The Most Powerful Tool in The World - The Goal and the Plan

Ok, once the hair on the back of your neck has gone down we can get started with the planning process. I don't know what it is about "planning" that gets so many of us creative types squirming in our seats. I've had monumental arguments with fellow bandmates over planning and I've even had bands break up because of it. Musicians seem to think that goals and plans are anti-creative or anti-artistic. That couldn't be further from the truth. Goals and plans serve to focus our energy and focus our creativity. They actually help us produce more and better art. If you only absorb one concept from this set of 21 let it be this: "Set Goals, Make Plans to Achieve Them, and Work on Your Plans Everyday." Nothing else can mobilize you and move you forward faster than a good plan and a little discipline. Now let's talk about how to make a plan.

1 Decide Exactly What You Want. Pick a goal. If you're new at this, start small. You don't have to reinvent jazz with you first goal. Pick something that you know you can achieve. Something challenging but doable. If you don't believe that you can achieve it, you will not. Make sure that it is measurable, that you will be able tell when you have completed it. Make it detailed and specific. For instance, don't say "I want to become better at playing in all twelve keys." Instead, decide to memorize the melody to the song "I Got Rhythm" in all twelve keys and be able to perform it at 160 BPM in any key from memory.

2 Write It Down in Vivid Detail. Write it down on paper. With as much detail as possible. What exactly will you be able to do when your goal is accomplished? How will you know when you've accomplished your goal? How will you measure it? The more clearly defined your goal is, the greater the likelihood of achieving it. Physically writing it down on paper can not be over-emphasized. Write and re-write your goals daily. This will keep your mind focused and your "eyes on the target."

3 Give Your Goal a Deadline Without a deadline a goal is simply a wish. Decide when you will achieve your goal. On what date will you be able to perform "I Got Rhythm" in all twelve keys from memory? If you find that you are not going to hit your deadline, simply create a new one. Not to say that deadlines should be changed on a whim. You should always strive to hit your goals on time, but there will be occasions when you will have to modify your plan. As you practice this method you will get better and better at estimating how long a goal will take to complete.

4 Make a List Write down everything you can think of that you will have to do to achieve this goal. List every single step. Break your goal down into tiny bite-size pieces that you can complete in one practice session. As you think of more steps, add them to your list. This is how you accomplish a big goal. You have to break it down into the actual steps that you will complete in your daily practice sessions.

5 Put Your List in Order Now turn your list into an actual plan. Put every step in order. What will you have to do first? Second? And so on. This will now serve as your blueprint. This blueprint will move you forward fast. With out a blueprint you are at the mercy of luck and chance. You are simply meandering around aimlessly. It's kind of like firing a bow and arrow with a blindfold on. It's worse actually. It's like firing a bow and arrow with a blindfold on and no target. You could hit anything, but chances are you will hit nothing. With a plan, it's as if you have a target in front of you, there's plenty of light and your blindfold is gone. You can work until you hit the target, and then move on to the next one.

6 Take Action Go practice. Get busy. Work on your plan. Action is the key to success. Without action you cannot accomplish anything. With action you will accomplish great things. Even if your plan is flawed you can accomplish a lot, simply by taking action. Action, Action and more Action.

7 Practice and Work on Your Plan Everyday Develop the habit and discipline of practicing and working on your plan every single day. Even if you only have twenty minutes to practice, do it. Learn something or take a tiny, tiny step forward. You will be amazed by how much you can learn and how fast your music can progress by utilizing this formula. This is the most powerful tool to help you progress on your musical journey and become a monster jazz musician.

Free Guitar Lessons Online: The Most Critical Fact

You're learning guitar because you want to play on your guitar your favorite music, and you want to enjoy the feeling of drawing out of your guitar those enticing sounds.

And you want to learn to play your guitar in an optimum way, so you'll awaken the admiration of everybody listening to you.

And you can achieve your goals, when you take into account a few and very important concepts, specially when you are self-teaching.

I won't tell you that they are easy. I抣l tell you that you can definitively do them, just putting will and work. Like everything deserved in life.

Let抯 go through them.

Attitude: It is the main thing you must have in mind. I'm talking here about a strong and decided state of mind and body that puts you on the track of all the effort needed to meet your goals. Without hard work you won't get anything great in life. You won't even be a fair guitar player.

