New Steven Tyler of Aeroomith Harmonica available
June 6, 2008
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Interested in writing for us? Click here. Also join us at 
for contests and further news. Thanks for visiting!
New Steven Tyler of Aeroomith Harmonica available
GLEN ALLEN, VA - Following up on the success of the original Steven Tyler Signature harmonica, Hohner announces the shipment of a lower cost version of this product called the Steven Tyler Artist Harmonica. This product has a retail price of $39.99 and features laser engraved black steel cover-plates featuring Steven Tyler’s signature, a black plastic comb, and a standard reed plate. It is packaged on a blister card and includes a black plastic carrying case that bears Steven Tyler’s logo.
“We anticipate very strong market demand for this harmonica” commented Scott Emmerman, Director of Marketing and Sales, “many of Steven’s fans really wanted to own one of his Signature harmonicas but didn’t really need a custom built instrument at a premium price. The new Steven Tyler Artist model is affordable, looks great, and sounds excellent” he added. Audio demos of this harmonica can be found at http://www.hohnerusa.com/index.php?1737
Hohner has manufactured and distributed musical instruments since 1857 and is one of the world’s oldest musical instrument companies. Its US brands include: Hohner Harmonicas, Accordions, Melodicas, Recorders & Fretted Instruments; Sonor Drums & Orff; Rockwood Drum & Guitar packs and Lanikai Ukuleles. Hohner has offices worldwide. In the US, its office is located in Glen Allen, VA. For additional information please visit www.hohnerusa.com.
Shopping For Drums
May 20, 2008
Shopping For Drums
By Alka Kheterpal
As a drummer, the drum sets is the most important asset that you have. To shop for the best drums in the given budget is always a challenge. Also the fact is that as a beginner you would mostly be at loss of the things which are important to look for than a few other things.
Here are my tips to shopping for drums.
The beginner drum sets usually come with poor quality cymbals so make sure that you buy good quality cymbals. The drums even if they are of little inferior quality will do if you put good heads to them and tune them properly. These cymbals usually are very crappy for beginners and sound very harsh. So go, buy the best cymbals with the drums. Buy branded cymbals like Zildjian or Sabian.
There are beginners lines of drums from companies such as Pear, Tama, Yamaha, Pacific or Ludwig. For beginners there are series which are not expensive before you graduate to the next level. These are made of Philipine Mahogany and very inexpensive hardware. As long as you are looking to learn the drum playing then you need not worry about the wood or the finish. Go for the beginner level.
The next step up from beginner level series is the semi professional ones like the Tama Rockstar series or the Yamaha Stage Custom. The price range for these is $500-900 and is usually made up of birch, which is of course high end. Most professional players will usually upgrade to more high end drum sets from these semi professional ones once they are confident enough and will put more money for the most reputed and professional drum sets and even get a few custom made.
The most recommended company which people buy from is Pacific. They have drums made up of birch or maple wood which would need and have good lacquer finish. The price range can be again based on your choice of drums but surely under $1000.
The next best option to get professional drums for a relatively low price is E-bay. They have huge listing and usually you will get a good bargain from there. But make to do your due diligence while buying from the online market place.
The other tips usually that you need to look for are the warranty on the drums and the cymbals, what is the hardware associated with it and also make sure to check the freebies the companies give out. A lot many companies give out freebies with the drum sets. Some may be good but good companies like Yamaha will not have anything like freebies.
Some of the good online shops are wwdw and steveweissmusic. Do your research and enjoy the drum sets.
Alka is a gift connoisseur and who writes extensively about gifts and has written specifically about drummer gifts The gift for people with a particular hobby is important like drum gifts for a drummer.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alka_Kheterpal
History Of The ESP Guitar
May 14, 2008
History Of The ESP Guitar
By Johnny Stall
The first ESP Guitar was made in Japan in 1976. The ESP Company (Electric Sound Products) actually started up a year earlier but only provided guitar replacement parts at that time. ESP guitars and replacement parts continued to be sold exclusively in Japan for nearly a decade before moving into the U.S. market. In 1983 their replacement parts were made available in the U.S and in 1984 their guitars made their American appearance.
In 1984/85 ESP guitars were attracting some attention from great guitarists such as Ronnie Wood (The Rolling Stones), Vernon Reid (Living Colour) and Bruce Kulick (Kiss).
The next big name to discover ESP guitars was George Lynch (Dokken) while shopping for guitar parts when he was touring in Japan. When George found out that ESP made custom guitars, the model "Kamikaze" was made for him. The Kamikaze was the first signature model to be made.
More musicians began to take notice of ESP and started playing their guitars in the late 80’s. Kirk Hammett and James Hetfield of Metallica were two of the bigger names.
