Archive for February, 2010
You don’t have to be the best guitarist in the world to be in a band. Being in a band doesn’t mean you have to play gigs either.
Starting a band is really quite simple, find a couple of people with their own electric guitar packages, get a bass player with his own bass guitar package, get yourself a drummer and you have yourself a band. If you know someone who plays keyboards invite them to sit in.
As far as what songs to play what I did with my first band is everyone in the band contributed with song and styles that they were into, we didn’t even have sheet music, one person would know the chords and yell them out as we went along. As we went on when someone came in with an idea for a song at the end of practice we would make the announcement learn this song by the next time we meet. At the nest session we would play the song, it needed some polish but for the most part the system we had worked.
The biggest thing to remember when forming a band is to have fun with it, your not doing it as a profession. One other thing is, it’s alright to make mistakes, it’s things like that that will make you better as you go on.
Give me a guitar and I’m a happy guy. It doesn’t matter if it’s an electric guitar, acoustic guitar, or bass guitar, to me it meant rock and roll.
There has been several failed attempts at expanding the formula for rock and roll, disco was one of them, thank goodness that’s over with. That brings me to Rap, can someone please point out another way of making millions of dollars with absolutely no musical talent.
You don’t have to play a guitar or even have a good singing voice to be a Rap star. You can hook up with a talented singer like Rhianna with Kanye West, or Alicia Keys with Jay Z but to me that just masks the fact that they have no musical talent.
Disco gave life to quite a number of bands and singers in the 70’s, they even had a porn star with a hit song, “More More More” by the Andrea True Connection. While many of these acts were at least pleasing to hear they didn’t hang around much as Disco faded away. Maybe it’s my age showing but I hope the same thing happens to rap, it needs to go away and never be heard of again.
Being a teenager in Queens which is one of the five boroughs of New York you didn’t need a drivers license to get around as there was the New York City Transit Authority. The TA had buses and trains, elevated and underground that could take you anywhere you wanted to go.
I remember in the 1960’s New York City went through some rough times. The problems went from financial to the fact that families were leaving to live elsewhere. It was during this time that they came up with having “free concerts in Central Park”, that’s right I said free.
You might think, what kind of concert can you get for free? The concerts were not by second rate musicians, Central Park has hosted the likes of Bob Marley & The Walers, Elton John, and Bon Jovi just to name a few. One of the first concerts I attended there was by Blood Sweat & Tears. The lead vocals at that time were by David Cayton Thomas, but what really drew me to them was their bass guitar player Jim Fielder, at the time I thought he was about the best bass guitarists around, and I guess he had a big influence on me.
Most people at some time in their life has gone to, or knows someone who has gone to a live concert. Concerts are held in big auditoriums, major league stadiums, and theaters around the world.
I grew up in New York City in the 50’s and 60’s where the biggest event by far was The Beatles playing at the home of the New York Mets, Shea Stadium in 1965. The Ed Sullivan Theater, a 12oo seat theater located on Broadway between 54rd and 54th streets in Manhattan was also the first place The Beatles ever played in the United States. Unprecedented at the time The Beatles played on three consecutive Sunday’s in February 1964.
The Beatles first appearance was on February 9th, this alone was the defining moment in pop culture, it also marks the beginning of the British Invasion. For me and other teens my age it was our introduction to the world of music and electric guitars.
Being involved in music for most of my life has left some magical memories for me. I have played bass guitar for 40 years on and off, I have also played tenor sax and upright bass for a brief period in my teens, I also played rythym guitar in one of my first bands but only on a few songs.
I was lucky enough to be a teenager at the time of The Beatles and the British invasion. The 1960’s was a time that rock and roll really started to spread its wings, since then it has never turned back. Other forms of music have come and gone, they were popular for a while but the big move for them has past, not so with rock and roll. Thanks to a concrete foundation rock and roll has with-stood the test of time aand show no signs of slowing up.
All of us have been touched by music in some way or another, whether you play guitar or some other instrument or are just a listener I’m sure you have a musical memory that takes you to your own magical place.
Everyone who loves rock and roll has different tastes when it comes to what kind of rock they like, and what is there favorite band. Along with their lists of favorites there is another list of favorites, and that is a list of their best guitar solos.
At the top of my list is a guy that plays an electric guitar in a finger-picking style of an acoustic guitar, he is non other than Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. Other guitarists look at him in awe because of his talent with a guitar. His guitar solo in “The Sultans of Swing” to me is the best. Next on my list I have Jimmy Page for his outstanding solo in “Stairway To Heaven”, and Eric Clapton with Layla. His original version played on his stratocaster electric guitar is one of the best rock songs of all time.
Music videos are not something new, they have actually been around since the early 1960’s. Ozzie Nelson was a band leader and the father of Rick Nelson.
The first music video is on thesong “Travelin Man” recorded by Rick Nelson. The song is about the loves of a traveling man, with a woman in every port the song talks of a ”pretty senorita” in Mexico, along with women in Alaska, Germany, Hong Kong and Waikiki.
The video was the idea of Rick’s father Ozzie and shows the different areas of the world with Rick’s image superimposed in front of it playing an acoustic guitar. It was really quite creative for its time, compared to some videos today where it involves someone with mediocre talent, with an electric guitar in a video with great looking girls in sexy attire to distract you from the fact that the so called artist has no talent.
When I was growing up, my friends and I would spend hours in the garage emulating our favorite rock bands. We didn’t always have the best instruments—usually just discount electric guitars from the local pawn shop—but we certainly played with gusto. When we first started out, I’m slightly embarrassed to say that we were into the hair metal band craze of the 80’s.
Thankfully that fad was killed and cooler heads prevailed. Not that I am a huge Metallica fan, but I certainly appreciate the silver bullet that they dealt to hair metal. Reminiscing on those days playing with my friends, I often wonder what the music we put out sounded like. I’m sure that we didn’t sound nearly as good as we thought we did, but that wasn’t really the point.
A rock and roll band is generally made up of electric guitars, drums and percussion’s, bass guitar, and sometimes keyboards and or horns. While there are some highly talented musical individuals out there in bands your don’t have to be a rocket scientist to play most songs.
Playing music rock and roll style isin’t all that hard, with practice anyone can do it reasonablywell. Of all the instruments I like playing bass guitar the best. When it comes to playing rhythm guitar, drums, and even keyboards you options for playing aren’t much, you either play the music the way it is written or you don’t play it all. With the exception of the lead guitar’s solo the only other instrument that can show some individuality is the bass guitar. Playing bass you can either being boring and play just the root notes, or you can be an adventurer playing one of the many progressions afforded you by playing bass.
Practice doesn’t always lead to perfect, but who cares. Whether your learning how to finger-pick an acoustic guitar, or your teaching yourself that hard rock solo on your electric guitar, the more you practice the better you will become.
It doesn’t matter if your a beginner or intermediate guitar player, if you don’t get it quite right who cares, the idea is to relax and have fun with it. In most cases the more you do have fun with it the more relaxed you are and will probably learn it that much faster.
After you are fairly profecient with your guitar the fun really begins, if your playing an electric guitar you can experiment with different sounds. Your guitar amplifier comes with different control knobs, try using different settings to achieve different sounds.