Listen in a different way: Until now most likely you listened just to enjoy it. From now on, you' listen music to enjoy it and learn from it. You'll listen trying to find out how the player is playing every specific part of the piece; what is the player intending to give; what difficulties is the player encountering, and how is he/she going through them; how would you like to have that part played.

Practice daily: Yes! Practice daily! Not less than two hours a day (one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, evening or night). I told you that it would be hard.

Practice efficiently: During the time segments you assigned to practicing, do just that.

Practice. Practice the lessons, exercises, scales, chords, pieces you must practice. Be clearly sincere with yourself. Don抰 fool yourself, thinking that you are doing your practice when you're only playing something you like to play and not what you must play.

Play with others: Whenever possible, specially when you have reached a playing knowledge and skills (and it isn't required very much), play sometimes with other guitar players.

You'll be surprised about how much you can learn.

Look for a teacher: Yes. Look for a teacher. If you are learning to play guitar on your own, there抣l be a time when you'll need the guidance and advices of a guitar teacher.

There are many things than cannot be written and read. They must be shown and explained over the guitar itself. And I guarantee you that you'll be amazed about what you will learn.

Remember. Attitude, change your listening habits, practice daily and efficiently, play with others whenever possible, and have a teacher to make your knowledge perfect.

There's no mystery in learning to play the guitar, but though rewarding it's a way of hard work.

Take it like that, and you'll become a very good guitar player.

You will find more very useful tips and advices visiting the resources in the Author's Signature paragraph below.

Learn How To Sing High Notes

Amongst the vast range of vocal works, you will find high notes sung in most of the glorious, heroic, influential, lofty and passionate musical performances. It抯 the real greatness bought by the high notes. Such notes often appear in the climaxes of musical works and inspire the emotions of all who hear them.

Audiences love to listen to high notes and singers like to produce them, so this ideal quirk makes singing high notes hugely desirable all round!

Singing high notes could be described as almost instinctive and is indeed within the human nature. Throughout the world, there will be people of all backgrounds, including native minorities from various countries, who sing high notes in the most passionate manners when their emotions are excited. Letting out feelings via high-note vocals is a universal form of expression.

Whatever the reasons may be, it抯 true to say that people who enjoy learning to sing are usually in favor of high-note singing. This phenomenon not only occurs in singers who are already of the high voice range but also exists for those in the low voice group as well. However, desperately shouting high notes is extremely dangerous. People are often misled by the thought that the higher the notes they抳e reached by forced straining, the more success they have achieved. Without basic foundation and mastering of the correct singing skills of how to sing high notes, however, this shouting method does much more harm than good!

The singing of high notes actually belongs in the advanced stage of vocal training. There is a lot of confusion surrounding this area of singing and too many people tend to rely on their own methods, or blindly imitate their singing idols to produce high notes with uncontrolled, indiscriminate shouting, causing a lot of negative consequences.

Many have developed severe vocal deficiency.

Although I have rich knowledge and experience in the area of singing high notes, I do not actually advocate that people go ahead and sing notes that exceed their ability, nor do I advocate that people sing high notes frequently without the foundation of knowing how to sing them correctly. Besides, high notes are not all there is to the average vocal composition. The performance of a piece of vocal work is determined by many factors; it should be comprehensive and all-rounded in nature, delivering various aspects of sound to the audience抯 ear.

Nevertheless, singing beautiful and enchanting high notes is still a most stirring idea and is one to be encouraged. But being able to sing them well requires training in order to understand the right method for how to sing high notes.

Crash

Rarely do I find myself equally liking and disliking a movie but that is exactly where I find myself with Crash, Paul Haggis’ first film following the critically acclaimed Million Dollar Baby. Crash follows a group of people in L.A. as their lives collide unexpectedly and violently over a forty-eight hour period.

Crash works because it takes an honest and serious look at racial, ethnic and class relations in Los Angeles a city that is the epicenter of such tensions. Instead of just offering the same overused and overdone stereotypes, Crash forces you to look at what we think we know about these issues and forces you to look at them from a point of view that may not have previously considered.

The movie is helped in part by the amazing performances of the cast. As star studded as the cast is that doesn’t necessarily guarantee great acting but in Crash the actors more then deliver and there is more then one Oscar worthy performance in the film.

Don Cheadle is outstanding as usual as a hardworking detective whose mother loves his thug younger brother then she does him. Matt Dillon is more then convincing as a bigoted cop who is caring for his ailing father and Sandra Bullock’s performance as the wasp wife of the district attorney who is very honest about her contempt and fear of anyone who doesn’t look like her is arguably the best of her career. It’s easy to forget that Bullock is a pretty good actress considering her recent choices in films (think Miss Congeniality 1 and 2 come to mind) and rarely have we seen her in a dramatic role, but she does an excellent job here that is more than worthy of a little gold man.

