The Top 10 books Every Guitar Student Should Read

Playing guitar is a journey into self-awareness and self-mastery. A guitar-player, who looks at music passionately, sees his instrument as more than a tool that produces sound. Yet, it is the musician who is the instrument; the guitar IS just the tool. Your guitar is an extension of you, but it is you who is making the music, not the guitar.

Moreover: just like people who are passionate about yoga, or martial arts, or the art of tea making or flower arranging for that matter; music is the musician's path to enlightenment. Like Zen Buddhists say: "Through one thing, know ten thousand things". If you chose guitar as your path, then guitar will teach you everything there is possibly to learn about everything else: life, the Universe, yourself, the world, etc.  For one: through the study of guitar and music you will learn the value of patience, persistence and focus. You will also learn a lot about yourself: what your weakness are, where they come from, how to solve them, how to pace yourself, how to be in the moment, how to create rhythm, flow and harmony, or how to become a better listener, and so much more.
In addition: the better you get at guitar, the more fun it becomes. The below books will help speed up your progress, open up your mind, and get you even more inspired. They will get you into the zone! The lessons taught in those books will further ignite your passion, inspiration, creativity, personal growth and interest in music.

These are the top ten books every guitar student should have on their shelves and regularly reread. These books are a must read if you want to find and develop your inner artist, overcome your self-imposed limitations and overcome obstacles. The lessons you will learn will help you unlock your full potential, help you learn more effortlessly and will lead you to find even greater joy in music.
You can buy these top-10 must-reads here http://www.zotzinguitarlessons.com/store/
Time to Get Into The Zone!

1.    The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

The Artist's Way offers many tools and insight to awakening your creative being. Julia Cameron offers many great examples of how to nourish your creativity with tools such as morning pages and the artist date. Morning pages are geared to help clear your head and allow ideas to flow. The artist date is a tool to help you explore the world around you with a creative eye. These exercises get you to express yourself more freely and grow creatively.


2.        Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo

Zen Guitar explains the spirit and principles of Japanese dojo and how those principles relate to music. Zen Guitar is about the spiritual side of musicianship and this book helps you to explore the passion and spirituality behind music. If you are interested in learning more about the spirituality of music and in becoming more aware of your musical journey, then this book is a great way to dig deeper into your core and understand why you enjoy music. You will read this book over and over again.

3.    Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner

Effortless Mastery is a fantastic book that proves every musician can achieve greatness with his mind and instrument. Effortless Mastery is a success story of jazz musician Kenny Werner and provides great key points on how to establish greater confidence in yourself and embrace your musicianship. This is a great read for any musician trying to become the best he can be.



4.    The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green

The Inner Game of Music is a book written by double bassist Barry Green. This is a great read for any music student because it describes in simple ways how to avoid the pitfalls that can ruin or obstruct the "game" of your musical development. Barry Green explains how to avoid the voices of doubt, judgment and confusion in order to love the music you play. The book teaches why it is always the people who have the most fun learning a new skill, who end up becoming masters at that skill much more effortlessly.



5.    Stage Performance by Livingston Taylor

Stage Performance is a book written by Livingston Taylor, professor of music at Berklee College of Music. This book is an extremely helpful account of how to perform on stage. Taylor covers topics like the right way to begin and end your stage performance as well as how to overcome stage fright. Written with humor and real-life solutions, Stage Performance is a great book any performing musician should read!



6.    The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten

The Music Lesson is a fantastic account of Wooten's ideas on the spirituality of musicianship as well as the spiritual journey that can be taken by playing music. Victor Wooten describes his many ideas and ways of thinking in this book as well as many other spiritual music lessons. Music is fully capable of having a spiritual affect on anyone. Read The Music Lesson to find out why.



7.    Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

"Outliers" is Malcolm Gladwell's account of a specific type of person deemed an "outlier." Gladwell compares successful people such as Mozart and Bill Gates and builds a case of how many successful people become successful on a tide of advantages that were the result of dedication, hard work, planning and putting in the hours, as opposed to pure talent and genius. This is great read for any musician because it puts "talent" in the right perspective, After reading this book you will realize that indeed "genius" is something that is created, not something that is a gift or inborn. You have all the genius and talent you need.


8.    The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Daniel Coyle wrote the Talent Code to prove successful, talented people are not "born," they are grown. The Talent Code is a fantastic read for any musician because it offers many of Coyle's methods of coaching, motivation and training. With useful tips of how to become great at anything, this book can easily be applied to playing guitar and teach you how to be great at what you do. This MUST read will help you realize that "YES, you do have all the talent it takes" to become as good at guitar as you would like to be.



9.    The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy

The Power of the Subconscious Mind offers great exercises and insights on how to overcome mental barriers. The mind is extremely capable of holding you back in your growth as a musician. Dr. Murphy offers several exercises and true success stories for anyone looking to overcome limitations. Though not a music or musicians book, the principles from the fields of psychology and spirituality that this book covers, will help you become a greater musician, help you get rid of performance anxiety, and achieve better results with lesser effort.