Speaking of James Hetfield, an ESP guitar that he used when Metallica first started to become popular, got the ESP Company into some legal trouble. The guitar he used, known as the EXP, was a replica of the Gibson Explorer. Even though companies have been selling replicas of their guitars for years, Gibson decided to sue ESP. The quality of the EXP was so good that people were buying them up and this was allegedly cutting into the sales of Gibson’s own guitars. ESP lost the lawsuit and changed their design.
In 2002, ESP sales started to grow at a rapid rate making them one of the fastest growing companies at that time. This increase in sales was directly connected to Fender buying out Jackson Guitars. Jackson was the company that ESP had competed with in the 80’s and 90’s.
With the buyout of Jackson, many of the high profile guitarists jumped ship and went over to ESP. Guitarists like Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), found it natural to move over to ESP products because of the high quality and similar designs.
The ESP guitar is still very popular today. At the 2008 Winter NAMM show, ESP introduced over 50 new guitar and bass models. They also have a great selection of high profile guitar players on their roster including James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett (Metallica), Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom), Wayne Static (Static-X), Will Adler (Lamb of God), George Lynch, Ron Wood and newest member Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi). With the great quality of guitars ESP produces, they sure look like they are going to be around for many years to come.
"Teach Yourself Guitar The EASY Way" - grab your FREE report that Reveals "How to Avoid the Top 7 Mistakes That Most Beginners Make When Buying a Guitar Learning Product"
http://teach-yourself-guitar.com/freereport
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Johnny_Stall
Top Three Ways To Improve Your Guitar Playing
May 8, 2008
Top Three Ways To Improve Your Guitar Playing
By Mike P Hayes 
Want to improve your guitar playing? Here is the top three ways to improve your guitar playing! These tips will cut through all the "fluff" and get to the "real stuff".
Tip 1: Time is all you got! Use it wisely.
Write your number one musical goal down on a piece of paper and sticky tape this page over the power switch of the TV (or you can sticky tape this page over the TV or computer screen).
What, did he say? Yes, you read that correctly … turn the TV (or computer) off. Seriously, almost everyone has heard about writing their goals down, but how many people have actually taken the time to write their goals down?
All successful people have the a crystal clear picture of their goals, writing their goals down gives them clarity and focus.
When you tape your goal sheet over the TV screen it serves as a visual reminder of what you want to achieve and asks the all important question … are you prepared to "pay the price?"
It’s true everything in life has a price … there’s a price to pay for wanting to change things in your life and there’s a price to pay to for doing nothing. The really great thing is you get to choose.
Why is this "sticking tape on the TV" routine in the top ten ways to improve your guitar playing? Now, if you are honest with yourself, I’m sure there’s a couple of extra practice hours available if we were more selective with our TV viewing.
Perhaps "surfing the net" is your thing, have you ever made a note of how many hours you have spent on the net looking for guitar playing "short cuts".
How does a guitarist get really good? The answer is simple practice, practice, practice … that’s the only thing what will make you a good guitarist. There’s no other way!
Track your TV or internet surfing time for a week and see if you can invest extra time into actual guitar practice.
Tip 2: Learn melodies. what is a melody?
A simple way to introduce you to the concept of a melody is to think of a song, let’s say … "Happy Birthday" can you hear the tune for Happy Birthday playing in your head? What you are hearing is the melody, it’s the tune you whistle or hum.
Music consists of three main elements: rhythm (the beat), melody (the tune) and harmony (the chords).
Learning melodies is definitely in our top ten ways to improve your guitar playing list. There’s so much emphasis placed on learning scales and playing fast all over the guitar like a "bee in a bottle".
Even though there are many more people playing the guitar than ever before only an extremely small number of guitarist’s can play a recognizable melody on the guitar.
Make a sort list of five songs you want to learn the melody of, try to play these melodies "by ear" if you can read standard music notation learn to play the melody from the sheet music and then close the page and play the melody from memory!
Tip 3: Tap your foot … develop your groove!
Seems simple enough, however it’s rare for a beginner guitarist to tap their foot.
In it’s most basic description music could be defined as : "pitch in time".
Whilst there are obviously many other elements that contribute to the emotional experience of listening to a piece of music, "pitch in time" is a good description of the basics.
Remember it’s "pitch IN time", it is common practice to learn guitar via TAB, which is where we encounter our first major stumbling block.
TAB only notates pitch, the guitarist is left to figure out the "time" aspect by playing along with a song on a CD or mp3 etc.