Crash doesn’t work because in order to tell its tale it relies too heavily on coincidence. The movie wants you to believe that all of these lives intersect in a two day span in a way that irrevocably changes everyone’s life and for many their view of the world. I realize that L.A. is a small town in that everybody knows somebody but give me a break. I don’t think Matt Dillon’s character is the only cop in the city or Michael Pena as the only locksmith. I don’t believe Terrance Howard’s was the only other person driving a black navigator or one of the young thugs just happens to have a cop for a brother. The movie tries hard to make you believe that all the coincidences are possible but it just doesn’t work.

I can accept that the lives of these characters intersect here and there but the movies insistence that they all connect in some way takes away the level of reality that the movie strives so hard to achieve. Everyone fitting in this nice little circle rings false and is actually completely unnecessary to the telling of the story.

Crash also suffers because it offers little to no analysis of these issues. It more or less says, “Here it is do with it what you may.” I didn’t expect answers and would have been very disappointed had the film tried to offer any but if offers very little in the way of hope and when you lay such heavy material on an audience you should at least offer some hope that things can and will be better.

Crash is a must see movie. I think in a country that has managed to convince itself that race issues no longer exist this film is a stark reminder that that is far from reality and that there is still a lot that needs to be done and that should be done. Often we don’t have the opportunity or we simply don’t want to look at the world outside of the little box we have created for ourselves. Crash forces you to look outside of that box and in the end I believe you will be better for it.

Tamika Johnson is a freelance writer and owner of PrologueReviews.com. To read more reviews by Tamika or to have your book, music or film reviewed visit http://www.prologuereviews.com

Sith Connects the Dots

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith does exactly what it has to do, no more and no less. It brings each of the characters into place for the real Star Wars to begin by connecting the dots between the two ponderous prequels that preceded it and the magical movies from the late 70’s and early 80’s that started this phenomenon. It does so competently, but doesn’t really add anything new, in my opinion, to the overall saga. Having seen all of the prequels now, I’m not sure that Darth Vader’s backstory was even worth telling.

It’s possible that the problem is larger that the flaws built into George Lucas’ movies. It’s hard to take Vader all that seriously as an icon of evil when he spends so much time on TV these days chopping mop handles with his light saber and ‘force’ choking talking M%26Ms. How seriously could we take Hannibal Lector if he was on TV every commercial break telling us how he likes to eat his Whopper with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? Of course, Star Wars was the movie that created modern movie marketing and merchandizing, so maybe its poetic justice that it gets all the life sucked out of it by being oversold. It hasn’t seemed to hurt the bottom line, but for me it takes all the magic out of the movie.

As for the movie itself, it manages to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker’s descent into darkness competently. Even Hayden Christensen manages to be somewhat convincing as the future dark lord. You certainly sense that the character is more confident and at ease once he has embraced the darkness. But it’s no great performance, not even as marginally chilling as the performance Anthony Hopkins has given in the above mentioned role. I don’t know if Christensen lacks the chops to play truly dark or Lucas lacks the talent to direct truly dark, but for all of the darkness promised in this movie, I just didn’t see it. Even the Emperor seemed like a lightweight compared to what I remembered from Return of the Jedi. Physically both Anakin and Palpatine manage to wreak a lot of havoc, killing one lifeless character after another, but because we don’t really care about these characters it has almost no impact. Much is made of Anakin killing the Jedi Younglings, but every time they talk about it it’s “Anakin killed the younglings.” Nobody says the word “children,” which is the key to the horror of the moment. Lucas, knowing how many children would be in the audience, probably wanted to avoid talking about dead children, but by using a word like ‘youngling’ he detaches his audience from the tragedy and Vader from his darkness.