10.    The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

The Power of Now describes living in the now to be the truest and purest way to happiness and enlightenment. This is a great book for musicians because it describes how to be more passionate about what you are doing in the moment rather than being anxious about the past or future. The more you are aware and in the moment, the more focused you will be and the more you will get out of your life, out of your musicianship, and out of your practice time. Focus on the now and on the joy of the journey: you will get wherever you are going to in due time.


These fun, profound reads will have a tremendous impact on your musical joy, journey and growth. Buy these top 10 essential books here http://www.zotzinguitarlessons.com/store/

7 Tips to Help You Learn Tons of Songs In a Time Crunch

You have this great opportunity to play a show and earn some good money, or to get into this high-level band, but you need to learn their whole set of songs you never heard before, for a show they have in 4 days. Things like this happen regularly in this fickle industry. Here are 7 tips that will help you prepare for those kinds of situations.

Set Yourself A Deadline You Can’t Escape.

Might seem a silly topic considering that the show you have to play 4 days after being hired is already a serious deadline in and of itself. Yet, you can battle and target that deadline, setting mini deadlines to accomplish as stepping stones towards the main deadline: the show. Tell the band who hired you to have a rehearsal tomorrow or within 2 days the latest of you getting the songs. It is amazing how much you can accomplish when you set yourself constant deadlines. You will find yourself working much harder and being much more focused when you set a short deadline you cannot escape. Tell them that you want to rehearse with them tomorrow and that you will get most of the songs down by tomorrow’s rehearsal. Stay up all night if you have to: play the songs non-stop till you cannot forget them anymore.

Push your limits and push your memory.

Don’t Waste Time “Getting Organized”.  

You don’t really have time to waste and you surely don’t have time to start making practice schedules or create an organizational fuss. The task is simple: you have 14-15 songs to learn and a show in 4 days. Speak up: the band might already have tabs or chord charts written out. Ask them to save time and hassle figuring it all your by yourself.

If they don’t have music or chords written out: get to work. You don’t get fussy about which song to start with: you pick the first one on the CD they gave you and you figure out the chords asap. When you’re done, you immediately get to the next song and figure the chords out to that one. Keep going till you have all the chord charts prepared to all songs. If they play cover tunes, find the tabs online to save yourself time transcribing. Don’t start learning and practicing songs till you have all the chords and guitar parts to all the songs on paper. While you’re in the transcribing flow: you will find yourself finish this part of the job much more quickly if you don’t get distracted into playing, then transcribing again, then playing again, then back to transcribing, etc.  Don’t interrupt what you are doing and don’t multi task. Remember: you don’t have time to waste. Finish one part of the job completely before you move on to the next step. All successful people apply this important rule. When you are done compiling all the charts: go back to the first song and memorize it all. Only move on to the next song when you have the song you were practicing close to completely memorized.

Get Amazing Slowdowner

This is amazing practice software. It allows you to change the tempo and the pitch of songs independently from one another. If the song is a bit too fast to your technical abilities, slowing the song down will make it easier to play. You can then gradually speed up the song over numerous repetitions as you keep getting better. The main time saving feature to address here is the “start point” feature. You can set a starting point so the song always starts from the same spot in the song upon simply hitting your space bar. Even better: you can also set the ending point of the fragment you want to repeat over and over again. Now the fragment loops and you don’t even have to hit your space bar anymore to start the music. When the musical passage hits the end marker, the music automatically jumps back to the starting point and keeps repeating between your 2 cue points. This is unlike for example iTunes or any music playback software, where you have to physically grab your mouse to pull the song position slider back, then wait till that section of the song comes up where you need practice; and then do all that over and over again. This saves a lot of time with Amazing Slowdowner.

More Info on Amazing Slow Downer Here
Order Amazing Slow Downer: Buy It Here

Don’t procrastinate.

Listen to the songs whenever you have a minute.

Listen to them in your car. If the songs were emailed to you as mp3’s, burn them on a CD or put them on your iPod so you can listen to them everywhere all the time. While listening: try to memorize the song forms and structures. Is there an intro? How long are the verses? Can you tell the chord progression by ear? Having the structures of the songs memorized, is already half the battle. The good news is: you don’t need your guitar for that and you can practice this anywhere. You just need to keep listening to the songs over and over again.

Every single second you have should be dedicated on getting those songs down. Those songs, for those 4 days, are your whole world. Nothing else exists.

Repeat… Repeat… Repeat!

