My final English Project was to create a feature artcile. I chose to do mine on guitar well to be more specific it was on "what to look for when buying your first guitar" what the heck I'll just post the article on here.

Picking up a guitar is easier then it seems

A guide to get start with a guitar




With all the new music artists these days there are several artists that are in bands that play instruments such as guitar, bass, and drums or triple powered bands as commonly referred to. But not many people realize that the only instrument that sounds really good on its own is guitar and even more people think it’s really hard and really expensive to start playing. After you decide that you want to start playing guitar you then have to decipher weather you want an acoustic or an electric. There is also several other elements to playing guitar and to look for in a guitar such as, the timeline of guitars, technology in guitars and technique in guitar. There will also be feature information on an interview with Clayton Halverson who constructs music for the Winnipeg symphony orchestra and does other music activities, teachings, and performances as his full time profession.



When you start out with a new thing in life weather it be dancing, fishing, swimming, you name it (in this case guitar)… you’re always going to have preconceived notions as to what’s going to happen when you start them. The main and of course obvious ones with guitar of course are:

-If I start playing guitar my fingers will hurt



-There’s so much other stuff to prepare for with guitar. Replacement strings, getting lessons, getting the guitar fixed.



-If I start playing guitar I don’t want it to just be something that I do for a few months and just give up on.



When I spoke with Clayton he greatly changed my perspective on music and even about some aspects of life. When I asked him all the questions, the responses that he gave me were outstanding in a personal aspect. He explained to me that he got really good at guitar just from practicing simple scales over and over again and his girlfriend (who is also his wife at this date) would play chords for him on piano and he would try to recognize them. He also talked about the science aspect of playing guitars such as spatial relations and relation to music and gravity. He thinks that if you’re starting out with guitar… regardless of which genre of music you should get a classical nylon string guitar.



With a classic guitar accompanied by nylon strings it’s a pleasure to play because of course it sounds really nice and it’s also really easy to play because unlike steal string guitars nylon is very easy on your fingers. When you purchase a guitar you can get as little or as massive as you want price wise. Many used guitar shops sell used guitars for as low as $50 while at the same time you can go to a really commercial guitar store and spend upwards of $5,000. Throughout your life time it’s certain your going to go through stages in life and of course with music, a guitar can be with you for the rest of your life and if you get bored of it at one time you might go through a stage and really want to play it. The two articles I researched strongly agreed that you should choose one way or the other to go in buying a guitar (electric or acoustic)



So now you’re at the guitar shop looking at a guitar to purchase… “This one looks nice” Does it really? If you’re handling a guitar for the first time the main things you should check out is the feel the guitar really ask yourself if you picture yourself playing the guitar. Then you should see if you enjoy how the action is on the guitar (The action behind how far away the strings are from the fret board on the neck) After that make sure each note of the guitar is playable without any buzzing (this often times created from the action being to low to the fret board therefore rubbing up against the neck, creating friction and BUZZ!) So what really is the different between an acoustic and an electric guitar? Electric guitars have solid bodies, magnetic pickups and several knobs instead of the hollow resonating cavity found in an acoustic guitar. So now you’ve bought a guitar… where to go next?



“LESSONS, LESSONS, AND MORE LESSONS!” Anywhere around the world you’ll be able to take lessons for guitar, and usually that will teach you the genre of music that you are interested in. I myself have been playing guitar for the last 4-5 years and have not taken a single professionally taught lesson. Instead I spent countless hours searching on the internet about lessons, tablature (Another form of sheet music for guitar, easier to read when you’re starting out) to figure out how to play. If you’re not the kind of person that wants to dedicate a huge amount of time to searching, guitar teachers are the best alternative. Learning theory online is very hard and something you should be taught by a professional and is in which case well worth the value of the lessons. It’s not about what solo you can play, what riff sort of sounds cool. It’s about comprehending the music and understanding the sound that is going to make you a good guitar player. With guitar you always want to remember to yourself “what you put in it what you get out… there’s no shortcuts”



“One day they’ll make a machine to teach me how to play guitar” If this is the thought you have in your mind it might help to know that all of the technology in devotion to guitar so far has been for addition effects to electric guitars, tuning guitars, and amplification.



So if the topic of guitars has interested you over time I hope I have taken some of the first steps in thinking to purchase a guitar. My intention and hope is that I’ve really broken down the initial preconceived notions of getting a guitar while giving you some information and another opinion from Clayton Halverson. Besides that if you do ever choose to purchase a guitar remember which little article inspired you and ROCK ON



I created this article while playing Jimi Hendrix on my acoustic guitar.



anyway, well part of this was to do an interview. Before I did this interview I didn't really think anything of it. I didn't realize how much I could actually get out've it. It was so great that Clayton breifly had a chance to talk about the main aspects he finds in playing his music.. like

Interpretation

Comprehension

Spacial Relations

Muscle Memory

Hearing about this inspired me a lot to start playing guitar again. Lately I've just been playing scale after scale, looking on the internet for new scales, songs, lyrics.. all kinds of junk. And it just keeps growing.. I keeping at more and more stuff.. tonight I was sort've resarching how-to's and peoples opinions on how to create good songs.. all very usefull information.. IT'S great! lol.. anyway I guess that's enough blabber about me and my inspiration to play guitar again.


well, since i got into guitar again I thought I'd start tabbing out the little riffs I make up.. this is the first one I'm working on.

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