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Forget The Beatles, We’re Going To Be Massive! – Forming Your First Band

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If you have been playing your instrument for a little while and have started to get a bit fed up of posing in the mirror, maybe it’s time to think about forming a band? Music is supposed to be shared and you will have 4 times as much fun if you ask your buddies to join in. You may be a little worried about where to begin, this article will give you a few tips and you will soon be on your way to rock and roll stardom, hopefully!

You Need Musicians!

 

Sorry for stating the obvious, but this is where it all begins. You will need a drummer, a bassist, at least one guitarist and a singer. This is easier said than done, most youngsters tend to start off playing guitar and there ends up being an excess of ‘axemen’ as a result. Drummers and bassists are particularly hard to come by, not many parents will relish the thought of their Sunday afternoon being ruined by a twenty minute drum solo. It is a good idea to choose mates, especially if you are still at school or college. If they are really bad, just tell them or you risk months or even years of musical torture.

Musical Style

 

You should all be on the same page regarding the genre you wish to represent, choose something that you all like, or otherwise there will be a split before too long. Think about your vocalist and his ability. It’s no good starting up a Led Zeppelin tribute band, if the singer can’t hold a tune. Your image also needs some consideration, in fact, these days the image is more important than the talent, sadly. As well as the style and the image, you have to find a name that is worthy of your time. Pick something unique with a little twist, alternatively just ask the next person on the street for a random name.

Rehearsal

This is where all of the hard work begins, and you can often end up hating the drummer or the vocalist after 30 minutes in a practice room. Bad habits will come to the fore and you need some real staying power to craft some tunes out of the mess you will start off creating. You should aim to rehearse for at least 2 or 3 hours once a week, after 3 months you should be able to hold a tune. If you can’t do any song justice, take a look at your group and think about the weak link.

The First Gig

Once you are confident that you don’t suck too badly, why not see if you can get a support gig somewhere locally? Pick a band that you know and see if they are happy to let you die on stage before they do. Choose a set list of about 10 songs and continue practicing as much as possible. When the big day, or night, arrives, just give it your best shot and have some fun. It will probably just be a blur and you will not remember too much about it.

No Looking Back

If your band has made it this far, you have outlasted about 80% of new bands already! Just keep on improving and honing your craft, one day you may just be quite good!

Attached Images:
  •  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/en/night-ranger-band-rock-music-83512/
  •  License: Creative Commons image source
  •  License: Creative Commons image source

Mike Miller is the author of today’s guest post. He is passionate about music and that’s what led him to work for Music Mart– a music school specializing in training amateur musicians. It is also a retailer of musical instruments.





Biggest Mistakes Made By Beginning Guitar Players

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When learning to play the guitar, even if you use the best guitar lessons online, you still want to use all the resources your online guitar lessons offer.

There is so much to learn when it comes to guitars that go beyond finger placement and strumming. Learning to play an instrument is similar to learning mechanics, you have to fully understand a car before you can fix it. Taking advantage of the resources including blogs can make learning to play the guitar a little bit easier for everyone.

This blog is going to highlight an example of the different resources that can assist you in learning to play the guitar through the best online resources.This blog is going to highlight the top biggest mistakes beginning guitarists make.

They Don’t Practice With A Beat

A metronome is a device used to help musicians to keep track of the beats without having to count to yourself. These machines can be helpful when it comes to first learning guitar. The ticking sound may be annoying to some people, but the ticks are what your music should be following.

If you don’t want to use a metronome, you may also want to consider a drumbeat that can be programmed and played through machines and keyboards.

Not Using Their Finger Properly

Finger placement is one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make when learning to play the guitar. Since guitar strings are so thin, it can be uncomfortable pushing the strings down to make chords. Since the strings are already making your fingers sore, it could be a player’s instinct to use the lower parts of their fingers rather than the tips.

It is important to use the tips of your fingers when playing the guitar to get the correct sound from the strings. Though it may be painful on the fingers, your fingers will eventually get used to the pain and stop hurting, however, only if you use the tips of your fingers correctly to get past the initial hurt.

