Taylor Swift's Rise To The Top

By Cindy Lou Jackson

Taylor Allison Swift was born in the little burg of Wyomissing in Pennsylvania. She was born in December, the 13th to be exact, of the year 1989. She was largely influenced in music by her grandmother, who was an opera singer. She also love country music as a little girl.

Taylor was smart and mature for her age and her parents were extremely supportive of whatever she wanted to do. They made many trips to Nashville to help her attain her dreams of a country music career and made many sacrifices to support her.

Taylor was singing in public at the tender age of only 10 years old and writing material and songs at only 12. It is unusual for a child to show such focus and determination at such a young age and her parents were just as determined to help her along.

When Taylor was signed at 14 to a publishing contract she became the youngest person ever to do so. Her family decided it was time to make the move to Nashville to see what could happen for Taylor and they finally settled in Hendersonville, which is just outside of Nashville.

Taylor was signed at 16 to Big Machine Records when she thoroughly impressed Scott Borchetta with her talent. She would fulfill everyone's faith in her talent when she released her debut album, titled Taylor Swift. Her first single, Tim McGraw, was a smashing success rocketing into the top ten on the billboard charts.

Taylor is the only female solo artist in country music to have written or co-written all of the songs on her debut album. Taylor's album, Taylor Swift, would eventually sell more than 2 million copies and launch the career of the hottest artist in music today.

Taylor kept up the whirlwind pace by touring with Brad Paisley and most recently, Rascal Flatts. She is also expected to headline some of her own shows in 2009. Taylor is a dynamic live performer and has received rave reviews in many cities.

Taylor has much to look forward to. She will undoubtedly continue a meteoric rise to even further heights. If she can continue to grow as an artist and give her fans more of the Taylor they love, there is no telling how far this ambitious young starlet can go. - 18762

About the Author:

If you like Taylor Swift and would like to see more about this thrilling young artist visit Taylor Swift Lyrics. A fan site built for other fans.

Learn the Piano Notes

By Michelle Edward

Have you ever stopped to consider exactly how much you do or don't know about playing the piano? Consider the following information and compare it to your own knowledge.

Have you heard of the song Auld Lang Syne? If you know it, then it's easy and fast to learn to play it on the piano. This song is a great way to learn the piano notes, which is one of the first steps in learning to play the piano.

Take a look at the piano keys and pay attention to the black notes. Auld Lang Syne is played on five separate black keys.

Some say that piano notes are difficult to learn. But expert piano players say that if only you put your heart to it, you can learn all the notes quickly.

If you have a piano teacher or if you simply learned playing the piano with the aid of a book / DVD / CD, you will learn first the names of the notes on your piano. That will include the black and white notes.

In order to learn the notes properly, you will need to have a piano of your own. If you don't have one, then it's a good idea to begin shopping now. You can't really learn piano notes just by imagining them. It's important to be able to both hear the notes and touch the piano keys to really cement this knowledge and make it easier to learn.

You should also practice visualization techniques in order to envision the keyboard in your mind and identify the precise location of each note. The Grand Staff that you find on a music score is a map of the keyboard that you will easily be able to interpret once you have learned the notes. The ability to instantaneously identify a note on the piano will help you understand chord lessons effortlessly.

As an example, you may play the first seven tab notes, which are CDEFGAB. This is known as the C-major scale.

Sometimes, the most important things about a particular topic aren't very obvious. Continue reading to get a better understanding.

As you complete your lessons, you'll learn about other scales as well, and the notes that comprise them. To play the piano well, you must memorize all of the piano keys, but you'll learn the easiest notes first, of course.

Once you've mastered the simple notes, you can go to much more difficult notes. Remember, you should not forget about the notes that you have already learned because you will be using them when playing advanced piano music.

If you really just want to play basic music on your piano, then at a minimum, you must learn at least two different keys for each scale. Let's say you're playing a major C chord.

The notes in this chord are C, E, and G. By playing these three notes at the same time, you're playing a simple chord that can be used to create music. But, if you want to read advanced pieces, you must practice and learn each note from memory. It won't be long before you play like a pro.

So, it's important to realize that learning each and every note is no game. It's a challenging task, especially if you have difficulty memorizing things. You can overcome this by envisioning the piano keys and labeling each note in your head.

Take a couple of minutes each day to do this. Don't stop until you have memorized all of the piano notes. Hold on to the mental picture of the piano in your mind, since that can help you down the road.

Start memorizing piano notes early on in your quest to learn to play piano. That way, it will be far easier to learn the chords. Playing piano is enjoyable, but it does require patience.

Now that wasn't hard at all, was it? And you've earned a wealth of knowledge, just from taking some time to study an expert's word on playing piano. - 18762

About the Author:

Michelle Edward has reviewed all of the top ways to learn piano and she shares her findings at her website. To read her Piano Is Fun Review, please visit her website now.

Guitar Chords Chart for Learning the Basics

By francois arcoix

Once the basic guitar chords are mastered - it only takes 10 to 15 - you will be able to play many of your favorite songs. The chords are what the background of most songs consist of and are what provide the accompaniment for other instruments. What is a chord? This is when three or more musical notes are played together.

Three strings are strummed on the guitar if the chord you are playing has three notes. The most that can be played on a guitar when playing notes to make a chord is six - the number of strings on the guitar. The chords consist of three groups. Seventh, Minor and Major are unique because they each have their own feel. The Seventh chords have more of an unaccented beat, the Major chords are constant and the Minor chords are lonesome.

There is no standard number of chords that everyone can agree on but the general feeling is there are 8 to 18 chords that anyone who is going to play guitar should know. These chords should be the first ones you learn because they are used in basically everything you will be playing. When you learn these chords you can play rock, country or jazz and enjoy learning many songs.

