For beginners and/or those who are stuck I would like to offer some insight into the nature of guitar playing.  Lets do a kind of history of your involvement with music.  

1. You heardit for the first time.  Some people remember when they first heard it or not.  For some people it can be a very important moment in their lives.

2.  You were hit by music for the first time.  Just like the first time you hear music, the act of being hit by the music is also a memorable event for many people.  This is a turning point for many people.  Many people eventually...

3.  Own a guitar.  You got a guitar because you have been hit by music.  You want to make music.  You want to help to be part of that creation.  Music does many things for people.  When you take the step towards creating music it is best to begin to start to understand what draws you to the music.  

I first heard music when I was young.  I remember digging the Beach Boys and Bob Seger when  I was maybe 8 years old.  When I was 9 I started playing drums.  When I was 13-17 I played drums in bands.  When I was 18 I got a guitar because I wanted to be on the other side of the drums and write some songs.  I was drawn to improvisational music and jazz/fusion stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra.  I finished a two year school and decided to head to music school.  I now have an understanding of my own type of ideal sound and I work at it.  I also love helping others to find their musical path.  

 I am talking about all of this stuff because I want every beginner and every musician stuck in that musical rut to realize why they started playing music to begin with.  The point is that there is a specific reason for you to play through the rough times.  That reason is that at some  point you are going to reach that level of pure enjoyment playing music.  Some of you may get to play in other countries and ride buses around the states.  Some of you will be sitting in front of a camp fire with some friends playing some songs.  I have done both.  They are both great.  

 Some facts:

 1.  Learning makes it easier to learn.  Always try to keep learning more music.  Learn new chords, rhythms, and licks.  Never stop with those 3.  Learn it until it becomes a habit.  Then learn something new.  Never stop.  The harder stuff eventually becomes very easy to learn.

 2.  All playing is equally good.  Everybody knows that Steve Vai can rip it up.  He is a great guitar player because he effectively accomplishes his sound.  I think the same exact thought about Jack Johnson.  He effectively captures his sound.  He is a great guitar player.  Sit down and try and learn how to play the song "Posters" by Jack Johnson.  Some good solid playing.  These are two very accomplished guitarists that seem worlds apart.  They both picked a sound and both developed it.  What if Steve Vai had written the music for Curious George and Jack Johnson had played lead with Frank Zappa?

 At the end of the day when you are done with your practice please take the time to get lost in whatever it is you play.  The reason you practice is to help turn practice material into habit.  The reason you take the time to get lost in playing is because this is exactly what brought you to the guitar in the first place.

The lessons become your habits and what you play when you get lost in playing is your habits.  With this point of view you can start to see why it is important for you to understand what draws you to music.  Maybe you want to nail some sick Guthrie Govan lick or you want to create this new incredible sound.  The first step would be to recognize it.  Then 2nd step would be to act on it.  The 3rd would be to realize it.

 Practice.

Have fun.

Get lost in playing.

Have fun.

 

Jeremy Laursen 

 

 

Hello.  Today I want to say a bit about memorization.  Often without realizing it you can easily get in the habit of playing stuff off of the paper or computer screen and not really commit it to memory.  How much do you really know if the stuff has to be right in front of you?  What I can recommend is that you often take the time to flip the paper over or turn off your computer monitor and play the things that you are working on.  Get this stuff in your head.  Start small.  Beginners may want to commit one or two chords to their memory.  The more that you do this, the easier it will become, plus you will learn how you personally work with memorization.  

Hey Guys.  I hope every one is enjoying the new year.  I want to talk about rhythm.

Did you know that a drummer may never have to play a Bb?

Did you know that you are going to have to play rhythms?

Rhythm often gets overlooked by many guitar players.  I always ask my students if they are playing with a drummer.  If they are I congratulate them.  If they are not I ask them if they would be able to play along with a drummer and not get confused.  This often stumps the student. 

I then ask them to mute their strings and start strumming some rhythms.  A guitar player, as well as any other type of musician is a drummer.  Think about some of the great guitar players:

 Satriani, Clapton, Rhoads, Etc...

How good would they sound if their chords and notes were not in rhythm?  No drummer would play with them. 

Give a listen to some solo acoustic Dave Matthews and listen to the rhythms.  If he had no sense of rhythm then his songs would never work.

Listen to Don Lappin play and listen to the rhythms he plays in his notes and his chords.  They are all right on. 

Rhythm is very important, an it is very easy to learn.  Here are a couple of ways that you could practice rhythm away from your instrument: 

1.  Count  measures in your head, or out loud when you are listening to music.  If you drive then this is perfect!  bang on the steering wheel, and count.  Also, be sure that you are driving safely.  What is cool about this is if you are listening to something familiar then you can start to work on getting the rhythms of the accents in the music.  Most of us hear music daily at many places.  Why not take the opportunity to get into the feel of what you are listening to.  You should know that if your favorite song came on that you could play the drums perfectly by banging on your knees, a steering wheel, or anything.  I started this when I was a little kid.  My mom hated it.  Little did she know that I would eventually pick up the drums, then the guitar, and then write about the value of it on a cool website!

 

2.  Write rhythms out.  You can use anything to write on.  You don't need staff paper for it.  Any scraps will do.  Start by writing quarter notes and quarter rests.  Then move onto 8ths and 16ths.  Write them out and just get yourself used to them.

 

Here is how you could practice with your instrument:

 

Mute your strings and get strumming.  Now that there are no notes coming out, and just rhythms, realize that you are in fact a drummer.  This needs to be tight.  Get this together and then start simple.  Get an E Open chord and start strumming.  Be smooth.  Begin to use muting to enhance the "rhythm" of the E chord you are playing.

 

Whether you are playing with a drummer or not, or whether you are playing live or just for yourself, some rhythm is going to give you a greatly enhanced sound.  Rhythm can become 2nd nature very quickly.  Work on it now and in now time you will notice a dramatic difference in your playing.

 

 

     Hey everybody.  I wanted to make a general note to build upon the instruction on the site.  SAMI has so much to offer.  We have core lessons and music by different artists and tons of different techniques.  It is easy to go through all of this stuff but none of it will ever work if you don't use your ear.  The reason that there is so much great music in the world today is because of our ears.  Musicians create music for the ears.  Fans listen to music with the ears.  Through the ears you can touch something in you that makes music so important.