Guitarlincs - Free Guitar Music

Yes, it is that time already! To be ready for Christmas we need to start preparing now and today I have added an arrangement, requested by a Canadian friend, of the Huron Carol.

This simple guitar solo is about Grade1 level, the melody is a traditional French tune, the English words (not given here) were by J.E.Middleton. There are actually 4 verses. Note name hoteheads are given on this larger font to assist with learning notation. As always, I like to make it accessible to young children and to those who are visually challenged.

More later!

 http://www.guitarlincs.com/christmastunes.htm

Well, it's good to be back and I hope to feature all sorts of exciting things. Today  have imported the substance of something I wrote on another blog about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Bass and acoustic guitar players would do well to read this page as we tend to be more prone to this type of injury. Electric players are not immune however!

http://www.guitarlincs.com/carpaltunnelsyndrome.htm

Today the Rocky Tower Orchestra did their first ever public performance to about 60 people on Open Day. The kids were fantastic and I am very proud of them for the show they put on. I hope the video comes out well as it is something they will be able to remember!

I have uploaded scale graphics for Grade 2 this evening to help with those who have any last minute nerves or struggles to remember. They are on the scales page of course! (Where else!) If the guys do as well with their grades as they did with their show today I will be over the moon! Good luck kids!!!

http://www.guitarlincs.com/scales.htm

Set up a new page today called "Rock Buskers" I will add common chord progressions to the page for you to try out. Your job is to see if you can guess the song.... Actually, if you change the rhythm (strum pattern) you will find some of these progressions do for hundreds of songs! That is the fun of busking rhythm guitar....

Enjoy!

http://www.guitarlincs.com/rockbuskers.htm

If you need a visual reminder of the positions of one octave scales of C major and C harmonic minor as in this years grade 1 exams, check out the Scales page and you will see some new graphics I did for you.

http://www.guitarlincs.com/scales.htm

As the notes in these scales are not necessarily notes you play in your pieces, you can check the new note names out too! The higher position scales and notes will come into play at grade 2 and grade 3 level, so these scales are good preparation!

Have fun always, think of cool ways to memorize these!

A few more chords added to the open chord library here....

 http://www.guitarlincs.com/justopenchords.htm

As follows: Dsus2, Dsus4, Asus2, Asus4, with which you can work out the intro to Bryan Adams Summer of 69  (My students, just ask next week and I will demo it for you. It is really easy!) If you add G, Bm, E and a few mid section power chords to the mix and take the intro chords up to twelth position for the solo the whole song is sorted!

Also B9, which is useful in the chord "stop" section of Alka Setzer (Rock School grade 5) and B6 which is the finishing chord to Nick Powlesland's "License to Chill" (Trinity Guildhall grade 2 classical)

Have fun, I am off for a swim....

I have been guilty of neglecting the bottom end I am afraid. I really must put more bass pages up and edit what I already have. I got good feedback about the graphics of the modes, but today I starting a page about reading rhythm. Working with the drums is the single most important thing a bassist has to do and when you are also sight reading that can be tough so the new page will focus on simple chord progressions with varied rhythms and MP3s to practise with.

Here is a link....

http://www.guitarlincs.com/bassrhythmreading.htm

Good luck with reading and playing in time!

As I am presently interested in music rights issues because of a book I am writing it was quite ironic to discover this little gem today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/05/coldplay-yusuf-islam

The offending snippet of tune is based on the piano riffs some 5 minutes and 20 seconds into the song. The song in question is a very long folk/jazz opus full of acoustic guitars and Cat's snatchy vocal sighs that runs in at about 18 minutes in total. (Yusuf Islam is perhaps better known as Cat Stevens....)

"There's been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from Joe Satriani," Islam told the Sun. "But, if you listen to it, it's mine! It's the Foreigner Suite. It is!"

However, Joe Satriani is suing the British band, claiming that the same melody (Viva La Vida) is really If I Could Fly, an instrumental recorded in 2004.

In my humble opinion, all of them need to listen to Rachmaninoff! (Or perhaps they did and then jazzed it up a bit!!!) Shame he is too dead to sue anyone....

Oh well....

Today's thoughts....

A question first:

Why in life do we say nothing is achieved without effort? Generally, because that is true - even with regard to music! But what is it with some guitar players? Why are they so resistant to learning their craft? Why is notation such a four letter word? The answer probably is, because "what I can't understand ain't worth etc etc etc...."

So.... having experienced a flyby 1 star rating for all my efforts I was feeling a little sensitive when I checked an ad out on the Squidoo site that had the by-line "Why all Guitar teachers hate me". I had to follow it through to find out why of course...

• Point 1. Well, the guy seemed to think we all set out to make learning guitar difficult basically because he couldn't learn to play from books as an adult and his fingers hurt! Well, have I got VERY sad news for anyone here - steel strung acoustic guitars DO hurt, which is why I recommend beginners of all ages to buy nylon strung guitars or electric guitars! Every now and then an ambitious and caring Dad will shell out £200+ for a nice big Fender acoustic for his 9 year old boy who then invariably quits guitar because his fingers hurt. Is that the fault of the teacher who has recommended a child-friendly 3/4 size classic? No way!

• Point 2 was that he couldn't understand the teach yourself books and that of course C D7 G wasn't music, just meaningless theory.... TAB numbers on the other hand were not theory....OK.... So I couldn't understand my first tutor book either. What did I do about it? I looked for help! I found a teacher to show me how to get started. Actually this guy did too - the only difference was that his teacher said "I am not a teacher!" This is because it wasn't his main job and he was a mate - my teacher wasn't a guitar teacher either - he was an English teacher who was very accomplished at jazz and classical guitar!

• Well, again, life is full of paradoxes but anyone who shares knowledge or skills with us is a teacher even if they (or we) choose not to use the word. Joe Satriani was Steve Vai's teacher as well as his friend....

• However and whatever skills you choose to learn there really is no such thing as a free lunch. At some point we all realise we need help with something someone else told us was an unnecessary waste of time. It turns out in the music business that without learning that "waste of time" stuff there are several thousand guys in the queue in front who are more likely to get that music job/place at music college etc etc. It is never to late to learn the mechanics of music - nor is it ever too early!

On a brighter note, Thursday's project went really well. I can't believe how fast the time went and all the children enjoyed the session. We are all set for next week and some great rock songs!

Finally, today's pdf contribution to the site is "Sur Le Pont D'Avignon"

http://www.guitarlincs.com/guitargrouppieces.htm

This is a very simple duet in G major for young players, the main workout is for guitar 2 which intentionally has lots of bass runs. Guitar 1 is actually quite easy! Both parts have note name noteheads to help with confidence for children and early readers. There is an MP3 of course for practice. If you don't like it, please remember that the later pages on this site are less child orientated and geared more to graphics and electric guitar skills!

Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend....

(\__/) Copy and paste bunny

(='.'=) into your signature to help him

(")_(") gain world domination

Tomorrow we start the "Rocky Tower Orchestra" rock and pop project which will allow up to 30 children to belong to a junior school orchestra that features rock and pop instruments alongside traditional ones. We want to encourage improvising and fun and amongst regular contemporary band arrangements we will focus on the Band In A Jam project which is custom written for the purpose! This is available via the pages:

http://www.guitarlincs.com/linkstootherprojects.htm

and

http://www.squidoo.com/guitarlincs

We have at least two other members of staff wanting to join and help the children in addition to myself and the music coordinator and I will let you all know how it goes!