Learn Something: First 3 Guitar Chords You Must Learn + How to Master Them in the Most Effective Way - Ultimate-Guitar.Com (blog)

Guitar instructor Sergei Kossarev offered an interesting lesson titled "The First 3 Guitar Chords You Must Learn," presenting his take on what is the most effective way to start learning guitar.

He said in the intro: "Working as a guitar teacher professionally, I've come across countless beginner guitar books, videos and other instructional material - much of which is terrible.

"One of the common problems I see is the laborious and ineffective approach to learning and playing the very first chords, which are often too difficult for most beginners and can make even most enthusiastic budding guitar player lose the will to live.

"Here is the fast track method to playing your first chords instantly, in a musical, enjoyable and practical way, which by the end will reward you with your own created piece of music."

The lesson reads as follows.

STEP 1 : The Chords Firstly, let's define a chord as 3 or more notes played at the same time.

The chords are C, G and G7.

C is played with finger 1 (index) Strummed from G string downward towards floor.

G is played with finger 3 (ring) Strummed from D string downward towards floor.

G7 is played with finger 1 (index) Strummed from D string downward towards floor.

Tips:

Aim to play the chords with the fingers specified - this will introduce you to some of the most common finger movements on guitar.

Try to apply enough pressure on the string your finger is placed on. A lack of sufficient pressure will result in a blunt, muffled sound.

Be careful not to accidentally block the open strings in the chord (strings represented by 0's in the diagram) - your finger should only be touching the string that it's placed on and the note should sound clear.

Strum the all strings specified - any additional notes or strings played accidently will result in the chords sounding differently to what's intended.

Aim to "strum" rather than "scrape" - strike the strings down with enough force to make the strings sound as though played simultaneously rather than scraped individually by the plectrum.

STEP 2 : Let's create a chord progression Arranging the chords in a sequence will allow us to create our first piece of music.

Try playing each chord in the order below:

Got it? Now try this: Now let's combine them: Can you hear the smooth transition from the dissonant G7 resolving to C as though the progression had taken us on a journey and at this point had finally returned home on the chord C?

We now have a short, yet coherent and great sounding piece of music.

We can expand on this even further to create an awesome musical experience immediately, rather than a result of weeks of tedious practise endorsed by general methods.

FINAL STEP : Let's get a drummer Now that we are familiar with the chords, let's apply them to a practical and common musical scenario: playing to drums.

Drum backing tracks can be found on YouTube. Search for a "drums only" backing track of a comfortable speed of 70 - 100 BPM (beats per minute)

Note: It's important that the backing track contains no other instruments in the mix except drums.

Following the chord progression, play each chord and let it ring out for four beats before playing the next one.

Note: Each chord is played on the first beat of each count and is held until the first beat of the following count.

Tips:

If you're finding it difficult to count or feel when to play each chord, tap your foot along to the drums and play on the first tap of every four.

Listen out for the low "thud" of the kickdrum accenting beat 1 to help you.

Don't worry about being too precise, just aim to have an even amount of time between each chord and it'll sound great.

BONUS : Try another progression Once you have mastered this chord progression, try rearranging the chords and coming up with your own sequence.

Here's an example:

Summary We have learned three starting chords which not only lay a strong foundation to playing more advanced chords in the near future, but which also provide an opportunity for instant practical musical application and experience of playing music almost immediately. Following this guided method will bypass weeks of tedious labor taught by a general approach which only offers an abundance of headaches with a minimal result.

Experiment rearranging the chords and creating new progressions. Play along to different drumbeats at different speeds. Why not even record yourself on your phone, tablet or computer? The possibilities are vast. Try this out and you will find yourself learning, creating and enjoying guitar 10x amounts, today.

For more info about Sergei, check out PrivateMusicLessons.co.uk or the man's Twitter page.

Anvil hits a chord for metal fans at last - San Francisco Chronicle

[unable to retrieve full-text content]San Francisco ChronicleAnvil hits a chord for metal fans at lastSan Francisco ChronicleAnvil hits a chord for metal fans at last. By Eddie Jorgensen. May 26, 2016. Anvil is set to perform at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco on Tuesday, May. Anvil is set to play the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Photo: Raymond Ahner. Anvil's profile rose ...

Netanyahu's Travel Expenses Report: The Final Chord in a Long Concert of Procrastination - Haaretz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and State Comptroller Joseph Shapira.

The state comptroller's report on the funding of the Netanyahu couple's travel abroad is the final chord in a long process of procrastination, and further testimony to the damage caused to Israeli society when a prime minister is able to choose those who are meant to oversee him.

The parties to this calculated procrastination were State Comptroller Joseph Shapira (who was chosen after an audition at the royal residence) and former attorney general Yehuda Weinstein, who was previously Netanyahu's private attorney.