Repetition is the mother of all skills. The only way you are going to get those songs down in no time at all: is trough focused, continuous repetition. Don’t take breaks: keep repeating till the material is hammered in. Here’s a good tip: the moment you feel you are starting to get the song memorized that you have been working on, move on to the next one. During that time, the previous song will have time to sink in, and some of it will get forgotten again. Then after 15-20 minutes, move back to playing the one you felt you almost had down 20 minutes ago. That way you feed the information to your brain, let your brain assimilate the info and forget some of it, then feed it to your brain again, and so on. It is like having multiple rehearsals a day of the same song. This is the very best way to get things memorized.

Keep Positive Thoughts.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed and to think that you cannot do it. Change your thinking: you can do whatever you set your mind to. There is no greater waste of time and energy than thinking negatively. As a matter of fact: you don’t even have time to think. Keep working, keep learning, drink lots of water and eat a small meal every 3-4 hours to keep your energy up. This is totally doable. As a matter of fact: you could learn 15 songs in a matter of only hours of time. In preparation for these kinds of situations, you should practice your ear relentlessly. The better your ear: the lesser time it takes to learn songs. Thinking positively also opens up your mind to find solutions. If for example you somehow don’t manage to get all the songs down by your rehearsal deadline: bring your chord charts in case you forget parts of certain songs so you can read them. If you will not be able to get all the guitar solos down note for note: simplify them, or ask if it would be ok to improvise your own solos, which would save you a lot of study time if there are a lot of guitar solos. Panicking leads to tunnel vision, which results in a narrow perspective, which makes it harder to see solutions and possibilities. Be positive!

Play Behind The Beat.

When you have that rehearsal, it helps to play behind the beat. Not only does this make you sound more relaxed, it also gives you that fraction of a millisecond extra time to hear what the next chord is that the band is playing. Especially if you have a really good ear, playing a bit behind the beat buys you that fraction of extra time to hear which chord the band is moving to next. This too saves you a great deal of memorization time. You still want to have the song memorized, but it takes away, pressure, worries and stress, to know that this trick will aid your memory on the spot while performing the songs with the band.

Funny Guitar Pictures

Here are some funny or interesting guitar related pictures and cartoons culled from the internet. Ranging from plain goofy or unpractical guitars, to guitar player’s truths expressed in pictures and cartoons, I am sure some of the following sights will brighten your day and raise the “fun” factor on your guitar journey up even higher.

Ain’ that the truth! We guitarists know that is EXACTLY how guitars work!

This would be filed under the category: “Dude, you’re doing it all wrong!”

This goes under the category: “Someone had too much time on their hands”. Stop commenting on people’s flyers and go practice yer geetar.

And how is this one for a great confidence builder…

Always fun to spend some time with someone who has not quite mastered the art of “giving compliments” just yet.

A man’s got to know his priorities. He can’t put it down… he must be really good. “Let’s cheer you folks up with some “Kumbaya” to break the ice. Y’all seem a little tense today.”

Right! Exactly the last song I really want to hear right before I get shot in the head.

 

Uhmm… yeah… but some of us actually do practice.

           

Genius joke… let’s “pick” on bass players a bit. (No pun intended)

It’s always good to be prepared: just in case you need to stab the singer in your band after he slept with your girlfriend. Other than that: I can’t really see how this guitar can be very practical. Wonder if airlines would let you take that one as hand luggage?

Wonder where the Les Paul fits in… or… blue guitars for that matter.

Looks like this guy is going surfing after his gig.

WHY?? Why would you want to play a guitar like this?

You should see the strap… haha.  

What a great way to piss off your neighbors who live in the apartment under yours.

Had thought of this joke myself years ago. Glad to see someone else thought of this word play and put it into a cartoon.

We all know this works.

And another bass player joke…

Very funny and very true indeed.  

If you want to have more fun with guitar, or study with a world-class guitar teacher who will occasionally have you in stitches with his fun approach and humorous remarks during your lesson, ZOT Zin Music is where it is all happening.

The 10 Most Important Questions Nobody Ever Dares to Ask Their New Guitar Teacher.

Looking for a new guitar teacher can be a daunting task. How do you get started? How do you know that he will be a good fit? What do you look for? What do you need to pay attention to or be aware off?

There are a couple of good questions you can ask him, to help your decision making. Pay close attention to how he answers those questions. Is he hesitant? Was there a pause before his response? Is he like a fountain of information, excited about your questions, and passionately answering them… or does he sound rather annoyed and uninterested? Here are the five questions everybody should ask their new guitar teacher, but nobody ever does.

1. How Does a Lesson Look Like with You?

There is a lot you can learn from that answer. Is the teacher’s response structured and logical? If not: think about how that might reflect his teaching style. Does he sound hesitant and like he’s looking for words, or like a confident professional who can give you the whole picture in a heart beat? The answer you are looking for here should be something along following lines:

“We will be covering about 3-4 different things in each lesson: some theory, a song, some new chords, a scale fingering, rhythm exercises, etc., depending on where are you are at and what your playing needs the most. Each topic covered will take about 10 to 15 minutes of lesson time, which has as a result that lessons will be fast-paced, well organized and structured, and fun. You will be able to keep your concentration at peak performance this way, because by the time your mind is about to get worn down by something, we will already be moving on to the next thing. None of your lesson time will be spent on time wasting things, like for example having to take notes. I have ready for print handouts on anything guitar and music related that you could think off. You will be playing a lot, and I will constantly give you ideas, advice, pointers and tips to improve your performances. You will leave your lesson with a very well defined set of exercises, that will help you master the material we covered in your lesson, in the most time effective and efficient way possible.”

