Musical Storage Basement: 7 Unfinished Projects [Cubase]

Creativity, to me, comes in sparks. It comes, shines, and dies quickly. And so I've got a huge unfinished cubase projects folder on my pc. I just went through all my unfinished projects from the last 3 months (and I have projects going back as far as 3 years). Most of them will probably never be a full song. But here they are. At least these songs'll get some attention on their own blogpost.

Project1: HipHop Drama [from 05-09-2011]
Project HipHop Drama by MirrorGuitar
Something I created. I often have a feeling to create something Hiphop. But I always fail. This was yet another attempt. I do like the dark organ sound. But it just won't do it. Current Creative Inspiration on this one 1/10

Project2: Trager was that guy [from 17-08-2011]
Project Trager was that guy by MirrorGuitar
During my holiday to Turkey I read this short story by George R.R. Martin. I have to look up the exact title. It was about this guy named Trager. I really felt this story and wanted to sing about it. I started out kinda jazzy. This small clip still gets me a feeling very similar to when I was reading the story. But hey, creative inspiration on this one is lost a long way.
Current Creative Inspiration on this one 1/10

Project3: Piano Zelda [from 05-09-2011]
Project Piano Zelda by MirrorGuitar
I just received my EMU Shortboard and wanted to create something Piano. It started like a mysterious Zelda tune, hence the name, and ended up like this. I'll probably never finish it.
Current Creative Inspiration on this one 1/10

Project4: Breakeven [from 16-11-2011]
Project Breakeven by MirrorGuitar
I'm doing this song for a friend. It still needs a lot of work and is currently in the unfinished projects folder. I still need a lot to do. It's far from finished. But have no clue on when I will find the motivation to work on this one. (She'll probably remind me before March 2012, because that'll be deadline). We are eventually going to do this one on stage.
Current Creative Inspiration on this one 3/10

Project5: Enlightenment [from 20-10-2011]
Project Enlightenment by MirrorGuitar
I don't feel like this blog is the right place to talk about this. I'll keep it short. Last year I feel like I've grown a lot in what I call being aware. Or maybe I can just say 'being'. I noticed how much of emotional suffering is self created by your mind. I was thinking over and over on what was lacking in my life. Always in the past, on everything I thought I missed out on when I was younger, or in the future, on what I still want to accomplish before I get too old. Being stuck in this state of mind keeps you from being present in the moment and actually live. I started reading and listening to Eckhart Tolle's 'The power of now'. I also started meditation. And I wanted to combine the two somehow. Creating a relaxing sound with Eckharts words over it. Still needs a lot of work.
Current Creative Inspiration on this one 5/10

Project6: Epicness [from 25-10-2011]
Project Epicness by MirrorGuitar I really like the Viola on this one. It just sounds epic to me. But then it gets more mellow and I need vocals. This is where it usually stops. I'm bad at vocals myself so I always need to ask people and don't always feel like asking them.
Current Creative Inspiration on this one 5/10

Project7: Evidence [from 03-12-2011]
Project Evidence by MirrorGuitar
This is the newest file in the collection of unfinished projects. And I think this one will have my attention next time I start working on music. It's a acoustic / harmonica cover on the song Evidence by the band Katatonia. I love that song and I just wanted to do something with it.
Current Creative Inspiration on this one 6/10


Will they ever get finished? Most if them probably not. Which one do you think deserves the most attention? Feel free to let me know in a comment! :)

Creation of a song [EMU Shortboard / Cubase combo]

The making of a song. Piano, bass guitar, drums and guitar. When I show this: "Whowww, you play the keyboard very well." Well now the secret gets revealed. This is how I record a piano sound! Haha In this video I show you how I came up with the sound for a new song. I was inspired by my new creative EMU shortboard. I felt like I wanted to create a piano song. After I got the basic sound the project kinda stalled. I still dug up the video's because I think it's fun to share.

