How-to

I'm am going to list everything that you need to know in order to play the G major chord on a guitar. This is just something to help you get started with your experience. Playing an instrument is fun and enjoyable so I would like to share this musical bond with you. Before I show you how to play it, there are somethings that you need to know before hand.

On a guitar, there are pieces of iron that are called frets. On most guitars, the frets have an inlay (some sort of design) on the fretboard. Usually the inlays are on the odd number of frets besides the twelfth fret. Right now I need you to take you guitar and lay it down so the strings are facing you. The strings that you are now looking at from left to right are E-A-D-G-B-e strings. Now that the you know the strings, in order for me to teach you I need to give you the name of the fingers. When it comes to playing guitar your thumb doesn't count as a number. The index finger is called your "first finger." The middle finger is the second finger, your ring finger is the third finger, and your pinky is your fourth finger.

Step 1
Take your guitar and place it on your leg. Make sure that you use your opposite hand to hold the guitar. Example: if you are right handed, your left hand goes on the side with the frets and the strings.

Step 2
Take your second finger and put it on the 3rd fret on the E string. Then, take your first finger and put it on your second fret on the A string. Lastly, place your third finger on the third fret on the e string.

Step 3
Now that you have the shape of the chord, you need to curve your fingers and press down on the strings. Curving your fingers will help you eliminate any buzzing or muted strings.

Step 4
There are several of ways to play now that you have the position down. A player may use a pick to strum (play all of the notes at the same time) or their fingers. Take your free hand and quickly strum all the stings at the same time.

Some of these techniques and information that I have shared with you can be used to play other chords as well. By knowing the strings and frets, along with a little bit of music theory, you can take the knowledge that you just learned and try to create some other chords.

Make sure that you follow the steps that I have given you and you be be able to successfully play a G major chord. There are also websites online that can show you how to play certain chords if you don't know any music theory. Have fun and enjoy playing.

Violence on television

I don't think that what people watch on television impact what they do, especially violence. Never in my life have a sat down and watched something that was violent and then think, "I'm going to go kill somebody." The last time I checked, nobody goes out and forces people to kill or be violent towards others. I think that people who are violent, naturally are just upset with themselves, and they take it out on other people. Same thing could be said with the use of drugs on television. Just because you see it on television, doesn't mean that the show or program you were watching is going to physically force you to pick up a bottle or a needle. I do believe in the law of exposure, but I don't believe that it actually impacts the decisions that we make in our life. As long as people have a good conscience, what they see or hear shouldn't effect them. People love to watch horror movies, but that doesn't mean that they will break out into a fight or start shooting up people in the movie theater. We can talk about violence on television all that we want, but let's not forget that there are violent books out there too. How come nobody makes a debate about or complains about how violent books impact the violence in society. People make their own decisions no matter what they see or hear. To me, whatever we read or see, doesn't impact the decisions we make.

Fictional Stories, Real People

At one point in time, Lady Gaga was a terrible musician, and now that she is older she still is. She still wears cracked out outfits to separate herself from society, and the public still sees her as a dork. She is now 75 years old and lives in Hollywood because she still thinks she's a star. She still lives in denial after she got dropped from her recording contract because somebody was able to read her poker face. When she was dropped from her company, she was asked to do a shoot for playboy and it revealed a secret that shocked the world. Along with her fake boobs was also a penis. Lady Gaga didn't see anything wrong with being a man with breast implants, but the public disagreed. She was no longer having bad romances because nobody wanted to be intimate with her. As Lady Gaga didn't know, people don't like to have sex with people who have fake boobs and a penis. Since she is a nymphomaniac, Lady Gaga slipped into depression. She started abusing drugs and alcohol. After sleepless night of snorting cocaine and shooting heroin, she needed to find a companion to support her sex, drugs, and alcohol needs. She ended up spending the rest of her money for a bus ticket to New York, because there are a lot of homosexuals and all-around weird people that live in the city. She ended up finding somebody who loved her fake boobs and penis, this man goes by the name of Perez Hilton. Lady Gaga ended up moving in with Perez Hilton as long as he was able to blog about her to his mentally challenged audience. Perez was losing audience members by blogging about Lady Gaga so he had to blog about the Jersey Shore cast. Soon his hits were sky rocketing. Then tragedy struck when the government came up with a brilliant idea. The government decided to use the Jersey Shore cast and dousche bags alike as suicide bombers to get back at Osama Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks. This brilliant government intervention left Perez Hilton absolutely nothing interesting to blog about. Perez ended up not having enough money to support Lady Gaga's drug habit and he ended up having to kick her out. Since Lady Gaga had no money and a deadly addiction, she had no choice but to sign up for a spot on celebrity rehab. Nobody has heard of Lady Gaga after she graduated rehab until Perez found this picture of her on eHarmony and decided to blog about it. The title of his blog is "Drugs are Bad."