Anakin’s fall into darkness is convincing enough, if somewhat contrived. The loyalty conflict between serving the Jedi and the legitimate authority of the Chancellor would have been a more interesting story than the nonsense about Padme. Anakin’s visions of her death in childbirth lead him to seek the power over life and death one can gain from the dark side. Apparently in the vast technocracy of Coruscant pre-natal care is unheard of, since Padme didn’t know she was having twins, but it’s hard to imagine that many women die from childbirth in such an advanced society. Lucas gives us this as an excuse to have sympathy for Vader, a reasonable explanation for his fall into darkness. It would have been more interesting to have him choose to defend the Chancellor not because of some dark power the man had over life and death, but because he saw him as the legitimate leader of the government threatened by a Jedi coup. Anakin could’ve fallen on the wrong path thinking he was doing the right thing, which is the way many good people come to be evil. Rather we are given a character that chooses darkness as a means to an end, but a character Lucas still wants us to have sympathy for.

As for Padme, one has to wonder what happened to this character. She went from feisty fighter to pregnant lump. The only reason she’s in this movie is to give Anakin a reason to go dark and to give birth to Luke and Leia in time for them to be in place for Episode IV. After all the things she fought so hard for in the previous movies, you think she would want to stay alive and fight for her children, rather than just give up and die. Yet that is what she does. Other characters are also just part of Lucas’ giant game of connect the dots. One gets the impression that Jimmy Smits’ Bail Organa could’ve been a really interesting character in the prequel trilogy, providing some of the sorely missed Han Solo type charm to the series, but all he’s good for is saving Obi Wan and Yoda and providing a home for the future Princess Leia. Samuel L. Jackson is wasted as Mace Windu, his brief light saber duel with Palpatine is mostly forgettable, and his death was almost laughable. Obi Wan, Yoda and Palpatine are treated better by Lucas’ story, but then they are a vital part of the next three episodes and are not as easily dismissed as poor Padme was.

In terms of action and visuals this movie certainly delivers everything a Star War fan could want. It does a better job of being a Star Wars movie than Attack of the Clones, but still falls shorts, in my opinion, of capturing the magic of the original trilogy. Some critics have said that Episode III is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, and it certainly has all of the elements of one, but it’s executed more like a Saturday morning cartoon than one of Shakespeare’s plays. But maybe that’s all that it is, or all Star Wars ever was, a big flashy Saturday morning cartoon.

Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven is Ridley Scott抯 way of trying to recapture the success of Gladiator and to turn Orlando Bloom into the international sensation and instant leading man that Crowe became after is Oscar winning performance in that Gladiator. I don抰 fault Bloom for trying. I know he had to be thinking how could he lose? Sure it抯 an epic drama and none of the other recently released historical epics (including his Troy) have come anywhere near the success of Gladiator, but Dreams has Ridley Scott, Gladiator抯 mastermind at the helm, he couldn抰 go wrong卹ight? Well, that抯 not exactly what happened. See someone forgot to tell Orlando that he抯 not Russell Crowe. And while he looked damn good in those elf ears, it takes much more then a pretty face to pull off an epic drama the likes of Kingdom of Heaven and unfortunately for us all Bloom just doesn抰 have it.

I hate to criticize Orlando. I do. I think he抯 gorgeous and love to watch him on the big screen and he抯 not a bad actor he just doesn抰 have the acting chops or the screen presence to be convincing as the salvation of a nation. Heaven tells the story of Balian (Bloom) a lowly blacksmith who has lost his child and then his wife to suicide. He soon learns he has a nobleman for a father who has returned to recruit him on his journey to go and fight the holy Crusades and save Jerusalem from falling back into the hands of the Muslims led by the historic military leader Saladin. Agreeing to go in hopes of being able to atone for his wife抯 suicide, he soon learn that knowing one抯 enemy isn抰 as clear as knowing where your religious beliefs lie.

Outside of Bloom not having what it takes to carry the roll of Balian, Heaven doesn抰 work because the story is choppy and unclear. Scott decides to tell several stories: the jockeying for power amongst the Christians, the tenuous treaty between King Leopold and Saladin, Saladin and his relationship with his people, and an unnecessary love story that only seems to be there so there can be an excuse to see a semi-nude Orlando and instead of seeming interesting and entertaining it all just came across as one big convoluted mess.

Instead of all of these mini tales the movie would have been much more interesting had it just focused on Saladin抯 and Balian抯 grudging but shared respect for one another and the battle over Jerusalem. Instead we are left with a lot of unnecessary screen time filled by boring sub-plots and a badly used Edward Norton who is stuck behind a tin mask mumbling for a good portion of the movie. Talk about bad use of an actor, Norton would have made a much better Balianl then Bloom and might have been able to stir up some emotions and excitement where Orlando could not.