How to NOT injure your wrist: Acoustic guitar players advice

If you didn't know yet. This blog was started about two years after I injured my left wrist. Been unable to play the guitar since (my favorite time-spending activity) Now I'd like to do some more posts on that subject (check out the On Injury pages too!)

I payed a brief visit to the Acoustic Guitar Forums. There I saw a post of someone asking advice. Someone who recently experienced wrist pains. I gave my advice based on my own experience. It was afterward that I started reading through the tread. Most surprised: great advice was given. Something that may not go down in a forums archive, never to be looked upon again. So I want to post those comments on my blog. Starting with the original post and my own comment. Here goes.

~My Respons~

Acoustic Cover of Jason Mraz's Wordplay [La La La La Love]

Not really related to left handed guitar playing or whatever, but still something I'd like to share. Just to show you guys I'm still alive :)

I'm currently in a mix of thought about continuing to learn left handed guitar, or do the right handed thing with my thumb. I guess I'll be doing a bit of both (so my progression will probably be slower if you look at just one of these styles). It's always been that way with me. There's so many things I like to do. Photoshopin', gaming, video editing, recording music, playing guitar, lifting weights, tricking. I guess I'm as all round as it gets. It just kinda sits in the way of being master at one.

Here's the vid.

Barre chords using your thumb

I was just recording something new, using my new toy. The EMU Shortboard 49 (if that has anything to do with the record). The sounds are from HalionOne. But, the shortboard is what gave me motivation to play. I did some nifty chords on the keys and I wanted to know how you would play them on the guitar. Especially the F#m/A.

So I grabbed my Ovation and went for it. Not wanting to hurt my wrist I figured out the most safe way to play. Using my thumb for the top two strings! Playing the chords like this I'm able to keep my wrist as straight as possible. What am I saying.. I'm bending it the other way! First thing I did was look on google, and well, it's nothing new. But it is.. new.. to me.. and I like it. So here you go, a video which is also featuring part of my new recording. I hope this will be a song I can finish. So many times it happens that I start something but can't finish it.

EMU Shortboard User Review

I was looking for a small midi controller. On my search for a controller I met the EMU Shortboard. I think this controller looks great. Warm white. Slick and stylish.
It's a controller with a little extra because it also has it's own soundbank with the most commonly used Proteus sounds. Seeing the $300 $120 price tag I felt a nice vibe and went for it. Did this shortboard meet my expectations? Find out in this post!

Jack Johnson Rhythmic Strum Tutorial

I tried to play a new song on my left-handed guitar. I had some troubles doing that JJ Rhythm were I used to be so fond of. It was time to take a good look at my right-playing technique.

One Room to Two Rooms

The attic that before belonged just to my brother, separated in two rooms by this soundproofed wall. Two frames, one wood, the other metal (don't ask why, long story..).
They are pressed in felt. Flying walls so to say. Extra thick drywall too. So now I can retreat to my own room and chill in silence.

Soundproofing, Insulation and Acoustics [Part 2]

Actual soundproofing is a whole different story from acoustics. Remember the egg-carton we talked about? The stuff that doesn't even work well for reducing sound reflection? Well some people even try to use that for soundproofing! Here in The Netherlands new buildings often have 25 cm thick concrete cavity walls and that doesn't even stop the sound of a neighbor's party. Compare that to the 5 mm carbon.

If you want a quite room (or a soundproofed room) there are two kinds of sounds you want to reduce. Sounds moving through the air and sounds moving through mass.
You see, if you build one solid wall to separate one room from another that wall will conduct the sound and transmit it right to the next room.

The reduce the conduction sound we build two walls next to eachother and instead of anchoring them to the floor/ ceiling you have to press them in felt.

To reduce low frequency sounds you have to add mass to the wall. Multiple layers of drywall will work. Drywall has a high resonance (own frequency) and if you make the drywall to thick the resonance will drop and might get just in the freq. of the sound you want to block. If this happens the wall will amplify that frequency. Applying viscous material between drywall will keep its on freq. high.

