The Game dreams of Grammy with Amy Winehouse

The Game has revealed that he is desperately trying to organise a duet with Amy Winehouse. The US rapper is convinced that their collaboration would be worthy of a Grammy.

He told WENN: "Me and Amy Winehouse would be dope. I think we could probably win a Grammy together."

More about this subject on http://www.ananova.com

Tal Wilkenfeld,the wonder of bass guitar

I have seen this article about Tal Wilkenfeld, a 22 yo bass guitar wonders. I love electric guitars, but this girl rules us all with her bass playing!

Read more on GuitarFlame.com and see how she started playing bass guitar for only 5 years and she already toured with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai and Chick Corea!

Damn, she's good!

10 Quick Guitar Learning Tips

If you want to succeed at learning guitar, you have to practice as much as you can. However, no matter how much you practice, you might not be getting the full benefit of the time you are putting in. Most beginners understand that practice is the key to learning how to play the guitar like an expert. The more practice you put in the better you will be, but there are ways in which you can make that practice more effective. Here are ten ways to get the best out of the time you spend trying to turn yourself into an Eric Clapton or Peter Green.

1. Decide how you are going to learn and stick to it. If you have a guitar learning book, then use it and follow it exactly. If you are attending lessons, then do exactly as you are taught. Once you have made your mind up HOW you are going to learn, then follow the procedures exactly.

2. Know and plan for what you are going to do each session. You are going to have to devote a fair bit of your time to practice, so you don't want to waste any of that learning time wondering what to do next. Write down your program for each session and work through it until you have completed it. It might be as simple as following Lesson 2 in the book, but decide beforehand and then do it all.

3. Warm up before you start. Athletes warm up their muscles to prevent themselves tying up when the serious stuff begins. Guitarists should do the same, and the professionals always warm up before going on stage. Grab a tennis ball and give it a few squeezes, or simply open and close your fist several times to get the blood flowing. Play a few quick scales over the fret, and you will warm up your muscles and get yourself ready to start playing.

4. Never miss a practice session. It might occasionally be tempting to leave today's session till tomorrow, but resist that. It is very, very important that you get the practice ethos instilled into your brain. You will never be a good guitarist without practice, and neither Jimi Hendrix nor Peter Green got that good by skipping their practice sessions.

5. If you are using a guitar learning book, make sure you use one that provides a CD or DVD that lets you hear how the lesson should sound. If you don't have that, how do you know that you are playing that chord right, or that note is the right one? Not only will the CD let you hear what you should be playing, but it will also likely give you some backing tracks to play along with. That kind of tuition is invaluable.

6. Set yourself a goal in each lesson. If the lesson doesn't give you a goal, then set your own. Make yourself learn at least two or three new chords each lesson and have them perfected by the next lesson. Try to teach yourself tablature by being able to play one more tab sequence each lesson, or between lessons. It doesn't matter what your goal is, the important thing is to set one and meet it.

7. Take a rest when you think you need one. Don't kill yourself by trying to keep to a schedule, so give yourself plenty time to finish a lesson or practice session. Stop for a cup or take a stroll round the yard, then get back to it. Get some fresh air into your lungs, take a walk outside, go ride your crotch rocket and then get going again till you have finished today's tasks.

8. If you have a friend who is also learning guitar, get together twice a week or so and practice together. This will provide you both with a break in your normal practice routine, which is important if you are not to get stuck in a rut. Many people learning guitar lose it after a while due to a lack of variety and time to themselves. Don't let that be you.

9. Don't try to be Jimi or Eric. You are you, and if you try to play at breakneck speed you will fail. Take it easy and don't try to be what you are not - yet! Get a metronome and play to that. It is important that you learn at a proper pace and concentrate on being accurate with your fingering and getting the notes spot on. Speed is unimportant and will come as you get more experienced.

10. Finally, enjoy yourself. Take time off your practice now and again to play your own tunes and just be yourself. There's no point in learning guitar if you can't have a good time now and again. Just pick up the guitar and play what you want to, and perhaps even sing a few songs as you play. There's nothing that says all your practice has to be serious and done by the book.

Probably every guitarist has their own ten guitar learning tips, but most of them will include most of those above. Were I to give my opinion on which of these was the most important, it would definitely be the last. Tip Number 10 is by far the most important. Enjoy yourself!

How to Find a Good Guitar Learning Book

In seeking a good guitar learning book, it is important that you keep in mind why you want to play the guitar. It is usually because you want to play great music, and even make your own music. In order to do that it is essential that you understand the guitar: what it is and what can be done with it, before you try to play the fast notes that you can hear on your CDs.

Fail to do that and all you will play is fast noise, but certainly not fast music. Endless repetition of chords can be very tiresome, and is not necessarily needed at first, but a time will come when you will want to know how to form the common chords in order to follow sheet music. OK, there are many guitarists that can't read a note, but are you one of those? Or are you just an ordinary guy that needs to learn the basics and then take it a step at a time, learning how your instrument works and how you can personalize your own style?