This ‘monkey-see-,monkey-do" approach fails to develop the most basic element of music, namely, rhythm (the beat) consequently it has become increasingly more difficult to get two guitarist’s to play together in time because they have never developed the concept of tapping their foot (and listening to each other).
When you tap your foot, you feel the music internally, when musicians play together their has to be an common time feel and tempo. Regardless of any other skills you learn on the guitar, if you neglect to develop your groove, nothing will even work … it’s as simple as that!
To be a good guitarist takes practice patience and perseverance, over time your dedication will pay off, it all starts with setting goals you want to achieve and using your time wisely, learning melodies and developing your groove.
That’s my top three tips to improve your guitar playing, check them out and you will experience immediate results.
Mike Hayes develops systems and products to help you succeed in your guitar playing. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular free ecourse, available at: => http://www.guitarcoaching.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_P_Hayes
The 4 Best Guitar Solos Of All Time
May 8, 2008
The 4 Best Guitar Solos Of All Time
By Johnny Stall
The following is a list of the 4 best guitar solos ever to be played… well, at least in my opinion anyways.
I had the hardest time writing this because with all of the amazing music in the world, how the heck do you pick the top 4? What was even harder for me was to put them in order!
I have been working on this for days now and even though I have whittled the list down to 4, I still couldn’t decide on the order to place each song in. So instead of numbering them from 1 to 4, I decided just to tell you my favorite and leave the rest of them un-numbered. I know, I know… I wussed out! But sit down and try it yourself someday and then see how hard it is.
You probably wont agree with my choices and that’s ok because we all have different tastes. In fact, if everyone agreed with my picks, I would be worried. That’s the beauty of music… we love what we think sounds good, what makes us feel good and what makes us jump out of our chair and play some air guitar.
Could you imagine if we all felt the same, liked the same music and had the same opinions? How boring would that be?
So here are my choices, the songs and guitar solos that send shivers up and down my spine every time I hear them. If you don’t agree, that’s ok. These are my picks… go make your own ;-).
My favorite guitar solo of all time:
Eruption by Van Halen:
Written and performed by Eddie Van Halen on the Van Halen album. I picked this as my favorite of all because it’s the one that I always, no matter where and when I hear it, have this urge to play some serious air guitar. I remember being blown away the first time that I heard this because a sound like that was never heard before. That one song inspired myself and many other young kids to pick up the guitar.
The strangest part of this track was that it wasn’t even supposed to be on the album. Eddie was in the studio practicing one of the solos that he liked to do live because he had a gig on the weekend. His producer walked in and heard him playing and told him that he wanted to put it on the album. They recorded one take of the solo and that’s what you hear on the album.
Honorable mentions:
Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd:
Starting off as a ballad, Freebird then turns into an up-tempo guitar boogie. My favorite parts of the song are the slide guitar solo at the beginning and the 3 guitars that solo for nearly a full 5 minutes at the end of the song.
Another cool fact about this song is the lyrics at the start of the song. "If I leave here tomorrow would you still remember me?" was a question that a girlfriend of Skynrd guitarist Allen Collins asked him when she realized that music would always come before her in his life. Allen wrote those lyrics down and then were used in Freebird and recorded on their Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd album.
All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix Experience:
Jimi took a tape of the Bob Dylan song into the studio one day and immediately started recording a bunch of takes. Becoming more dissatisfied as the song went on, Jimi kept overdubbing more and more guitar parts. When you sit down and listen to the finished version, which is on the Electric Ladyland album, it’s hard to imagine that this song started out as an acoustic ballad.
Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin:
From the famous Led Zeppelin IV album, this is the song that you usually see at the top of all of the "best guitar solos" lists. When you see videos of this song being played, you will see Jimmy Page playing a double neck Gibson guitar during the song. When recording the song for the album, Jimmy actually used a 1958 Fender Telecaster, Harmony acoustic guitar and Fender Electric 12-string.
Another interesting fact about "Stairway" was that it never was released as a single, which turned out to be a great marketing move. Just to get their own copy of "Stairway", fans were more than willing to shell out the cash for the whole album. It was a great investment anyways because the entire album is amazing.
There you have it, in my humble opinion, the 4 best guitar solos of all time. I have a much bigger list that I could have revealed here but because this is an article and not a book, I have kept it down to 4. Plus it really doesn’t matter what my choices are, anything that I would have picked wouldn’t be able to do justice to all of the great guitar players in the history of modern music. I’m just grateful that I’ve had the chance to experience all of their music.
"Teach Yourself Guitar The EASY Way" - grab your FREE report that Reveals "How to Avoid the Top 7 Mistakes That Most Beginners Make When Buying a Guitar Learning Product"
http://teach-yourself-guitar.com/freereport
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Johnny_Stall