Practicing What You Can Play

This one may raise some eyebrows, but practicing what you can play is one of the biggest mistakes that beginners can make. If you sit down and only play the stuff you know how to play, you are never going to get past what you already know. When you are learning to play the guitar, you need to challenge yourself to new things in order to get better.

Practice makes perfect. If you want to run through what you already know as a warm up, that is fine, but you need to try new stuff during your practice session to get any better.

When you are first learning to play the guitar, it can be difficult and challenging, but that is what makes the guitar so intriguing to play. Even if you are learning through the best online guitar lessons, you still want to take advantage of all the resources, especially those that offer advice.

This resource is attempting to help you avoid making the most common mistakes that beginning guitar players make, helping you on your journey to learn guitar.

Robert has been in the music industry for the past 10 years. His publications highlight the best online guitar lessons for prospective guitar players to learn the guitar at their own speed from the advice of professional guitar players.

Two Unique Ways To Learn Guitar For Beginners

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If you’ve just purchased you’re first guitar, or maybe you’ve had one for a while and haven’t started learning yet, either way take a couple of minutes to read this article. I won’t be offering a bunch of free beginner guitar lessons, or tips. However I do want to talk to you about the two options you have to learn to play guitar as a beginner.

Whether you want to learn electric or acoustic guitar, rock or classical there are two specific paths you can take. One will have you playing songs in no time, the other takes a bit longer but is the path to mastery of the guitar.

Start learning to Master the guitar today!

Path 1: Learn Fast, and how to play songs ASAP

The first path that beginner guitar players can take provides gratification faster, but can also cause you to plateau with your learning a lot quicker. Some beginner guitar lessons focus on teaching you how to play basic chords, and then how to strum easy guitar songs. The focus is on teaching you how to play songs.

For those that want to learn to play guitar so they can play songs at parties and around the campfire, this method is most likely for you.

Common points that are covered in these types of beginner guitar lessons are

  • How to read guitar tabs
  • Learning guitar chords
  • Guitar chord charts
  • Strumming patterns and timing

These types of easy guitar lessons are solely focused around getting you playing something you’re familiar with as quickly as possible. This might be all you want from your guitar learning process, and that’s fine. However I think everyone should understand what they might be giving up on if they choose this path to beginner guitar lessons.

Ready to start learning yet?

Path 2: In depth beginner guitar lessons, teaching theory, music reading, and technique

The other alternative to beginner guitar lessons could also be considered the gate way into other styles of guitar playing. Most beginners will start with either acoustic or electric guitar lessons, and then refine their style as they advance, possibly into rock, jazz or classical.

More in depth beginner guitar lessons take longer to get to the song playing level, but they spend more time on teaching you theory and how to read music before getting into teaching you songs.

Learning beginner guitar music and theory provides you with a solid foundation that you can build on as you learn to play songs. The fact is learning to play an E, A, G and D chord isn’t that hard. Yes it takes a bit of time to feel comfortable with your fingers in those positions but overall it’s not that tough.

The tough part is when it comes to understanding why A chord is an A chord. Then if you want to learn how to play lead guitar (soloing) you’ must learn scales, and about the different keys (if this doesn’t make sense to you right now, don’t worry it all will eventually).

Again this stuff isn’t difficult to understand, but you should learn it in the correct order if you for see yourself wanting to jam with others, play in a band or write some of your own songs.

One thing I want to clarify, I’m not saying that you can’t learn scales, theory, or how to read music if you start with the first method we discussed. It’s totally possible to learn all of these things after learning basic guitar chords. It’s just easier to take beginner guitar lessons that are structured to teach you the right skills in a logical order.

What are the best alternatives for Beginner Guitar Lessons?

If you want to get up to speed quickly with your guitar then I recommend you check out Learn and Master Guitar. This course covers a lot of ground and will give you well over a year’s worth of material to cover as a beginner.

This course is the most in-depth and easiest to follow of any beginner guitar program I’ve come across, both in workbook and video formats. The videos are produced at a very high quality, and the level of play that this lesson pack can take you to is huge! I’d guess there is probably as much as 2 year’s worth of material in the Learn and Master Guitar series depending on how fast you decide to digest it all.

JP is a passionate blogger with great interest in music and various musical instruments, she recently started to get some guitar lessons online.

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