Jimmy Page

I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.

Bruce Springsteen

When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.

Richard Thompson

To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.

Paul Weller

Everyone gets frustrated and aggressive, and I'd sooner take my aggression out on a guitar than on a person.

Kurt Cobain

I own a '66 Jaguar. That's the guitar I polish, and baby - I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Know The Guitar Accessories

Guitar Accessories

Have you ever wondered the guitar which you carry each and every day to your class, school or college just putting it into the covers, how many other things which are associated with your beloved instrument. Might be you are not using them at all, but still when you gain knowledge about your instrument and get more skilled gradually you come across all this stuff. At that stage you would really feel the world is full of many surprises and you are aware a little about it. Nothing matters, it is just a question of the level of curiosity you have in your brain. More curious you are, more you would try to learn something new everyday. So lets grab a little knowledge about other interesting gadgets of guitar.

Guitar Strap

This is the strap or belt that is used to hold the guitar when it is being played in standing position. A player uses high thigh when it is played while sitting. Straps may be available in vibrant color combinations and vivid graphics imprint on it. Or you may also get the straps having a single color.

Guitar String Winder

Guitar string winder is used for tuning and winding a loose string on a guitar. Typically the tuning pegs (tuning machines) are harder to turn due to its size and string tension. The winder makes tuning the guitar easier on the hands. This is especially useful when changing guitar strings. The winder is used by putting the winder into the tuning pegs (tuning machine) of the guitar and turn either clockwise or counterclockwise. The winder can be used for all guitars: electric, acoustic and classical. The color of the winder may vary from the picture shown.


Capo 

A capo tasto (from Italian capo, "head" and tasto, "tie or fret"), or simply capo, is a device used for shortening the strings, and hence raising the pitch, of a stringed instrument such as a guitar, mandolin or banjo. Although usage of the capo likely began earlier in the 17th-century. There are several different styles of capo available, utilizing a range of mechanisms, but most use a rubber-covered bar to hold down the strings, fastened with a strip of elastic or nylon, a cam-operated metal clamp, or another device 


Music Stand

A music stand is a device that holds sheet music in a position that allows the performer to read it while performing. There are various types of music stands. There are ornate wooden ones that tend to be pricey; there are digital ones with automated page turning, and the most popular ones, the metal ones that can be folded for ease of transportation. There are also small ones that can be attached to the instrument itself, as in marching bands. Thomas Jefferson, former president of the United States, invented a revolving music stand that he never patented because he liked for people to freely use his inventions. 


Electronic Guitar Tuner

An electronic tuner is a device used by musicians to detect and display the pitch of notes played on musical instruments. The simplest tuners use LED lights or a needle to indicate approximately whether the pitch of the note played is lower, higher, or approximately equal to the desired pitch. More complex and expensive tuners indicate more precisely the difference between offered note and desired pitch. Tuners vary in size from units that can fit in a pocket to tabletop models or 19" rack-mount units. Instrument technicians, piano tuners and luthiers use the more complex and expensive units. 

The simplest tuners only detect and display the tuning for a single pitch (often "A" or "E") or for a small number of pitches, such as the six pitches used in the standard tuning of a guitar (E, A, D, G, B, E). More complex tuners offer chromatic tuning, which allows all the 12 notes of the scale to be tuned. Some electronic tuners offer additional features, such as adjustable pitch calibration, different tempered scale options, the sounding of a desired pitch through an amplifier and speaker, and adjustable "read-time" settings which affect how long the tuner takes to measure the pitch of the note. 

Amplifiers 

Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is any device that changes, usually increases, the amplitude of a signal. The relationship of the input to the output of an amplifier—usually expressed as a function of the input frequency—is called the transfer function of the amplifier, and the magnitude of the transfer function is termed the gain. In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually voltage or current. In audio applications, amplifiers operate loudspeakers used in PA systems to make the human voice louder or play recorded music. Amplifiers may be classified according to the input (source) they are designed to amplify (such as a guitar amplifier, to perform with an electric guitar), the device they are intended to drive (such as a headphone amplifier), the frequency range of the signals (Audio, IF, RF, and VHF amplifiers, for example), whether they invert the signal (inverting amplifiers and non-inverting amplifiers), or the type of device used in the amplification (valve or tube amplifiers, FET amplifiers, etc.). 

Guitar Stand 

A typical guitar stand is used to hold the guitar usually when you are not playing it or just want to have a rest. There are variety of guitar stands which are available either made up of steel or wood. You can also use the guitar stand to decorate your set-up in a live show and keep your guitar intact on the stage before starting the show. If you have more than one guitar then you can opt for a guitar stand that can hold multiple guitars at one go. Or even you can build your own to fit your style and space available. 



Audio Connectors 

Audio connectors and video connectors are electrical connectors for carrying an audio signal or video signal, either in an analog or digital format. Analog A/V connectors often use shielded cable to inhibit RF interference and noise.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Music Theory: Understand The Guitar Fretboard

What is Fretboard?