When a teacher gives you an explanation like this, he has his act together and he knows what he is talking about. You want that teacher.

2. In Which Ways Would I Benefit From Your Teaching Experience?

Same things apply here: pick up the teacher’s vibe and energy as he answers this question. Those are tough questions that really test the person you are evaluating as your possible future teacher, which is exactly why you want to ask those questions. His response should or could include:

“Experience” means that I have been doing this for many years, which also means that I have a huge collection of books, teaching materials, songs, and information, that has grown over years of teaching, and that covers virtually any music and guitar related topic you can think off. Anything you want to learn about music and guitar, you can learn with me. In addition: you will get more out of the lesson because it takes me very little time to explain anything. I can literally explain anything from numerous angles, and with simple words so even a 6 year old could understand the most complex musical concepts after my explanation. That is another benefit you get from my experience. Exercises and teaching approach have been refined over many years. Many of my students are now famous, or in top-level music schools, and you can enjoy getting the same benefits that they acquired studying with me. Etc., etc.…”

 The more detailed your prospect teacher gets into his explanation, the more you can trust he really knows what he is talking about and what he is doing.

3. If I Don’t Understand Something: How Long Would It Take You To Make it Click For Me?

Nobody ever thinks about asking that particular question. The response should be:

You will get anything immediately (followed by his explanation why he strongly believes so). His explanation could or should include, that he never explains anything the same way twice when he can tell a student is blanking out on him. He could also say that he can explain anything from many different angles, and that he is capable of explaining everything in such a way that even a 6-year old can immediately understand what he is talking about.

4. If I Would Bring In A Song You Don’t Know: How Would You Teach It To Me?

This is one of the questions that would help you assess how flexible your teacher is. Can he work with you, or is he stuck into adhering strictly to his teaching plan like it is the bible? Does he have access to tabs and sheet music for any song you can think off? Does he have a really good ear and strong transcription skills? How long would it take him to transcribe a song you bring in if he can’t find the tablature online?

All those are really good questions that assess the teacher’s skills, organization, experience and efficiency.

5. What Lesson Materials Do You Use?

Think about this: if the person you want to study with, does not have lesson materials that are already prepared, he will be wasting your lesson time and money having to write down the lesson for that day. This is a very common complaint music students have about their private music teachers. Oddly enough: people who are looking for private guitar lessons, hardly ever think about asking that particular question. Why? Not sure: maybe they assume that when you are a teacher, that this automatically also means that you also have printable lesson materials ready. Unfortunately: this is not always the case. Ask! You want to make sure that your lesson is spent teaching you how to become a better player, and not spent writing down your lesson.

6. Did You Take Lessons/Do You Still Take Lessons?
   
   

A self-taught musician probably will not be able to give you the same service and education like someone who earned Degrees in music at a reputable conservatory or college. Even more so, you might want to steer clear of any guitar instructor who has never had lessons himself. I can’t imagine that someone who never studied music under professional guidance would ever decide to become a professional guitar teacher. Surely that person could show you a couple of chords, or a pentatonic scale fingering, but that is not really “teaching”. “Teaching” is not merely “showing information”. There is more to teaching than showing information. In addition: this really only would work with beginning students. If you were an intermediate or advanced level student, you would be screwed with a “teacher” who lacks educational background and never had thorough theory and instrument training. Every pro guitar teacher, no matter his skill or teaching level, remains passionate about continuing to learn.

7. What Makes You Qualified to Teach?

This again is one of these important questions that prospect students never ask. Don’t be afraid to ask those kinds of questions. Remember: you will be paying for the teacher’s services; you have all right to know everything there is to know about his abilities and experience.

Possible answers could include:

·         Music Degrees from household name music colleges

·         Names of famous students who studied with him

·         Testimonials from other students.

·         Many years of experience and a proven successful track record.

·         Etc.…

8. Explain Me Your Teaching Style?

As in previous questions: listen carefully for pauses, hesitations and insecurities in his answer. An experienced, versatile guitar teacher might very well answer something along the lines of: “My teaching style is whatever it needs to be to cater to your level, your musical goals and the areas in your musicianship that need attention. I have a teaching plan that is easily modified to cater to your specific musical goals, needs and interests.” He might possibly explain what a lesson consists off, how he conveys information, how patient he is, if he is fast paced or not (you want a fast paced approach), etc.…

9. What Makes Your Approach Better Than The Approach Of Other Teachers?

This is a loaded, tricky question. On the one hand this question is a great way to evaluate a teacher’s confidence level or his insecurities, on the other hand: a lot can also be learned about his personality in his response. Is he being cocky (and negative) bashing other teachers? Do you really want to study with someone who bashes his competitors? No, you would not!