Basic chords - what are they? The basic chord are the major and minor chords of D, E, A plus the major chords of C and G. The chords are played by leaving one or more strings out when pressing the rest down with your fingers. This makes an open chord. The fingers on one hand press the strings while the other hand strums. The chord is played and the fingers are fretting by pushing the strings against the neck of the guitar.

When the beginner starts learning to play guitar open chords are the easiest. The ones considered to be basic chords are G, F, E Minor, E, D Minor, D, C, A Minor and A. The best way to know where your fingers are supposed to go is by using a guitar chords chart. The beginning guitarist often teaches himself to play using this method.

When learning chords, the method used the most is teaching that chords have families. Each family can be mixed to produce chords that are used in a lot of the popular songs played today. When the learning process is looked at in this manner it is much more fun and the beginner can choose one of the families and learn this before moving on to the next one. This method allows you to begin playing much faster and enjoying your own music.

Songs based on three chords are quite popular thus they are plentiful. Trying to learn too many is not going to be conducive to learning to play the guitar. With over thousands chords in some learning systems, you will be confused and more apt to give up the guitar. This is too many for a beginner or someone who knows how to play. The chords you learn when playing guitar as a beginner are the ones you can learn the easiest so that you can play songs in no time.

If you want to be able to start playing in a few days, trying to learn all of these chords is not going to help. Using the basic guitar chords chart will allow you to look at the information until you learn it and you will know where your fingers are supposed to go and the music will be flowing in a few days. - 18762

About the Author:

Visit beginner-guitarlessons.com to learn more about basic guitar chords chart and find tons of practical tips to help you learn guitar faster!

How To Choose The Best Xbox 360 Bundle

By David Johnson

People who are going out to buy and XBOX 360 right now will have a few choices to make about the system that they want. There are a few different packages which come with certain features and game packages that you can choose from.

Consider first, when looking for the best Xbox 360 bundle, is to decided how many individuals in your family will be using the Xbox 360 the most. For instance if a child would be the most likely candidate, then consider what types of games he or she would like to play.

If the person who will be playing the console the most is you, make sure you get a bunch of games that you will like. XBOX 360 has hundreds of titles and chances are there are a lot of games that will appeal to you. You'll also need to select the XBOX 360 package - if you are going to be downloading a lot of music, movies, or games get an XBOX with a larger hard drive.

There are a large number of XBOX packages available, so take your time looking and find one that you'll like for as little money as possible. There are lots of amazing deals available online. Online auctions sell XBOX 360s in great cheap bundles all the time.

Do some comparison shopping when you are looking for the best Xbox 360 bundle. Try to find one that includes some of those hot games that everyone wants to get their hands on. Those bundles are the most valuable and will be giving you the best deal.

At the cost of games for the Xbox 360, the more games that you can get for a lower price the better off you will be. Consider the cost of the console on its own, the number of games in the bundle and the price of those games to determine if you are indeed getting a good deal.

There may be games you don't really like included in a bundle occasionally, but chances are the bundles still make shopping cheaper and it is still cost-effective. You can also go out and sell the individual games that you don't want to keep.

The bottom line on Xbox 360 bundles is that the best one that is out there for you is the one that includes everything that you will enjoy in your Xbox 360 game playing. - 18762

About the Author:

You can find out how to download XBOX 360 games right from the Internet and how to play copied XBOX 360 games on your XBOX. You can find out how to burn xbox 360 games without mod chipping your 360 at all.

Play Piano Online - The Fun and Easy Way to Learn Piano

By Bart Icles

Expensive and bulky piano's, and going to piano lessons are almost a thing of the past now, ever since piano lessons and softwares became available in the Internet. More and more people are learning how to play the piano through their home computer's and laptop's. Anyone can start at any time they like, and whenever they want or are free to do it; learning to play the piano online is the most convenient way of learning, and is considered the "in' thing today.

If your were still a kid or teenager at a time when computers and the Internet were not-existent yet, and betamax and walkmans were considered the premiere technological gadgets, so you would have had no other choice but to go to a piano teacher and get piano lessons for at least 4 hours a week. It meant that you had to allocate time for commuting to and from the place where the teacher was located. Piano's were really expensive instruments then, and if you didn't have one in the house, then you couldn't practice as much as you wanted or needed to in order to improve your playing skills.

Today, any one who is interested in learning to play the piano can get lessons from virtually any of dozens of programs being advertised in the Internet. Aside from being plentiful, online piano courses are now more affordable to have, and more advanced in techniques and methods that make learning fun, easy, and effective. Online piano lessons are quite affordable, so you don't have to dig deep into your pockets to have one. Some programs even offer to give free trials or full-money-back-guarantees, in case you're not fully satisfied with the lessons, you can always stop with the program and move on to the next one.

Going with online piano lessons also means that you have to have a good working electric piano keyboard to use. You can also look a few brands and models up on the Internet and maybe purchase one that suits your discerning taste, or get one from a music store near your area. Any portable paino keyboard will do as long as it is simple and easy to use for beginners such as yourself. With this and online piano lessons, you don't need to buy a regular, expensive, and space-occupying piano, and just stay inside the comfort of your home as you go over your lessons day in and day out.

With a piano keyboard, an online piano lesson, and a deep and sincere desire to learn, learning how to play the piano will be an endeavor of which you will find satisfying and pleasing in many ways you can ever imagine. - 18762

About the Author:

Play piano on your keyboard and you will improve motor skills, increase you musical ability and impress your friends and family. Start today living a dream, play piano online using keyboard and gain a whole new sense of self.