A while back I started a series on “Learning to Play a Song.” Those who were following that may have noticed that I haven’t done anything with it for a long, long time. What happened?
After doing some brainstorming about what to write about, it quickly became apparent that I had way more content than I had time to write about for this blog while keeping other content flowing. In one of my more wise fits of judgment, I decided that the content stretched this blog too thin.
I really enjoyed thinking and writing about it, though, and right about that time Steve Pavlina did an excellent review of Site Build It! that touted the service as the way he’d create a webpage if he had to do it again. I checked the service out, did a little thinking, and decided it was the format for all of the content that I was yearning to get out.
Sidebar: I’ll not spend too much time talking about Site Build It! (SBI!) in this post, but I do want to plug that I really think it’s the best way to start a website that you intend to make money off of. The tutorial they provide, the tools, and the lively, helpful forum have increased my knowledge and page creation ability tenfold, and I credit the service with the improvements that I’ve made on this blog. If you’re at all interested in creating a successful, highly profitable webpage, I encourage you to check out SBI!’s Sitesell Homepage.
That series has been transferred to Become-a-Musician.com. If you visit, you’ll notice that a lot of it is still under construction, but I add a few pages a week. Please stop by that site if you’re interested in that series.
I’ll be writing more about SBI, as the process has inspired a lot of different ideas that I’d like to share. Hands-down, I think it’s the service and process that has the best Return on Investment of time and money if you want to create a webpage. I know I said that above, but it’s such a great opportunity that I think people should know about. Again, you can check it out here.
If you liked this post or are interested in following my discussion of SiteBuild It!, please consider subscribing to my RSS feed. SBI! is simply too good of an opportunity for you not to hear more about it. Thanks for sharing your time with me.
I won’t make it a habit of hoisting what I find funny on you all too much, but if you’ve never seen or heard of Flight of the Conchords, you have to watch this clip.
There are four segments that make me crack up everytime:
“Junkies with monkey disease
who’s touching this monkeys, please.”
“What…what is wrong with the world today”
(Jemaine mumbles)
“But what’s the real cost ’cause these sneakers don’t seem much cheaper
why are we paying so much when you got them made by little slave kids
What’s your overheads”
“Can someone please remove these cutleries from my knees
Despite the fact that the topics are really serious ones (especially the little slave kids), I can’t help but give a side-splitting laugh. These guys are an awesome example of unbound musical creativity. I’m so envious.
I was stumbling recently and came across Pandora, a website that streams free music and analyzes, groups, and sorts the music based upon the song’s attributes. I absolutely love it. Here’s why:
It’s free
Who doesn’t like free music? ‘Nuff said.
It helps you find new music without you having listening to crap
I love finding and supporting new artists; I hate listening to the crap that comes on the radio from artists that I’d rather see used during governmental attempts to get people to leave the compound.
There’s actually two ways you can use this to find music:
Find new music by focusing on artists you know and love.
Most of us have a few staple artists that we listen to day in and out. I do the best I can to not listen to the same people over and over again, but I only have so much music, and I don’t want to listen to the aforementioned crap. Plug these artist into Pandora, and you get to listen to something different that has very similar musical qualities to the music you already love.
Find new music by focusing on an artist or genre you kind of like but are unfamiliar with.
New to blues but kind of dig Muddy Waters? Type in “Muddy Waters” into Pandora and see what comes up. You’ll likely expand your musical universe considerably by doing this, even if you only succeed in figuring out that you don’t like particular artists.
You can help become part of the musical research, cataloging, and exploration
While you’re listening to songs, you can tell Pandora whether you like or don’t like songs. Doing this helps the project refine their analyses so that their categorizing becomes better. So, while you’re listening and blogging away, you can give back to someone else’s project. It’s like helping medical research without signing all those forms and pesky side effects.
There’s a free version supported by ads and a paid version for $36. I’m going to give it a few weeks of listening before I pay, but I have no doubt that I’ll end up dropping down the dough since it’s such a good service. Head over to Pandora and give it a try.
[Abstract: This post continues the "Learning to Play a Song Series." It discusses three different things to consider when picking your first song to play.]
So, you’ve picked what instrument you want to play. You may not realize it but you’ve made a major step towards learning to play your first song, since, by choosing the instrument, you’ve narrowed your choices down to what you can play. If you’ve chosen the bass guitar, there’s no sense in trying to learn to play a song that’s driven solely by rhythm guitar. One word of wisdom when it comes to learning a song: creativity needs boundaries. By you choosing your instruments, you have created a boundary in which creative energies can be channeled.