A guitar instructor, when asked that particular question, might point out that “better” is maybe not the right way of putting it as all instructors have their strengths, but that there probably is a reason he sees 40 something students every week, and that they all are progressing incredibly quickly. Then he could go on to explain why his approach is so strong and successful, the value and organization of his teaching plan, what makes his teaching plan unique and/or so efficient, etc.

Confidence rubs off. You want a teacher who is completely confident in his ability to guide you in becoming a much better guitarist. However: you don’t want a teacher with an ego or with a cocky attitude. This particular question will test both these areas of his personality. If it is difficult for him to come up with an answer, that might be a sign that he is not very successful, not very experienced or to ill-prepared to be considered a professional music teacher.

10. Why Do You Like to Teach?

If your current or prospective teacher struggles to answer this question, get another guitar instructor fast! A great guitar teacher will be passionate about teaching and his love for music will be obvious. If he hesitates in his response when you ask your guitar teacher why he likes to teach, he is probably not teaching for the right reasons. Being a guitar instructor takes a lot of time, dedication, patience and passion. Make sure you have a teacher who cares about your development as a musician!

Listen carefully to your guitar teacher’s answers to these questions. His specific answers will greatly help you with your decision-making whether or not he is the right teacher for you. His responses will also provide you with a crystal clear sense of his lesson approach, teaching style, communication skills, background, confidence level, and preparedness, which will make your future lessons with him all the more successful and enjoyable. 

The 3 Most Important Skills: Ear, Rhythm & Tone.

The 3 most important skills and assets to develop for top-level musicianship are: ear, rhythm and tone. If you have a good ear and you have good rhythm, you can have a lifetime of professional success as a musician. If on the other hand, your ear and your rhythm are not all that good and you have a whiny guitar sound, but you know every scale that exists, and you can play 16^th notes at 280bpm, you will more than likely never achieve the same level of musical success and satisfaction. Think about it: most guitar players spend 99% of their practice time developing their fret board knowledge, scale knowledge, scale fingerings, improvisation skills and techniques, etc., only to find out that in the real world, they spend 99% of their time not using any of this. You’d be lucky enough to have a guitar solo every once in a while. Most of the time you play rhythm as a guitarist.

In addition: if one would allocate some of the time learning scales to developing the ear instead, the ear after a while automatically would start guiding the fingers to the right locations, which makes learning scales all the more efficient and reduces the time to learn new scales significantly.

As such, a great deal of your practice time should be dedicated to developing and improving your rhythm and your ear.

Training Your Ear

More than anything: this should be top priority in every musician’s training. Unfortunately, this is not the most pleasing and enjoyable thing to work on. Ear training surely is not as much fun as learning your favorite song. I am guilty of that too as a private guitar instructor. Being that you want your students to have fun and you want to fire up their passion for music and guitar so they fall in love with music on deeper levels, you hold off on introducing ear-training exercises while they would really benefit from starting those exercises early on in their training.

The better your ability is developed to recognize intervals, chords, scales and rhythms by ear, the easier it is to learn and remember any musical idea, to improvise, to compose and to musically interact with other musicians. Here are some exercises to train your ear.

1.     Ear Training CDs and Online Resources

There are tons of CDs, apps, software and websites available to help you train your ear. Many of those are free resources. Here’s a website with great exercises that I always liked: http://www.musictheory.net/

2.     Identify What’s Playing Around You
The best way to give your ear a workout is to just listen to music playing around you! Put on music and start practicing. See if you can identify what key the song is in (major or minor). Can you guess the tempo of the song? (Which you can double check with a metronome while the song is playing). Can you identify specific tempo changes? While listening to a simple melody on a commercial jingle on TV, see if you can pick out the intervallic distances between the notes in the melody. Try to tell by ear what the chords are. Does the song start on the I chord? Where does the harmony go from there? There’s music all around you and once you tune in to it, exercising your ear will become a natural, daily habit!

3.     Transcribing Music.

Pick a familiar tune and sit down with your guitar. If, for example, you choose “Happy Birthday,” start on a random note and figure out the rest of the melody from there. Once you have mastered “Happy Birthday” in that key, try to figure out the melody again starting from another starting note. Identify what the names of the intervals are that make up the melody. Listen very closely to the sound of each specific interval that makes up that melody. Do this with a couple of familiar songs every day. Also: try to figure out by ear what the chords are that would go with that melody. At a later stage, as you get better at this, start transcribing guitar solos by ear. Progressively keep transcribing more challenging material. There is no better way to become a master musician, than learning from the masters transcribing their music by ear.

