popular), but it really depends on your own personal tinkering. Personally, I like to alternate between standard (EADGBE) and D-standard when I’m playing on stage and I can do this with ease with a guitar tuner.

Tuning that is catching on, however, is BF#BEG#C#. It’s great for thrash, but if you’re looking for something on the technical side, I highly recommend standard or D-standard.

If this is your last summer before you venture off for college, you might be concerned about what college life is going to bring. Whether you’re in the dorms or you’re going to rent an apartment, life is about to change quite a bit, and it’s natural to worry about that change. The biggest concern among incoming college freshmen is that they won’t find any new friends or that they won’t be popular. But being a popular college freshman isn’t rocket science. It just takes some of the following pointers.

The biggest mistake new freshmen make is not being outgoing or confident. Nobody knows you at college, so you have to make the effort. Introduce yourself to a lot of people, and get them involved in fun activities. Whether you take the initiative to organize a dorm Frisbee game or you teach somebody on your floor the acoustic guitar, just remember to be friendly and involved. The more people you meet, the more likely you are to find people that share your interests. Your high school reputation doesn’t follow you to college, so you’re free to become the person you want to be.

Many people who are interested in music gravitate towards the electric guitar. Especially if you’re interested in learning music with a bit more of an edge to it, it’s a fantastic place to start with your musical training. Whether you’re teaching yourself or you’re turning to a professional tutor for help, there are some amazing and iconic songs available for new or established lovers of electric guitars.

If you want to learn songs that feature the electric guitar, try learning the main riff of “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes. Or perhaps you’re more interested in Weezer songs, in which case you should learn “Say It Ain’t So.” And if you want to take your guitar lessons to earlier works, tackle “Foxy Lady” by Jimi Hendrix or “Layla” by . Whatever song you learn, don’t forget that there are numerous online videos with step by step tutorials, so if you ever get stuck, you can probably find a video to help you along.