Where do you go from here? Here are some things to consider when choosing what song you’ll learn to play:
Consideration #1: What type of song do you want to learn to play?
This one choice has the most impact on how well you’ll learn and how well you’ll stick to playing and practicing. If you choose a song that doesn’t really motivate you, odds are you won’t stick with it and hence won’t learn to play the song. Additionally, if you pick a song whose style you are completely unfamiliar with, you will have a hard time learning to play it, whether or not it’s intrinsically difficult or not.
Here’s something else to be very mindful of: music has a very powerful impact on one’s moods. If you’ve chosen a song and find yourself in a mood that’s wildly different than your natural mood after playing it for a while, odds are its the music and not you. This can work to your advantage: playing peaceful music when you’re having a bad day can work wonders for one’s psyche; sometimes playing music that lets loose the darker side of you can be therapeutic, as well. If you are religiously inclined, worship music can be a powerful way to center yourself and you get the two-for of learning an instrument and worshiping at the same time.
Bottom-line: take a minute or two and think about what type of song you want to play. Choose one that motivates you, is close to the type of music you most often listen to, and that puts you in the mood you want to be in.
Consideration #2: How difficult is the song to play?
It can be difficult for someone just learning to play to assess how difficult a song will be to play. There are some quick ways to figure it out, though it may require a somewhat trained ear.
First, listen to the tempo of the song.
Faster songs are generally harder to learn to play, as you’ll generally have to have quicker fingerwork to keep up. Additionally, it’s also harder to discern notes and chords when they’re speeding by you. If possible, choose a slower song so that you can play along with it once you’ve practiced it a bit. Trust me, in the long run you’ll be happier, unless, of course, you listen to a lot of fast music and the slower music puts you to sleep.
Listen to how quickly the main notes change
This comment is mostly focused on the guitar. Every song has a basic structure of chords that it fits in called a key. This key is the range and types of notes that can naturally be played within the song. (I’m keeping this really basic, as explaining keys and chords can be quite complex and the explanation is probably counterproductive for the beginner.) What you’re listening for is how often it seems that there’s a chord change within the song; more chord changes equate to more finger work and, at the beginning stages, more frustration.
Also, if a song has a really screaming solo, there’s a good chance that it’s difficult to play, as musicians, just like anyone else, love to show their ability to do the difficult. While I’m not saying you should shy away from really intricate solos, be aware that they’re not going to come easy. You’re far better off learning to play easier songs at the beginning, which is why most music teachers start with the easy stuff first and then build upon it.
Listen for key changes
Here I am back to key changes, I know. If you’re listening to your song and you notice that, all of a sudden, all of the musical instruments and the vocalist take a step up or down, what you’ve probably just heard is a key change (normally songs key up rather than down). I advise you to avoid learning such a song for your first song.
Here’s why: songs without key changes normally have somewhere between three to five chords in them (four being really common). To learn how to play those songs, all you have to do is learn those three to five chords and how they’re put together. (Yes, I made it sound much easier than it is for a beginner) Songs that have key changes, however, may double the amount of chords you have to learn, as the different keys require different chords. Sometimes you get lucky and only a few chords change, but that style puts a large burden on you to remember which chords go in which position when they’re played.
If it doesn’t violate consideration #1, choose a song that’s slower, has less chord/key note changes, and does not have a key change.
Consideration #3: How common is the song?
Many people overlook this consideration when choosing their first song only to figure out it kind of sucks to only know a song that few other people know. Part of learning to play for most people is the idea of sharing the song, and, perhaps, play along with someone else. Having someone listen to a song that their unfamiliar with puts both the new musician and the listener in a weird position: unless it’s an immediately catchy song, the listener takes a while to catch on to it and the musician feels a bit awkward playing it, and if the person listening to the song isn’t responding with the enthusiasm that the new musician hoped for, the musician’s motivation for learning to play the song can be sapped.
If your goal is to play music with other people, learning to play a less well-known song undermines your goal; what you’re in essence doing is making twopeople learn a song they’re unfamiliar with. It’s especially problematic to learn difficult, uncommon songs, as it’s really hard for people to wing it on a song that they can’t play back in their head.
Whenever possible, pick a song that’s really common, presuming, of course, that it doesn’t violate Consideration #1.