Developing Your Tone
Your tone can be simply defined as the sound you produce when playing guitar. This is a result of your guitar, equipment, amplifier, cables, string gauges, and the thickness of your pick. However: your tone and sound are also the result of your personality, your energy, your life experiences, how hard or soft you attack, your timing, your mood, your physical built, etc. Your tone is ultimately your personality and the way you feel at the moment. You can tell a guitar player by the very first note he plays. If for example an insecure guitarist begins to play, the tone will be timid and lack energy. Here are some simple ways to get in touch with your uniqueness as a guitarist and translate it into a better tone.

1. What Do You Want to Make People Feel?
   Getting in tune with what you want to project and how you want to make people feel is an important step in developing your tone. By looking into your individual experiences, you will be able to tap into them and improve your tone. While playing a song, imagine how it relates to you. If it has lyrics, can you relate to them? How can your experiences, thoughts and interests affect what you’re playing? Tap into how you feel while playing guitar and you will transmit it through your playing. The more you loose yourself into the music, and the deeper you feel the music you play, the more genuine and unique your tone is going to be.
   
   
2. Experiment With Your Imagination, Mindset & Emotions.

Try playing the same song or guitar solo transporting your mind into different moods, emotions or imaginary situations. You might for example try playing one song while thinking of something that is provoking anger. Or play the same song after you imagined yourself being a super hectic Wall Street exec that leads a very hectic, stressful life. While feeling this, your tone probably would be more sharp, defined and staccato. Your phrasing, timing and note placement would also be on or ahead of the beat. That too is part of your tone and sound. However, if you play the same song while focusing on a different feeling or experience, such as sadness or loneliness, your tone would be softer, more legato and calmer if you feel those feelings while playing. Your phrases and timing would also be more laid back, and your melodic feel more lyrical.

3. Tune into Your Experiences
   Every musician’s individual tone is developed by everything they have ever experienced, felt and learned in their lifetime. Master musicians lived a lot, learned a lot, know a lot and have acquired tons of life experience. Their art and sound is not only the product of practicing relentlessly, but also the product of their beliefs, travels and their interests in history, art history and painting, architecture, nature, science, religion, politics, economics, psychology, spirituality, etc. The more different avenues you can draw inspiration from, the more rich, full, intricate and personal your sound is going to be.

Improving your Rhythm
Rhythm is what builds a connection between your music and the people around you. If your time feel and placement is shaky, you loose your listeners. Their attention is gone instantly because your inability to create rhythmic flow is distracting from the music. Once you establish the rhythm of a piece, you feel more connected to it. Rhythm is what makes or breaks a band. The better your time feel, the more you will be able to draw people into your music, the more your band name and reputation will be established as a band to be reckoned with. This is what you will be doing most of the time when playing with bands or as a hired gun: “playing rhythm guitar”. It then goes without saying that this is one of the most important skills to have. Here’s a couple of tips:

1. Use a Metronome
   Practicing with a metronome is the simplest and most effective way to improve your rhythm. Great tip: practice everything slowly, then as you get the hang of the rhythm you’re working on, gradually speed the metronome up in small increments of a couple of beats at a time. Using the steady, accurate pulse of the metronome as your guideline, you develop a sense of where to place your phrases in relationship to the beat. The rhythmic perception you develop that way, will give you control of where to place things in time. Being able to identify tempos to songs is another fun skill to have. Using a metronome while you play, you will develop a sense of what 60, 100, 120, 180, etc. BPM sounds and feels like.
   
   
2. Counting While Walking.
   Using your footsteps as a metronome while you walk or run, and counting out rhythms on top of that, is a great technique for internalizing complicated rhythms. Not only do you get great physical exercise, but you are also developing your musicianship in the meantime! Here’s how this works: every step counts as 1 beat, 4 steps is a measure. While you’re walking, you count “1” for a quarter note, “1-2” for 2 eight notes, “1-2-3” for a triplet, “1-2-3-4” for four 16^th notes, “1-2-3-4-5” for quintuplets, and so on. All of these numbers need to be counted/divided evenly in the space of 1 footstep. It is important that you spread the numbers out evenly across the beat. For example: for a triplet make sure you don’t have “one-two-threeeeeeee”, you want three evenly pronounced numbers: “one-two-three”, evenly spread out over the spacing from the moment your foot hits the ground (which is when you say “1”), till right when your other foot hits the ground on the next step (which is when you say “1” again for the start of the next grouping of numbers). This is a fantastic way to practice performing rhythmic groupings, improvising rhythms while you’re walking it. This is especially a very efficient way to practice odd numbered groupings (triplets, quintuplets…), which are challenging to play, but easier to feel when you count them while walking. Go for a walk and start counting.

