Acoustic Guitar Strap

You people who play guitar don’t know how lucky you are to have an instrument that allows you to express yourself by customizing its appearance. I’ve been playing harmonica for about 10 years now, so I have grown up playing an instrument which no one can see when you are performing. With a harmonica, there’s no point in adding stickers, painting it, or coming up with musical accessories to decorate your instrument. With guitar, however, you can do a lot to give yourself a particular look as a musician. You can paint a guitar, put stickers on it, refinish it, and even glue toys on to it if you want to. Even an acoustic guitar strap can be a way to express yourself.

In the music store I work at, there are literally dozens of different acoustic guitar straps. A lot of them have a pretty standard look to them. A classic acoustic guitar strap is usually black, thick, and padded. It is a pretty utilitarian design. You see, unlike electric guitar straps, acoustic straps have to be big enough to carry a fairly heavy instruments. Acoustic guitars can get pretty big, so using a thin strap around your neck can really start to hurt soon. Even people who use a more fashionable acoustic guitar strap usually prefer a fairly thick one.

Of course, there are exceptions. You see, there are so many different sorts of acoustic guitars, and they come in many different sizes. If you are playing a dreadnought guitar, you need a heavy-duty, industrial-strength acoustic guitar strap to really handle the weight properly. If you are playing one of the small guitars often used in Spanish music, however, you can get away with something much lighter weight and thinner. It will actually look better and feel more comfortable to use a smaller strap. With backpack guitars, you can use an even more minimalist approach. It all depends on what you’re playing.

A lot of the guitar players I know don’t even use a store-bought acoustic guitar strap at all. Instead, they improvise. One of the most popular approaches is to use a converted luggage strap to hold your guitar. Luggage straps are about the right thickness for an acoustic guitar strap, and they also are easy to customize. You can adjust them very easily too, which makes them ideally suited for use as acoustic guitar straps. And many of them come in bright, pretty colors which will give your guitar just the right Look to express who you are. Then again, there are some pretty innovative acoustic strap designers out there. You might want to look to see what they have to offer before you choose a luggage strap.

Acoustic Electric Guitars

Acoustic electric guitars are not much different from your normal acoustic guitar. The main difference is the addition of a pickup. In an acoustic guitar, there is no built-in pickup. If you want to amplify the signal, you need to either stick a pick up under the bridge, or sit close to the microphone. With an acoustic electric guitar, however, the pickup is built right into the guitar body. This has obvious advantages. It makes it easier to amplify signals since you can just plug in to a guitar cable. It also means that you have less gear to carry around. You don’t have to keep an extra pick up on hand for playing a gig.

Of course there are some people who do not like using the amplifiers built into acoustic electric guitars. They would rather sit near to a microphone and pick up the guitar that way. This gives a dryer, sparser sort of sounds more suitable to rhythmic playing. But I’ve always liked acoustic electric guitars even when I want to amplify with a normal microphone. The reason is, having an acoustic pickup built in doesn’t stop you from using other means to pick up the sound. You can still use a normal mic to record the sound of your guitar. You simply have the option of adding the onboard guitar pickup.

This is also nice if you like to experiment with sounds. A lot of people I know who play acoustic electric guitars like to mix sounds from different sources. You can use a bridge pickup and mix it with a microphone pickup, for example. Some people even take it a step further, adding contact mics on to the guitar body at various points. Depending where you pick up a signal, you will get all sorts of sounds from the guitar. This allows you to tweak your sound, getting just the right signal for whatever project you are working on. It also gives your sound mixer more options when you are playing a live show and trying to compensate for whatever peculiarities the club has in its acoustic performance.

Of course, sometimes you run into problems of availability. Some high-quality models simply aren’t available as acoustic electric guitars. Fortunately, portable pickups have gotten so good at this doesn’t have to be a big obstacle. You can simply stick a pick up under the bridge and mix in the signal as if you were using a normal acoustic electric guitar. Of course, you won’t have an onboard mixer like acoustic electric guitars do, but you can always add a mixer into your signal line. It may be a little bit less convenient, but you can still get the sound you like.

Piano Keyboards

When you ask them for advice about how to learn the piano, most people talk about diligence in practice. They emphasize the importance of playing scales, getting lessons, practicing songs over and over again until you perfect them, and in general being a disciplined student. The thing that people forget to mention sometimes is the importance of your instrument. If you don’t have the proper piano keyboard for you, you will not learn to play well.

Nowadays, there are many different kinds of piano keyboards. They vary from small, inexpensive mini keyboards to full-sized grand pianos and everything in between. Selecting the one you want depends on how much money you have to spend and what you want to do with your keyboard piano. If you just want to goof around and make special effects, you might as well just go to the store. You can usually find old Casio keyboards that will get you neat sound effects and allow you to do some single note leads and simple chords.