If you can stomach it, the easiest way to learn a song is to pick one off a Top 40 list. Yes, they’re pop songs, but generally pop songs are not very difficult and are nearly universally appealing. You’ll no doubt find many people who are familiar with the song, so you’ll have plenty of potential prospects to play for and many more prospects to play with. Additionally, pop songs feature the core types of chord variations, structures, and arrangements that the Western ear has been trained to hear and find pleasing; training yourself to learn to play these songs and hear how they work will serve you well as you learn to play more songs.
The next post in this series will discuss how to analyze your song and begin learning the parts of it.
In a comment on a comment that I had for Dave at www.davidseah.com, Yombo said:
“I may also ditch the acoustic and go with electric until my fingers can keep up.”
Just wanted to write real quick that there are a few options one can do to make playing the acoustic guitar easier. I’ll try to keep them ranked in order of how easy the fix will be:
1) Try to spend a few minutes every day giving firm pinches on the guitar after you’ve played for the day. Before you go to bed, focus on fingerwork, and only fingerwork, with no sound or playing. The key here is just to fatigue your fingers in order to strengthen them.
The drawback here is that it’s not fun and your fingers are already tired.
Cost to try: $0 and an additional 5-10 minutes every couple of days, depending on playing schedule.
2) Go to a lighter gauge string. Most acoustics start with Medium Guage strings, and the reason for this is two-fold: 1) they sound a lot more full, and 2) they work for most styles of musical playing. Switching to lighter strings, however, can make learning to play the guitar much easier since you’re not having to press so dang hard to get a good sound out of them. This is especially the case if you’re at the point where you’re trying to learn barre chords.
This option is a trade-off. What you lose here is the deeper, richer sound that medium strings provide as well as the increased finger-strength and dexterity that comes with playing more resilient strings; lighter strings also have a tendency to break more so you may be replacing them more often. What you gain is hands that are less sore and perhaps the ability to make it through a few more songs, or parts of a song, if you’re still learning. Try it out before you spend more money buying another guitar.
Cost to try: $3-10, depending on the string. I prefer Martin Acoustic SPs.
3) Buy a hand exerciser and carry in a backpack or briefcase to use while you’re at work, riding on the train, standing in line, etc. Focus on pinching with the left hand in the following ways:
The fingertip to thumbtip pinch (alternate with all fingers): helpful for strengthening fingers used for individual strings
The flat-of-the-finger to flat-of-the-thumb pinch (alternate with the index, middle, and ring finger): helpful for bar chords.
the full hand pinch: helpful for general hand strength and flexibility
(I had pictures of these movements, but the pictures got all SNAFU’ed; I may get them up later.)
I used a Nike gel type that I can’t currently find (I swear I saw it earlier). Besides occasionally smelling like foot (an indication that I’ve used it too much and it needs cleaning) and collecting the lint that travels to the bottom of the bag, there’s no drawbacks to this option. It’s also incredibly helpful having something to work on when you’re away from your guitar, and the ladies dig a man that can give massages and open jars without implements and counter tapping.
Cost to try: $5-20 dollars, depending on the type of hand exerciser.
4) Have your action “lowered” or “loosened.” Action loosely refers to the setup of the instrument and translates into how it’s played. There are many things that affect the action of the guitar, such as:
-Humidity
-Wear and Tear
-Factory Settings
-String Guage
What’s important to remember about playing an acoustic guitar is that you are playing an instrument that came from a unique tree, and therefore every acoustic guitar is slightly different. Factories, however, set actions at the same level, despite the uniqueness of the instrument. After a few months or years of playing, the uniqueness of the instrument sets in. Take your guitar to a reputable instrument repair shop and have it worked on and ask them to lower the action so that the guitar’s easier to play. They’ll know what you mean. On another note, if you’ve had your guitar a year or so, it’s probably time to have someone look at it anyways, as they do require regular maintenance and check-ups that’s beyond the capabilities of most beginning and intermediate players.
The main drawback to this option is the cost. If you’ve got an entry level guitar that you paid $75-150 for, it may be a bit too much to swallow to pay for the cost of the guitar again. This leads to a bad spiral: cheaper instruments require more maintenance, but the maintenance of those guitars cut into the bottom line. Another good reason to buy a bit higher quality guitar up front.
Cost to try: $40-100, depending on area and technician availability and costs.
I’ve personally done all of these things at different times and noticed an improvement in my playing, finger strength, and motivation. Give ‘em a try and let me know how it goes.
“Personally, there are some personal creative goals I’d like to pursue:
Play an instrument / Play one song well
Compose a song with an interesting arrangement”
I recently had an experience with this arena and would like to share it.
