21 Steps to Rapidly Improve Your Guitar Playing

1. Regular daily practice may sound boring, but set yourself a reminder, commit to 20 to 30 minutes five times a week and you'll be impressed with the progress you make!
2. Know the difference between "practice" and "play". Practice time is when you focus on things you can't already do. Yes, that new tune you should have learnt by now! Playing is just letting it flow, not working on or thinking about what you're doing, but just having fun.
3. Get a Metronome. Yes, the little item which bleeps! Working with one regularly strengthens the internal metronome you never knew was in there!
4. Listen and learn styles you wouldn't normally choose. If you're into pop/rock, go learn some country: it'll give you a new way of thinking, plus some new ideas.
5. Keep a practice diary. Write down what you learn. That way, you can look back and see if you can still play the songs you were working on a while ago. Great way to measure progress.
6. Regularly review what you learnt to see how far you have come.
7. Set goals. Find a song you can't play, set a date that you'll be able to play it by, and work hard to achieve your goal.
8. Play with more advanced players. You will learn the most by falling on your face live and getting your butt handed to you!
9. Have a practice buddy. Find a friend you can practise with, monitor each other's progress and point out mistakes you can see. It's far easier to see the mistakes of others than your own.
10. Find a local Jam. You might be nervous, but you'll meet some great musicians and get over your fear of just getting up there and playing something.
11. Record yourself playing your favourite song (without the song in the background) and then listen back. What works? What sucks? Be very critical.
12. Transcribe - learn how to work out songs, solos and licks.
13. Learn to just "hear it" - knowing where the music's going is a must if you play in a band, forget the music or are at a jam. If you can just "hear it", people will be lining up to play with you!
14. Keep a "to work on" list. If you hear something you would like to play, write it down, add it to the list.
15. Evaluate every gig. Assess what worked and what didn't. Work on the things that didn't.
16. Learn all your scales: each and every one of them, know them backwards, forwards, sideways and back to front!
17. Learn every chord and voicing. Work out every chord possible (there's a lot of them!), then learn all possible versions of that chord (voicings and inversions).
18. Work on your sound. Experiment with your tone, explore new sounds, borrow pedals to try out. Work on copying famous people's tone.
19. Start a folder. Jot down on musical/chord box/TAB paper everything you work out. Flick over this later and quickly get up to speed with what you learnt.
20. Tuning. We've all been to too many gigs where people have played out of tune. Make sure you always play and bend in tune. If you're at a gig, tune in between each song (or at least check).
21. Finally....enjoy: have fun!

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Article Submitted On: March 22, 2011

How To Improve Your Singing Voice

Learning how to sing better is an emotional rollercoaster and a fun journey. One day you may be sounding amazing and then the next day you sound like crap and you wonder "What Happened?!"

If you want to learn how to improve your singing voice, one of the first things you should do is go get a few voice lessons with a really competent teacher. This part is super important because, unfortunately, there are a lot of teachers out there teaching singing who really shouldn't be because they're either not qualified, or even worse, HAVE qualifications from a university or what have you and STILL don't know what they're doing. These kinds of teachers can reverse your progress for a long time and can even permanently damage your singing voice. Avoid these teachers like the plague!

But how can you tell a competent teacher from a charlatan? The first thing you'd need to do is ask to hear them sing. If they don't sound really, really good, that should raise your radar. How can somebody teach you something if they can't even do it themselves? My litmus test for voice teachers is how they address the issue of the larynx. The larynx is your voicebox (the little bump on the front of your throat). When you're singing, the larynx should remain in a relatively low, stable position. If you ask the teacher what they think about the position of the larynx and they look like you just asked them the riddle of the Sphynx, you should go find another teacher ASAP!

Another little tip to help you save time is to go to a university and contact some of the vocal instructors in the voice department. Look for somebody with a classical voice degree. That doesn't mean that they will teach you to sing opera. It just means that they have a very solid musical and vocal education and are intimately connected with the way the voice works. They can help you much better than most vocal coaches out there. Be prepared to pay up to $70/hr with a great teacher.

The other thing I'd suggest is to use some singing software to help you get good quick. A program such as Singing Success would be my first choice.

Since voice instructors are expensive, singers need a way to work on their singing efficiently from home. The solution is singing software that allows you to practice all by yourself. That way, you can listen back and get an honest listen to how you've sung.

How to Improve Your Piano Skills With Rocket Piano?

Well if you regularly go to church and after listening to the piano there you feel that you should be there in that seat instead of the audience. This is the kind of feeling which I used to have when I went to church but somewhere in my heart I felt that now it is too late to learn piano. Despite of that feeling I kept my options open and started to look for some piano learning. Then one day I found Rocket Piano on the internet and I was just amazed after reading all the things about this amazing learning system. In rest of the discussion I will tell you about my experience and some things which can make you a skilled pianist in very short spam of time.

When I purchased Rocket Piano, I got some very interesting and useful tools with it. This is a full piano learning system which guides you from very basic level to an extreme level of experts. This does not matter whether you are a beginner or a master but it has something for ever one. I am going to tell you about some things which you will get in the package. If you are a beginner then, you will love the beginner book which starts everything from scratch and even if you do not know anything about piano still, this book will guide you for everything. It provides you with all the basic knowledge and gives you some very basic and simple songs to play.

After you have finished the beginner book then comes the intermediate book. This book takes you to another level. Even if you thing that you do not need the beginner book then, you can start from intermediate book. This book concentrates on all three parts of music which are melody, harmony and rhythm and takes you to a level where you become able to absorb some more advanced lessons. After you complete this intermediate level then, you will be provided with the advanced book.

In advanced book you will learn about some unique fingering techniques in just 2 to 3 weeks. I found this book really amazing and it looks like some one has given information which he or she has been gathering for many years and you get all of that information in just one click. Other than these books the lesson also gives you 133 songs to play and 57 video lessons.

Finally, I hope this review article can be of help to you when it comes to helping you to consider whether or not it is right for you.