Guitar for Beginners and Beyond Newsletter - December 10, 2007
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Hi, fellow guitar picker. I've got a couple of nice Christmas Carols for you ... you've got a couple of weeks to practice up! Have a great Christmas and Holiday Season ... I hope Santa is good to you.
Before I get into the guitar news, you are receiving this email because on joining the Guitar for Beginners and Beyond discussion forum you ticked the receive newsletters from admin checkbox... If you want to unsubscribe at any time, you can do so by logging into
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/ and going to your UserCP > Edit Options and unticking the 'Receive Email from Administrators' check box or by simply replying to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject field.
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Kirk's Weekly Lessons
I did two new carols for you this time, but two different versions of one of them. I'll start with the easier ones:
"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - not too demanding, but challenging enough to keep you interested. Unless you started playing last week, you should be able to handle this one:
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
The other fairly easy one is "God rest ye Merry Gentlemen" - A couple of little speed bumps, but otherwise pretty straight forward:
God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Easy
And one that will really get your brow furrowed, the tricky version of "God Rest Ye Merry gentlemen":
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Tricky version
You can also check out the Christmas Carol lessons I put together last year:
"Silent Night" - the easy version:
Silent Night - easy version
"Silent Night" - the tricky version:
Silent Night - trickier version
"Jingle Bells":
Jingle Bells
All lessons are free, but you can for a modest fee download the high-resolution movie version (which includes the animated virtual fretboard and half speed movie) and you also get the midi files, the mp3, the Guitar-Pro file, tab and notation, all in a very user friendly PDF format. You'll also be helping to keep the site afloat. With well over 50,000 members now, and about 110 joining every day, our hosting/bandwidth bill just gets bigger and bigger. To purchase the full lessons, just go here -
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/payments.php
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Finger-Style Lessons available on CD
You can also now buy all my finger style lessons on CD (not including these latest), all in the nice PDF format. It's cheaper and of course you don't need to download and have files scattered all over your hard drive. You will also be supporting the site and making it easier for me to continue putting these lessons together for you. Check it out here:
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/fo...p?pg=cdlessons
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PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book >
PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book
Does this sound like you? You've been told and you've read over and over again that you need to learn all those modes and other scales -- especially the Pentatonic -- to be able to improvise, so you've done that and it still doesn't work. Sure, you can get away with it over simple two chord grooves and even some straight ahead Blues, but once the music gets a little more complex, you're lost. So what is the trick? How is it some players have the whole fretboard at their disposal no matter what's happening musically, whether they're playing chords, or soloing, or a combination of both?
What is it they're seeing?
Buy my book/DVD PlaneTalk and you'll know. It's so simple, you'll be amazed. Of course, not simple to do, but very simple to understand. Practice, and lots of it, is the only way to get anywhere, but at least you won't be practicing endless scales and modes that leave you wondering what to do with them. You can put them on the back burner and get stuck into real melody.
Watch the two movies on the home page (
PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book ) which are good examples of melodic improvisation without once thinking of a scale or mode. The fact is, I have no idea how to make melody from scales or box patterns or anything other than the chords themselves.
Here is how one recent customer, who teaches guitar, put it to me in an email:
"Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is awesome. I just finished it. I do have one problem, how am I going to continue to teach guitar without somehow using some of your methods. They are genius!!!!! I will recommend this series to any and all of my students. Again, many thanks, especially for the speedy international shipping. I will sign up for your forum when I get a chance, and once I've read the book several times, and had a greater chance to explore it."
There are dozens more similar testimonials here:
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/fo...-testimonials/
Once you buy the book/DVD, you can also join the private forum where we discuss the simple technique on a daily basis and where any questions you may have are quickly answered and cleared up. I'm there every day, so are many others.
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Slide Guitar in Standard and Dropped D tunings
Check out the video showcase at
Slide Guitar Web Ring - Bottleneck Guitar to watch a bunch of my slide videos, all played in standard and dropped D tunings. I did spend a few years in open tunings -- the traditional way of playing slide -- but found it impossible NOT to sound like everyone else and so went back to standard tuning. What I found was a very rich environment for playing slide, a tuning that is in fact a bunch of mini open tunings all living side by side. All chord flavors are there for the twanging ... all you need is to know here to find them. I show you everything I know about the art in my 70 minute DVD, so there's no need for you to spend the years it took me to refine it all.
Visit
Slide Guitar Web Ring - Bottleneck Guitar for more info and to order. You can also buy one of my beautiful custom brass slides.
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That's it for this week, enjoy the lessons, enjoy the site! Merry Christmas!
Kirk Lorange
PlaneTalk - Bottleneck Guitar - Guitar for Beginners and Beyond
