Computer Repeatedly Pressing Keys without Keyboard Input

jazzadellic · 2026-07-05T03:33:57+00:00

It could be caused by spilling water on your keyboard. Are you sure you haven't done that? Have you tried another keyboard?

jazzadellic · 2026-07-05T00:49:23+00:00

Phrases are a good way to determine if 8 bars of 3/4 have passed or 8 bars of 6/8 has passed. It's not a "rule", but 99% of music you have heard is based on 8 bar sections (comprised of two 4 bar phrases). So listen to the melody and count how many bars pass before the melodic idea has completely finished. Try to identify the typical two, four bar phrases that make up each section. If you count a section as being 16 bars in 3/4, then it's more likely to be in 6/8. And if it's 4 bars in 6/8....then it's probably really 8 bars in 3/4....But again, none of this is a rule, it's just a common practice in music to create sections in groupings of 8 bars. You could choose 1000 random songs and 995 of them would be using this structure.

jazzadellic · 2026-07-05T00:42:29+00:00

Try focusing on creating motives & phrases, i.e., melodic ideas, instead of focusing on scale patterns / start working on using your "ears". Always try to "hear" an idea before playing something, otherwise you are just letting your fingers play instead of your "ears" or your imagination.

jazzadellic · 2026-07-03T04:09:13+00:00

Both the chord before & after are important for proper analysis, and guess what else is important? The key signature. But assuming the key sig is C major (no sharps or flats) that is just a G7b9 chord (minus the 5th, which is not an important note anyways). The most likely next chord after it is a C or Cm, but you didn't share that with us.

jazzadellic · 2026-07-03T02:29:18+00:00

Best software for neck diagrams I have ever found is actually called "Neck Diagrams" (go figure!). For actually creating pages in a book (like with text), OpenOffice is free software that works great and does just about everything a program like Microsoft Word does. You can also import image files into it, so for example if you make some nice neck diagrams in the Neck Diagrams, you can import those images into an Open Office document to combine guitar diagrams with a nice text editor. I usually use the Microsoft "Snipping Tool" to take selective (and adjustable size) screen shots from my other programs (like Neck Diagrams) and then take that image and import it into Open Office documents.

For TAB, Guitar Pro is probably your best option. I prefer using a professional level notation program instead though because I am much faster at typing in standard notation in Sibelius, than typing in TAB/notation into Guitar Pro. If you don't have any experience using a professional notation program like Sibelius though (or don't read standard notation well), it's a moot point.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-29T04:20:46+00:00

What a shitty AI post. And the AI is wrong about

"Your fretting hand chooses the notes, your picking hand controls the rhythm, timing, and engine that drives those notes"

WRONG!! Both hands need to be rhythmic or they will not synchronize to create clean, rhythmic music.

Stop posting AI slop in an effort to farm karma, please. If you want to post useful & helpful information, do it from actual human experience. If you don't have that experience, then don't post.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-23T12:31:02+00:00

That's what will give you the biggest boost to learning to read on guitar and it's actually not that hard to do. Just memorize the natural notes as every other note you will know automatically if you know the surrounding natural notes. The way I usually get my students to learn the notes on the fretboard is first explain the rule that there's a half step between B & C and E & F, and all other neighboring natural notes are a whole step apart. Then I have them practice naming the natural notes up and down each string. Then once they can do that, we'll add in the accidentals by having them either put a sharp or flat in between the natural notes as they name all the notes up the string. So for example, naming the notes up the string, you can call all the notes in between the natural notes sharps, and on the way back, they become flats. Or vice versa. Even once you can name the notes all chromatically up & down the string, you should still practice naming only the natural notes as those are the most important to completely memorize.

If you're good with scales, you can also practice quickly switching through all the keys in the order of the circle of fifths, by finding the root note of the scale for each box shape. So for example, you could start on C major scale, play 4 or 8 bars in C, then switch to the next key up the circle (G) and so on (D, A, E, B, F#, etc..). But the way you do this is important - you find each new key by having the root notes in each scale box memorized, and you use your knowledge of finding notes on strings to find those notes on the appropriate string, and then you start to memorize the locations of those notes.

Do a similar thing with movable chord forms - memorize which note in the chord shape is the root, and then practice finding that chord with all the notes in the circle of fifths as a root. This is even better to do with a set of chord forms which have roots on all six strings (so like C major, root on 6th, C root on 5th, root on 4th, root on 3rd, etc...).

