Journey band, the multi-platinum rock band of the 70's has just got a massive shot in the arm: it's got for itself a new lead singer. Arnel Pineda, a Filipino veteran of music gigs in clubs in the Philippines and Japan, was literally plucked out from the Zoo band (as seen in YouTube) in Quezon City, Philippines, and flown to Marin County to have him auditioned. The rest is the beginnings of a modern Cinderella story.

Music's healing effects have been known to humans for hundreds of years. People practice music for different purposes. For some it is a mere hobby or a means to spend free time, and for others its more serious and practice it in a professional manner.

The Gibson Les Paul Guitar is an icon of the electric guitar industry. The successful partnership had its beginnings in the 1940s. Les Paul, real first name Lester, was one of the more popular guitarists of the time and indeed had his own radio show. Although known for his playing ability he was also a man who liked to tinker with the sound, dubbing and amplification of the guitar sounds.

The acoustic guitar has been around for centuries and is one of the most beautiful instruments available on the market to date. They range from the crummy plywood copies that you see in a pawn shop to the high end masterpieces that cost upwards of $15 000 - $40 000. This leaves a guitarist between a rock and a hard place with a lot of questions.

1) Draw neck diagrams and label the note names on the strings. This will improve your knowledge of the instrument, and solidify your ability to quickly jump to any note (like when a fellow musician tells you it's an A chord). Start with just one string, such as the low E string, and label every note: E, F, F#, G, G#, etc. Do this a few times for each string and you'll soon know your way around the guitar sooo much better than you do now!

Come with us as we examine one of the most common guitar playing myths about guitar tone. Many think that buying expensive equipment will give you great sound. Join us as we discover what the true secret is to capturing professional sounding tones

There are a lot of theories floating around in the guitar player community about the techniques to improving your guitar playing speed. Most of these theories are based on some sort of half truth, but a good part of the time these theories are nothing more than myths and really offer no help to truly improving a guitarist playing ability or their speed and style. One of the biggest myths, discussed heavily at times out there about achieving faster playing speed is that you cannot play fast with thick strings and high action. Most of the proponents of this particular guitar playing myth say that in order to be able to make your fingers fly across the fretboard, your strings have to be thin, as thin as possible and the action in the strings needs to be ultra low.

Every so often, we decide to dive into a new aspect of playing guitar that many are either afraid of, or just simply have no idea what it's all about. We're going to tackle one of the more feared issues evolving around guitar... Transposition.

Come join us now as we take a closer look into tips and tricks for improving your guitar playing speed and for some practical knowledge on effectively using metronomes and other advice to improve your practice sessions.

Take a trip with us as we examine at a few key tips for learning how to master the guitar. You'll learn how playing clean with no effects improves accuracy. Learn how to get the most out of practice sessions with backing tracks for guitarists, as well as a few principles to apply to guitar practice.