Background: I love playing and learning about music, even though I’m not very good at it; I’ve played the acoustic guitar now for about 8 years, and I’ve been playing far too long to not be better than I am. The chief obstacle to my musical progress has really been other habits that made it such that there hasn’t been much time to play and I really hadn’t felt the motivation to change those habits. While visiting some friends over the holidays, I played Rock Band. Now, I played the drums, and it was only on easy and medium, but I had more fun playing than I had in a long time. I mean, a long, long time. But there were two facets of the experience that were the most salient to me: 1) I loved playing the drums and 2) I loved playing with someone else.
I went down to the nearest Guitar Center soon afterwards and played an electric drum set there (I think it was the Roland Tour). After a few hours of playing (yes, I stayed there that long), I bought the more economical (read: cheaper) Yamaha DTX Exporer, as well as some other audio recording stuff (the audio recording stuff will be covered later so as to keep this entry and response manageable).
I took the drum set home, set it up, and went to town. I had the fun feeling of seeing myself improve every time I played, but something was missing. Wisely, I kept a journal of how I felt after playing, and it boiled down to me not liking the sound of the bass drum and not liking the “feel” of the set. Now, I’m not a drummer, but I am enough of a musician to know that there’s a somewhat intangible feel that goes with playing instrument; it’s hard to describe, but you’re either in the Flow or you’re not. And with this set, I wasn’t in the Flow.
I wound up taking the drum set back to the Guitar Center. But, while I was there, I played the same drum set that I originally played, and felt inspired again. I also went to an acoustic drum set and felt WAY more inspired. I actually wanted to play the drums again. Given that acoustic drum sets are LOUD and require a bit more space, I did not purchase that drum set, although I could have for about the same price as the drum set I had returned.
Hang in there, as there’s a little more background. Given that I bought a lot of equipment on my initial visit, I had some store credit that I was looking to spend (sidebar: I can still have that store credit returned to my Guitar Center card, but the store credit is still covered under the 0%, 12 month financing; if I have it returned to the card, then, if I want some music gear later in the year, I’ll have to pay for it right then or get the 3 months financing. It’s a better deal for me to hold it for now). I’ve toyed for years about whether I want to get an electric guitar, so I played some in the store. What has kept me from doing it in the past is 1) I don’t like buying entry level gear and getting into an intermediate level set for an electric guitar costs anywhere from $500-800 and 2) I’ve never felt the same inspiration from playing one that I do from playing the acoustic guitar. I also have been tooling around on keyboards for a while and am more inspired by them than an electric guitar. I declined on getting the electric guitar again for both reasons; in short, I wasn’t inspired by playing them.
Okay, we’re all done with the background. If you’re serious about wanting to play an instrument, here’s what I’d recommend you to do:
Review your music collection to see what type of music you find to be the most “you” of the collection. This may be hard to do, but think about what music inspires the creative spark in you. Or, alternatively, think about what types of music places you in the mental/emotional state that you want to be in.
From this, you’ll probably find that a few instruments stand out from these trends.
Consider accessibility when learning an instrument for the first time. What follows is a discussion of popular instrument choices:
Six-string guitars: Here you have two basic choices: acoustic or electric.
Electric guitars tend to be easier to learn than acoustic, mostly due to the fact that acoustic guitars require more finger strength to play correctly and that can be daunting and frustrating up front. Electric guitars are also a bit more versatile if you get a good one.
Acoustic guitars are a bit harder to learn but are a bit cheaper to get a good intermediate level guitar. However, the tonal qualities of an acoustic are what inspires a lot of people. There’s also a bit more of a connection between the wood instrument and how much the way it sounds depends on you and your connection to the guitar. Lastly, a good acoustic guitar matures with you as you play it and develop its own unique sound. (Disclaimer: I’m partial to acoustic guitars)
Bass guitars: Most people choose to start with an electric bass guitar even though acoustic basses are available. Bass guitars are easier to learn than six-string guitars, but are every bit as difficult to master. Bass guitarist have to have a good feel for rhythm, as your role in a musical setting is to keep the song in rhythm and moving along. It is on your foundation that the rhythm and lead (six-string) guitars get to do their playing, for you provide the musical anchor necessary to keep the song full.
Keep in mind that some people find playing the bass by themselves boring, as it doesn’t make a great instrument to learn by yourself. If you buy a bass guitar, make sure you have a way to play the music you listen to loud and clear enough that you can play along with it and hear if you’re playing it correctly; most good bass amps have a line-in port that you can hook your iPod to play along with.
Drums: Drums can be incredibly fun to play for some people, but it suffers from many of the same drawbacks as the Bass guitar:
Unless you really just love grooving on drums, you may not like playing them by yourself.
