#10 Guitarist - Justin King

Hello Everyone!

In today's post, I'll introduce you guys a famous guitarist, Justin King.

He is one of my favorite guitarists, and I love his songs so much.

Justin King was born June 13, 1979, in Palmer, Alaska.

He is pretty famous between guitarists, and his most famous song is "Phunkdified."

I first got to know about him from his video in youtube.

This is absolutely my favorite guitar song, that I hope I can master later.

Although I can't play it, I've listened to it a lot of times and watched the video several times. Every time I watch the video, I really get into it for 2 minutes because of his amazing guitar tapping skills.

It is absolutely awesome, and I got to search some of his other songs after I got to know "Phunkdified."

This video is the song, "Crown" and I definitely like this song too.

In some parts, you might not recognize what he's even doing, but it all makes cool sound to compose an awesome piece of music.

This is another song that you can really take a look at Justin's amazing percussive tapping skills that no one can follow.

This song is called, "Knock on Wood."

The song really matches with its title, because it is what he really do. "Knock on Wood." I thought this looked also cool so I tried to follow him, but my wood tapping sound was just like noise.

Justin is really a great guitarist I like, and I really hope I will be able to play his songs in the future.

#9 Falling Slowly - "Once" Soundtrack

Hello everyone! How did your "Like Wind" practice go?

Today, I'm going to post learning a song that is similar in difficulty to "Like Wind"

Do you guys know the movie "Once"?

"Once" is a Czech film, a modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their 

eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.

It also won a Oscar prize, so this movie is definitely a pretty nice one so I recommend you guys to watch it!

The song I'm going to post today, is "Falling Slowly" which is one of the most famous soundtracks of the movie "Once."

Maybe some of you might have heard of this song before even if you guys never heard of the title.

This is the song, with a really smooth and romantic voice and melody.

What I'm gonna teach you guys today will be easier than the version the man above plays.

(I found out that some people might have problems using the guitar pro 6, and blogger does not allow me to upload files well, so I decided to just post the image of the TAB notes directly on the blog from now on."

It is a pretty easy song, except for that you gotta know how to do the F chord.

However, for the rest of the part, you won't really have big problems playing it, since it might be even easier than "Like Wind" in some ways.

These are the notes for "Falling Slowly."

This is a video of a guy teaching "Falling Slowly."

He explains well, and one of the most important parts is where you do the chords.

The order is F,  C,  F,  Am,  F, and so on

This part might be the hard part and you need a lot of practice to make it sound natural.

This is a video of Glen Hansard himself playing the song.

I hope everyone succeeds in playing this song and play it in front of someone who you love!

#8 Like Wind - S.E.N.S

Hey guys!

Finally!!! It's my first day to post about playing a new song.

I kind of feel sorry to you guys that I might have written too much posts just about the basic stuffs. However, I really want to tell you guys that those such as the chromatic scale are VERY VERY important, and you must know about them.

Alright! today, I'm going to post about a song called "Like Wind."

"Like Wind" is a song by a Japanese new-age group.

They are pretty famous worldwide, in the area of new-age music.

https://mega.co.nz/#!2IJwSaDL!hcs-BbAzffwAHD8I9sJKWD5Yd4WvMIuY8T2hesv-uCM

This is the link where the note for "Like Wind" is. If you have Guitar Pro, you will be able to see the notes.

This is a video of someone playing the song.

The notes below are one of the hardest parts in this song.

On the first measure, you have to make the F chord sound.

This is how to grab the F chord with the guitar.

The sound might be weird at first, but if you practice, you'll do good!

Good luck on "Like Wind", and I'll bring up with another new song next week!

#7 Using "Guitar Pro 6 Lite"

Today, I'm gonna introduce you guys a special program.

I like to use it a lot, and it's really convenient!

It's called "Guitar Pro 6 Lite"

By using this program, you can download notes, and even make you own!

So how do you download this program?

http://www.guitar-pro.com/en/index.php?pg=lite-bundle-licence-generator&distributor=iguitar

click on he url, and you'll go to this page

Type in your email and the verification code, and you'll get an email like this.

You'll get your own ID so click on "visit our website" and type in the User ID and Key ID you had received.

Fill in the blanks, and you're almost done!

(for the password, you must use all lowercase, capital alphabets and numbers)

If you click on submit after you typed in all the info, you'll be able to download the program.

From next post, I will be posting about learning real songs now. You'll need this program, so make sure that you download it before next week!

#6 Practicing the Diminished Arpeggio

Hi guys!

Today, I'm going to explain about the diminished arpeggio, which is kind of like what I posted last week.

Last week, I posted about practicing the chromatic scale, which was a basic practice before learning the guitar. (Even for intermediate and advanced level guitarists!)

I think that many of you had a hard time practicing the chromatic scale. But if you guys practiced enough, try practicing today's lesson too.

The specific explanations are in the video, but to make it short, practicing diminished arpeggios is one of the best ways to get your fingers flexible.

Take a close look at the left and right hands of the man in the video, and try to mimic it as well as you can.

Even if you feel it's really hard for you, don't change the ways of playing, but work harder to do just exactly as the man does.

Even experts practice the chromatic scale and arpeggios VERY VERY often, so get used to them, and you will be able to do a really good job later!!

#5 Practicing the Chromatic Scale

The "Chromatic Scale" is one of the most basic step before learning the guitar. Even famous guitar players practice it everyday, to make their fingers more flexible and well-prepared.

By practicing the chromatic scale, you are gonna be able to perform hard tricks and the accuracy your fingering will improve. In other words it's a real good way to improve your skills!

But aware! Too much practice of this might make you lose interest in playing the guitar!

Alright first of all, "chromatic" means semitones. So practicing the chromatic scale is just like playing all the notes in the piano starting from C.

This is the guitar TAB explaining the chromatic scale.

The basic steps are explained in the video that I posted, so look at it and practice it!

Everyone can become great guitarists! 

#4 How to Tune the Guitar

Hey guys! It's kind of my bad that this post should have been posted earlier before explaining basic chords.

This part is the most basic and fundamental part of learning a guitar, because knowing how to tune leads to playing the guitar in clean and right notes.

Prior to learning how to tune, let's go over the syllable names.

As you might know, there are basically 7 types of notes in music: Do, Re, Mi Fa, Sol, La, Si(Ti).

In other ways, we say this as C D E F G A B C (In the same order)

These are more modern ways to express these, and u MUST remember these in order to learn the guitar.

Alright. Now we go to tuning. Basically, there are 6 strings in the guitar, and from the thinnest to the thickest, we label them 1-6. So the thickest is string 6, and the thinnest will be string 1.

The following are the sounds each strings should make.

6: E

5: A

4: D

3: G

2: B

1: E

Since the orders of the strings are 6 to 1 when you hold the guitar, I wrote it like that. Also, it is more stable to tune the thicker strings when tuning, so first tune string 6 into E.

As you see, if you turn the key counterclockwise, the strings are tightened, thus making a higher sound. If you see the tuner, tighten them until the hands reach the middle. So for string 6, you turn it till E.

Same thing for string 5. You turn it counterclockwise to get "A".

For string 4, same thing. Get "D" by turning the key counterclockwise.

For the left 3 strings located on the right side of the head, you turn them clockwise. So for string 3, get "G"

Same thing. Get "B" for string 2.

Last, string 1. Same as usual, turn it clockwise to get "E".

There is one thing you must be careful of , because if you turn the key too fast or strong, the string might be cut off, so you must be careful.

With a tuner, everyone can tune the guitar, and if you do not, there are a lot of free smartphone apps you can use to tune the guitar, so good luck everyone!