The Many Kinds of Guitar Lessons Montgomery County MD Has to Offer

Posted on October 14, 2012 by music_lessons

There are a staggering variety of kinds of guitar lessons in Montgomery County MD: classical guitar, pop guitar, jazz guitar, rock, blues, bluegrass, flamenco, reggae, mariachi, soul, and dozens more ways. How do you choose?

If you decide to go with rock, jazz, or pop, you’ll be getting a lot of coaching in scales and chords with the eventual goal of being able to improvise your own guitar solos and even compose your own songs.

On the other hand, classical guitar won’t teach you those skills — but you will learn to read music and play it at the same time, even if it’s not one you’re used to, and you’ll learn all the skills you need to play beautiful music without any accompaniment whatsoever. Classical guitar also happens to be the style of guitar used by some of the most popular groups in the world — including The Beatles. Also, classical guitar is advanced enough that by the time you are accomplished in classical guitar, switching to another style should be easy.

The various Latin guitar schools — flamenco, mariachi, and so forth — teach unique hand movements like the ‘rasgueado’, a circular strumming motion, and the ‘tremolo’, a technique for playing the same note in rapid succession to create a sustained sound. ‘Golpe’, a method of creating percussion by tapping on the body of the guitar while playing, is another interesting motion unique to Latin guitar.

Blues, soul, and bluegrass guitar focus around a 12-bar sequence that all blues players master early. Get that one technique down, and you’ll be able to bust out a jam session with moderate ability no matter who you’re playing with. If what you want is to start improvising early and often, blues is the way to go.

Just Starting
When you do start guitar lessons in MD, whatever style of you choose, you should find two or three songs that you love most and practice them until you can play them like a master. Grounding your musical skills in songs that you really appreciate will inspire you to master the technical skills that will allow you to tackle other songs with proficiency.

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Blowing Like Bill: Starter Saxophone Lessons in Arlington VA

Posted on October 7, 2012 by music_lessons

Bill Clinton might be known for a lot of things, but one of his less-remembered influences was the extraordinary surge in requests for saxophone lessons in Arlington VA and the other areas around Washington DC. An extraordinary number of people around the Capitol picked up a saxaphone and started blowing on it…and the racket was awful. That’s when the lessons began.

If you’re just picking up a saxophone for the first time and you’ve got lessons on the horizon, here’s a few tips to maximize your practice time:

Lengthen Your Notes
Master saxophonist Kenny G holds the world’s record for blowing a single sustained note on a saxophone — and if you’re starting to play yourself, you know that the feat is much more impressive than it sounds. Not only do you have to keep blowing for a long time, but you have to keep blowing at a sustained rate so that your volume and pitch don’t vary — and that can be difficult for anyone. Practicing 2-3 long notes (as long as you can hold them) every day will go a long way — no pun intended — toward furthering your mastery of the sax.

Scale Your Sax
Practicing scales on your saxophone will help you familiarize yourself with your instrument. Every time your fingers hit those keys, you develop muscle memory that will drive the motions into your unconscious so that you don’t have to think about which key to press next; hearing the note in your mind will drive your fingers to the right keys.

Perfect Your Embouchure
Embouchure simply means ‘the way you hold your mouth’. Every language in the world has a different embouchure, and every type of sax does as well. The important part about your embouchure is that you learn to keep it relaxed and poised at the same time. Being relaxed may lead to squeaks and honks at first, but as you get the poise right, you’ll get a lot less jaw fatigue and be able to play significantly longer.

Saxophone lessons in Fairfax County VA may not be as popular as they were two Presidents ago, but the allure of the sax is undeniable. If you’re ready to blow like Bill, look into sax lessons — you’ll be surprised how much you enjoy them.

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Keeping Beginners Interested: Piano Lessons in Prince George’s County

Posted on September 30, 2012 by music_lessons

Piano lessons: in Prince George’s County, most children have them. The piano is just such a ubiquitous and versatile instrument that piano lessons are an obvious choice for parents who want their kids to have a musical inclination later in life. But there are downsides to starting piano lessons, especially if your child is younger.

Piano lessons take a gentle hand, especially beginners — pushing too hard on a child can leave them with a bad taste in their mouth for piano (or any music) lessons for life. If you over-manage your child’s piano playing, you only guarantee their failure.

The number one cause of fatality among children’s interest in the piano is the notion that children must practice, practice, practice right from the very beginning. The notion is that you’ve paid for the piano lessons, so the child should be learning, gosh darnit. But piano lessons — at least at the very beginning — aren’t about becoming a virtuoso: they’re about learning whether or not the piano is the right instrument for you.

Once your child decides that they want to play, the learning can begin in earnest. Until then, you may as well be herding squirrels. As a parent, your role is to have patience and watch for the moment when they either take up the piano or put it down.

The number two reason why children’s piano dreams pop is the misconception that the people who teach MD piano lessons are infallable. That’s simply untrue. Piano teachers can be just as inexperienced, dogmatic, and inflexible as anyone else. For most teachers, for example, it’s simply too intensive to carefully go through every aspect of piano to find the one that your child lights up at. They go through the book, and if the book happens to be not the right book for your child, well, “bor-ing“. That’s the end of piano lessons, and it wasn’t your or your kids’ fault.

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Coming soon

Posted on September 15, 2012 by admin

More articles coming soon.

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