An acoustic drum set is loud and takes a lot of space; they’re hard to play at a comfortable level in an apartment building without running afoul of your neighbors.
A good drum set can be a bit expensive to get into.
Many people are now going to electric drum sets to get around the loudness and space factors, but 1) a good drum set is expensive and 2) though you can play all types of sounds, the range of sounds per drum/device and emotional expressiveness of an acoustic drum set is lost. For instance, the velocity, angle, and tension with which you hit a high-hat on an acoustic drumset is critical–and drummers spend a lot of time finding exactly that position; that’s a bit lost in an electric drum set, though some of the high end electric drum sets can process and output those different variations.
Keyboards: The range of keyboard quality is phenomenal, and a good keyboard (with hammer weighted keys) can have much the same feel as a piano. Furthermore, they are quite versatile instruments and can be used in nearly any music setting. The coordination of the hands for playing makes improving a challenge, but learning to play a cultural staple well provides many opportunities and benefits for a keyboard musician. Also keep in mind that the learning curve for playing the keyboard/piano is a bit more steep due to its sheet music being more complex. However, if you learn to read music for piano, you can very easily pickup the musical notation for all of the other instruments.
When you consider buying an instrument, I highly recommend you buy an intermediate level instrument. We naturally think that we don’t want to spend a lot of money for something we may not enjoy, but the quality of an instrument makes a huge difference. First, if you have an instrument that sounds awesome and you really love it, you’re more likely to play it. Second, there comes a point with entry level instruments in which you outgrow it; this can be due to sound, features, or a whole slew of other factors individual to the instrument. Having an instrument whose quality is low can plateau your playing and those stifle your musical development. Third, entry level instruments do not age very well, and, for acoustic instruments, do not mature as they are played. That said, you’ll probably need to budget the following per instrument:
Acoustic guitars: $450-600.
Electric guitars: $350-700 for the instrument, $150-300 for the amp and necessary hardware
Drumsets: $800-1000 for the drums, hardware, and cymbals.
Keyboards: $450-800, depending on what individual options you need.
Going along with the last recommendation, play the intermediate and above level instruments. This may seem daunting, because you may not know what you’re looking for, but the main thing you’re looking for is how the instrument sounds. If possible, have the people at the store do some playing for you so that you can hear what it sounds like in the hands of a competent musician. Plan for an afternoon so that you can play a lot of different instruments, or hear them played. GO WITH WHAT INSPIRES YOU; you’ll feel it. Some quick notes per instrument type:
Acoustic Guitars: Try Taylors and Martins. They each sound a bit different; my ear registers Taylors as bright and Martins as deep and full. I prefer Martins, but that’s due to my playing style.
Electric Guitars: Try the Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls. Strats are used in a lot of rock applications and register to my ear as brighter and crisper; Les Pauls are used in rock applications, as well, but are also used much more in jazz and blues applications–they sound warmer to me.
Bass Guitars: Ibanez produces many popular bass guitars. Try their jazz version.
Drum sets: Look at Ludwig, Pearls, and Tamas. Don’t be shy in the drum room and give the instruments a good tap and thump; you need to hear how the drums sound and how they feel. Texture and sound are really, really important.
Keyboards: Yamaha is the brand to look to for keyboards in the intermediate range. See whether you would rather have a keyboard with less, but more accurate and full, sounds or whether you want to go with one that has a ton of sounds that aren’t quite as accurate and full. See whether you’d like to have keyboard or weighted keys.
If you buy from a chain store, such as Guitar Center, they may offer you a certain amount of time to play and return the instrument if you don’t like it. Guitar Center gives 60 days if you get a Performance Guarantee with the instrument; I recommend the PG anyways, but having an extra 30 days to try the equipment is nice. Get the equipment, go home, and try it, but don’t get committed to keeping it until you find yourself enjoying it; if you don’t enjoy it, TAKE IT BACK!! Identify, if you can, what you didn’t like, and get something else, and try it for 60 days. Rinse and repeat until you find something you like or exhaust your options; in which case, get your money back and check it off the list.
Keep in mind that learning an instrument for the first time requires work and practice!! You will likely not be good at first, but keep at it, and you’ll recognize yourself getting better slowly. if you have the right instrument, you should enjoy the learning process even though you recognize that you could be better. Stick with it. Practice/play every day for fifteen minutes rather than trying to sit down for hours. As with any new habit/process, make it a part of your daily routine.
I hope this has been helpful, and if you have any questions, please let me know.
