Playing Scales - How To Play Scales On Guitar

Playing scales is a part of all music education and learning how to play scales on guitar can turn you from an amateur guitar player to a guitarist who can improvise on any tune. The trouble with scales is that learning to play them takes daily practice. You go up and down the scale countless times, each time the scale seems to be a little longer and more tedious than the last.

Of course, learning how to play scales on guitar need not always be a chore but after some weeks of daily practice you reach a certain level of skill at playing scales and you find that you just don't know how to progress further.

Playing scales not only gives a guitar player the potential path to improvisation skills, this kind of practice is very important for turning your fingers into a guitar player's fingers and giving your brain a knowledge of the guitar fretboard. Once you start on learning to play scales on the guitar you begin to realize that any note can have a different sound and feeling in many different positions on the guitar neck.

These differences in the way the notes sound all over the guitar give you the key to experimenting with scale patterns and turning them into riffs and solos. If you make up a riff or an attractive combination of notes you can try it out up and down the fretboard. Your own enjoyment in moving simple scale patterns around the guitar will be your inspiration to learn more about how the various scales sound and how you can use them for improvisation.

Your education in how to play scales on guitar can be divided into two sections: learning the scales from a web page or a guitar tutor and listening to, and learning to play, the solos of your favorite guitar players. It should only be a little while before the two sections combine. You will see how other guitarists are playing scales and how time and again they make use of the same sequences of notes in a combination of positions on the fretboard to produce a seemingly endless repertoire of guitar solos.

You begin your exploration of scales and the guitar by learning three notes per string scale patterns or five notes per string patterns. There is a slight difference in the way these patterns are played because the three note patterns need you to move your hand position a little more than the five note per string patterns.

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Recording: Acoustic Guitar & Mic Technique

Recording acoustic guitar tracks well is one of the most difficult tasks that anyone in music can do. Experimentation is key to achieving perfect results, however there are a few basic, engineer-tested microphone placement techniques and tips that will help you produce high-quality acoustic guitar tracks.

Close-miking Technique Close-miking is a technique in which a microphone is placed very close to an instrument or sound source - usually inches to 1 foot away. Musicians and engineers use this technique because of the focused sound close-miking provides. Recording instruments using this technique also minimizes bleed from other instruments and musicians in the room, as well as unwanted noise. This technique is commonly used by those recording at home in untreated rooms, or in situations where the room sound is unwanted or detrimental to the recording. Close-miking is generally done with dynamic microphones, as they have a very focused polar pattern and can usually take high volume levels. A commonly used close-miking technique is to place a dynamic microphone approximately 8 inches in front of the 12th fret on an acoustic guitar. Microphones like large diaphragm condensers and ribbon microphones are sometimes used in this way on quieter sources or song passages.

Distant-miking Technique Distant-miking is a technique in which a microphone is placed further away from a sound source -- often between 5 feet and any greater distance. This technique is used in situations where a combination of the sound of the room's tone and the instrument are desired, usually in recording studios with acoustically tuned rooms. Distant-miking techniques generally cannot be employed in situations where bleed is an issue, and are usually only used when an instrument is recorded overdubbed or recorded in isolation. Microphones like large diaphragm condensers and ribbon microphones with figure-eight patterns are commonly used with this technique, as they tend to pick up the most detail and natural sound.

Combination Miking Technique Combining close-miking and distant-miking techniques often yields the best result possible if done correctly. Many engineers use a dynamic microphone close to the neck or sound hole of the guitar, while placing another microphone, usually a large diaphragm condenser or a ribbon microphone, further away to capture room sound and reverberation. Using this combination technique will allow you to capture all of the details and full sound created by the guitarist and instrument -- from slight hand movements with a close microphone, to a full, warm sound with the distant microphone. Using two microphones enables you to use more of the distant microphone or the close microphone later during mixing. When using this technique, make sure to space the microphones at least three feet from each other to avoid phase problems that can result in weak signals and poor sound.