On taking office in 2012, Shapira received a highly incriminating report about the Netanyahu family's penchant for receiving favors from his adviser on issues of corruption, retired police major general Nachum Levy.

Instead of jumping at the opportunity and publishing the report immediately, Shapira decided to fire Levy. "Corruption in the country is declining rapidly," he told Levy during a private meeting. "I don't need an adviser for it."

A few months previously, the Netanyahu family lawyer David Shimron had asked that Levy be removed as an investigator in the "Bibi-Tours" affair, on the grounds that he had served as head of the police investigation into another affair involving the Netanyahus and had recommended that the couple stand trial.

Shimron, by the way, was the one who recommended that Netanyahu support Shapira for the comptroller position.

During the course of 2012, Shapira transferred all the raw documents gathered by his office to Weinstein. The excuse: Suspicion of criminality.

The comptrollers who preceded Shapira had not run from their obligation to confront power-brokers, even when they discovered signs of criminality that obliged them to collaborate with the attorney general and the police. They didn't wait for someone else to do the dirty work for them.

Shapira's panicked sprint to Weinstein achieved its purpose. The two agreed in 2013 that Shapira would freeze his work and refrain from sending the investigative material to Netanyahu until Weinstein ruled on the fate of the investigation. That agreement was documented in a letter that Shapira sent to Weinstein, a letter that was carefully phrased to serve their common interest in avoiding incriminating Netanyahu if the letter was ever revealed. Before sending the letter, Shapira asked Shimron to approve it.

At that point, the most serious phase of the procrastination apparently began. Only in 2014, almost two years after he had been asked to look into the prime minister's integrity, did Weintsein announce that he had found no basis for a criminal investigation of Netanyahu.

"The attorney general killed the case in the manner that characterized all his activities," a legal expert knowledgeable about the case told Haaretz. "He postponed meetings, scheduled them months apart, dealt with the case sluggishly in order to deprive it of oxygen."

From the moment Weinstein buried the criminal investigation, the hot potato rolled back to the comptroller ahead of publication of the long-awaited report. For the first time, the comptroller's investigators began to dive into the material. They took testimony from others involved in the case and discovered deep discrepancies.

The picture that was revealed to them was very worrying: Serious suspicion regarding false reports in the documentation of Israel Bonds regarding Netanyahu's travel (for example paying for security while the state security detail was on the job,) frequent payments of cash from a mysterious source to cover the costs of flights by the family, false claims (an extravagant cash claim to fund a flight which really went towards paying a hotel bill, for example) and other evidence pointing to the existence of something systematic.

At that point the comptroller's staff initiated meetings with prosecutors and showed them documents which, in their view, required the opening of a criminal investigation. However, they were still hoping that the attorney general would agree to be the bad guy and change his ruling.

In December 2015, Shapira even wrote a letter to Weinstein in which he said that the Bibi-Tours material aroused "suspicion of criminality." Those meetings and the letter led to the resumption of the police investigation.

The two guardians of the law played an embarrassing game of ping-pong just to avoid directly confronting the man to whom they owed their jobs. It led to an unprecedented result: The publication of the report after a delay of almost four years.

The report published on Tuesday was devoid of content compared to the raw material collected by the investigators. The names of the tycoons who funded the couple remain redacted and the report makes no real effort to refute Netanyahu's responses which seem to lack all basis or internal logic.

Nor is there any mention in the report of other activities that came to light in the course of the investigation: Deception, false reports, the ostensible use of cash.

Nevertheless, parts of the report tell a bitter story about Netanyahu, a story which, with variations, we first heard 20 years ago.

At the center of the plot is a man who is almost pathologically unable to use his own wallet and who searches for alternative ways of getting others to pay for his own expenses and those of his family.

Netanyahu has not been involved in heavy-duty investigations like his predecessors Sharon and Olmert. With him it's the same pattern of getting gifts without reporting them. And, perhaps because he's aware of his personality problems and the damaging influence of his close surroundings, Netanyahu appointed two watchdogs to look after his back, rather than saving us from him.

MLB's proposed changes to strike zone strike a chord with Mariners - The Seattle Times

CINCINNATI — The players are usually the last to know in these situations. So in the mid-morning hours of Saturday in the visitor's clubhouse of Great American Ball Park, most of the Mariners players were unaware of proposed rule changes for 2017 that would affect every one of them in some way.

"They're doing what?" said one of the pitchers, still not fully awake or understanding why.

Well, per an ESPN report, the Major League Baseball competition committee met last week during the owners' quarterly meetings in New York. From that meeting, the committee agreed to two proposals — changing the definition of the strike zone as well as the procedure for intentional walks.

There are multiple steps before the changes go into effect, but the plan is for both to be implemented for the 2017 season.

