FOR DECADES, metal guitarists have favored Ibanez guitars for their flat fretboard, greasy-fast playability and modernized double locking tremolos. But for a guitar to appeal to devoted metalists, it must do more than play like the devil; it also has to look the part, as well.

After the success of the mildly radical Iceman guitar, Ibanez was convinced that the time was right to build a truly outrageous instrument. The new Xiphos is the company’s first guitar specifically built for hardcore and metal players. The Xiphos Ibanez electric guitar takes its name from the brutally effective double-edged sword used by Greek and Spartan soldiers, and true to form, it delivers notes with surgical precision. It is one of the fastest guitars in the Ibanez line, and its specially selected DiMarzio D Activator pickups give it a truly demonic edge.

THE CHALLENGE FOR Ibanez’s electric guitar designers was to create a guitar shape that was incredibly aggressive without giving up any of Ibanez’s famous comfort and playability. They achieved this by building the guitar around a five-piece maple Wizard II neck-through design. This rock-hard centerpiece creates enormous sustain, and because the bridge is mounted in this same dense plank, note definition and clarity are maximized. The remainder of the radical X-shaped body is made from mahogany, which adds warmth and depth to the maple’s bright core. Although the Xiphos’ long beveled points may look unwieldy, the guitar is surprisingly lightweight and superbly balanced.

An Ibanez electric guitar this wild would not be complete with an off-the shelf finish. So Ibanez chose to cover the Xiphos in a sparkling color-shifting paint that they call their Chameleon finish. As you move the guitar, its finish appears to quickly change colors, like an alien cyber skin. The Wizard II’s neck shape is thin but not squared, and its somewhat rounded feel is enhanced by the thick Chameleon finish. The fl at fretboard and jumbo frets produce Ibanez’s trademark feel. Only a light touch is required to sound a note, and the action is low and level. This style of neck is purpose built for the player that wants to play fast, sweep through the strings, use two-handed techniques and move across the board in a nonlinear fashion. The Xiphos Ibanez Electric Guitars feature Ibanez’s Edge III double-locking tremolo. One of the company’s most advanced Floyd Rose-derived bridges, it boasts easy tuning adjustment and a very unobtrusive profile. Its tone is very neutral, and it is certainly capable of performing any whammy trick you can imagine. The Ibanez electric guitars new weapon may be the first production guitar to feature DiMarzio’s brand-new D Activator pickups as original equipment. They are designed to accurately deliver the same resonant peaks, long sustain and tantalizing harmonics found in today’s hottest active pickups. Being passive, they have organic tone and natural response.

IF A RAZOR blade was musical, it would be the Xiphos. Its acoustic clarity and sharp definition mix perfectly with the DiMarzios’ rich output and harmonic enhancements. Plugged straight into a Marshall JVM, the Xiphos delivered a very Zakk-like tone. The DiMarzio’s excited harmonics made chords sound enormous, almost as if I was using a chorus. But the punch from the Xiphos’ maple core pushed notes right through the Marshall on single note attacks. Even when I played at top speed, every note was clear and distinct. Staccato blasts, especially, cut the air like a machine-gun’s rattle, while properly picked sweeps sounded like alternate-picked runs.

We tested the Xiphos’ ability to produce clean tones with my modified Mesa RoadKing. In no time, I was finger picking student exercises and recalling my favorite etudes, as if the Xiphos was a fine classical guitar. Even though the DiMarzios are built to sound like active pickups, their passive design ensures a warm response.

The Bottom Line Is

WITH ITS FIVE-PIECE Wizard II neck, Ninja-weapon body, double-locking Edge III trem and DiMarzio D Activator pickups, the Xiphos Ibanez Electric Guitars are one of the most aggressive guitars on the planet. Hardcore ax players may try this guitar because of its hot looks, but they’ll buy it because of its lightning-fast playability and blowtorch tones.

There are different ways to learn how to play the piano. With the hype of new technology, you can choose to learn how to play the piano online. You can also choose to learn it the traditional way – by ear.

Some might say that it is difficult to learn how to play the piano by ear. Indeed, it can be quite a challenge in the first few stages but as you practice more and progress into the next stages, you will find that the learning process becomes easier.

In learning how to play the piano by ear, you will need to work on melody. You can start by thinking of a song that you believe has a simple melody. Try picking out the notes in the melody then try playing them on a piano. To help you in this process, try to recognize intervals in the melody or the distance between two notes in the melody. Being able to easily determine intervals can help you in picking out a melody easily.