For a novice guitar player it may be a matter of interest to know about the notes found on the fretboard. Fretboard is the important component of the guitar neck which comprises of frets and inlays (position marker). Each fret on each string constitutes a note. It is important to know which note comes where on the guitar neck using the standard tuning.

To figure out the neck diagram yourself; you just need to know just two things. First the standard tuning of the guitar and second the sequence of notes i.e. Chromatic Scale of any note.

Standard Tuning of Guitar

Every stringed instrument has to be tuned first before it is played. The term Tuning refers adjusting its strings either by tightening or loosing to an extent that it must sound the exact note required. For example; the sound which should be produced by the open strings of guitar should be 6E - 5A - 4D - 3G - 2B - 1E. It is quite easy to remember the Standard Tuning of Guitar. There is another easy approach to remember the tuning by just memorizing the phrase Eddy Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddy and its all done.

Now, how we can derive the next series of notes resting throughout the entire neck of the guitar. Before that once again revise the chromatic scale starting with note C. Here it comes:

C - C# - D - Eb - E - F - F# - G - Ab - A - Bb - B

Let's start the exercise with the 6th string. The 6th string open sounds E, as per the standard tuning. Press the 1st fret on 6th string; it would sound F as the next note after E is F. Press 2nd fret it would be F# and then G on next fret and so on. Hence the notes coming on 6th string would be E - F - F# - G - Ab - A - Bb - B - C - C# - D - Eb - E till the 12th fret. You can repeat the same process for rest of the strings. It would be a better idea to draw a fretboard diagram in your notebook for the future reference. It might be difficult to remember the entire fretboard on the fly. Having the fretboard diagram in front of your eyes can help you a lot at many places in the journey of learning the guitar.

For your reference you may also download the following diagram for your help.


Hope this lesson would help you a lot in learning guitar in a better way.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Guitar Chords: Dil To Bachcha Hai Ji - (ISHQIYA : 2010)

Film: ISHQIYA
Release: 2010
Cast: Vidya Balan, Nasiruddin Shah, Arshad Warsi
Lyric: Gulzaar
Music: Vishal Bharadwaj
Singer: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
Synopsis: No doubt the lyrics is wonderful according to the plot of the film. Gulzaar has done a superb job as always. Music is pretty much appealing it has come out with a straight forward 2 stroke rhythm for guitarist to follow the song.


CHORDS: F#m, F#, Bm, C#7, C#m, A, E, DM7

VERSE

(F#m)AISI ULJHI NAZAR UNSE HATTI (C#7)NAHIN
(F#m)DAANT SE RESHMI DOR KATTI (C#7)NAHIN
(F#m)UMRA KAB KI BARAS KE (C#7)SUFAID HO GAYI
(F#m)KAARI BADRI (Bm)JAWANI KI (C#7)CHHATTI NAHIN
(C#7)VARNA YEH (F#m)DHADKAN (C#7)BADHNE (F#m)LAGI HAI
(C#7)CHEHRE KI (F#m)RANGAT (C#7)UDNE (F#m)LAGI HAI
(F#m)DAR LAGTA (Bm)HAI TANHA JEENE MEIN (E)JI

Hold...
DIL TO (F#m)BACHCHA HAI JI – 2 (Bm) ... (C#7)
THODA (F#m)KACHHA HAI JI
(Bm) ... (C#7)
HAAN DIL TO (F#m)BACHCHA HAI JI (Bm) ... (C#7)
(F#m)RA RA RAAAA… RA RA (C#7)RAAA… RA RA (F#m)RAAA – 2
 

STANZA 1

(F#m)KISKO (DM7)PATA THA (F#m)PEHLU MEIN (DM7)RAKHA
(A)DIL AISA BAAJI BHI (E)HOGA

(F#m)HUM TO (DM7)HAMESHA (F#m)SAMAJHTE THE (DM7)KOI
(A)HUM JAISA HAAJI HI (E)HOGA
HAAN YEH
(F#)ZOR (B)KARE KITNA (C#m)SHOR KARE 
(F#)BEWAJAH (B)BAATON PE AINVE (C#m)GAUR KARE
(Bm)DIL SA KOI KAMEENA (C#7)NAHIN
(C#7)KOI TO
(F#m)ROKE (C#7)KOI TO (F#m)TOKE
(C#7)IS UMRA
(F#m)MEIN AB (C#7)KHAOGE (F#m)DHOKHE(F#m)DAR LAGTA (Bm)HAI ISHQ KARNE MEIN (E)JI
 

STANZA 2 -PLAY SAME CHORDS AS STANZA 1

AISI UDASI BAITHI HAI DIL PE
HASNE SE GHABRA RAHE HAIN
SAARI JAWANI KATRA KE KAATI
PIRI MEIN TAKRA GAYE HAIN
DIL DHADAKTA HAI TO AISE LAGTA HAI WOH
AA RAHA HAI YAHIN DEKHTA HI NA WOH
PREM KI MAAREIN KATAAR RE
TAUBA YE LAMHE KATTE NAHI KYUN
AANKHON SE MERI HATTE NAHI KYUN
DAR LAGTA HAI TUJHSE KEHNE MEIN JI


Disclaimer: The Film, Lyric, Music etc. are copyrighted and sole property of their respective owners. The lyric and its chords are posted for the purpose of education and training only.