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Setting A Guitar Practice Schedule Is Important

Would you like to learn to play the guitar? If so, what would you like to achieve? Would you just like the basic skills necessary to play simple songs for your friends or would you like to become a musician and put on your own concert? What genre of music will you perform? Before attempting to practice the guitar you must know what your goals are and have an end result in mind.

As you practice on guitar you must remember that developing good guitar playing skills does not happen overnight. One very common trap beginners tend to fall into is quitting too soon. This is simply because they haven’t yet learned to play the way they’d like to. Any successful guitar player knows that one must be aware of what he/she wants to achieve, establish a guitar practice routine, and stick with it. Depending on how skilled you wish to become, you may be spending the rest of your life practicing guitar as you progress from one skill level to another.

Once you have realistic goals in mind, I recommend that you set some time aside each day to practice guitar. For those who are working adults or full-time students, about 45 to 60 minutes a day is perfect. Attempting to practice 8 hours a day is an unrealistic commitment. So just make a reasonable guitar practice schedule and stay with it.

Never spend extra-long sessions practicing because you’ve neglected to practice for several consecutive days. Consistent practicing is necessary for the body and the human mind to learn and take in new information on a daily basis. Say for example, if you were a professional athlete, would you workout for 16 hours one day because you missed the previous 4 days? Absolutely not! The same principle applies when you’re practicing to play the guitar. The best guitar practice happens when you spend 20 minutes a day or more learning how to play.

Now I would like to tell how I created my own guitar practice schedule while pursuing my degree in engineering. When I first became devoted to playing guitar I was also studying full time and realized that I couldn’t spend 3 to 4 hours a day, as I would have liked to, playing the guitar. Considering my study requirements I was only able to set 1 hour per day practicing in the following manner:

Simple Practice Plan

1st part: Warm ups ~ 10 minutes 2nd part: Theoretical stuff ~ e.g Practicing scales, chords ~15minutes 3rd part: Ear training ~ 10 mins 4th part: Guitar Techniques ~ e.g alternate picking, tapping etc ~15mins 5th part: Learning songs ~ 15mins (This is the part I enjoy most ? ) 6th part: Improvisation ~ 10mins

There were some days, especially during exams, where I couldn’t set aside one hour to practice. Still I would commit to 10-15 minutes of practice just to warm up my fingers and keep them in shape.

Also remember that your guitar practice schedule is not written in stone. Feel free to take additional time to practice any day you can. When learning guitar, everyone has their own unique learning capacity and personal needs. You will benefit by putting extra time in where you feel it’s needed. Also note, there is a difference in playing and practicing. Playing is simply using skills you already have while practicing is spending time to work on skills you need to improve. While practicing, you should devote part of your time learning new techniques and the rest of it practicing old material. This will make sessions more fun and beneficial.

As you move onto new material and more advanced techniques you may become frustrated. This will be because you’ll find some of them too difficult at first. Anytime this happens, simply take a break and walk away from the guitar for awhile. Never force yourself to learn while you’re uptight. This will only slow down your progress and kill you motivation in a short time.

Also, remember the expression: “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.”

Marketing Your Indie music

All artists look for exposure and opportunities throughout their career and wish to build a strong fan following. That said, getting your music heard is not a walk in the park, unless you are backed by some reliable marketing company. Musicians associated with big music conglomerates can get into high-budget marketing. While, musicians like indie artistes tend to stay away from hard independent music marketing strategies.

Can independent musicians get masses grooving to their tracks without relying on a marketing company? Well, the answer is yes. In this era of broadband connections, independent musicians can make use of simple, yet effective marketing strategies to garner attention in the already crowded music market.

Tupelo Super Store is a great online platform for independent music marketing. They have an assortment of marketing packages for indie music promotion. Premium features like Digital Distribution service puts Tupelo Super Store in the list of best independent music distributors. The Digital Distribution package boosts up independent music sales by getting your compositions featured on ten major music stores including iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, and eMusic. You can even make use of free promotional tools such as Profile Page, Street Teams, Tunepak, Exclusive content, FanReach Email, and Buzz Tracker for your indie music promotion.

