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September 30th, 2019

9/30/2019

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A Brief History Of The Guitar

Few instruments capture the imagination of instrumentalists from around the world as much as the guitar. It is remarkable how the guitar has come, from a humble acoustic stringed instrument to the heavily-amplified and affected electric of today that can rock stadiums full of people.

Guitar's earliest surviving ancestors include the tanbur, which is believed to have originated from Mesopotamia, Central or Southern Asia, and the cithara, an ancient greek instrument . After making their journey to Europe, these instruments began to change over time.

Throughout the centuries, the tanbur went from three sets (or courses) of strings, to five, and eventually settled at six single strings in the 18th century. These were smaller than what we are accustomed to today. The first guitars that look like the acoustic guitars of now were developed by Antonio de Torres Jurado. He introduced mechanical tuning pegs, fan bracing, and a wider body with a more pronounced waist. The design proved so popular that it was copied by many.

When Jurado's design made it over to the United States, it was developed further. Christian Frederick Martin created the first flat-top guitar and designed it to have X-bracing inside in order to accommodate steel strings. This became the most popular guitar style in the West.

With the large music ensembles of the day, the intricacies of what was playable on the instrument were getting lost. This led to jazz players putting pickups on their arch-tops. The first commercially available electrified guitar was by Rickenbacker and was called the 'Frying Pan'. It was marketed primarily for lap steel. The first electric guitars to take off in popularity were created by Leo Fender and Les Paul (their designs were put out by Fender and Gibson, respectively) in the 1950s. These models have become iconic and are still used today.

The main change in recent decades is not so much the design of electric guitars (most electric designs tend to be variations on designs popularized by Fender & Gibson), but the modifications that are made to their sound through effects. The first effect happened when players turned up their amps so loud that it would overdrive, creating an exciting new sound. The first effects unit was a tremolo that sat on top of an amp in 1946. In the 1950s, a bar was added to the body of a guitar that you could use to artificially create vibrato. In 1961, Leo Fender created the first reverb unit, still one of the most popular effects in all of music. On guitar, its popularity is second only to distortion/fuzz, which was introduced in pedal form in the beginning of the 60s and hit big once it was used by The Rolling Stones in their song 'Satisfaction'.

Those are the basics of guitar's past, be sure to check out Create More Music to see how you can fit into its future.

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What is a Music Scale?

8/2/2019

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We all love music but do you know its composition? Music is composed of three elements: melody, harmony, and rhythm. All music has rhythm. On the other hand, melody and harmony are not compulsory parts of music composition but most music includes these two. In western music, melody and harmony come from 12 distinct pitches. These pitches are organized into scales. When you say a music scale, it is a sequence of notes from the 12 pitches. 


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Tips For Recording Music

6/10/2019

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Gone are the days when you have to go to a music studio to record music. Nowadays, we are living in the age of home recording studio. Turning your home into the perfect place for recording music doesn’t need to be hard, but for some, they find it to be a bit challenging. When you do the entire task – from preparation to getting all the necessary equipment for recording, you’ll find the whole task too overwhelming. With all your hard work, you only hope you’ll have the best result afterward. ​
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Females In Music

5/28/2019

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​Music is typically a male-dominated field. It's time to change up who we think of as the "canon" of icons. Many women have been at the forefront of musical innovation too. They are genre-bending and even defying. Here are a few of our favorites that are sure to inspire you as well.

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Music is the Best Anti Depressant

5/1/2019

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Music has been proven to be a way to relieve mental depression. Music affects humans and animals. Thus, human and animals find music mentally transporting. In fact, it may surprise some people that certain animals often make their own music. Humans know whales and birds have their own special lyrics. These animals often provide the background for lyrical sounds to the human ear.

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A Few Steps for Any Music Artist Ready to Record

4/8/2019

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Music exists in everyone; some people will be transported by it while others are meant to create it. Those who feel like creating it can rest easy knowing that producing your music is not too hard.

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Tuning a Guitar

2/25/2019

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Creating great guitar music requires an instrument that is in tune. Create More Music wants you playing as soon as possible. Each string of the guitar needs to be tuned to a specific note for your guitar playing to sound its best. In standard six string guitar tuning, the notes for each string are E A D G B E from lowest to highest. To properly tune a guitar, you must determine whether each individual string is too low in pitch, too high in pitch or already perfectly in tune. If a string is too low in pitch, turn the tuning machine clockwise until it comes up to pitch. If the string is too high in pitch, turn the tuning machine counter clockwise until it comes down to the proper pitch. To determine how much higher or lower you need the string to go, use one of the following: ​

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10 Must-Have Music Apps

1/22/2019

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​Technology and musicians go together like guitars and amplifiers. Smartphone, tablet, and PC applications and software have drastically changed the ways that music is taught, learned, produced, created, recorded, played, shared, listened to, and even performed. Like every other aspect of the modern world, creative endeavors, like music, have never been easier to start and continue. Musicians now have the power of an entire, professional studio at their fingertips, with applications installed on their smartphones. The following are 10 must-have music apps.

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Useful Music Apps for Practicing

11/2/2018

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Useful Music Apps For Practicing
As every musician knows, practice is essential to improve on your instrument. However, ways to practice are constantly evolving and changing. There is always new information out there, as well as an array of new gadgets available to help stimulate your musical growth. ​


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Effects Of Music On Memory

9/30/2018

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Whether you're a composer, songwriter, or primarily an instrumentalist, now is a great time to hone your skills and push yourself towards your potential in becoming the best artist that you can be. As a subject, music combines the difficulty of mathematics, physics, and analytical philosophy, but it also utilizes the creative and expressive tendencies that artists find essential to communicating who they are as people. 
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