A good guitar learning book will be one that meets your needs. However, there are some pointers as to what you should be looking for. Your book should focus on concepts rather than long lists of chords and finger positions. Learning to play a guitar involves a combination of memory, understanding and physical exercise.

Yes, physical exercise: you will be using muscles you have never used that way before, and it is important that you build up some strength in them. You will have a number of basic chords to remember and the various finger placements to attain specific notes. You will also have to understand the concept of what you are trying to do, and basically how a guitar works and how you can get it to do whatever you want it to do. The majority of beginners give up after a few months, and a good guitar learning book can help you to avoid that.

It will also stop you from getting some bad habits - habits that will prevent you playing properly and effortlessly and that will come back and haunt you at the wrong times, no matter how hard you try to get out of them. The only way is not to get them in the first place, and that is where the guitar book can help.

It is easy to learn what notes each position on the fret makes with each string, but the book should tell you why certain note combinations, or chords, are pleasing to the ear, and how to form them. The book should teach you correct fingering, since that can not only enable you to form the notes properly, but also save you from a lot of physical pain. There is pain in learning guitar, but it can be reduced if the fingering is right.

So when looking for a guitar learning book, check out the book and find out if it shows you how to hold the guitar and place your fingers properly on the fret for both individual notes and chords, and also if it provides you with an explanation of the formation of chords and some scale and chord exercises. It should explain to you the concept of 'keys' and how each key is basically the same, only played on different parts of the fret.

You shouldn't have to spend hours learning chords before playing, though, and it is great if a CD or DVD comes with the book. That will not only let you hear what you should be playing, but will also provide a backing track that you can play against, and perhaps even slowed down versions of the tracks you should be playing.

Perhaps the CD will allow you to make up your own music to the backing provided, but at the very least will let you hear what the piece you are playing is meant to sound like. A good guitar book will allow you to play real tunes and backings while you are learning, and that helps to maintain your interest - especially when you can hear yourself continually getting better at it.

A good guitar learning book should allow you to learn while having fun, but also provide you with the essential knowledge and concepts such as chords or note combinations, keys, scales and fingering, while also being truthful with you. It should explain the purpose of keys and why all tunes cannot be played in the same key. It should come with a CD or DVD and allow you to play along to backing tracks, and also let you hear what each lesson should sound like. There are plenty books out there with page after page of chord diagrams and tabs; but if you concentrate on getting the basics right, you will find that the rest will come a lot easier.

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Guitar Practice - What Do You Need?

When you decided to become a guitar player you thought guitar practice would be fun, right? But you have discovered that the process of learning to play guitar involves climbing a mountain or two. If you have persisted in your efforts to learn guitar you might have just decided to grit your teeth and knuckle down to solid hard work. Hours of it. Hours on end. The reward is in the future. Well, the work is necessary but if there is no fun then much of the work is wasted. Every guitarist should work out a practice regime that helps develop technique, widening repertoire, performing a variety of music, and in getting your songs into your memory.

If your aim is to do one hour of guitar practice per day it would be good to focus a little on getting value for money out of all that sweating. One hour's guitar practice should not be one hour's continuous playing without a break.

Guitar practice time is the opportunity to renew your view of the guitar and of yourself. You need to have an aim or two every time you sit down to practice, but none of these aims should be set in concrete. It is true that constant playing makes you a guitarist, but trying to play scales and chords your hands are not ready for just makes you grumpy. If you find yourself worrying about how your speed is not improving or you are just not getting the chord change you have been working on, then you need to take a step back and try to have more fun while you practice. At least once a week make a point of playing the songs you really enjoy playing.

Maybe you can start by having several things to practice on any given day so that when you get sick of practicing one thing you can move onto something else.

Let us take a look at some areas we could aim to work on: Warming up your hands Working on technique Learning new songs Memorizing songs Taking time to work on musical interpretation Improving technique by reviewing music you are already familiar with.

The actual practice of working on these areas entails asking yourself if you really know what it takes to learn new songs without getting stuck, or if you need to ask someone else what aspects of technique you need to attend to. Opening up questions about your playing is far more useful than mechanically repeating a practice regime based on what you thought you needed six months ago or last week.

Part of guitar practice is examining your attitude to your practice time. If you are the type of person who has trouble getting down to work, make a set time to practice and make yourself stick to it. If it is natural for you to sit down to practice regularly you should spice up your routine as much as you can because your biggest danger is going stale. Or you could simply take some rest breaks during a grueling practice session. An ideal way to break up practice time is to be always making sure your guitar is in tune. Divide your guitar practice time into portions, say 10 minutes practicing arpeggios, 5 minute tuning break, 15 minutes scales, 5 minutes on a tricky chord change.

