Nov 27

Dear acoustic guitar,

No I haven’t forgotten you. Even though your string are covered with aluminium oxide and you’re somewhat out of tune I still enjoy playing melodies with you. But playing piano is more appealing to me at the moment.

Ever since I’ve borrowed my brother’s keyboard I’ve been learning some tunes and songs to play on piano. To be honest I kinda prefer it to my guitar at the moment. Following some Learn & Master Piano lessens and playing melodies from the book that came with the keyboard.

The fun part is that I’ve learnt a lot of music theory things as well, I’m loving the fact I can play (simple) pieces on any musical instrument I get my hands on after one or two minutes. Songs are starting to make a lot more sense, what seemed once incredibly difficult is now something  I can replicate with some practice.

The learning process takes a lot of time, I get that, the mistake I made while learning to play guitar was rushing the easier pieces and trying to play pop songs immediately. I’m trying to learn playing the piano ‘the right way’ now, which has been pretty rewarding.

Once I’m done with the L&M Piano I’ll probably start over with the L&M Guitar lessons and give each instrument a fair share of my time.

… you’ll get your set of new strings soon, don’t worry :)

Apr 07

Repeteren, repeteren, wie z’n best doet..

Paasvakantie, het ideale moment om terug eens met een plectrum gitaar te spelen. Grappig hoe na maanden zonder plectrum spelen de coördinatie zo goed als verdwenen is.. “Learn & Master Guitar” to the rescue, na vandaag ging het picken al terug een pak beter.

Wat waarschijnlijk het meest frustrerende is dat het vrij lang duurt om deftige liedjes te kunnen spelen. Akkoorden progressie valt wel mee mits oefening maar de enkele noten er tussen (en vooral de snelheid) kunnen het toch nog moeilijk maken. Wat ik dan niet snap is waarom ze bijvoorbeeld op Ultimate-Guitar.com wel de akkoorden zetten bij de lyrics maar geen strum patroon of welke noten er juist moeten aangeslagen worden. Meestal zoek ik mij toevlucht naar (crappy) Youtube tutorials die  af en toe wel helpen.

En puh-lease als iemand een deftige handleiding of youtube video kent die uitleg geeft hoe je barré akkoorden speelt zonder buzz laat het ff weten want het lijkt me niet te lukken om de G & B snaar goed te laten klinken, een mens kan toch niet voor eeuwig Hey There Delilah en I’m Yours blijven spelen ;)

Sep 03

Guitar Madness

I played some guitar today, what’s the big deal? I played guitar ALONG with my brother playing his keyboard piano thing. It was cool, I now understand why there’s so many people trying to be good enough to play in a band because it’s just a lot more fun than playing solo.

Talking about soloing and crazy guitar play, I’ve come to the conclusion today I listen way too much to John Mayer. But when you see his “Live in LA” performance you can’t deny he’s one superb guitarist. His music is one of the kind I can listen to all day with repeat on and still not get tired of it. When listening, definitely have a good listen to the lyrics as well as most of the songs have great texts.

A mental note has been made for November 17, when the new album “Battle Studies” is released, let’s hope it’ll be as good as the other albums. As good as JM is at playing guitar, I’ve still got a long way to go to even be able to play any of his music at a decent speed on my guitar (and the fact I’ve got an acoustic one >_>) but the day I can play “Slow dancing in a burning room” is a day my skills will have reached a new level ^^. In case you’re curious: