My American Dream

The American Dream

To begin, what is an American Dream? According to Wikipedia, “the American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers.” Or in layman’s terms, the main goal in your life, what you ultimately want to achieve. Some common American Dreams are: to make a name for themselves, to retire and not have to go back to work. Some people in the world do not believe that the American Dream still exists. These people might say, “The economy or the job market prevents the majority of Americans from achieving their dream.” That might stop some Americans, but not all of them. For example, a person's American Dream might be to have a family, have a good job. Most of the time the only thing that prevents people from achieving their dream is one thing; hard work. As long as I work hard in school and college I can achieve my American Dream. More specifically, to retire from the mechanical engineering field with enough income to support my addiction with cars and guitars. My passion of guitar playing heavily influences my American Dream. The main point of influence is on my job’s income. Without a steady income, either from retirement or steady job; I will not be able to buy a guitar that I want, or be able to afford parts for my classic car. A lot of my dream comes from how I was raised. For example, I was raised around a bunch of motor heads, working on classic cars, racing them and then fixing them again. After growing up like this you start to want your own classic muscle car so you can go fast and be loud.   

Major scale

While playing guitar there are many scales that experienced players improvise on. When you are listening to a rock song  and the solo comes along, it isn't a jumble of notes. They are playing a scale. In this case, the scale is in the key of A. The red 2's are to be played on 5th fret and the red 4 resides on 7th fret. While you play this I urge you to stay in position. Position playing is when your first finger stays on the desired root. Here, on this scale you have to use your pinky. You might not be albe to play it fast at first, the more you practice the faster you play and the easier it gets. 

http://www.pluckandplayguitar.com/major-scale.html 

Dream On

Last month, my high school put on a showcase that showed off the students' skills. My friend and I preformed the iconic song, Dream On by Aerosmith. Most would think we would be preforming in an auditorium or a gymnasium, not us we got to play in the hallways. I am happy with that. I don't have a lot of practice with preforming in front of a large audience, at best just a large class. Wen we played in the hallways there was only a group of 20 or so people listening. Not only is this one of my favorite songs, it is beneficial to learn on the guitar. This song helps you with your chord changes. since most of the chords require only three fingers to play it makes the song easy to learn and fun to play.

http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtd.asp?ppn=MN0100058

Shoot to thrill

This is the iconic song played by Ac Dc in  the Marvel movie The Avengers. Not only dose this song sound cool, but it is good to learn hammer-ons. A hammer-on is when you pluck a string before you put your finger down and then slam it down. The hammer-ons in this song are the two notes you play after you play the A major power chord. 

Power Chords

Now I am going to teach about power chords, the best way to do that is by teaching Ac Dc. The tabs  below are for their song Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. they are a little hard to read so I labeled the strings for you. If you have not noticed already the power chords shown below are just shortened versions of some of the 5 open major chords that you have already learned. The chords shown include E major, G major, D major. You might not know the 4th chord you play, it is the A minor chord. Between each of the power chords you let the last one ring out. 

e-------------------------------------------|

B----------------------------------3--------|

G----------------------2-----------2--------|

D--2--------5--2-------2--2--------0--2-----|

A--2--------5--2-------0--2-----------2-----|

E--0--------3--0----------0-----------0-----|

 

e-------------------------------------------|

B----------------------------------3--------|

G----------------------2-----------2--------|

D--2--------5--2-------2--2--------0--2-----|

A--2--------5--2-------0--2-----------2-----|

E--0--------3--0----------0-----------0-----|

 

e-------------------------------------------|

B----------------------------------3--------|

G----------------------2-----------2--------|

D--2--------5--2-------2--2--------0--2-----|

A--2--------5--2-------0--2-----------2-----|

E--0--------3--0----------0-----------0-----|

 

e-------------------------------------------|

B----------------------------------3--------|

G----------------------2-----------2--------|

D--2--------5--2-------2--2--------0--2-----|

A--2--------5--2-------0--2-----------2-----|

E--0--------3--0----------0-----------0-----|

 

First song

Here is the first song that a guitar player with the skills can learn. When it has the letter D over nibbling that is when you play the chord. The only chord you don't know yet is the A7 chord. It is included below. I would recommend that you listen to the song first on YouTube so you know  how fast the song is played. 

Guitar Open Major Chord Scales

These are the scales that coincide with the five open major chords that I taught earlier. They are the  C, A, G, E, D major chords. When playing these scales I would recommend that you start off slow. Before you move on to the next you should learn the first one forwards and backwards. Once you have learned them all you can play the chord progression C A G E D and play the scale after each one of the chords. Even start off slow doing this, when I first started this I had some trouble moving from the last note in the scale to the root note in the next chord. The key to getting this down is practice. If you don't practice you wont get any better.