Soundproofing, Insulation and Acoustics [Part 1]

First off, you need to know the difference between acoustics and actual sound proofing a room. This is just like those nutrition myths and facts, it's a mistake often made. When you want good acoustics in your room, you'll need to reduce the sound reflection of the walls, ceiling and floor. You want to hear the music from your speakers the way it's meant to sound. Not with some amount of extra living room reverb. And that goes for the home studio too.

The fun thing is, as I explored this subject (my own google internet journey to acquire some sound proofing/ acoustic optimization knowledge) I found it's all so plain and straight forward, it's just that in your life especially when your younger you tend to except everything that's being shouted out by the majority of elder people around you. Wait.. I'm straying off ain't I?

Consequences when a scholarship ends

One year ago I got my bachelors degree Civil Engineering. I could be working 5 days a week right now, but I chose not to do so and study some more. The first year was hard, on my pocket. But the Dutch government still supported me with a small scholarship and a partial loan. Next year they won't. And I'll be forced to give up my own house, to move out and move in with my parents again. In their house, we'll be dividing the room at the top floor in two. One part will be my room for the coming year and probably a second year too.

With my interests in music, my home studio and the occasional jam there'll be a lot of sound coming from my room (from time to time). The other side of that top floor will become my brothers room. I have these $200,- each studio monitors. Two big speakers. My bro, on the other hand, has his home theater set. Small crappy speakers and a horrible sub-woofer. I hate these things with their loud mid-basses. My bro doesn't really have an ear for music, so he'll just turn the bass up loud, ads some treble and thinks he's got the sound of the world. This annoys me much.

What I want to say: I've been spending a lot of time figuring out how to get my room as sound proof as possible. After a lot of research, I'm close to figuring it out. So in the next couple of weeks, prepare for some nice and insightful articles on that topic.

Une Belle Histoire Harmonica Cover

How to play Bob Marley's Stir it Up? With backing track

Lately I've spend a lot of time focusing on recording, editing and mastering @ my home studio. When the summer passes I'll be moving back to my parents home. I'll be making major acoustic adjustments to that little bit of space that'll be assigned to me. So much more to tell you about the home studio part.

Today I thought it was well past time that I focus some more on my left handed guitar skills. Playing the E, A en D major chords in a 'Stir it up' tune. See 'more' to learn how I'm handling this.

What do YOU need to set-up your home studio?

Glasses on a PVC pipe? Wait.. what?

Cubase Pro Tips: Mastering the Sound

When this song is done, I'mma break it down step by step and show you all about it. But the last few days I've been stuck staring at my pc screen, knowing I've got so much more to master. I've now come to the final step of producing this song. Mastering the volumes.

Late night jams, true pianos and sore shoulders

I had my next blog item scheduled last Friday. It could have been done. But I made a promise:  I wouldn't release a new song until I'm completely satisfied with it. And I knew I could improve this one. And I'm still doing so!

How to play the F Major chord shape on guitar

It's time to take my guitar practices to the next level. Most open chords have been done. I've took my time to stretch. "Let us F major" the wise man said.

Bad News Brown

A true harmonica idol, to me. Taking the harmonica into a way different scene. I love his skills. I think he's cool. Plays the harmonica with ease. He's definitely not faking it! Real skills. His style inspired me to take some kewl harmonica pictures myself! (Ofcourse I didn't take myself all to seriously.)
First of I would like to show you his new song, as well as a great cover.

Stretching before the storm..

or call it: "before the next breeze"

Since I know what could have prevented my injury, stretching, I'm very cautious with my wrists. So before I'm going to practice this next grip (the small F chord) I want to make sure I've stretched enough. Therefore doing another blog-post on that topic:
stretching

A quiz on technique

Right or wrong?

I came across this guy on youtube. He's teaching a classical song.

Lefty guitarists and their styles

Last time I talked about the different ways to play the guitar. Wouldn't it be great to show you a few examples of guitarists and their styles? I'll give you my favorites.

