Matthew Wales » Music

The Power of Music

Matthew — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:26:39 +0000

Hi everyone, it seems like forever since my last post, and too be honest its been a fair few months, so i thought I would update you on my current progress with my guitar playing. So far things are going really well, i am learning loads of new songs, we seem to be pulling a new one out every couple of weeks which is really awesome, even stuff i would not have usually listened to i am really getting into, stuff like Bob Dylan and The Animals….Love the Animals ‘house of the rising sun’ its really deep and bluesy though it is techincally classed as old rock, but it allows me to get to grips with finger picking of which i personally think i am awesome at lol .

I am also getting into The Beatles because though their rhythms are a bit difficult to mimic we can still pull out some great sounds with their songs, my favourit at the moment is ‘I saw her standing there’, it just seems that something in that song speaks to me , well that and it reminds me of this girl i like haha.

Anyway the lessons are going great, i am getting lots of praise and encouragement from my teachers and we even want to extend out little sessoin group with a drummer if we can get her on board at a time when she isn’t working . I’m thinking i should maybe re learn to read music too, as i used to be able to when i played piano a while back, infact i am thinking when i get good enough on the guitar, i might take up piano again, i will have to digg out my old music books to get some of the basic notes and chords, as it may help me learn to read guitar music, becuase though both may be different they have their similarities, so every little helps you know.

Well thats all for this update, i will hopefully bring you another one sometime soon. Bye

Music Madness

Matthew — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:38:09 +0000

Hi everyone, just thought i would keep you all up to date with my new and riveting music career lol. So far I am getting better at my chords and even branching out a little bit with some of the harder bar chords, I don’t quite have them right yet, i think i need to build some strength in my little finger for the high ‘E’ string cost it tends to ‘twang’ a lot when i play but its something i am working on .

I had a good proper go last night with Oasis’ wonderwall chords, it wasn’t great but i think i have the rythm of play about right (down,down,up,up,down) for the strumming, and then attempted Man in the moon by REM but made a right pigs ear of it, more practice is needed I think, I guess it will just take a bit of time to get used to the different rythms and quick finger changes, I’m still fluffing some of them because I get a bit confused when my teach plays his guitar with me, it kind of puts me off cos I am paying more attention to what he is playing than what I am playing, so it is a bit difficult in that respect, but the main thing is i am getting better one step at a time and i am enjoying it.

I have also started to listen to some proper acoustic’y music to get me thinking about the different rythms that different artists use, I have dicoverd a great band called the fleet foxes that are kind of an american folky ish band that also do harmonising like a barbershop band but they are quite good, their music is quite complex the way it is composed but they definatly have a unique sound behind them that seems to get my foot tapping, I would definatley recommend giving them a listen even if your not in to that kind of music as you never know you might like them.

I think thats me up to date with everything in this area so far, but watch this space for more updates on my progress, and I am sure I will be adding more posts about other things as well, I hope you enjoy reading them all. Bye

Guitar Greatness

Matthew — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:35:21 +0000

Hi guys, I’m introducing a new category of music as i though it might be fun to keep you up to date with my new musical hobby. I have just started to properly learn classical guitar after a few months of actually owning a guitar, i originally bought it with the hope of doing an adult education course at my local high school, but that went to pot when they could not find a teach for the course on the night that i wanted and that was in October, but now i have the suport of two great people from my church band, it’s bass and guitar player, and so far i am having great fun.

It’s been a couple of weeks now and i’m getting pretty good at my chords and a little bit of Tab playing, and i have just been practicing what i know and putting chords together to make some pretty cool sounds and i can play one or two proper songs and hopefully more soon, and after a couple of months of practice i should hopefully be good enough to play with the church band on occasion when im not being sound man or projectionist

Thats it for now, i will try and keep you up to date with my progress as often as i can (be bothered to ). Bye for now.