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By Elliot Steiner

Playing piano by ear is something most people can learn to do. A small percentage of the population is tone deaf and will never be able to recognize specific pitches, although the rest of us can learn to get pretty good at it.

All melodies are comprised of musical intervals and rhythms, the simplest of which are recognized by nearly everyone. Take “Twinkle Bells” or even “Mary Had A Little Lamb”, for examples of extremely simple melodies, and they can easily be broken down into easily learned patterns of notes. In fact, just about anything that one can hum or sing can be worked out on the piano keyboard without much trouble.

All musical pieces, whether simple or complex, involve chords in specific keys, which is something that playing the just the melody ignores, but this is something we will cover another time. For now, let’s just concentrate on getting the melody played.

Using the white keys, representing the key of C Major, is universally the quickest way to learn a tune even if it was originally written in some other key, so for now we will keep the piece in C.
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By Geoff Gilbert

SAMMY PENN: Born Morgan City Louisiana September 15 1902. Died Florida September 18 1969.

Let’s start off a little differently this time: to me, the greatest New Orleans drummers for my pleasure were Baby Dodds, Sammy Penn and Cie Frazier. But Sammy had a wonderful second string to his bow. He sang with the same phrasing as the legendary Fats Domino, and with his big cigar and huge smile was a master entertainer.

Sammy’s first job was in 1921 with Jake Johnson’s band, then with Chris Kelly’s Brass Band, Kid Rena’s Brass Band and the legendary Eureka Brass Band. He was the mainstay of the Kid Thomas band for a quarter of a century.

You must understand that entertainment was the name of the game. With Sammy Penn and Joe “Twat” Butler, Kid Thomas Valentine had a showband. Singers, personalities and Thomas with his famous “bag of tricks” No wonder this band survived in New Orleans and then toured the world to represent the birthplace of jazz.
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By Jared Leo

Have you ever wanted to get the flutter technique out of your floyd rose tremolo? Look no further! You should really know how to set up your tremolo bar to achieve the flutter technique. Even if you aren’t looking to use it, this article will help you get your trem bar much more stiff, and get it to stay up when necessary.

The flutter technique is when you flip the tip of your trem bar, and the springs in the back of the guitar vibrate rapidly. This creates a ‘phoodbluhbldoobluh’ sound, which can be quite nice when used sparingly, and for effects.

If you learn how to set up a push in bar, and a screw in bar. I use the push in type bar on an Ibanez Jem77b BRMR Bad Horsie guitar (mirror finish), and the tremolo is an Edge Pro. The other way I do this is with a screw in bar on a standard Floyd Rose copy (might be a Gotoh) on some cheap Jackon Kelly or K-10 guitar.
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By Hussey James

Guitar persists to be a popular musical instrument that many people wish and work hard to learn. It is one of the difficult music skills to learn and requires special training and a lot of practice. Previously, if someone wanted to master the guitar use, they needed to join proper classes, take tuition and practice a lot. The whole activity required money, time and patience. But today, because of the vast range of facilities and resources available, learning guitar is possible in a very short span of time.

Teaching oneself guitar requires hard work, practice and patience. Even learning the basic techniques and handling of instrument, finger dexterity and learning simple chords can take a lot of time. Among the various resources that can help you teach yourself guitar are the software, books, music schools guitar classes and courses. If you decide to enroll in a music class then you have to work with other students, and you have to attend them regularly in order to build your skill. All these methods require some initial expense or proper enrollment and taking out time.
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By Matt Helphrey

You can make money online by selling your own music. This opportunity is great for aspiring young musicians who have always dreamed of living a life comprised of creating music. Simple music making software that you can download online is all you need to get started. Here’s what you’ll need to know to be able to get started with your own online music business.

The software used to create your music must have all the capabilities necessary to make a professional and unique sound. Look for software that allows you to create sounds and beats on multiple tracks. I suggest 12 at the very minimum.

Besides what the software can do for you, the company you buy the software from should allow you to have access to plenty of nonexclusive rights music. This means that you can use the sounds legally and not have to worry about law suits for ripping others music.
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Anyone who lives in Austin knows why the city council adopted the slogan “live music capital of the world” in 1991. For those just visiting, the city offers many opportunities to find out.
The famed music scene of Austin began in the 60s and 70s at the Vulcan Gas Company. Musicians played country music here to crowds of loud and enthusiastic fans. Willie Nelson moved to Austin in 1965 and kick started his career in front of these audiences. He went on to become one of the most successful country music artists of all time. Not long after, the Vulcan Gas Company became known as the Armadillo World Headquarters, or just The Armadillo, and Austin’s music really took off.

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There are many different ways to approach guitar tuning. We’ll touch on a couple of the more effective methods on how to tune a guitar. Not necessarily the most popular as some methods, though extensively used, are considered ‘bad habits’ rather than genuine, effective guitar tuning alternatives.

The guitar standard tuning is as follows:

STRING – 6th String (bottom, bass, low) NOTE – E
5th String – A
4th String – D
3rd String – G
2nd String – B
1st String (top, treble, high) – E

Tips For Any Guitar Tuning Method

First, lets cover a few things that every player should know when taking the proper approach to guitar tuning and how to learn to tune guitar.

Learn to attach the strings to the machine heads properly. Never try to tune down to a note. Stretch the strings and tune up to the note. Tuning heads have a certain amount of ‘play’ in them so make a couple of deep bends and then fine tune the string. Before tuning a suspect string, check it against both adjacent strings to determine which string is actually out of tune. The string you suspect may not even be the culprit. When tuning a guitar with a vibrato arm, tune the string, give the arm a good shake, stretch the string, give the arm another shake and fine tune.

Veterans of guitar playing will already know these things so if you’re a beginner and just learning to play the guitar, you’re already ahead of the game if you implement these practices into your routine. For a great tool visit http://www.guitarmusician.com/guitar-tuner.htm

Here’s A Quick Method For Guitar Tuning

Tune the treble (high) E string to an A440 tuning fork by holding your finger on the 5th fret, then tune the open B string to the open treble E string – listening to the interval of a fourth. It’s easy to hear the fourth in that register.

Play the A note fretted at the 2nd fret of the G string, and compare it to the open treble E string – you’re listening for a perfect fifth interval.

Fret the 2nd fret E note on the D string and compare it to the treble E string open. Double check this by fretting the E note on the 14th fret of the D string.

Now tune the 7th fret harmonic on the A string (an E note) to the open treble E string.

Finally, tune the 5th fret harmonic on the bass E string to the open treble E string.

This is a simple guitar tuning method that works well.

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