Babyface
First off. Babyface. A great producer and musician overall. He wrote some of the greatest RnB songs, including 'End of the Road' performed by BoyzIIMan and 'My my my' performed by Johnny Gill. In the following youtube vid we see him together with Eric Clapton on 'Change the world'. He plays a right handed guitar upside down. To me he manages to pull it off. But I wouldn't call his guitar play all to spectacular.




Mark Knopfler
You might have guessed it. I'm a bit of a Mark Knopfler fan. Keepin' it acoustic, I want to show you this version of 'Romeo and Juliet'. A great song. Wonderful fingerpicking. You'll see him playing the guitar right handed, although Mark himself is a lefty. I skipped to the song.



Kurt Cobain
A left handed guitarist playing a left handed guitar. Sounds quite simple right? Kurt Cobain, late singer of Nirvana. It's him and his band performing 'Come as you are'. A great live acoustic performance.

Which left handed way to play

So you are left handed and decided to play the guitar. There's a whole shop overwhelmed by right handed guitars, they got nearly a thousand. And over there in the corner, a single left handed guitar. Which one to pick?
Which.. one.. to.. pick..?

Well you could just pick that one guitar, there's not a great range of choice in left handed guitars. That's why left handed guitarist started looking for other ways to play.

Right handed upside down

If you do want to make a choice in the same offer of guitars, you can buy a regular guitar and just turn it upside down. The strings are now flipped. The highest becomes the lowest and visa versa. I call this the stubborn way. Has it been done? Few tried.. among them Bobby Womack.
I thought someone else to be part of this group, Jimmy Hendrix. But in fact he restrung his guitar playing it just like a regular one. To get this done takes a lot of customization which I'll be talking about another time.

While playing the right handed instrument upside down may work for rock guitar, you'll be limited in playing chords. And I love playing chords. What kept me from learning this style? You'll have to play upstrokes instead of downstrokes, or else, to me, it won't sound right.

Regular Right Handed
I came to ask myself, why is it we strum with our strong hand? I think the roots are found in classical guitar music, where the finger picking style is very important. I guess that fingerpicking would be very hard if to do with your weak hand. And if you are wondering: this is the kind of guitar style I'm talking about. Youtube vid showing Tommy Emmanuel playing classical gas. But than, that will take a lot of practice no matter how you play it.

With focus on the guitar chords and solos it seems to me that you'll have an advantage playing this with your strong hand. That does make it sound right for a left handed player to just pick up a right handed guitar, right? While I was learning guitar the first time, I've often wondered why it wasn't my strong hand grabbing all those difficult chords.

It is one of my favorite guitarist
(or is it thé favorite) who plays the guitar in this way. Mark Knopfler, mainly known for his lead guitar and vocals in Dire Straits, while being left handed, plays the instrument like a right handed guitarist. And he is a great fingerpicker! So, can it be done? Sure enough!

And this is the style I'm actually practicing right now. Just doing it the other way around, being right handed, playing the instrument left handed. And as of now, I still haven't run into any problems. Progress goes a lot faster than when I once started to play the guitar. And this is what I would recommend to all lefty's starting to play the guitar. Just buy a right handed and start to learn. It's something new, so at first you will feel uncomfortable, no matter what. Just keep it up.


Summary

Left handed guitar
Pros: You'll have your strong hand at it, the way it was intended.
Cons: Limited offer in guitars, having to mirror most guitar methods.

Right handed upside down
Pros: large amount of guitars to choose from, still using your strong hand 'the right way'.
Cons: probably hard to find a teacher willing to teach in this style. Some chord voicings might be quite difficult to grab. Upstrokes become downstrokes.

Regular right handed guitar
Pros: large amount of guitars to choose from. Using your strong hand for chords and solos. Able to use guitar methods without having to mirror the content. Having Mark Knopfler as your example.
Cons: fingpicking has to be done with your weaker hand.

Be on the lookout for my next post, scheduled 'coming Tuesday' in which I'm viewing some great left handed guitar players.

