Spring 2011 Recitals
Over 60 students chose to perform in two of our Spring recitals, featuring piano, violin, guitar, saxophone, and cello this past May, performing as soloists and groups. We’re all proud of our students’ progress!
Piano Books for Beginners
New piano books are in! For piano students ages 5 and up, the Piano Adventures Primer level introduces younger students to the notes on the piano, basic rhythm, learning how to read music. The Piano Adventures level 1 book is good for students that have a little background in music in general.
Adult students can use the Piano Adventures Adult method. Visit other methods and sheet music for piano in our store catalog.
Click here or more information on our Piano lessons at East Cooper Music
The Basic Major Guitar Chords
The Basic Major Chords You Should Learn by Bob Williams
(and some shortcuts to help you learn them fast)
Let’s review the names of our first major chords and then we will go over them individually. We have A,B,C,D,E,F,G as our beginning chords to learn. Most books will agree on this as these chords can all be played in the first few frets. Let’s take them one by one and see why one may be more difficult than another. I have included the basic chord page 25 from my book so you can see each one as we discuss them. Remember these points when putting your fingers in position.
*Keep your fingers straight and use the fingertips. If they lay down they will touch other strings and mute them.
*Keep the thumb in the middle of the back of the neck and push your wrist out a little. This will keep the fingers straight.
*Stretch the fingers up to the fret. If you do not get close to the fret you will have buzzing from the string. You can also get buzzing from not pressing down hard enough.
Now for the chords:
A— line up all 3 fingers and do your best to fit them in the 2nd fret. You should use fingers 1,2 and 3. Some books show 2,1and 3 but the first way is best.
B— a chord not used much and a good thing because of the stretch with the fret in between finger 1 and 2,3,4. Most all players use the bar chord instead of this form.
C— this chord is used all the time. Push the fingers up to the fret and keep them straight. It’s easy to mute some strings with the stretch.
D— think of the chord as a triangle, one of the easiest chords to do. Finger this chord and then play the strings 4,4,2,3 rather quickly. You should recognize this as the beginning of a famous “southern rock” song.
E— nice full sounding chord, strum all 6 strings slowly and make sure each one is clear
F— hardest of all the basic chords, you are using the 1st finger to play the first two strings. This will take time but you will get it!
G— notice there are two ways to play this chord. Some students whine about how hard it is to use the 2,3,4 fingers so there is an another fingering using 1,2,3. The first way is the best because you can easily change to other chords in the key. To play songs like “ take it easy” by the Eagles or “leader of band” by Dan Fogelberg you must use fingers 2,3,4.