Guitar Practice - Secrets Revealed Here: 4 Uplifting Methods To Relieve Depression By Practicing Guitar
By: Jeremiah La Follette
There are many newspaper and psychology reports that claim the benefits of listening to music in order to relieve depression. Theres just something about music that can soothe the savaged soul.
Another great way two relieve depression is by going beyond listening to music, and learning how to play an instrument. Guitar is just one of those instruments that you can learn how to play very quickly and easily with proper guidance and instruction.
Depending on how much guitar practice is accomplished by the depressed individual, you can quite literally learn all of the basics of beginner guitar within 3 to 6 months of practicing your six string instrument.
At first glance you might think that practicing your guitar is depressing. With the right attitude, and the right practice techniques, guitar practice is a major key to supporting the relief of depression.
Lets take a look at 4 ways that guitar practice can relieve depression.
1. Choose to Practice Guitar: The choice to practice guitar is quite important when you consider that many times the foundational key to life change is determined by choosing to make a right choice. Making the right choice to practice guitar is the first step in the support of relieving depression.
2. Actually Practice: The next step to relieve depression by guitar practice is to actually sit down and practice your guitar. Actually implementing what you have learned on guitar will enable you to know that if you can practice one time, then you can practice again and again. By actually practicing what you have learned on guitar, you will be able to quickly reap the soothing musical benefits that come from playing and practicing music on the guitar.
3. Always look back from where you came from: As you practice your guitar you will look back upon where you came from and be amazed at what you can do on guitar. Compared this to what you are unable to do when you first started. Music therapy aside, recognizing improvement in your own personal abilities is a great way to help support and defeat any depression that you may be dealing with. It is very important to not get frustrated depending how fast or slow you learn on your six string instrument.
4. Frustrating opportunities: Frustration will always occur when learning a new instrument. By choosing to have the right attitude, you can take your frustration as an opportunity to look back where you came from and where you are now. For example, if you have been practicing your guitar for three months, it is important to look back and recognize that 2 months ago you were further behind than where you are now on your instrument. Instead of getting depressed, you can actually rejoice and use your frustration as an opportunity to increase your skills on the guitar. By letting frustration be an opportunity to increase your skills on the guitar, you will be helping yourself by getting rid of depression through guitar practice.
Let’s say you’re a budding music star. Maybe you play the piano. Like most citizens of the world, you probably use the internet. Sure, it’s fantastic for checking e-mails, wasting your time with various video sites, and downloading anything that’s out there.
But what about using the internet in a more specific way? Doctors stay in touch with colleagues. Researchers barely step into libraries anymore. Scientists harness the power of cloud computing. So why should you, talented musician that you are, not get access to the same quality stuff that the rest of them can?
The Rough State of Piano Music
Because sheet music is a small market, and only relevant to a minority of people, its representation online has lagged significantly behind.
It’s out of date. Just as we’re downloading music to our iPods, why should piano transcriptions be so far behind? Shouldn’t there at least be a good voice online for digital sheet music we can trust?
Talk About Arbitrary Standards…
If you thought music copyrighting was arcane, you should see some of the pages pushing sheet music.
Some ask you to have a 100% working printer, because you will only have one tiny moment to print your music after buying. If something messes up, you’re out of luck.
Other sites pushing classical music have crazily inconsistent standards when it comes to their files. Sometimes you’ll receive a PDF, other times a set of GIFs that don’t print well, and sometimes you’ll be left with a proprietary DRM that’s of no use to anyone.
Sites With Forums are The Way to Go
The only reliable way to guarantee the digital sheet music you’re ponying up for is proper is with the reviews of other musicians. If other players are using the company’s files, and insisting they are OK, you can spend with confidence.
One of the most trustworthy sheet music vendors, http://www.PianoStreet.com, has also created a huge set of message boards around its music. In reality, the site was born out of an earlier forum, called http://www.pianoforum.net, so the sale of digital piano music was something that they got into normally, instead of a money-making venture from the beginning.
Audio Samples Are Crucial, Too
What good is piano transcriptions if you can’t hear what they should sound like? Sure, your piano teacher may have the chops to play it for you, but if you’re teaching yourself, you’ll need to seek out a true recording to hear how it should sound.
A real digital sheet music company should have extensive mp3 samples of everything they sell, adding loads of value to the sheet music itself. Companies like http://www.PianoStreet.com have loads of their most typical easy/intermediate transcriptions online as mp3s, the same ones that any new pianist is happy to learn.
Subscription Models are The Future
While content producers are resistant, many have come to the realization that the way of the future lies in subscription models, where you will pay a flat rate and get everything you want.
Portals like http://www.PianoStreet.com have taken on this for their business approach, handing out monthly memberships that permit musicians unlimited access to high-quality sheet music.