Despites these gaffes, Kingdom of Heaven does offer some notable performances namely Jeffrey Irons who plays Tiberius a battle weary Sheriff of Jerusalem and commander of his own troops who is vehemently opposed to breaking the treaty they have with Saladin and David Thewalis the Hospitaler and Balian\'s father抯 friend and subsequently the one who helps Balian become the man his father wanted him to be.

While relatively entertaining, Kingdom of Heaven is ultimately a disappointment. I expected more out of Bloom but I really expected a great deal more out of Scott, after all he is the guy who brought us Gladiator and help turn Russell Crowe into a house hold name. Unfortunately, for everyone Kingdom of Heaven is no Gladiator.

Tamika Johnson is a freelance writer and owner of PrologueReviews.com. To read more reviews by Tamika or to have your book, movie or film reviewed visit http://www.prologuereviews.com

Monster in Law

Monster in Law marks Jane Fonda’s return to the big screen after a fifteen year absence and Jennifer Lopez’s return to film after the Bennifer debacle. Monster in Law tells the story of Viola (Fonda) a Barbara Walters-esque reporter who loses her job to a young, blonde skinny Minnie who she thought was there to fetch her coffee. Upon learning this news she has an on air breakdown and after some time in a psyche hospital she leaves only to learn that her only child Kevin (Michael Vartan) is going to marry some girl (Lopez) that she has never met. At this point hijinks ensue (think Meet the Parents with the women at each other’s throats instead of the men) and an all out war erupts between Fonda and Lopez with Vartan’s character remaining completely clueless. I was under the impression this was supposed to be a comedy, except someone forgot to tell Anya Kochoff that when writing a comedy script the jokes should occur throughout the entire movie not just the last half hour or instead of a comedy you end up with a bumbling mess that makes you cringe instead of laugh and leaves you wondering how Klute’s Bree Daniel and yes, how even the Wedding Planner chose this as their comeback film.

In Jane’s defense she did the best she could with the script she had. It is hard to make Lemonade with rotten lemons, and that is just what this script is…rotten. The jokes were played out and unfunny and even the usually funny Wanda Sykes couldn’t save this stinker. Also, Fonda just isn’t suited to physical comedy. She tried: there were all the requisite falls, slaps and over exaggerated reactions but none of it played well. When I was supposed to be laughing I shuddered thinking, “Wow, could this possible get any worse?” Fonda’s role would have been more suited to a Streisand, a Midler or a Streep, they would have that aging, vindictive diva role down and might have been able to save the film, I stress the might.

Fonda wasn’t the only one cast badly. Jennifer Lopez as the sweet, innocent, underachieving, slightly dimwitted and very naive Charlie was about as believable as Ben Affleck saying “I do.” The scene where she was gushing about the importance of marriage and how her marriage to Greg was going to be the most important day of her life was one of the few funny moments in the movie, even though it wasn’t scripted to be so. You just can’t sell Lopez as the gushing, sweet, anti-diva Charlie. It’s just not possible. Let’s face it, we’ve seen too many marriages, too many divorces, heck too many engagement rings and this is the same woman who purportedly had an all white clause in her rider and if it wasn’t fulfilled all hell broke loose…sweet and innocent, I think not.

And poor Michael Vartan. I guess he was just happy to have a starring role in a movie so it didn’t matter to him that he was little more then a glorified prop, a well dressed extra, a poor excuse to propel this sorry excuse for a plot along for the 102 minutes it bumbled across the screen. Vartan had very few lines, those he had were just plain bad and he then was unceremoniously dismissed for two-thirds of the movie just so Fonda and Lopez could go at each other without him being present. The movie could have really gone on without him. As it was it was quite easy to forget that he existed or that he was even the reason why of all the shenanigans in the movie were happening to begin with.

Believe it or not Monster in Law wasn’t all bad. About two thirds in something amazing happened: thanks to a doctor who was really a waiter, a bowl of gravy and a really bad allergic reaction to nuts I had my first real laugh of the movie. Also, watching Fonda squirm as her mother in law played by Elaine Stritch, shows up was priceless. Those scenes were the best acted and best scripted scenes of the entire film. They almost made the movie worth watching.

All in all stay away. Monster in Law isn’t worth your time or money. Seeing Jane Fonda back on the big screen was nice but I really wish she would have chosen a better vehicle to make her long awaited comeback.

Tamika Johnson is a freelance writer and owner of PrologueReviews.com. To read more reviews by Tamika or to have your book, movie or film reviewed visit http://www.prologuereviews.com