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Let's start with the change for the intentional walk. Instead of a pitcher tossing four balls outside of the plate with the catcher standing, a manager could signal to the umpire that he wanted an intentional walk and the hitter would just take his base. The lull of the four balls process would be alleviated.

"I'm fine with just putting up four (fingers) and having the guy go to first base," manager Scott Servais said. "I think they do that in high school and in college."

Changing the rule also removes the possibility of a pitcher throwing wildly past the standing catcher. It usually happens at least once a season.

"We are so geared to throw everything down in the zone and it's a completely differently feel to throw it up to a guy standing there," Steve Cishek said. "Some pitchers have a real problem with it."

Servais has seen it happen first-hand.

"I actually lost a game on a walk-off intentional walk wild pitch," he said. "It was in Triple A at the time, at the end of my career. Runners on second and third and we were going to walk a guy and the first pitch, it wasn't even close. I had to dive back toward the plate and I missed it and the game was over. I'm 35 years old thinking, 'well I've never had that happen before.'"

While there were chuckles and stories of intentional walks gone bad, the subject of the strike zone being changed was not met with much enthusiasm.

"No comment," said a Mariners' pitcher, who preferred to remain nameless. "I'm just sick of Major League Baseball always making changes like this."

What elicited such a response?

The proposed change is to make the strike zone smaller, raising it from just below the kneecaps to the top of the knee. It's a response to a trend of strikes even below the rulebook specifications being called.

"It would be tough for sinkerballers," Cishek said. "I'll just have to adjust."

On the surface, it would seem to help hitters. It would mean less groundballs and more balls in the air. The lower zone is blamed for increased strikeouts, fewer walks and lower run production.

"In general, it becomes an advantage to the hitters," said Hisashi Iwakuma said through interpreter Antony Suzuki. "The higher the ball is in the zone, the farther it goes. That doesn't just apply to me."

But Iwakuma admitted that strike zone can vary from umpire to umpire. It's something that he's found different in MLB compared to his time in Japan.

"The strike zone is firm in Japan," he said.

While most pitchers disagreed with the concept of the new zone, they were still skeptical of significant changes. They've heard talk like this before.

"I think it just varies from umpire to umpire," Cishek said. "It seems the umpire's interpretation."

Both Cishek and Chris Iannetta mentioned the MLB Players' Association stepping into the discussions on the rule change. The report said it will be brought up during the labor negotiations this offseason.

"It's like every other change that's come down, we've thought about it, we've bargained it back and forth and we left it open for testing," Iannetta said. "Nothing is wrong with tossing ideas back and forth. Whether it actually happens, we'll see."

But ultimately, the decision comes down to MLB's rules committee, which is led by Mets general manager Sandy Alderson. That group of baseball executives can only approve the changes. And that committee isn't subject to players' union approval to make those changes.

With the addition of replay and the changes to the slide rule at home and second base generating plenty of past debate, adjustments to the strike zone will be met with plenty of vocal opinions from all sides.

And players will do what they've always done, the key to baseball success: adjust.

"That's been the game the last 150 years," Iannetta said. "A pitcher's job is to keep the ball down and keep it out of hitters wheelhouse. Hitters' job is to hunt mistakes and try to get a ball up. No matter where the strike zone is, that's never going to change. Pitchers are still going to throw to the most advantageous spots and we are still going to look for the best pitches to hit."

Louisville, Ky., anti-violence program strikes chord with Rogero - Knoxville News Sentinel

By Megan Boehnke of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Updated: Yesterday 6:25 p.m. 0

When victims of stabbings and shootings from high-crime ZIP codes in Louisville, Ky., arrive at local hospitals, a social worker usually shows up shortly afterward.

"We don't have a hard time finding kids who aren't in trouble. We have a hard time finding kids who are in trouble — so we go right to the hospital," Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said Monday during his keynote address at the Mayor's Luncheon at the Knoxville Convention Center.

The social worker helps to prevent retribution crimes and provides options to help victims escape their situation. It's part of a program called Pivot to Peace, which aims to reduce the number of homicides through intervention.

Homicide rates "unfortunately seem to be a problem that seems to be increasing in every American city," Fischer said.

After the high-profile murders of two boys in the last six months in gang-related drive-by shootings, Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said she wants to learn more about what Louisville is doing.

"That's something we're going to follow up on and get more information on," Rogero said after the luncheon. "Figuring out how and when to reach people is critical, it's part of the intervention."

The Kentucky city has also had success with programs that offer opportunities to its young people. Code Louisville is a free program that matches mentors to those interested in coding software to help them learn.

The tech training program received accolades from President Barack Obama and spawned a website design company founded by seven teens from one of the city's roughest public housing complexes.

Meanwhile, the initiative is helping the city address its need for more programmers, Fischer said.