Then again, if you plan on actually becoming good at the piano, it makes a lot of sense to invest in full sized piano keyboard. Keyboard keys are the size they are for a reason. Over hundreds of years of experimentation, piano builders figured out the perfect size for most fingers. A keyboard that is too small will be more difficult to play and will make your hands cramp when you are playing demanding pieces.

Another concern with piano keyboards is feel. Just because a keyboard has full-sized keys does not mean that it will have an authentic piano feel. If you have the money, you should invest in piano keyboards with weighted keys. These will feel just like a real piano, and will be much more satisfying to play. If you get touch sensitive keys – keys that will respond differently depending on how hard you push them – that will help you out too. Playing classical music pretty much demands touch sensitive keyboards.

Then again, if all you want to play is electronic music or rock ‘n roll, you might want to get a nice piano synthesizer keyboard. Synthesizers do not necessarily have touch sensitive keys, but for many types of music you don’t need them. Before you go out and buy an expensive instrument, listen to some music. Think about what kinds of tools are required to play that particular music, and pick out your piano keyboards accordingly.

Dvorak Keyboards

Ask three people about Dvorak keyboards and, chances are, two of them won’t even know what you are talking about. Although the the Dvorak keyboard has been around for more than 70 years now, it is still virtually unknown outside of certain very narrow groups. Up until I had a problem with repetitive stress injuries, I too had no idea about Dvorak keyboards. I certainly didn’t know that it would be easy to switch my keyboard to Dvorak, and I had no idea how much help that switch would be for me.

Dvorak keyboards are not that different from the standard QWERTY keyboard. The main difference is that they are more scientifically designed. You see, in a Dvorak keyboard, the keys are arranged based on letter frequency. In other words, the keys that you have to use most often are all together in the home row. This means that you can type faster, that you will not have to reach your fingers into unnatural positions as often, and thus that you’ll be less likely to be injured by typing too much.

I never would have even heard of Dvorak keyboards if it weren’t for my carpal tunnel syndrome. I spent hours a day typing at the computer, and all this typing took its toll on my wrists eventually. For several weeks I could not even type and, after that, I had to wear a brace. Although I could use dictation software for some of my work, some of it just demanded keyboard use. When my physical therapist recommended that I try out a Dvorak keyboard, I figured I would take his advice.

One thing I have to stress is that Dvorak keyboards are not a miracle cure. Using one will not immediately make your carpal tunnel syndrome go away, for example. What it will do is reduce the amount of strain put on your wrists, and that can often alleviate enough of the stress that you put on them to make the carpal tunnel syndrome eventually go away on its own. In my case, the Dvorak keyboard made the critical difference. I continued to heal even though I was back to typing for several hours a day, and eventually I recovered completely. I certainly don’t give my keyboard all the credit – wrist braces, better typing habits, and physical therapy had a lot to do with it – but it certainly did make a difference.

12 String Acoustic Guitar

The 12 string acoustic guitar is a great instrument. In technique, it is basically exactly the same as a normal 6 string guitar, yet there is more depth to it. Because it has double strings, it has an added poignancy that is hard to characterize. The sustain is longer, the notes are deeper, and the tone is richer. Even an entry-level 12 string acoustic guitar will have a power and vibrancy that can capture a whole room. Still, they aren’t for everyone.

The biggest difficulty with 12 string guitars is keeping them in tune. With a six string acoustic or electric guitar, you also need to keep your strings in tune, but it isn’t as sensitive to going out of tune. If one of your pitches drifts slightly, it will barely be audible. With 12 string acoustic guitars, however, it’s a whole different story. There are six pairs of strings, so if one of those strings drifts from its partner, you will get a warbling tone that sounds off.  Even a slight divergence can completely change the character of your tone, potentially ruining it.

The solution, of course, is to put in the money for a decent 12 string acoustic guitar and good strings. You want to have high quality tuning knobs that will not go out of tune easily, and you want to take your time tuning the guitar just right. At first it will be frustrating and difficult, but the rewards are well worth it. Having a 12 string acoustic guitar perfectly in tune is like no other musical experience there is.

The other problem is that 12 string acoustics aren’t suitable for all sorts of playing. If you have a heavy blues style with a lot of pull offs and hammer down, it probably isn’t a guitar for you. It is great for finger picking, however, and for very intricate acoustic or classical type music. It is a little bit harder to play than a normal six string guitar because you have to hit both strings at the same time to get it to sound cleanly, but if you can play guitar, it isn’t hard to make the jump to 12 strings. I  Have seen many people do it successfully.

The only way to really know if a 12 string acoustic guitar is for you is to try one out.  Go to the music store and plan on spending a little bit of time there. Make sure you have it tuned up perfectly before you even strum the first note. Then, spend 20 minutes or so checking out different twelve string acoustic guitars. You will know if they call to to you or if they don’t. There’s a lot you can do with a normal six string electric or acoustic guitar, so don’t get a 12 string unless you really feel the passion. You will be able to tell.