The People Doing it Right
And so it isn’t just a mess online. A tiny but influential group of sites, led by http://www.PianoStreet.com’s examples, are modifying the way sheet music is being sold online. Don’t worry about the rest and patronize the best!
Are you becoming weary and unfulfilled of just envisaging the drums rather than really feeling playing the thumping beats? If your answers to these queries are yes, then its high time to go to the next level and sign for drum lessons. Air drumming is fine, but in order to sincerely fulfill your ambitions of becoming a drummer, then drum lessons are for you.
In reality, drumming is easy. Many of people are commonly intimidated by the complicated beats the drum and drummer produce. But in reality, these beats are just variants of simple patterns. Right! Anyone can learn the drums. All it needs is successive studying and mastery of these simple beats and patterns.
Before anything else, take the initial step first. One of the most basic lessons in drums and music is sheet reading. Yes, drums create notes too and you will have to know how to read the sheet music to yield the right sound. There are different symbols which will be familiarized as time goes by, but sheet reading is the basis which will help you to play the drums.
As the drummer, your sole responsibility is the beat. The primary focus of a beginner drum student should be how the beats should be counted and how the subdivisions associate to each other. A clean 4/4 time is usually taught. Make sure to count out loud while tapping as this is important in learning new beats and more complicated subdivisions in the future.
Learning to play with a single beat may be tiring and repetitive to some however, becoming expert on these two skills is important. As you progress, you can learn new beats, more compound moves and other drum techniques.
With the drums, mastery of the two above noted skills is the fundamental key to becoming an excellent drummer. Some students find it slow and try to push lessons. Hastening will only restrain your development and it would be better to master the basic principles before venturing further. Once you learn that you are ready for more, there are intermediate and innovative lessons for more veteran drummers out there.
Recently, I read an article written by someone called the Guitar Tab Guru about using a form of TAB that uses letters rather than numbers. He said it was a variation of Lute Tabs, where letters represented the fret positions rather than numbers. (He explained it as a=1, b=2, c=3, etc.) His method, however, used letter names to coincide with the proper note positions on the fret board, such as an F being where an F is located (ex. First fret, first string) and a G being where a G is (ex. Third fret, third string). He then divided the fret board into three separate sections to learn, so that once memorized, the guitarist would be able to locate all of the natural notes on their fret board. Once you can locate the natural notes, the sharps and flats are easily found by raising or lowering the note by a fret accordingly.
I found this article to be particularly helpful in that naming the notes on the fret board has always been a challenge for me. Its not often that a guitarist is quizzed on note locations, but on rare occasion I have needed to find specific notes that I simply couldnt locate easily. I could find the notes given enough time to figure it out, but every time wished I could do it automatically, without hesitation. This was particularly embarrassing when I first started teaching guitar lessons, and I had students who could name notes better than I could! I have gotten better, but have always seemed to struggle with this facet of my playing and teaching.
The Guitar Tab Guru article was actually quite helpful to me, helping me learn the troublesome spots higher up the neck. I actually recognized the patterns that he used as modal scales, something that I am quite familiar with. This made learning this technique much, much easier, and I would recommend reviewing your modes first to help you along the way.
The first position uses the Phrygian mode, and uses open strings for the lowest notes. The second position is at the fifth fret and is the Aeolian mode, and the third is at the tenth fret and uses the Dorian mode. For anyone not familiar with these modes, please research them and learn them, as they are very helpful in learning the notes on your fret board this way. This may seem like a lot of work, but it really is relatively easy. I know that www.guitartabguru.com has a lot of other articles about everything guitar, so maybe you could even find one on there.
Once you can identify the notes on your fret board, you will find that you can create more interesting music, as you can quickly come up with the proper notes for any song you are playing, changing positions all up the fret board. I hope you find this information infinitely useful! To check out the article yourself go to http://www.guitartabguru.com/Exclusive-Guitar-Tab-Guru-Article.html .
I have been, to paraphrase Brian Epstein, ’shouting Martin’s name from the rooftops’ for several years in an effort to bring his songs to the public attention.
It is immediately obvious from the first bars of ‘Be That Man’, the opening song from Martin’s first solo album, ‘Where Have I Been All Your Life?’, that here is a talent that has just waiting to burst forth. It fairly bristles with enthusiam and rushes the listener along at a brisk rate, through a tale of everyday longing and wishes unfulfilled. Further songs on this and his subsequent albums only confirm Martin’s gift as a composer. From the mighty ‘My Clown Career’, with it’s dark, ‘Kashmir’ - like power and sense of foreboding, to the tongue-in-cheek jangle of ‘Hemel Hempstead Boy’, it is clear that here is a songwriter of great ability. My first exposure to Martin’s songs left me exhilarated and wanting to hear more.
