The Lust for Life Beat

On NPR's All Songs Considered blog, Bob Boilen examines the occurrences of what he calls the "Lust for Life" beat in other songs. Bob is referring to the famous opening drum and bass lines from Iggy Pop's song Lust for Life. He cites the Supreme's You Can't Hurry Love and Jet's Are You Gonna Be My Girl as also having a similar beat. The post features free versions of all three songs and many suggestions for other appearances of the "Lust for Life" beat are named in the comments.

I also highly recommend the NPR: All Songs Considered Podcast. There are typically two types of episodes: 1) Several new albums/artists are discussed with a track played for each one 2) a whole live concert. It's absolutely free and very easy to download through iTunes.

Video Tutorial: How to Read Guitar Tab

One of the first stumbling blocks for a beginning guitarist trying to take guitar lessons may be trying to figure out what all of those lines and numbers in guitar tab mean. We've designed a series of free video lessons that will take the beginner through the basic concepts of guitar tab. Take a look...

How to Read Guitar Tabs

How to Read Chord Charts

How to Read Fingering Notation

Reading Double Stop Fingering Notation

Here is the youtube video of the How to Read Guitar Tab video

Blog Roundup: Practice, Clapton, and Cases

The IG Blog has put up two interesting posts recently. The first post, The Key to Guitar Practice, brings up a very good point:

“In a craft practice, HOW we do what we do is primary, and WHAT we do is secondary. Our concern is with process rather than result.”

For me this would be an issue of how intently I'm practicing. If I'm mainly watching tv and happen to be playing guitar at the same time, am I actually practicing, or am I just fidgeting with my hands in a musical way? Playing through chord progressions and riffs that I've known for years is not practice. But trying to learn a new part or actually focusing on music theory is the type of practice that will actually make me a better guitar player.

The second post of interest references an old Guitar World interview with Eric Clapton where he discusses his guitar tone. Specifically, why he switched from a telecaster in his early Yardbirds days to a Les Paul and a Marshall amp when he was with the John Mayall and the Blues Breakers.

And finally, Guitar Noize points us towards some incredibly cool guitar cases by Kaces. They have a special line of cases featuring national flags (UK, USA, Mexico) with a weathered look to them. See examples below.

Ask a Teacher: Guides & Pivots

PJ:: Thanks for your lesson on guides and pivots. Can you provide any assistance on the G chord to C chord change (where all fingers are finding different homes on the fret board)? I am finding the C to G change pretty straightforward, but getting back to C has been a bit frustrating to say the least. Anything you can share would be appreciated.

Peter: This is actually a tough chord change. I promote working on changes like this with slow motion work. Practice doing the chord change (or any that is difficult for you) by moving your fingers in slow motion. As slow as you can possibly go. This will help you minimize motion and gain control of your fingers. Depending on the fingering you use you are probably having to lift all of your fingers for this chord change. Practice lifting and placing them all at the same time in slow motion using as small of motions. Don't feel bad if this takes a while to master. Once again this is a difficult change but the battle is well worth fighting and will help you with other difficult changes as you progress. Best of luck.