All characters appearing in this work are fictitous. Any descriptions, resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Computers

Being a musician and going to school at Benedictine Univerity in Springfield is tough. The computers that are available to the students are out-of-date. Last year, I tried to make a music video on one of the computers and it was impossible. The processor was way too slow, and it couldn't detect the audio that I used. If we had newer computers at Benedictine, students would have so much more opportunity to do "real world" projects for our portfolios. Also, it would be really nice to have a computer that had video and audio recording software built in to it. This way more than just musicians would be able to benefit from it.

I know that Benedictine offers video classes here in Springfield. I know from experience that the computers are not compatible with the class, Television Production. The video class was a complete and epic failure, because all the video that we shot in that class had to be edited and processed at home because the computer processors are too slow at Benedictine. If Benedictine wants to offer classes like these, they need to update the computers, so people can actually work on the projects in class. Being a communications major, I would like to be able to take what I learn in the classroom and apply towards my portfolio in order to get a good job when I graduate. Working with computers that were made in 2004 puts me at a disadvantage in the competition for communication jobs. David Cain owns UMEDIA. UMEDIA is a video and audio company that uses state of the art Apple computers. David Cain said, "Most employers in the communication industry prefer potential employees to have experience using Apple hardware and related multi-media software." Here is a link to his site www.umedia.net. It is essential for the communication majors who go to this school to have computers that have up-to-date multi-media hardware and software so we can better our chances of landing the job of our dreams.

I've done some research and Apple computers come with a program, Garageband, that is excellent for audio. The sound quality that you get out of it is amazing. John Mayer did a demonstration on it and it blew my mind. The link to it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MRDDJjTwTw.

For video production, Apple computers offer a software program called iMovie. This also comes free with the computer and it works like a dream. It shows detailed audio waveforms for all of your clips. The editor is able to mix the volume of the movies and the user has complete control over sound effects, voice over, and music! For further information check out this link http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/.

Updated computers and software are essential for the students at Benedictine University in Springfield to increase their skills for the job market.

Red Sax

My teacher brought out a red sax in class today, which tends to be his trademark in the music industry. He had his friend paint it candy apple red, and although it looks cool, it sounds even better. David Cain, my teacher said that each person who plays a sax have different sounds. He said that it is caused by the player not by the instrument. I heard him play it and wow, my face was melted. He could make this thing scream. He even muffled the sound coming out of the sax against his leg and it gave it a completely different tone. The sound that came out of it was very jazzy and was more than pleasant to listen to. Trademarks for any musician are cool, but it is all about how well they can play and David Cain can slay.

Velvet Revolver

Velvet Revolver is the greatest hard rock band in the history of music. They formed a group by taking the superstars of rock and meshed them all into one band. Scott Weiland, from Stone Temple Pilots, is the singer of the band. They have the 29th best guitar player of time according to guitar one magazine. Along with Slash, they have also taken Duff McKagan from Guns 'n' Roses as the bass player of the band. Their drummer also includes the well established Matt Sorum, who is the former drummer of the Cult. The rhythym guitar player, Dave Kushner, who has been well recognized from the band Wasted Youth. If playing in a band was an Olympic sport, this band would be representing the United States. They have an all-star line-up involving people who have the best talent around right now. Their songs are amazing and the lyrics, my opinion are highly regarded. On top of the music, they were voted the best rock band of the year.

Topic

My name is Andrew Shackelford and I have only one passion in my life. My entire life revolves around making music. My parents have always told me to dream big and I've always been a big dreamer ever since I was a little kid. I picked up the guitar when I was 13 years old, and I have been playing ever since. I started to take lessons with a very good guitarist by the name of Jeff Cunningham. He taught me everything that I know, and he gave me the tools to develop my own style. I felt like I learned all of the techniques, scales, and chords that I would enjoy using throughout my entire lifetime. I took the skills that he showed by and started a band and turned professional when I was 17. I started to write songs for my band and we always placed above 3rd place in Battle of the Bands. The band broke up because people wanted to move towards different directions in their life. With music being my passion I stuck with it. I kept writing even though I wasn't playing shows anymore. When I turned 21, I found a new band, Prairie State Heartache, and the coolest thing about this was my cousin was the singer. My cousin and I started writing music together and it started out just for fun, then all of a sudden things really started to take off. We would play on a weekly bases in bars around Springfield, Illinois, and we were fortunate enough to be recognized by Dave Rossi of Columbia Records. He took us under his wing and hooked us up with a producer by the name of Rick Beato, who has worked and co-written with many artists including needtobreath, Shinedown, and Phish. I find it hard to believe that I am so close to pursuing my dream of music. It is a very humbling experience and I feel very blessed that I have been given this chance. Right now we are in the stage of writing a little more songs so we have a full arsenal for when we record in Atlanta with Beato. I wish that I would know how the future would play out after this happens, but nothing in the music industry is certain. All I know is music will always be the main focus of my life. Take a listen to some of our songs at myspace.com/prairiestateheartache and let me know what you think.