It will be winter again before we know it! I am so happy, I cannot wait! What did you think, about what you just read? Do you feel the same way about winter time as I do? If you are like the average person, you probably thought this guy is wacko, or something.

It’s just that I have enjoyed every season since I was a young child, to me they each have great things, and nothing is worse in one season over the other.

I hear folks grumble in the summer about the heat and sweating, and in the winter I hear these same folks talking about the cold and over eating. It’s like anything really, some folks tend to stay pretty happy all year around, while others tend to be sad and depressed all year round, life is how you make it, and how you react to situations that happen, no matter how tragic they are.

Now, I better stop rambling here, because I am probably starting to sound like a therapist and I am getting off the topic of this article, which is fighting the winter blues by learning to play an instrument. Instruments come in all shapes and sizes,and some produce sounds or music that is calm and gentle, while others can be very loud and powerful, like the drums or bugle.

Your first step in deciding what instrument to learn depends on your living conditions, for instance if you live in an apartment and have neighbors in the same building, you better select something like an electronic keyboard or synthesizer to learn to play, because these can be learned while wearing headphones, so only you can hear them.

You don’t really have many more choices if you live in an apartment building, as what you may consider fun and enjoyment, others may not feel that way, and this could lead to neighbors turning into enemies, and cause you to get evicted.

If you own your own home and are free from neighbors for some distance, you can probably try your hand at learning any instrument that you want.

Some instruments are a lot easier then others to learn, for instance some of the ones that most people say are the easiest to learn playing are; Piano, Flute, Clarinet, Harmonica and the Guitar.

Some of the harder to learn instruments are; Harp, Saxophone, Violin and Trombone. But, then again like with most things, some people just seem more skilled at picking up and learning something new pretty easily.

The next time you find yourself with nothing to do in the cold, snowy months, why not use this time to practice learning to play an instrument, it’s a great way to help beat the winter blues.

There is a website that describes numerous activities and other methods to help eliminate the Winter Blues, this website is called: Winter Activities – and it may be found at this url: Winter-Activities.com

You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter or on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.

About the Author: Luzerna Solon, has worked in the field of depression and other aspects involving the Winter Blues for a number of years. She has counseled thousands over the years, and has helped them remove the winter blues from their life with simple activities.

Winter Activities

Winter-Activities.com

(ArticlesBase SC #3823061)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Help Beat the Winter Blues by Learning to Play an Instrument

Acoustic guitar flatpicking techniques are components of the language that helps you to speak to your audience. As you do not have the electronic effects an electric guitarist has at his disposal, you are left with the flatpicking techniques you can use to make your music touch the minds and hearts of your listeners.

Acoustic guitar flatpicking techniques govern how you touch the guitar strings with your pick. How you control volume and tone, and how you manage the clarity of your flatpicking. The right hand controls the way you play your acoustic guitar and how it sounds, we should concentrate on this hand.

The main part of your collection of flatpicking techniques is freedom of movement. Your right hand should be able to move freely from soundhole to bridge to give you the biggest range of tones available on the acoustic guitar. The biggest obstacle to freedom of movement for your right hand is anchoring it by pressing down on the guitar body with your little finger.

Many guitar flatpickers anchor their little finger on the guitar body, and of course, after years of practice their playing sounds fine, but their ability to move their right hand is severely limited.

This means if a flatpicker wants to move his right hand for tonal effect he needs to swivel it around while it is still touching the body of the guitar or lift the finger and plant it in a new position. Either method increases tension and the number of muscular operations the guitarist needs to carry out while playing.

Another basic element of acoustic guitar flatpicking technique is the ability to move the pick up or down to connect between any two strings as and when the music requires. This is simply a matter of practice.

The basic when you are deciding whether to play using up or down strokes is where the next note is going to be played. If you are playing a note on the sixth string and your next note is on the fifth (or first) string, you will, of course, be using a down stroke to get there.

The problem a lot of flatpicking guitar players have is that down strokes are more comfortable to do than up strokes. So they never even try to practice their acoustic guitar playing using the up stroke.