After you have learned about picking out the melody, you can try to start picking out chords. You will need this in harmonizing the melody with the chords. As a review, a chord is a combination of at least three notes that are played all at the same time. Beginners will typically learn three chords at a time, based on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of any scale in any key. As an example, the three basic chords in the C major key are C, F, and G. When taken together, these three chords include all the notes in the key of C.

You will also need to learn more about chord voicing. This refers to playing a chord in positions other than the root. For example, you will not always have to play the chord F in the order F-A-C. You can play it as A-C-F or C-F-A. Changing the position by which you play a chord will give it a different voicing.

Learning how to play the piano by ear will always involve melody, chords, and chord voicing. It is therefore important to keep these three things in mind as you try to learn how to play the piano in the traditional way.

Some music just seems to stand the test of time and I am sure that the Beatles top the list. Iconic legends of times and music gone by there are surely just as many if more Beatles fans today as there were back when this music first hit the music store shelves.

The Beatles; John, Paul, George and Ringo, have been living in the hearts of many music lovers form the first line that they heard. However, even new fans, and those unfamiliar to the Beatles, will be able to fully enjoy the BEATLES Hard Days Night CD.

Hard Days Night includes tracks such as I Should Have Known Better, And I Love Her, Cant Buy Me Love and Hard Days Night, and was by far the most popular Beatles album to date. Although many believe that the Fab Four began down the legendary road earlier in their careers, others (including myself) tend to disagree and believe this album is where their legacy really began. After All, this was the first Beatles album that was completed created with original tracks.

Although this album has been available, on vinyl, since its original release, there is nothing compared to listen to it on CD. The crisp and clear sound quality will make you think you are listening to it for the first time, and the CD format will bring in a whole new, and younger, generations of fans.

The sounds that turned the world on its ear, gone forever into the past; Lennon and McCartney had a sound that has yet to be matched by any other band in history; melody and harmony that changed the course of pop music forever.

Many people believe that learning how to play the piano is extremely difficult and not everyone can learn how to play this classic instrument. However, Robin Hall tries to correct this belief by introducing a Piano For All course available in pianoforall.com.

Piano For All is a complete piano course that lets you learn how to play pop, blues, jazz, ballads, classical, and many other pieces on the piano. It also lets you learn how to play piano faster – you will not need to wait for years to see results, you will start noticing changes in your piano playing skill in months.

Robin Hall’s Piano For All course lets you start with popular chord-based rhythm style piano playing. This playing style is relatively easier to learn than any other style yet it sounds remarkably like real piano playing. This helps you pull off a professional sound almost instantly. Once you believe you sound great while having lots of fun you can take on more advanced chord and rhythm pieces in the blues, ballad, jazz, ragtime, and improvisation styles. How? Because Piano For All integrates learning and fun that encourages to continue learning more. Eventually, you will find yourself progressing to sight-reading classical pieces with Piano For All as a guide.

This piano course has 10 modules: Party Time / Rhythm Piano (basic), Shake.. Rattle ‘n’ Roll.. (blues and rock ‘n’ roll), Chord Magic, Advanced Chords Made Easy, Ballad Style, Jazz Piano Made Easy, Advanced Blues Piano & Fake Stride, Taming the Classics, Speed Learning, and Bumper Resource Book. It also has 200 video lessons to help you in every step of the way. The e-books are also embedded with 500 audio piano lessons to help cut the learning time in half.

Robin Hall gives interested students a plus by having Piano For All available in great payment options. You can choose to order one book at a time or you can choose to have the complete piano course on a CD-ROM. With Piano For All, you will not have to spend money, time, or effort on traditional piano lessons.

Frank Sinatra is rightful known today as an entertainment icon, but many forget that there was a time when he was just another washed up teen idol trying to reinvent himself artistically and revive his career. After his teen idol stardom ended, Sinatra went through a rough period that he described as ‘all Monday’s’ when his personal life was in shambles, his professional prospects non-existent and his financial status in ruin.

To make things even worse, his bosses at Columbia Records were mis-managing his talent in an ill-advised effort to make him a ‘novelty singer’. This included a short lived pairing with Mitch Miller–the very low point of which was a horrible record called ‘Mama Will Bark’. Here the greatest voice of the 20th Century recorded a duet with a busty actress named Dagmar and a dog impersonator barking and howling in the background. These records were poorly received by the public–not a surprise in retrospect–and in 1952 Columbia Records dumped Sinatra.