Martin Brown, UK songwriter and singer / musician, has released three solo albums on independant labels during the last three years. On each of these albums, Martin plays all instruments and handles all vocal duties. Those who have heard Martin’s songs have been full of praise for them and have expressed astonishment that he has not yet made a bigger impression on the listening public. Jeff Giles, in a review of Martin’s first two solo albums that appeared in the site ‘Popdose’, highly praised Martin’s abilities as a songwriter and musician and said that, in his opinion, Martin was writing songs that were the equal of anything Neil Finn (Crowded House) and Andy Partridge (XTC) had produced.
The aforementioned albums,’Where Have I Been All Your Life?’ and ‘Butterflies’, released in 2006 and 2007 respectively were followed in 2008 by a third album, ‘Diamonds’. Jeff also reviewed this album, citing it as ‘possibly Martin’s most complete and satisfying collection of songs so far’.
A brief history of Martin’s career:-
Martin, the only child of musician parents, was born and raised in Hemel Hempstead near London and showed early promise as a guitarist and began his professional musical life during his teens. He spent several years during the early 70’s, touring with ‘The Stroll Band’ in Germany and Holland, later joining ‘Born Free’ back in the UK. Following this, Martin joined forces with drummer Keith Chapman, forming the band ‘Spoils’, who supported Paul Young and were a very popular band on the club and university circuit and later, Keith and Martin formed ‘The Sugar Glyders’ along with bassist Paul Thomson. The Sugar Glyders were signed to the ‘Lost Moment Records’ label, releasing their first single, ‘Revenge’ in 1984 one of Martin’s tunes and a record that is now considered a collectable classic. The band also contributed further tracks to a Lost Moment Records sampler album, ‘Colours of The Bastard Art’.
Martin continued to record with Keith Chapman, overdubbing instruments and vocals and this led to his current working methods. In addition, Martin co-wrote ‘Never Going to Take No For An Answer’, with Ed Poole, a song later covered by Bonnie Tyler. He also wrote and recorded material with Russ Ballard, million-selling songwriter.
In 2008, he released his ode to the town, ‘Hemel Hempstead Boy’, included on his second album ‘Butterflies’. This led to interviews on BBC radio as well as live sessions. Martin also won the BBC 3 Counties’ ‘Independant Musician’ competition, leading to further radio work.
Martin is an ace guitarist, thankfully he shows admirable taste, purely using his guitar work as an embellishment to his songs rather than somothering them in solos! The songs vary from Beatles / Crowded House acoustic songs, to far rockier edgy-sounding material. In more recent work, Martin has even tried his hand at some dance-oriented material. All of this is all the more bewildering when it is appreciated that he plays everything that is heard on all of his songs!
Martin is currently recording material for his fourth album, which I am looking forward to with great anticipation.
In the meantime, it is possible to download a free track ‘Shine’ from Martin’s most recent album from his web site:
http://www.martinbrownmusic.com.
Bill Jerone is a UK-based writer and lifelong Beatle Fan. Bill is also a massive fan of Martin Brown, a fellow Brit and songwriter / singer/ musician. Bill has championed Martin’s cause for several years and hopes to alert the public to this great talent.
Please download a free track ‘Shine’ from Martin’s most recent album from his web site:- http://www.martinbrownmusic.com
Martin’s songs can be heard here:- http://www.myspace.com/bingobrown and his albums are available for purchase here:- http://cdbaby.com/all/bingobrown
FOLLOW THE TRIP - 14 Parts www.vbs.tv Getting into North Korea was one of the hardest and weirdest processes VBS has ever dealt with. After we went back and forth with their representatives for months, they finally said they were going to allow 16 journalists into the country to cover the Arirang Mass Games in Pyongyang. Then, ten days before we were supposed to go, they said, “No, nobody can come.” Then they said, “OK, OK, you can come. But only as tourists.” We had no idea what that was …
July 2007 How do North Koreans feel about their country’s nuclear ambitions and their place in the world? This rare report from inside Pyongyang provides a rare insight into the mindset of North Koreans. Is Pyongyang really prepared to demolish its Yongbyun nuclear facility? At the demilitarized zone in North Korea, a military officer explain why his country needs nuclear weapons. Produced by ABC Australia Distributed by Journeyman Pictures
North Korea’s communist regime is warning of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new UN sanctions. (June 14))
On February 3, as North Korea planned to test launch a missile with a 4000 mile range barely capable of hitting Alaska, the Fox News story I saw covering the event was more an exaggeration of the current threat posed by North Korea than an accurate piece of journalism as I show in this video. You can see the full Fox News story (in which Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer interviews neocon, missile defense advocate and never-confirmed GW Bush Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton) from which I took the …