John Legend/ Mario Medley [mp3]

I find it kinda annoying that so many youtube musicians (just living-room artists) are promoting their song download on iTunes. I'm no pro, honest. But I think it's great when people listen to your music. All those guys/ girls dreaming of fame and $$$. That makes the music they play feel fake. So I just thought about it. I have the mp3: 'Let me love you'/ 'Ordinary people' Harmonica Instrumental here.
If you want, you can download it. [for free]

Haven't seen the Youtube Vid yet? Click 2 Watch!


I don't see divshare used very often. But it's great. So if you want to share your media. Upload it to divshare!

Guitar Photography for a Guitar Blog

Starting this blog I knew I needed great pictures for the layout to fit my style. So I went to my moms house, stole (borrowed without asking) her Canon pro-cam, and shot away.

To fall back on the story. I used to play the guitar. I'm right handed. But having a 'what seems to be' permanent left wrist injury, I can't grab the chords anymore, without hurting myself.

After a while I figured I go play the guitar left-handed, using my good hand, my right hand, to grab the chords. It's hard. It's boring. So to keep my motivation high: I need this blog!

Do you like my progression, and the things I'm playing? Don't hesitate, pick up that old guitar, or buy a cheapo and follow along. Ask away. The first exercise I did is up here!

Anyway back on the photo's. I shot pics for the blog. I like them, guess it would be fun to share.

I thought I might use these fine flowers, but didn't. Still I like the picture. much.

Pre background of the website

Did you notice both my guitars trademark looks are in the blogs logo?

John Legend / Mario | Medley

*A new challenger appears*
Just kidding. It's a friend.
But what is this? We're playing Mario's 'let me love you' and all of a sudden - a smooth transition - to John Legend's 'ordinary people'???
Well, luckily Kasper showed me how to play this song left-handed. I'll show you the chords, no problem. Look forward to my next blog-post.

Still on the to-do list:
- Let me love you, step by step practice.
- Ordinary people, chords
- What to do on acute wrist injury/ pain?


Also check out a nice way to play this song on your own (Guitar Only)

If you like this song, I've got the mp3 up for download!

Spicing up the song | Mario - Let me love you

Using the capo in the third fret, it's easy to play Mario's 'Let me love you'. In fact if you don't have someone singing to it, it may become boring.
With my regular guitar I tried to spice up the song a bit. And make it more interesting to play.
The chord-forms using a capo are: | Am | Em | D | D :|
Without a capo the real chords are (+3) | Cm | Gm | F | F :|
Lets see how far I will get with the left.

Lupe Fiasco - Superstar (ft. Matthew Santos) [RnB Chords]

Some tune I did a while ago on the diatonic harmonica. When my wrist hurt I would stop playing barre chords and find ways to play songs by open chords. So I changed the chords a bit, FM7 is easier to play open than F. I would recommend every beginner to get a CAPO as soon as you can. It allows you to play to way more songs with the open chords you already know.

I didn't need my right handed guitar with this. You can still make quite some music when barely able to play open chords. The bass loop is inspired by one of Kasper Burger's and thats a bass loop he did on one of my chord progressions haha.

You should already be familiar with this open DM7 if you also practiced 'Une Belle Histoire'. This is great, I'm learning to play the guitar lefthanded by just playing songs I like and at the same time there's this linked build-up level of difficulty being created. It might as well become a method.

Une Belle Histoire - Chord Progression / Guitar Exercise

A French song that made its way into the ears of Dutch people because one fat fellow covered it in half French and half Dutch. Well anyway, I like it.
It has a nice open chord progression -together with the supposedly fast strumms- this is a great exercise to practice my left handed swiftness.

The progression goes a follows:
Am - Dm7 | G - CM7 | FM7 | Esus4 - E

These are the chords shown in their diagram:

Prevent Wrist Injuries focus on Guitar Players

As a guitar player you've got to be careful with your hands. You won't see an injury coming. There's no indicator, you just feel it when its to late (Thats what happened to me).
The stretches that I show will help you prevent getting stressed muscles, tendonitis [inflammation of the tendons], carpal tunnel syndrome, and will increase stamina.