In 1953, June Hutton and Jo Stafford brought him to the attention of Capitol Records A&R man Dave Dexter, Jr. This led to a deal with the label, which began an era that many ‘Sinatra-philes’ consider his best work. Frank worked with Axel Stordahl (June Hutton’s husband, with whom he had worked at Columbia) and these sessions produced some decent recordings, including “I’m Walking Behind You” and “Lean Baby”, but nothing incredibly significant. Dexter wanted Frank to try something different, and with Stordahl leaving to accept a job with Eddie Fisher in New York, he agreed reluctantly to a pairing with Nelson Riddle.

To say that the first Sinatra/Riddle session was a success is an understatement, and “I’ve Got The World On The String” is somewhat of a ’shot heard round the world’ for Sinatra’s career and popular music in general. The Ted Kohler/Harold Arlen song is given new vibrancy with Riddle’s buoyant arrangement and Sinatra’s new found vocal maturity. The song was a modest commercial success at the time, reaching #14 on the single charts, but became a classic. It was also a favorite of Sinatra himself, and he continued to perform the song live, frequently as a show opener, for the rest of his life.

When examined in a modern context, Sinatra’s career ‘reinvention’ is almost mind boggling. It’s difficult to envision a star of today popular with the teenage set–like The Jonas Brothers for example–becoming accepted as a serious vocalist for adults. Sinatra not only became a critical and popular sensation, but would go down in history as arguably the most important entertainer ever in American popular culture. None of this would have happened were it not for the magical pairing of Sinatra with Nelson Riddle.

The Internet allows us to do a lot of things without leaving the confines of our rooms or homes. It indeed proves to be a convenient hub where we can explore, discover, and do a lot of stuff. While online, we can continue doing our research, we can complete our homework, and we can work on our projects. We can even discover new crafts and hobbies. One of the amazing things we can do through this information superhighway is to learn to play piano online.

One of the first few things that you will need if you are looking into learning how to play piano online is to get your hands on a good course. Searching for a piano course online can return tons of results so you will need to be careful in choosing which one to use. The amount of information that you will see can easily overwhelm but the huge number is a good things because you will have lots of teaching styles to choose from.

There are some online courses or instructions that come with video demonstrations. There are also those that include interactive learning games to help you quickly and effectively learn how to read musical notations and recognize chords.

In choosing the course that would best fit you, it is important to keep three things in mind: investigate, concentrate, and budget. Do not buy the first piano course you get your hands on. Always take your time to read various reviews about the different options to learn to play piano online. Through searching music forums and blogs on the web, you will be able to find impartial reviews on numerous piano courses.

Once you think you have found the right course for you, try to evaluate if that course is able to meet your needs. It is important that your piano course fits your skill level. Your experience in playing the piano will determine whether you are a beginner or a veteran.

Of course, you will also need to keep your budget in consideration in choosing a piano course. Determine how much you are willing to spend on your online piano course. Remember, you might still need to buy a keyboard if you do not already have one. Check different prices and see which ones would give you the best value and rates. If you have already made a decision, you are on your way to learn to play piano online.

More and more people who want to learn how to play the drums prefer to get away from the traditional way of learning and more into the modern and online way. However, there seems to be a shortage of online drum lessons that are proven to help turn complete beginners into killer drums in just a span of almost a day. With Drums Made Easy from Mike Ray, turning yourself into a remarkable drummer can be just a night’s sleep away.

Drums Made Easy is a program on learning the drums which you can access online. In his instructional manual, Mike Ray shares techniques on how you can improve your drumming skills faster than ever before. He also gives ideas on how you can learn to read musical notations and pieces in an easier manner, where you can develop your own style.

Mike Ray encourages beginners to try Drums Made Easy as the lessons were developed so that beginners will not have a hard time figuring out the first steps in learning to play the drums. Drums Made Easy not only addresses beginners, it also includes lessons with depth for those who have progressed into more skilled drum playing.

Mike Ray’s Drums Made Easy also promises beginners a fun and easy learning process. His instructional material guarantees that learning to select which drum set to buy, read musical notes, and adopt a certain musical style should not be difficult or overwhelming.

In Mike Ray’s Drums Made Easy, aspiring drummers can look forward to learning how to play different musical styles on the drums, everything that they need to know to become advanced drummers, clear demos in slow, normal, and fast speeds, drum solos made easy, techniques on developing your own musical style, high definition video footage of the different lessons, and variations and lesson manuals to keep the drummer in you busy for the years to come.

If you plan of becoming a future drummer but you do not like the idea of learning how to play the drums outside the confines of your room, Drums Made Easy from Mike Ray may be the perfect instructional material for you.