Conclusion
A musician’s ear, tone and rhythm are the most important skills that must be developed in order to become a master at guitar. When you focus on these aspects of your musical training, you will grow much more quickly in your musical development. Anything else you want to learn about music will come much more easily to you. Moreover: your playing will become more unique and personal. Last but not least: you will have much more fun on your musical journey, as those skills will help you attract much more high level musicians who will want to jam or perform with you. The thing that is really exciting about all of this though: is that you are improving yourself as a human being, because you are developing your senses in a way no other art or skills ever can: your aural perception, your aural abilities, your ability to feel space in time, your ability to predict when a rhythmic event is going to happen in time, your ability to hear distances between sounds, and your ability to sound whichever way you feel like at any time.

Enough reading… time for you to go practice all of this now!

Why Does An Interval & Its Inversion Add up To 9 Instead of 8?

Here’s something you may have wondered at some point in your musical career: If there are only eight diatonic notes in an octave, why is it that when you invert any interval, the starting interval plus its inversion always add up to 9?

Let me illustrate. Here’s an octave, with F as the root:

Eight staff positions are between the two F’s, therefore, the label “Octave” for “Eight.”

As shown in next example, when we omit the last note in the octave, we get a major seventh interval distance between the outer 2 notes; here shown relative to the note F:

Again, it is a seventh, so there are seven positions on the staff between F and its seventh.

Let’s now invert this interval by moving the F up an Octave:

Inverted, the major seventh has become a minor second. The second occupies two staff positions. The thing is, all we have done is move the F up one octave, so shouldn’t the interval plus its inversion be the same as an octave? 

I’m sure you’ve figured it out: The reason that an interval plus its inversion adds up to nine instead of 8 is that one note is counted twice within the octave. In this example, the E is counted twice: once as the note 7 steps higher than F, and once as the note one step lower than F.

F          G          A          B          C          D          E          +          E          F  =  9 notes.

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          +          1          2  =  9 notes.

The Memory Trick

Interestingly, you can use this bit of information to your advantage. You can determine the inversion of any interval simply by hearing its name (intervals are named by numbers. That number is defined by the number of note names/letters involved) and deducting that from 9. Amaze your friends at parties! Win on Jeopardy! ... Perhaps not...but it still can be useful to know what an interval’s inversion is WITHOUT having to see it on the staff. Here’s how:

First, determine the quality of the interval, that is, whether it’s perfect, major, minor, augmented or diminished. To find the quality of the inversion, simply use the opposite quality: minor inverted becomes major, and vice versa, perfect interval inverted becomes another perfect interval.

So if your beginning interval is a minor third, its inversion is going to be a major something. If your beginning interval is an augmented fourth, the inversion will be a diminished something. The exception would be the perfect intervals, because when perfect intervals are inverted, their inversions are also perfect.

Next, determine the number of staff positions of the interval. So, in the minor third example, the number of staff positions would be three. To find the inversion, simply subtract that number from nine. In this case 9-3=6. So, the inversion of a minor third will be a major sixth. The inversion of a perfect fourth is a perfect fifth, and so on.

Practice

Let’s try some difficult ones:

What is the inversion of an augmented sixth interval?

Well, since the interval is augmented, we know that its inversion must be the opposite of augmented, so it must be a diminished something. Since the number of staff positions it occupies is 6, we know to subtract that number from nine to determine the number of staff positions occupied by the inversion, so 9-6=3. Therefore, the inversion of the augmented sixth is the diminished third. Pretty simple, right?

How about this:

What is the inversion of the perfect octave?

Since this interval is perfect, we know that its inversion must also be perfect. We also know that since it is an octave, the number of staff positions it occupies is 8. So, to find the inversion, we will subtract that from 9: 9-8=1. The interval that occupies only one staff position is unison. Therefore, the inversion of the perfect octave is the perfect unison.

I hope you’ve learned why an interval plus its inversion equals nine and not eight, and I hope the simple logical formula helps you to determine the inversion of any interval when you need to remember it quickly. Keep practicing. Have fun. 

How to Play Guitar with Confidence

Confidence is attractive. Confidence also rubs off. It breeds stage presence and charisma. It’s hard to think of a rock star as someone who is timid on stage, playing with his shoulders hunched, looking at the ground. Taking this a step further: you will never do your best work or play your best when you don’t believe in yourself. Becoming a great musician is more than possessing musical talent and practicing hard; it’s about believing in yourself and believing that even if it might take years, that your talent will flourish through your persistence and your actions. Your thoughts and believes also have more impact on your musical development than you think! It thus pays off to think highly of you. Here’s a couple of thoughts and ideas, which applied, will make you more confident, not only as a guitarist or musician, but in all areas of your life.

