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!