 

Music Theory: Notes in Music

What is a Note?

A note is the smallest element in music or we can say it is the atomic unit of music. A note can be defined as a sound which is played at a particular pitch. A sound which is played using varying pitch might contain multiple notes. For example in the first two lines of the song "Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are" there are 14 notes: one for each sound. This is the simplest way to understand the concept of a note.


Name of Notes

Each note is identified by a unique symbol or name. In different languages or different systems of music their name vary accordingly. In Western system of music they are identified by alphabets from A to G. In Indian Classical system the notes have name like Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni. In some other language they are even termed as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si.

We would stick to the Western System and Convention of music symbols. Well the first note in the Western System of music is C and not A. Hence the notes are sequentially termed as C, D, E, F, G, A and B.

Different Category of Notes

As we have seen above there are 7 basic notes, but this is not all. There are several others notes too. In order to understand them we can categorize them.

Natural Notes: The basic notes that we have seen i.e. C, D, E, F, G, A and B are the Natural Notes. The natural notes are the foundation of the music system. The other two forms of notes are the sub-set or the modified form of the basic note.

Flat Notes: The flat note derive its term because the pitch of a flat note is a bit less than its basic parent note. It is evident that to differentiate between a Natural Note and a Flat Note, a flat note is written with a symbol b. There are the following flat notes such as Ab (A Flat), Bb (B Flat) and Eb (E Flat).

 Sharp Notes: The sharp notes have a higher pitch than its basic parent note. Sharp note is written with a symbol of a hash #. There are two sharp notes C# (C Sharp) and F# (F Sharp).

The Chromatic Scale of C: The term chromatic has been derived from the word chroma which means color. Here the chromatic in terms of music resembles all variant form of colors in the medium music; all twelve notes. Hence, when we talk about chromatic scale of any note; it means it would contain all other notes in succession. Thus the Chromatic Scale of C would be written as:

C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, Ab, A, Bb and B

At places you may come across notes name like D#, G# or A#. Don't worry these are not any extra note rather they have got their name changed and have become a sharp note instead of flat. For example Eb ==> D#, Ab ==> G# and Bb ==> A#. This is termed as Enharmonic Equivalent of a note.

It is very easier for you to recognize Natural, Flat and Sharp notes on a keyboard or a piano. In these instruments all white keys are Natural Notes and all black keys constitutes Flat and Sharp. See the following diagram for your reference.


To know the notes on fretboard of guitar please keep looking for our coming lesson.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Guitar Chords: Dil Ko Tumse Pyar Hua - (RHTDM : 2001)


 Film: REHNA HAI TERE DIL MEIN
Release: 2001
Cast: R. Madhvan, Saif Ali Khan, Dia Mirza
Lyric: Sameer
Music: Adesh Shrivastav, Harris Jayraj
Singer: Roop Kumar Rathod
Synopsis: This is a fabulous song of a fabulous romantic film. No guitarist can resist this song or might every guitarist would have tried this song. The chords are pretty simple but required additional practice in order to flow with the lyrics. In the stanza you may also required to strum according to the words of the lyric.



CHORDS: Am, Dm, G, C, F, E

VERSE

(Am)DIL KO(Dm) TUMSE PYAR (G)HUA
(C)PAHALI BAR (F)HUA (G)TUMSE (C)PYAR (E)HUA

(Am)MAIN BHI(Dm) AASHIQ YAR (G)HUA
(C)PAHALI BAR (F)HUA (G)TUMSE (C)PYAR (E)HUA
(Dm)CHHAI HAI(Am) (Dm)BETABI(Am)
MERI (G)JAAN KAHO MEIN KYA (Am)KAROON
(Dm)CHHAI HAI(Am) (Dm)BETABI(Am)
MERI (G)JAAN KAHO MEIN KYA (E)KAROON

STANZA

(Am)KHO GAYA MAIN KHAYALON MEIN
AB NEEND BHI NAHI AANKHO MEIN
KARWATEN BAS BADALTA HOON
AB JAGTA HOON MEIN RATON MEIN
(Am)AB DOORI (G)NA SAHANI (F)HAR LAMHA (E)KAHTA HAI
(Am)NA JANE (G)HAAL MERA (F)EISA KYON (E)RAHTA HAI
(Am)MAIN DEEWANA TERA BAN GAYA JANE JANA
MAIN FASANA TERA BAN GAYA JANE JANA
HASEENA GORI GORI CHURAE CHORI CHORI
CHURAE DIL MERA CHORI CHORI CHORI CHORI

REPEAT VERSE

 Disclaimer: The Film, Lyric, Music etc. are copyrighted and sole property of their respective owners. The lyric and its chords are posted for the purpose of education and training only.