I never cared about stretching and kept on playing after I was well aware of the tendonitis, eventually causing swellings and fluids to settle in my wrist joint.
So be careful and stretch, even though this vid is showed in a 'fun' way, you should take it serious!

Except for your flexibility and muscle strength, technique is also very important in preventing injuries. Be sure to view my vid on the right wrist position while playing guitar.



And be prepared for an update vid where I'll talk about what you can do when its already to late and you developed an injury.

Last of all I would like to quote Brad Hartoin, who wrote an excellent post on this subject and even goes deeper into details. The deep tissue massage is something a want to talk about at a later time.

"Muscles work in antagonistic pairs. In the forearm we have flexors and extensors. When one is shortened, the other must stretch. The stretched muscle is in eccentric contraction; it must checkrein or hold back against its partner. With the extreme bent wrist position of playing a guitar, the extensors (top or front of forearm) are fighting against flexion, trying to maintain anatomical position. Over time, this lengthens and weakens the extensors while tightening and shortening the flexors. Eventually Imbalances in muscle length and tension produce pain, weakness, and dysfunction. By performing deep tissue massage on the forearm flexors, we can decrease their tension and the load they put on the extensors. By putting some slack back in the flexors, we make it easier and less fatiguing (less pain) for the extensors to support the flexed-wrist position." - BradHartoin, 6 July 2009

Michael Bolton - Ready for You

Man this song was hard, but also, so nice! Michael Bolton is really a master in song writing. I love his music. So my right hand muscles finally memorized the chords and I could play them, but I still needed 'Injured Tom' for the fast fingerpicking. So while I'm training my left handed play for not needing to play right handed anymore [in this awesome way] I also stress my wrist a lot. So I guess its gonna take a while before I do something like this again. Prolly when I don't need the right-hand guitar anymore..

Anyways here is the vid:


Now for the chords, I bet you like 'm. I'm gonna make another video, which is going to be an instructional vid, and that will be tomorrow! [Link to the chords]
Bye

Michael Bolton - Ready for You [Chords]

First off I'm showing these tabs as I played them left-handed. I can't play barred chords yet. So, what I'm saying, if, you can play barred chords, than just do so and don't play these rip-off chords that I had to play.

Something theory, the base [root] note is gonna determine the name of the chord, and the overall sound of the chord. In a lot of pop songs a bass guitar just plays the root note of a simple minor or major chord. In this song its a bit more difficult.

Example: a C-Major is build up from the following notes: C-E-G , doesn't matter in which order, as long as the lowest note is gonna be a C-note. So if you have a bass player, the guitar could also just play E-G-E-G, but with the bass guitarists low C the chord in the song would still sound and feel like a C-major.
Now, for example a Am7 consists of the notes A-C-E-G, so if the guitarist plays an C-major (C-E-G) but the bass-guitar plays a low A, the sound and feeling of the chord would be that of an A minor 7th.

Chord names
I'm naming the chords as they are played in the song, together with the bass note. But in my left-handed open-chord playing attempt (chords diagrams) I couldn't play all the full chords, so if you play this song as Tom-Lefty and you don't have a bass player with you, you would miss some of the feeling of this song. But its still close to the original.
If you are an advanced guitar player, find the best shape-position for the chords names on your own.

Chords:

Artist: Michael Bolton
Song: Ready for You
Key: A Major

In short these are the chords:

Verses
F#m add9 | Bsus2 | F#m/A | G#m |

Chorus
A | E | F#m | D - F/D

I'd recommend you play them using a capo on the 4th fret.
Chords would look like this:

...F#madd9 - Bsus2 - F#m/A - G#m
e |---5-------7-------5-------4-----|
B |---7-------7-------7-------4-----|
G |---6-------6-------6-------4-----|
D |---6-------4-------7-------6-----|
A |---4-----------------------6-----|
E |---------------------------4-----|


...|--A----E----F#m----D-----F/D-----|

e |--5----7-----5-----5------5------|
B |--5----9-----7-----7------6------|
G |--6----9-----6-----7------5------|
D |--7----9-----4-----7------4------|
A |--7----7-----------5-------------|
E |--5------------------------------|


There's also a bridge in the song that I haven't played. I've been told these are the chords.

|D - - - |Bm9 - - - |F#m - - - |B/D# - - - |
|D - - - |Bm9 - - - |F#m - - - |E7 - - - - |


If you're looking for the chord-diagrams and some more info about the chord names than follow the link to the next page..