Think positively

I wonder if you have ever noticed, that you seem to be more tired and in need of more sleep, when things don’t go as you had hoped for at that moment in your life? Have you ever noticed that your energy is not as strong when you have lots on your mind or when you are stressing about things? “Stressing about things”, and having “lots on your mind” all have to do with “thinking negatively”. Nothing drains your energy more than excessive, negative thinking. I have this quote hanging in my teaching office that says: “Why worry, it will probably never happen!” By the same token: nothing elevates one more than positive thinking. While we’re not machines, and we all can fall into negative thinking when awareness falters, we do have significant control and choice over what thoughts we want to perpetuate. Nothing great ever happened through negative mind chatter. If you think you cannot do it, you are completely right, if you think you can, you are right again. Your self-confidence as a result, is affected by how you think. Cultivate thinking positive, happy thoughts, and you will notice a difference in how people in your life approach you, connect with you, and feel about you.

Sell yourself to yourself

Another thing I have hanging on the bulletin board above my desk in my teaching office, is my 30 second commercial selling myself to myself. Tell yourself every day how important you are, what you are capable off, how everybody loves you, why you have so many friends, what your strengths are, and how happy you are to have all these fine assets in your personality. Turn this into a short text that you read a couple of times every day. I can assure you that in no time, you will feel strongly about how great you are. And so you should, because you are.

Practice hard and see your progress

No better way to boost your self-confidence as a guitarist than through this cool feeling of achievement you get when you conquer obstacles in your playing through dedicated practice. It is hard to feel insecure when you know what you are doing. Like Charlie Parker once said: “Learn everything there possibly is to learn about music, then forget it all”. He obviously did not entirely mean that literally. You want to know everything so well, that it becomes so embedded in you that you don’t have to think about it anymore. If you don’t have to think, you can be in the moment. Applied knowledge is power: and that power shows as confidence.

Train Your Ear.

Have you heard it said before, that Jimi Hendrix his guitar was like an extension of his body, like him and his guitar were one? This is just another way of saying how relaxed and confident he was with his guitar. This is a no-brainer really, if the rumors are true that Jimi had perfect pitch. “Perfect Pitch” is the ability to distinguish notes without needing a tonal reference: you hear an A note and you know instantly that that is an A without having to check, and you can right away play the same note you just heard on your guitar. Think of how this helps your confidence: you practically can’t mess up anymore when your ear always guides your fingers to the right locations. You don’t quite need perfect pitch: relative pitch will give you that confidence as well. Practice your ear and you will steadily become more confident as a guitarist.

Posture: Stand Tall And Proud.

Psychologists have figured out that your mood is related to how you physically carry yourself and vice versa. They claim that it is close to impossible to stay depressed, when you go stand in front of your mirror and curl up the corners of your mouth like you’re smiling. That is something you occasionally should do while practicing guitar: stand in front of a mirror. Watching yourself play will help you to be more aware of proper posture. With relaxed arms, a straight back, relaxed shoulders, straight neck, your head and chin up, you will automatically feel more confident because you will see yourself visually look like a confident person. Moreover: you will preserve your physical well-being, avoiding future physical problems that can arise due to bad practice habits, bad technique and bad posture. You are more easily aware of your posture when you see yourself in a mirror, which makes that you then have a better sense of where correction is due. Treating your body with utmost love and respect will enhance your confidence as well, because you then stand for something: you are the person who is aware and who takes care of himself.  

Perform: Be Out There and Overcome Your Limitations.

Performing for any type and size of audience at any occasion is a great way to improve your confidence. Start small if you are worried about stepping too far out of your comfort zone: play mini-concerts at your home for a couple of close friends or a couple of family members. As you get more comfortable doing this: branch out, make flyers and invite more friends over time! When you get more comfortable doing that: get out of your living room, and start performing at the house of a close friend. Keep expanding your horizons till you book your first show at a club where you then invite all your friends. At that point: the key to making a huge break through in your nerves and lack of confidence, is to really hype up the event with flyers and promo. Record your show or even better, video tape it, so you can give yourself constructive criticism after your show when you review the tape. Tape never lies. You will learn tons about your performance from video taping it. All in all, playing publically will help you gain more confidence as you become more comfortable playing in front of other people.

Keep Things Organized.

It makes sense that you can focus more effectively when you are working from a clean, organized space. You get more done, but you also feel better about yourself when you have visitors, and your self-esteem is more healthy knowing that you are someone people love being with. (And everybody prefers being in a clean rather than a dirty space). Making sure everything around you is organized and clean, is a sure way to gain more confidence in your ability to play guitar. After all: you will get more out of your time and play better because you’ll be more focused in a clutter-free, well-organized practice or studio space. More focused practice time improves your performance skills at accelerated pace, and those stronger performance skills enhance your confidence in return.

Conclusion:

Being a confident guitarist isn’t a complicated process. It just takes awareness, positive thinking, time and practice. Through keeping up with regular practice habits, and a few simple exercises and techniques such as practicing in front of a mirror, staging a home concert, and keeping a tidy practice area, you will see your confidence grow steadily.