How to Hold a Guitar and Pick

Once you have selected your guitar of choice and are ready to start playing, you need to know a few things about posture. Just like most things in life it is better to have good posture and to not slouch. For one reason, ergonomics can take a heavy toll on your body parts if you do not practice them correctly, even from guitar playing. And another reason is to prevent yourself form learning bad habits from your bad posture. Bad posture or leaning over too much can cause note drag from too much weight on your fingers and wrist on the guitar neck which prevents you from playing a clean sound. Also, your back will start to hurt a lot if you have bad posture while playing. The best way to start to play is to grab yourself a stool or some sort of armless chair (arms on chairs can affect the way you hold a guitar and make it uncomfortable for you to play). Once you have that ready to go, you can sit down and place the body of your guitar against your body and rest it on your dominate hand’s side leg. Place your dominate hand (your strum hand) over the top of the body so it rests there and take the neck of the guitar with your opposite hand. Now you are ready to grab your pick with your dominate hand by using your index finger and thumb. Now stretch your remaining fingers out so that it looks like you are making the OK sign.

why be in a band (better not be for money and fame)

Why is there such an obsession over being in a band? I have never quite understood it. I was always flabbergasted when really hot girls go gaga over some of the ugliest guys I have ever seen…all because they were in a band (they don’t even have to be big time yet!). As frustrating is that is, it is not the most frustrating aspect of bands. For me, the perks of girls liking you for no reason at all except that you can play an instrument and the whole “cool” aspect can not and will never counteract the monetary situation that most bands face…you make no money. Literally, most bands lose money and have to work menial jobs to fund their passion for music. Even decently well known bands only make $20 – 35 K a year. The best example I can think of is the Format. They produced multiple albums, toured across the US, had their songs played on TV shows like Laguna Beach, and still they only make an elementary school teacher’s salary. I don’t know if People just don’t understand that fame and glory don’t come easy or if they just simply love their music enough to suffer the opportunity costs (such as having a lucrative career) that they do. Really, the only way bands ever make a lot of money is if they can manage to produce a handful of big hits that can make them royalties for the rest of their lives, land a contract with a large network like the Disney Channel and make royalties off of merchandise, or start a recording studio to make money off of tons of hopeless garage bands.

Whistle While You Work

I have some issues when it comes to keeping my place clean. It’s never dirty…meaning the bathroom is always presentable to company, the trash cans are emptied on a regular basis and food is never left out. However, it does get quite messy. I have a bad habit of leaving clothes lying about my room, dishes pile up in the sink, the dishwasher is never emptied, my school books and papers lie about the dinner table mixing about with the past few days’ mail, etc. So, by that rationale, my house can be considered cluttered and even messy. I absolutely hate to take time out of my day to clean…it’s too much extra work to be done; especially after work and school. However, I have found that the best remedy to this problem of mine lies within music. For whatever reason, I love doing chores around the house so long as there is good music being blasted. I discovered this when I was a kid still living at my parents house. My younger brother and I would actually look forward to the times where my parents would be out running errands on the weekends and we were left to do chores at the house. We would play CD’s over our TV surround sound system and be able to pound out or chores in half the time it normally took us. I suppose this follows a type of “whistle while you work” theory in which some sort of distraction allows us to carry about what we are doing much more effectively then if it was not there at all.

Music Links

I was looking around the web for some good new music sites and I found a bunch! I thought I would share for this week's blog entry. I know I haven't posted in awhile and I will get to some very soon! But first some other sites worth reading:

Axebay- a good site for guitarists looking for a forum and articles.

Pure Volume- A great place to listen to new and emerging artists and rock bands.

Rock N Roll Blog- A great blog about rock n roll.

Old School Music- Good old school music website.

70s Rock- A great blog about 70s rock which was one of the best decades for music ever. Rock on!

My Life with Guitar- A great blog about guitars and all things guitar related.

Gear Secure- Keep track of your gear here.

Guest Blog By My Girlfriend

I've been busy and haven't been able to write so here is my girlfriend's blog post:

I was a very good singer in my school. But once I finished my high school, I couldn’t manage to get into any band easily as most of them were into heavy rock music or something similar. This didn’t give me a chance to get into any of the bands which I knew in my area. I did keep on checking numerous bands in other localities too. But most bands didn’t require a female vocalist and those who did already had one in their band. I felt very disappointed when my efforts didn’t get me any positive results.

My friends advised me to try something else. I did take up a part-time job at a music store but I still had a faint desire to be a lead vocalist. Then a middle-aged man dropped in at our shop to buy some CD’s. He was discussing with his assistant about the problem faced by his band as their female vocalist had moved off to another city. He was the manager of the band. I asked him to give me a minute and told him about my singing skills. He seemed skeptical at my attempts but called me the next day to the hotel where the band was practicing. When I sang some songs which were requested by them, everything fell into place. I was accepted with open arms by the other members. I finally fulfilled my dream. It pays to be patient in the music field.

UB 40

Very rarely do most bands last for more than a couple of years nowadays. UB40 was one of those rare bands which have managed to survive successfully right from the time it was started in 1978. It is considered to be one of the most powerful reggae acts in the history of music. They first managed to get popularity in UK, it was then followed by the same in the US in 1983 after their album Labour of love was released and appreciated over there.

Even now, it still exists as a band, only their lead singer Ali Campbell has left the band as he had some management issues with the band. Ali Campbell has been an integral part of UB40 and has created many hits down the years with UB40. He left the band in February 2008. Another member followed him out of the band – that was the band’s keyboard player Michael Virtue. The two new members of UB40 are Duncan Campbell (vocalist) and Tony Mullings (keyboard). Duncan is the brother of Ali Campbell. The band’s latest album - Twentyfourseven, is the final work of Ali’s collaboration with UB40.

Reggae

Reggae is an interesting genre of music which has originated from Jamaica. It now enjoys popularity all over the world. Some of the sub genres of Reggae include Dub, Dancehall and Roots Reggae. Ragga is a sub genre of Dancehall. Roots reggae is a form of reggae which is used to mostly praise God. On the other hand, Dub makes regular use of recorded material which is then remixed to create a Dub form of music.

Although Reggae is considered to be a simple genre of music, nonetheless it gives a nice soothing, rhythmic effect to all its listeners. This is one of the main reasons for its popularity. The early Reggae songs used to concentrate on various themes like sex, society and other important issues.

One of the artists who gained a large amount of popularity in the early days was Bob Marley. His band was called – the Wailers. The Wailers which included Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh were the other early pioneers of the early Reggae form. UB40 is today considered to be the topmost band, which plays popular Reggae songs. Thus Reggae in any form can be a refreshing source of music, which needs to be appreciated by every true music lover.