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It was going to be a long, hot summer so I looked through my college catalogue for a nice “cool” class.  Music theory seemed to be the only choice I had.  At the time I had no idea that class would lead me straight into an overwhelming interest in learning to play a guitar. 

My music class started off easy enough, but soon we were required to learn every chord with all the sharps and flats AND we had to say it at “speed of light” when the professor called on us.  He had a stopwatch to make sure we were fast enough.  The “Commander of the Stopwatch” kept yelling, “Faster, faster!”  My blood pressure went up.  Read the rest of this entry »

The guitar based video game series Guitar Hero is very popular these days with guitar playing wannabees of all ages (I think I saw a video of a cat) strapping on plastic guitars and jamming away to their favorite songs.  These games are surely a lot of fun, but can they really help you learn to play a “real” guitar?  The answer is a resounding definite maybe yes.

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When I went to grade school there were five different grades you could get on your report card.  These were represented by the letters A-D and of course F.  An A was the best grade you could get and obviously F was the worst grade you could get.

Interestingly, there are also standard guitar chords with the same names, A-D and F.  Do these chords also represent a progression from best to worst?  I decided to do some investigation into this intriguing hypothesis.

Since A was the best grade you could get in school, was A the best chord you could play on the guitar?  Let’s take a listen. 

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If you are just starting out playing guitar and have the need to purchase a guitar pick, you may have found that there are almost endless possibilities of these little plastic items for sale at your local guitar shop.  What the heck are these things, what is the difference, and which kind should you buy?

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