Music

Here at Tips4U we've heard that some people don't like to listen to music, each to their own, but we find this quite hard to believe.

Music can be a great lifter of spirits for whatever mood you might be in. Playing music, either on your own or with a group of people, can be extremely fulfilling. Listening to your favourite music can be relaxing and stimulating.

Here we'll build up lots of tips on music, whether you just want to listen, learn to play a new instrument or sing, or improve your playing of an instrument you already play.

Guitar

At Tips4U we think the guitar is possibly one of the best instruments to learn to play. You can start at any age, it's never too late to learn something new in our opinion.

There's an absolutely massive amount of resource for learning to play the guitar on the internet, just look on Youtube for some very detailed lessons. You'll find lessons for all skill levels of players from the raw beginner to the more advanced maestros. Here's an example of one of our favourites, we used this one to recently learn the song:

Tips4U - Guitar Chord Shapes Finder

Here at Tips4U we found the following Website really useful to find guitar chord shapes

http://www.8notes.com/guitar_chord_chart

Tips4U - Gibson ES 335 Copy

Here at Tips4U we have built up a number of Guitars in our collection over the years. We think the main desireable guitars to have are the following list.

• Gibson Les Paul
• Gibson ES 335
• Fender Stratocaster
• Fender Telecaster

Well, we had three out of the four but were never sure about the merit of the Gibson 335 as it was so expensive and could it really be any different or better than the Les Paul. It wasn't that long ago that we got the Fender Stratocaster so our thoughts soon turned to finishing our dream four collection and biting the bullet to get the Gibson 335. After watching numerous videos about them and drooling over the sheer beauty of this guitar, we decided a good compromise and to save money might be to buy a copy version of the guitar. At £199 (September 2024 in the UK) we found the Artist Cherry58. Here's a video of it's unboxing and first impressions. In the video we also compare it to our Gibson Les Paul (the real deal with this one).

Piano

At Tips4U we think the Piano is possibly one of the best instruments to learn to play. You can start at any age, it's never too late to learn something new in our opinion and the younger you start the better!

There's an absolutely massive amount of resource for learning to play the piano on the internet, just look on Youtube for some very detailed lessons. You'll find lessons for all skill levels of players from the raw beginner to the more advanced maestros. Here's an example selection from one of our favourite Youtube channels (not for the raw beginner):

Banjo

At Tips4U we have always liked the twangy sound of the banjo. But we've never felt sure of whether we would really get on with playing it very well. We've played guitar for a few years and have a few around the place, but playing a 5 string banjo with the proper 3 picks on fingers and thumb was a different kettle of fish.

Well, we thought of how we might be able to try playing the 5 string banjo style without having to spend too much money.

Here's a video we made to show how you can turn a guitar into a 5 string banjo to give it a try before taking the plunge and buying one.