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The earth will become an ideal place if one night you take a medicine and the nest morning you wake up as a musical wizard. You just wake up to find yourself a guitarist or as a singer - the one you always had the desire to be. But alas! These are too good to be true. You should have a proper lesson to achieve the musical excellence. You are not a genius. So your teacher is your only ray of hope to take you to your dream. This is true to every instrument. Want to be a guitarist? Take a guitar lesson.

You will see there are as many schools as mushrooms all around you. But the million dollar question is whom to rely on. All are not what they appear. Before you join any school you should ask someone who was in the same school. But you may not always have the time to head for the musical schools for guitar lessons as you are completely absorbed in your everyday jobs. At this point your virtual teacher can be the online guitar lessons. Search online and you can get hold of numerous such sites that offer guitar lessons online for free or for a minimal cost.

These guitar lessons are really helpful. The sites will provide enough information about the background, the chords and everything that you need to learn guitar as a beginner. They will also provide you with videos, backing tracks, TAB plus musical and notation and software. But before you start, just go through the course structure. As you are a beginner you need someone to tell you which comes first and what follows next. Start with a course structure that will help you to learn comfortably without any difficulty. You can also be a guitarist.

1.Sharpen your Songwriting skills every day. Like an athlete who strives to practice so as to reach the peak of his/her performance, a songwriter or a composer should also practice regularly…OK. you are talented and everything, but your talent means nothing if your brain doesn’t get used to using this talent. Make a 30 min. music writing time per day and use it to experiment with chords, write themes or maybe rearrange something. But always keep in mind that you are just practicing, so there probably isn’t a “hit” coming out of these 30 min…Hits come like a flash so be always prepared!

2.Listen to music every day. The very famous Suzuki violin teaching method requires that the student listens to a tape containing the pieces he/she learns everyday to “develop musical ability”(Schinichi Suzuki). Guess what? It works. As you listen more you will unconsciously adapt more to music in general and, on the conscious level, discover tricks and techniques in music writing that you didn’t know about. Nobody can create music De Novo, it has got to have some roots!!

3.Don’t limit yourself to one style. My music education was classic, but I adore Rock and Metal (my favorite bands are Scorpions and Pink Floyd) as much as I adore Bach and Dvork and ,since I’m Egyptian, I also like my share of oriental music..!! Such a style mix can create the most wonderful ideas, and this is how most songwriters come up with new styles (ex: Pink Floyd’s Psychedelic Rock). Always explore and experiment with new styles, if you take a look at the history of any band, you find out that’s what songwriting is all about.

4.Learn the rules of the game. You probably think that since you can come up with a nice theme, that your are on the right track …WRONG ;). It is true that songwriting has no specific rules, but here you are looking for “Five Songwriting Tips”, eh?!!. A song is music + words…As much as you can, learn music theory and the basics of lyrics/poetry writing. Learning never stops and it’s a fact that as you learn more about the rules of the game, you become more skillful bending those rules..!!And never forget that writing catchy melodies and smart rhyming lyrics needs lots of practice.

5.Don’t be shy. Make everybody know about your songwriting skills. Show it to friends and family first, then to songwriting communities and finally, seek professional critiques. As you get your work more fine tuned, you will become more confident and, consequently, more open to new ideas and suggestions. Remember, it’s the people whom you are writing for, their thoughts do matter.

More Songwriting Tips Here: http://www.songwritingfever.com/songwritingtips/

Mahmoud Ibrahim is a young songwriter from Egypt. He is the owner of http://www.songwritingfever.com, the first website to be dedicated to songwriting collaboration.

Now that Halloween is over, it’s safe to talk about traditional piano lessons - the tedium, the boredom, the overbearing teachers with their incessant metronome beats.

Do we really need this? Do we really need yet another polished perfomer who can play Czerny and Beethoven on cue? Don’t we have enough of these skilled typists already? I think so. And frankly, I just don’t get it. I don’t get why anyone would want to learn how to play other people’s music.

Of course this music is worthy of preserving, but I’m speaking about being creative at the piano. I’m talking about the ability to sit down at the keyboard and just play without forethought or planning.

Is there value in this kind of approach to playing? Yes! And while improvisation and composition are taught, it’s not emphasized. It’s relegated to inferior status while the poor student spends time first learning how to read notes and then recreating what has already been done. What a shame.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can lead with an emphasis on creativity first! To do this does not require more than a very rudimentary knowledge of chords, a way to play them, and a guided instruction on how to improvise. Imagine the joy students will feel when they realize how easy it is to create music!

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and works with students in private, in groups, and now over the internet. Stop by now at http://www.quiescencemusic.com/piano_lessons.html for a FREE piano lesson!