Viral marketing is also a powerful, low-budget technique for independent music marketing. Viral web marketing is a part of Tupelo Super Store’s independent music marketing services. It can play a phenomenal role in boosting up your presence on social networking sites and help you spread your music virtually anywhere. Widgets are popularly used for Viral web marketing. You can use them to share your music on spots like Orkut, Blogger, LiveJournal, BlackPlanet, MyYearbook, TypePad, Xanga, iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes, and more.

With literally limitless ways for independent music marketing available, it wouldn’t be difficult for independent musicians to develop their dream fan following. They can just sign up with Tupelo Super Store, and get ready to rake in fame as well as fortune.

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Jim Duff and the Necessities
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Jim Duff and the Necessities

Saturday, Sept. 12

Main Street Stanford KY

4:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Jim Duff & The Necessities

Click on the link below for more info
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Commercialization of Music

The commercialization of music has been changing since the days of the records of the 60’s to today’s digital era, the way commercial music has been sold has seen a spectacular change of guard.

Record labels, distributors, and music retailers have all understood the changing mindset of the population and have adapted to the ever changing needs. The impact of digital technology in all sectors of the music world has been immense and the commercialization of music is evolving rapidly even now.

The commercial music industry in the highest order consists of professional bands and singers contracted to record labels, which are the organizations that finance the recording in return to the rights of the recording, however the rights may be fully owned or partial. These companies manage the issues of brands and trademark which sometimes come under their own umbrella of labels. The big wigs of the label industry generally have a host of sub-labels that release music as well.

This is where independent musicians are different as they are not associated with any major record labels and indie musicians have their own way of going about their music business.

Coming back to the commercialization of music, the record labels work along with record distributors to promote and distribute their records in markets across the globe. When music is sold in the form of CD’s in stores or on websites, the performers retain a specific share of the money called royalties for certain period before the tracks are added to the library. Certain albums are labeled as classics and the band members continue to earn royalty even decades after the albums are released.

Lyrics of any album is released by a music publisher in print form to garner extra revenue. The media houses offering plump and lucrative advertisement campaigns to top music artists have become common these days. However, artists these days rely on live performances and merchandise selling to generate revenue. All this is different in the case of independent music.

The independent music industry has come of age in the recent past mainly due to the internet and digital distribution, thanks to initiatives such as Reverb Nation and the Tupelo Super Store who allow indie musicians to post their music and make it available to audiences worldwide and also provide intuitive marketing solutions to promote independent music.

The fact that, independent music holds a special place in the music business today is because of the passion and quality of music on offer from indie musicians and music is given higher preference over monetary returns. At the end of the day, how much ever the commercialization of music evolves, it is quality music that drives the audience than any other thing.

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Profile Playlist by Jim Duff

Profile Playlist by Jim Duff

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Stay independent

Independent music is generally termed as “Indie” music. Indie musicians are artists who are not associated with big commercial record labels. They don’t wait for the right break from a popular music corporation to kick start their music career. Their do-it-yourself approach sets them apart from the rest of the crowd. This kind of approach is devoid of hard and fast marketing rules and profit earning issues. What really keeps indie musicians going is their burning desire to create music, and more music, and to share it with the world. Needless to say, passion driven self-motivation is the trademark of a true independent musician.

Being an independent musician has its own ups and downs, but you get to be your own boss and perhaps, this is makes it such an attractive proposition. As an indie musician, you can make your own records and publish your own songs, and the whole process is fairly straightforward. Independent music labels and independent bands are no longer waiting for the demand; they are well recognized in the music industry today. Unlike a mainstream artist, they enjoy more artistic freedom and are not bound by any kind of label contracts.

Internet is a popular and cost-effective medium for distribution of new indie music. Its ability to reach a wide number of audiences at a lower cost justifies its popularity. For instance, Reverb Nation is a platform where indie musicians can showcase their talents. Reverb Nation has a great collection of independent music.

With no high-budget marketing tactics involved, independent music is not only cost saving, but also an easy method to build the kind of music career you desire. Tupelo Super Store provides unique marketing solutions to help talented artists carve a niche for themselves in the bustling music market. You can also liven up your mood by listening to independent music videos in different genres at Reverb Nation. So hurry, sign up with them and get your music heard.

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