The city has joined with nearby Lexington, a former rival, to begin marketing the region to businesses. They've had success creating a 70-mile corridor of 2.5 million residents and industries that include advanced manufacturing, automotive, appliances, translation software and, of course, bourbon.

Rogero said she sees similarities between that partnership and the one being cultivated in East Tennessee. Knoxville and Oak Ridge have teamed up to form Innovation Valley, a development partnership managed by the Knoxville Chamber.

"Seeing yourself as a region and recognizing everybody wants every new business and every new job in their own political boundary, but we know that if it's in our region, we're all going to benefit," Rogero said.

About Megan Boehnke

Megan Boehnke covers Knoxville city government for the News Sentinel.

'Bones' Season 11, Episode 16: The Strike In The Chord - Forbes

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Forbes'Bones' Season 11, Episode 16: The Strike In The ChordForbesA young man and a young woman break into a research lab in an attempt to free some rats. They instead find the cages open and the rats feasting on a dead body. Turns out the lab is at Duke Linwood University. Since the lab is sterile, there are no bugs ...Bones recap: 'The Strike in the Chord'Entertainment WeeklyBones Season 11 Episode 16 Review: The Strike in the ChordTV FanaticBest 'Bones' Quotes from 'The Strike in the Chord'BuddyTV (blog)TV Equals -Celebrity Dirty Laundryall 18 news articles »

'Sarbjit' review: Touches the right emotional chord - Economic Times

Rating: *** 1/2

Cast: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Randeep Hooda , Richa Chadda, Darshan Kumaar, Ankita Shirvastav

Director: Omung Kumar

Genre: Biopic

" Sarbjit " is a biopic of Sarabjit Singh Aitwal, a farmer from Punjab's Bhikhiwind, arrested in Pakistan for crossing the border on August 28, 1990. But in reality, it is the 23-year-old journey of his sister, Dalbir Kaur , depicting her trials and tribulations in the course of her endeavour to bring back, from Pakistan, her brother, who is convicted for a series of bomb blasts and charges of terrorism.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Dalbir Kaur puts her heart and soul into her character. She delivers a fairly robust performance and evokes sympathy, not merely on the strength of her performance, but because of the powerful character she depicts. Unfortunately, even after modulating her voice and emulating the mannerisms of a Punjabi, by no stretch of imagination, can she pass of as a "Sikhni" one is made to believe she is.

Randeep Hooda as Sarbjit steals the show. His transition, physically and mentally from a happy-go-lucky man to an anguished imprisoned soul, is palpable.

Richa Chadda, in a fairly restrained manner, manages to make her presence felt as Sarbjit's wife Sukhpreet, whom he fondly called "Sukhia. So does Darshan Kumaar as Owais Sheikh, Sarbjit's lawyer in Pakistan. The rest of the cast too is natural and convincing.

(Image: Facebook)

Director Omang Kumar who had earlier delivered " Mary Kom ", has handled the film fairly adroitly. Scripted in a non-linear fashion, the film starts off on an uneven note and gradually as the narration progresses, it settles on an even keel to unravel the compelling drama.

By avoiding the controversies that surround Dalbir Kaur and the existence of her other siblings, scriptwriters Utkarshini Vashishtha and Rajesh Beri's screenplay skilfully manoeuvres the narration, to stir a sense of patriotism among the audience.

The film is emotionally draining. It brings tears to your eyes. The dialogues are everyday speech, but there are instances when the lines are dramatic and uplift the scenes. This is obvious in the scene where Sarbjit speaks to his lawyer Owais in the prison.

Some of the scenes in the film, seem inspired by classics. This is particularly evident. when Sarabjit breaks down emotionally and cries, "Save me sister, save me." This particular shot reminds you of a scene in Ritwik Gathak's "Meghe Dake Tara", where the heroine pleads to her brother to save her. Here the scene may not be as dramatic as in Ghatak's film but is eventually effective.

With excellent production values, the film is well-mounted. The cinematography by Kiran Deohans is steady and remarkable. With brillian t lighting, his frames are atmospheric. With his wide-angle lenses and tight close-ups, he brilliantly captures the claustrophobic space and the fine nuances of Randeep's haunting performance.

(Image: Facebook)

The sets are realistic and transition of the colour palette, is evident in the costumes of the ladies, which from bright colourful clothes gradually turn into muted hues.

The songs mesh seamlessly into the narration and the background score effectively heightens the viewing experience.

The film is evenly paced with a few lengthy and unwarranted scenes but overall, Sarbjit Aitwal's story is worth a watch, as it touches the right emotional chord.

Also read: B-Town goes gaga over 'Sarbjit', praises cast for impactful performance

Also read: ' Sa rbjit' trailer out, Aishwarya steals the show with stellar performance