NEXT

Bruno Mars - Just the way you are

Yesterday I came up with an Idea. Actually, there where a few ideas floating around in my mind. I wanted to try a song I liked on the left handed guitar, I thought about using the capo.
It's also been a while since I played something new on the harmonica. I even got a mail from someone on youtube asking me to record another song with the harmonica :)!
And last of all, I had the idea of playing with a couple of 'me' together. Well those ideas came together, and here... the result:




I transposed to song to C-Major. The chords are: C-Am-FM7-C(+highG). Tom regular started fingerpicking the chords, while Tom Lefty stroke the chords at each first count. At the chorus Tom regular starts to strum the barred chords while Tom Lefty does some 'pulling on the strings' lol.

Anyway, also for who likes to know (ultra-noobs only, else you should try to find it yourself, don't be lazy, you'll get better at it!). Just the way you are (cropped version) - Lyrics plus the melody (in C): I'll add later :P

Wrist Position while playing guitar

I have questioned this a lot when I was a beginning guitar player. It wasn't easy to find the right answer, but I got it.

What is the correct position for your wrist when you're playing guitar?

I chose the wrong position. First of all you should always try to keep your arm/wrist/fingers as relaxed as possible. This goes for guitar playing, piano, and also just writing. Although an incorrect position, or lets say 'bad technique' doesn't necessarily mean that you'll hurt yourself, there is an increased risk.
Bad technique + my body did result in injury. So take it as a warning. I did play the guitar for about 5 years with no problems. Later on I started to notice, and before I knew it it was to late and my wrist got f'ed up.

I'll explain the nature of these injuries in another post later on. For now you have to take my word that one technique is the right one, and the other the wrong. But as I said there are enough guitar players that use this 'bad technique' and don't hurt themselves.

Lets take a look at the following pictures:

Wrong position. To much stress on the muscles.

Nice, relaxed.

This is a natural position.


Take a look at the vid. I must say this was taped on-the-fly and at times I'm not talking very clear. It's on the bottom of the stretch page

If you think you already know how to grab and grip the guitar the most relaxed way, take the test! Quiz on technique.

Fingerpicking Exercise Enrique Iglesias Hero

So.. the last exercise that I'm gonna busy myself with. I've now got three exercises that I'm gonna train myself at the coming two weeks. Need to get my.. basics right.
Also I've you havn't seen it already, I'm keeping a progression time-line. It'll be fun as I advance.

If you also want to practice the verses of 'Hero' I'll give you the chords. Remember to grab the whole chord and not just the bit that you're fingerpicking. It's for practicing purposes remember? You need that chord in your muscle-memory, to be able to grab it always. (If you want more info on fingerpicking, I'm gonna post an article soon.)
Here are the chords:

Two fingers next to eachother in the Dsus4? Am I mad? Nah, no need to leave that 2nd finger. It's very popular to play a Dmajor and flick that pinky on and off the high E string. So just get used to it, Dmajor + pinky = Dsus4. You get your pinky there and get it strong!

When I started

The day after I started the blog I shot a vid of the exercises I'm currently working on. I've got one exercise to prepare myself for barred chords (a bit early but **** it).One exercise to practice on plugging the strings and one exercise for fingerpicking. And fortunately (for an increase in fun-factor) it are all riffs from songs that I like!

Btw I think thats something every guitar teacher should do. Pick some populair songs as soon as you can. I know guys that are playing the guitar for 6 months and still havn't learned a single song. Having fun is what its all about isn't it?

I can't wait to see my progression next month or so.

Getting used to barre chords

Chords: