Voice From Within

You have known Michael Searching Bear for his wonderful hand-crafted Searching Bear Flutes in the past. Now enjoy the wonderful tones of his flutes and musical background with his new CD release, "Voice From Within". "Voice From Within" has a variety of emotions which will take you on your wonderful journey within. 18 songs fill this release which is instrumented with solo flute and an array of percussion and natural sounds. The solo voice of Windwalker, Michael's sister, is a special highlight celebrating the beauty of the Cherokee language. All original recordings went into this journey which was mainly written and inspired by the Cherokee Trail of Tears journey in the 1830's. As Michael put it, "I was in mourning when I conceived this music. It is truly a journey from track 1 to track 17. See if you can feel it and come join in the journey." The final track is a duet with Windwalker and Michael which was captured in it's entirety with a fire being the atmosphere. " I wanted to capture the purity of the instrument," states Bill Hartzell, recording engineer for the project.

A friend told me once, I would like to give you a piece of advice: "Don't listen to advice!" May I give you some advice on how to relate to all learn to play guitar advising on the net.

I stand amazed when I see all fitness equipment being advertised on TV and I wonder, how is possible that ads on fitness incessantly is showed on TV and expensive equipment is sold? Is it the same people who buy these expensive things or is it new fresh buyers all the time?

Is it something wrong with the fitness training equipment? I don't think so. Is it something wrong with all advice on guitar playing on the net or in books? I don't think so.

See it this way; We are susceptible to advice or advertising because we are searching for something. Sometimes we are searching for something that doesn't exist.

I think that we sometimes are searching for a quick solution to a problem. Sometimes there is a quick solution and sometimes you just have to work on a problem over an extended period of time. The guitar book you bought is probably a good book. You just have to work on the guitar lessons until you master them. One at a time with concentration.

Sometimes we are in reality seeking for the motivation to do something, like exercising our body or learning to play guitar. A new book on guitar playing or a new piece of training equipment might motivate us for a while but sooner or later our motivation will decrease if it is built upon new things only.

People are different and learn things in different ways. Some people can easily set their own goals and also work on achieving these goals over a long period of time. Others need a lot of help in order to organize themselves. Maybe they need a tutor and ordinary lessons to help them progress as guitarists.

What advice will I give you founded on the previous thoughts?

It is okay to buy training equipment if you like it. It is okay to buy a lot of learn to play guitar books and DVD's if you feel good about it and can afford it. You might also help the market to flourish and so on.

The important question is; What do you want to accomplish? Is your main interest to test new guitar educational books and DVD's or do you want to progress as a guitarist?

If you reflect over these questions and are honest with yourself you will find out your ultimate goal. If you want to progress as a guitarist and want to try out if you can do it all by yourself you can make this test on yourself:

Look through your guitar books or DVD's and choose one exercise or lesson you want to work on. Give yourself a decent homework and decide on a deadline. Follow the advice in your books. Congratulations, if you can work this way! It will save you much time and money not having to pay a guitar teacher.

However, I strongly suggest that you every now and then visit a good guitar teacher to advise you! An experienced guitar teacher will spot your weaknesses in seconds and will encourage you to climb upwards as a guitar player.

As a final thought I just want to suggest that maybe the cheapest training equipment is yourself and the most overlooked fitness exercise is doing push-ups because we give up on it so easily.

If you start doing one push-up everyday for a week and the next week two you will after a year be able to do 52 push-ups everyday. Don't believe me, but try it if you like! After all, it is only a piece of advice...

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com.