Another hazard for a guitarist is regarding your practice as "only" practice. If you have lessons with a teacher or occasionally play for friends and family, prepare in advance as though you were preparing for a formal performance. You need to see what you need to work on to sound your best. To make the most of your guitar practice time, allow your problems to drop away. Take a holiday from your life.

Learn Guitar Chords Easily

If you have a burning desire to learn to play guitar chords then stick around. It does not matter whether you want to play lead guitar in a band or just accompany your singing on the acoustic guitar, the principles of learning guitar chords are the same. I will talk about the easiest kinds of chords to play and how guitarists learn thousands of songs with very little effort. After reading my little essay you will have the basic understanding of guitar chords that will give you direction in your quest to become a guitarist.

If you have watched advanced guitar players at concerts or on TV you might have been discouraged by how complicated guitar chords appear to be. It is true that some guitar songs or instrumentals do call for chord shapes and changes that require alot of practice but you can easily become an accomplished electric or acoustic guitarist without being a virtuoso. It is quite possible to stay with easy guitar chords for your whole career.

The first thing you need to do is find a list of songs that you want to learn to play. The first criterion for choosing songs is whether you like them. The others have to do with the use of open chords and chord families which we will now take a look at. Apart from your personal enjoyment, the use of songs as tools for learning chords has a practical value: it is much easier to learn groups of chords rather than one at a time because changing from one chord to the other helps your muscle memory to learn the fingerings.

Another thing that simplifies the process of learning guitar chords is the fact that popular music relies heavily on a form that uses only three chords for any song. This is not a hard and fast rule but you will find it holds true for most popular songs. An effective way to classify chords is to separate them into families which are simply combinations of chords that sound well together. In the key of A you have A, D and E. In the key of D the chords are D, E minor, G and A. In the key of G they are G, A minor, C, D, and E minor. And the family of chords for the key of C is C, D minor, E minor, F and G. To make your guitar practice time most effective begin with learning one chord family at a time and finding "three chord" songs that contain your chords.

The key to beginning as a guitarist is to learn what are called "open" chords. These are chords that only require you to use two or three fingers to make the chord shapes. Open chords are played in the first position on the guitar fretboard, that is, within the first three frets. An example of an open chord is the E minor chord:

E--------0---------------

B--------0---------------

G--------0---------------

D--------2---------------

A--------2---------------

E--------0----------------

The E minor chord requires you to place two fingers at the second fret on the fifth and fourth strings. What could be easier?

If you want to become an electric guitar player, you might be interested to know that power chords are the simplest to play. Power chords usually only need two fingers and are combined with the use of distortion to fry the brains of rock music lovers of all ages. So you have something to look forward to.

Seven steps to becoming a music journalist

Want to be a music journalist? Follow our seven steps and it won't be long before you're interviewing chart-topping bands and launching the careers of hot new acts.

1) It's or its?: You can't be a music journalist if you can't structure a news story or don't know the difference between it's and its. Either enrol on a journalism course or degree (ideally not media studies as the courses won‘t teach you how to write), or you could study music at degree level, then take a postgraduate course in journalism. If you're not able to take a course, buy some good journalism books which will teach you how to structure news stories and features, as well as how to conduct interviews.

2) Keep your finger on the pulse: Get your hands on your favourite music magazines every issue or read music websites to keep up with what's happening in genres which interest you. You can't write about music if you haven't got your finger on the pulse. Also, find music articles which you think are well written and study the structure of them and the kind of language used. Read enough articles and you'll soon realise that music journalism is pretty formulaic and that the same phrases and ‘buzz words' come up again and again.

3) Practice, practice, practice: Set up a blog. This will give you the opportunity to practice news and feature writing and develop your skills. If you're not confident enough to put your writing on the internet yet, then don't worry. Just keep writing until you are confident enough to do so.

4) Get your name out there: Approach music websites, student media, local papers, and anywhere else you can think off and ask if they're looking for writers. You're more likely to get accepted if you can show editors examples of your writing - either published or unpublished. Expect to work for free (we‘ve all been there!) and to write about artists you've never heard of or on genre which is alien to you. It sucks, but impress your editor with your talent and hard work and eventually you'll get offered better reviews and interviews.

5) Work experience: Once you've built up a portfolio of cuttings, start applying for work experience at music magazines, larger music websites or music sections of national newspapers. This will help you build up contacts and show you've worked in a journalism office environment, which could help you land a job on the music press. If you get rejected by music publications, don't panic. Apply to publications on other subjects, ideally ones you're familiar with, as you'll still get to build up your skills and prove your commitment to a journalism career.

6) Start applying for jobs: Armed with cuttings and work experience, you're ready to start applying for jobs. Try editorial assistant or staff writer jobs, anything to get your foot in the door in the journalism world . . . and actually get paid to write! Again, if you're not lucky enough to immediately land a job on the music press, apply to other publications.

7) Keep at it: Keep writing and, if you're talented and committed enough, you'll land the job of your dreams. Plus, if you don't at least you get to write about something you love.