51–60 of 61 posts
I noticed the last 4 notes are fingered 2-1-1-open, which has a slide on the first finger. Probably better to not encourage sliding on first finger unless needed. I wonder if other lessons might have less than optimal fingerings shown?
edit: but, very cool! :)
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I've been learning guitar for about 5 years now and would consider myself a serious guitar learner (i.e. I could happily play all day given the time). As a reformed sheet music reader during my saxophone playing youth, I would disagree with the idea that serious players should learn to read music, at least not at first. Serious learners should work on the most important part of any instrument: their ears. I don't rea…
Sheet music is important because it allows someone to play music they have never heard. It is also important in providing the context for music even after you have heard it. That is to say, many musicians play other than what is written (Julian Bream), and music on paper contains more information (regarding intent) than sound. The latter is particularly true for the guitar where some notes can be played on every stri…
However, what I've observed is that most American teachers don't adhere strictly to Suzuki's methods. Within the space of no more than a couple years, most kids are reading, and using repertoire from outside of the "official" Suzuki books. In other words they're sight-reading by age 10.
Both of my kids now read quite well, but they also pick things up by ear easily, for instance fiddle tunes or even popular music.
Now, I follow web forums for bassists, and the issue of reading is phenomenally divisive. As I understand it, most guitarists and electric bassists learn to play without reading standard music notation, and there is relatively little written literature available for popular music genres. A fair number of transcribed bass parts from recordings circulate in tabulature format.
There is somewhat of a division in the music world depending on reading skill, but plenty of enjoyment to be had on either side. I happen to be both a fluent sight-reader and good ear player, but I'm lucky to play in situations that exercise both of those skills regularly.
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I've just been watching this IO talk on WebRTC, so it's certainly possible in Chrome and Firefox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMH1vM-dSc0
It actually does use WebRTC in Chrome. It falls back to Flash in FF right now.
Edit: Ok I see below you want Firefox to give you access to the users microphone without asking permission.
> Sorry, Flash isn't playing nice with your browser. Try refreshing or use another browser. HTML5 indeed. Though I suppose taken literally the title doesn't claim html5 for the pitch detection part.
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I've been learning guitar for about 5 years now and would consider myself a serious guitar learner (i.e. I could happily play all day given the time). As a reformed sheet music reader during my saxophone playing youth, I would disagree with the idea that serious players should learn to read music, at least not at first. Serious learners should work on the most important part of any instrument: their ears. I don't rea…
Sheet music is important because it allows someone to play music they have never heard. It is also important in providing the context for music even after you have heard it. That is to say, many musicians play other than what is written (Julian Bream), and music on paper contains more information (regarding intent) than sound. The latter is particularly true for the guitar where some notes can be played on every stri…
If what you want out of music is to press the correct keys in the correct order then reading music will get you a long way. But if you are leaning more towards jazz or pop and making your own music then reading can be a horrible crutch. And the better you are at reading music the more you will rely on it and you rob yourself of developing a functional ear.
And what happens when you fall in love with an obscure indie artist where no transcriptions exist?
Concerning which string on a guitar is used, you can often tell by the tone of the note. Even with muted strings that give a percussive "pluck" you can often tell which note was fretted. For the most part if you are familiar with the style of music you can make very good guesses as to where on the guitar something was played, and if you cannot tell the difference then I would argue that it doesn't really matter.
Finally, out of the long list of musicians I admire in jazz, blues, and pop, I cannot think of one example where they admit they cannot play by ear. In the subset that teach I cannot think of one example where they do not strongly suggest learning music by ear.
Any plans for other instruments? Would be really interested in a piano version
Works with any (most?) midi keyboards. I use it with an M-Audio ProKeys 88 (weighted keys). It's an awesome program. You can load any .mid file in to it and select the instruments you want to play on keys, and have it display the sheet music along with the note cascade.
I cannot recommend this program enough, and the learning method in general. Synthesia and YouTube videos have been my sole learning method / teaching aid, and in the past 18 months I've learned to play a handful of short pieces well enough to put a huge grin on my face.
1. http://www.synthesiagame.com/
(Edit: speeling and gramma)
> Sorry, Flash isn't playing nice with your browser. Try refreshing or use another browser. HTML5 indeed. Though I suppose taken literally the title doesn't claim html5 for the pitch detection part.
To be pedantic Flash is included in the HTML 5 spec via the object tag.
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I haven't tried Instinct, but having learned guitar off and on many years ago, the biggest 'leap' I made between knowing a few chords, and a few riffs, and actually learning enough to pick up a guitar at a party without embarrassing myself occurred when I started learning full-length songs. There are a plethora of very simple songs that are super easy to play, and if you learn some that people might like singing alon…
the biggest 'leap' I made between knowing a few chords, and a few riffs, and actually learning enough to pick up a guitar at a party without embarrassing myself occurred when I started learning full-length songs. I am in the middle of that journey myself. I bought a guitar a little over ten years ago, got some starter pointers from a passing acquaintance, then spent ten years picking up the guitar every few months, p…
I'm kind of in the same boat, which is that I generally learn things quickly, but the hand-eye coordination aspect of guitar has proven to be a whole new degree of difficulty. It's not surprising when you think about it, but at the same time, watching somebody play something that looks easy and then being unable to replicated it is a nightmare. It took a long time to learn that their ease is simply indicative of the talent they possess, and not as much my lack thereof.
As pertaining bad habits, I've found that a lot of them are self-correcting as you add more songs to your repertoire. I originally learned to cheat the A chord (barring it with two fingers, instead of either barring the three notes with one, or fingering the three notes with three fingers) because my early training hadn't built up the finger strength to do otherwise, but trying to learn Jane's Addictions "Jane Says" made that an untenable situation, and forced me to learn it the right way.
That's no indictment of an instructor, mind you... I've used them, and they're invaluable, especially in their ability to craft exercises that correct bad habits, or help to improve on your weak areas -- you'll never get that out of a YouTube video... but I think that the defining factor between feeling crappy and feeling like you're making progress is good, constructive practice. Practicing the same three songs over and over again will of course be beneficial, but not nearly as beneficial as practicing a different three songs each week, and/or progressively learning new techniques.
+1 for sticking with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't tried Instinct, but having learned guitar off and on many years ago, the biggest 'leap' I made between knowing a few chords, and a few riffs, and actually learning enough to pick up a guitar at a party without embarrassing myself occurred when I started learning full-length songs. There are a plethora of very simple songs that are super easy to play, and if you learn some that people might like singing alon…
the biggest 'leap' I made between knowing a few chords, and a few riffs, and actually learning enough to pick up a guitar at a party without embarrassing myself occurred when I started learning full-length songs. I am in the middle of that journey myself. I bought a guitar a little over ten years ago, got some starter pointers from a passing acquaintance, then spent ten years picking up the guitar every few months, p…