If you think about it, it stands to reason that if you use a down stroke on the first string and then a down stroke on the fourth string, you need to stop the downward momentum of your hand on the first string, move the hand up to the fourth string, then start another downward movement.

It is much more relaxed and economical in terms of energy use to allow your down stroke to finish and naturally progress to an up stroke to strike your next string.

About the Author: Do you want to learn to play the guitar? Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free is a constantly updated blog which contains all the resources you need for: learning to play solo guitar, how to learn guitar chords, how to learn to read and play easy acoustic guitar tabs, finding a free online guitar tuner, looking for free guitar lessons online, and how to learn guitar scales.

Do you find it easy to write songs? Too easy? Well, I at least have had a problem with this.

If you would visit our home and my garage you would find a lot of unfinished songs and a lot of manuscript paper with some notes on them showing that I wanted to say something with music but never finished it.

Maybe you always finish your songs, record them or have well documented lists with your songs for easy access. That’s the way I work now but obviously didn’t work before.

Nowadays I have started to realize the importance of finishing songs that I have found enough important to start writing in the first place.

I think it is important for you and me to complete songs we have started to write for the following reasons:

1. It is when songs are complete that other people can benefit from them and you can feel that you have contributed something to the benefit of others and to yourself.

2. It has a positive effect on your subconsious mind to take your composition the whole way to completion. It will give you the realization that you can write songs. It’s that simple!

3. As I mentioned before you will avoid having a lot of unfinished songs hanging around. It can be unfinished recordings or pieces of paper with a few words on them indicating an attempt to create something that probably meant a lot then but now is just words.

If you are signed to a recording company you will be more or less forced to produce things. The product will hopefully be a CD with maybe twelve songs on it and a show for your promotion tour.

It seems like slavery to be forced to produce a product like a CD. But having this obvious goal to work towards and the pressure involved can actually promote creativity.

If you are not signed to a record label you can benefit from working with your songs in a similar way.

1. Set a goal to produce for example three songs and set the prerequisites like writing one love ballad, one uptempo song and a waltz.

2. When you have made the songs record them and burn them on a CD.

3. Learn the songs by heart and sing and play them for your friends.

Doing this will increase your faith in your ability to produce songs and I think you will feel a greater joy and satisfaction in your great enterprise to write songs for the benefit of mankind and, of course, yourself.

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at CapotastoMusic.com

Article Source: Artipot

If you’ve performed live on stage or even a casual jam with your friends at band practice — one of the most annoying things guitarists have is a thing called FEEDBACK!

If you don’t know what feedback is — it’s that terrible high pitched sound that comes from speakers.

It usually happens when you place your microphone too close to the speaker or play your guitar directly in front of the amplifier.

Not only does this damage your ears, but it puts your audience off when they come to hear you play!
Now I’m not an expert on the dynamics of feedback. But I have performed on stage many times and have learnt a few tricks to avoid feedback from occurring…

The first step is to turn down your treble on your amplifier. Too much treble invites feedback so don’t have too much treble in your amplifier settings.

The second step is to turn the volume on your guitar up only 3/4. Don’t turn your volume up full as this is invites huge feedback! Always leave a little room on your volume, so don’t turn it up all the way. Only 3/4 and I guarantee you will reduce feedback at least 80% with this trick.

One other trick is to turn down the gain or distortion on your amp. When you play softly, you can turn your gain or distortion full. But when you start playing with some serious volume, turn your gain only 50%.

You will still get the same sound and distortion, but this is the trick to avoiding feedback from occurring when you play loudly.

Finally, if you’re using an effects pedal, only turn it up 3/4 the way. Like your guitar — always leave a bit of leeway as it offers more control over the sound and keeps your playing tight!

Remember this — if you keep control of your volumes, you reduce the level of feedback and have a much tighter sound as an over all band. If you turn everything up full and try to rule the world — you’ll sound a mess and out of control.

Learn more at abcLearnGuitar.com