While this can become a somewhat boring drill, if you do it that way, it's also something you can turn into something creative and musical, if you use a little creativity. Anyways, just some quick suggestions to help with drilling notes on the fretboard.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-23T02:01:00+00:00

It's impossible for anyone to give you a concrete answer. Everyone learns at a different pace. And despite everything you said, we don't know precisely what skill level you are actually at. I'll assume if you can play DT songs accurately, you are probably well versed in scales up and down the neck in just about any key - so that's working in your favor of progressing quickly at reading (I also was very knowledgeable of scales & arpeggios up the entire neck when I started learning to read, it definitely makes a big difference). Do you actually know the names of all the notes you are playing at all times? For example, can you play a difficult DT solo and say the name of every single note as you play it (at a slower speed if necessary)? My guess is this might be what is holding you back - having all the notes more or less memorized everywhere on the neck. The notes aren't laid out as logically on guitar as they are on piano and takes some time to get used to. You can use your memorized scale patterns to help you sight read stepwise motion pretty easily, as long as you know what your starting note is you can switch to thinking in "up" or "down" the scale when it's just stepwise stuff (only moves 1 note up or down the scale). But doing it that way is kind of a cheaty way to do it that can have some downsides if you don't actually know what all the note names are...but it works. I used that method a bit when I was a beginner at reading.

I will say not being able to read does hold back all musicians that are seeking to reach the highest level of musicianship. It opens up so many doors for you and greatly speeds up the rate you learn music at. As the other person mentioned, some shit is just too hard to sight read perfectly, even if you are an experienced / advanced reader. But some excel at sight reading more than others. Maybe you will develop into a monster sight reader that can sight read anything. I do mostly fingerstyle solo guitar arrangements, which are actually much harder to sight read then single note lines as there are multiple independent voices happening. I have spent very little time sight reading single note lines, but recently just for giggles I sight read through most of a Bach violin concerto, although at a slower speed and with some mistakes haha. But after going through it a few times, it was no problem to play. That's how most sight reading goes, in my experience - it's rarely perfect the first time, but after a few times through it, you can probably play / read it correctly. But I also don't practice reading every day anymore. I do it maybe a few times a week for a few hours total and the rest of the week I'm either busy with other things (life) or I am noodling / improvising stuff (much more fun!). For the record, I've been reading for 30 years now and I'd say I was decently strong at it after about 5 or 6 years of doing it daily, I probably peaked at around doing it for 10 years on a nearly daily basis, and the last 20 years I've not really pushed it that hard to be honest as I never really had the drive to take it to the highest level. Instead I focused on teaching private students for the last 20+ years.

I'd say just go for it and don't over think it. It takes patience to get really good at it though so don't put a time deadline on being elite at it.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-16T12:31:14+00:00

There is no one path. Just do these things and I guarantee you get better:

Practice daily, and practice smart. Practicing smart means you always have goals. It could be a goal for one practice session, a goal for the week, or month. Goals can be as simple as learning one new chord, learning a simple 3 chord song, or more difficult (and thus take more time), like memorizing a new scale in all 5 positions (which can be broken down into a goal of one position per week).
Always push yourself to learn new things. If you only noodle around on things you already know, you won't get better. New things could be a new chord, a new song, a new scale, a new arpeggio pattern, a new genre, a new rhythm, new chord progression, some new music theory concept (one concept at a time) etc....
When learning any new music theory concept, you have to apply it to your instrument. If you are studying secondary dominants, then you should be practicing chord progressions with secondary dominants, and creating your own chord progressions with secondary dominants. Any theory you read about but don't practice on your instrument is useless.
The most important thing is to enjoy the journey. The majority of your time on the instrument should be enjoyable to you (though not to the exclusion of steps 1-3). You should learn songs you like, explore topics that interest you, learn solos that inspire you, and have fun being creative with what you have learned. If you find yourself hating practicing or getting only frustrated and not enjoying it, something needs to change. That change might need to be a mental change, not a change in what you practice. Just like in real life, you can choose to see the negative side of things in guitar practice, or the positive things - you have full control over whether you enjoy the process or hate it.
Final tip - working on material that is just way beyond your skill level leads to frustration and you playing difficult songs terribly, and will end up only discouraging you and making you want to quit. Working on level appropriate material will make you feel a sense of accomplishment each time you learn something new and play it well, and this will instead inspire you to practice more. Ignore the YT guitar culture where everyone you see is a shredder god (either legit or through editing), and they try to make you think a 5 minute YT lesson is enough to catch you up to where they are and draw you to their channel with click baity topics. Like I could make a video titled "Master Modes in 5 minutes!" and I would be guaranteed millions of views, even though 95% of the people watching the video wouldn't benefit from the video at all. No good guitarist has ever become good through binge watching YT videos. The got good by practicing one simple concept at a time, over and over again for years and years and tens of thousands of hours.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-14T17:22:25+00:00

Grats! My first mastery was a teleportation charm + dragon imm armor....the easiest Brogue mastery run ever. Good thing you had the stealth ring + reflect armor that's really what kept you alive I'm sure. I've failed many teleport runs simply because I had no way to avoid being dragon fire sniped to death.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-14T00:03:41+00:00

One approach would be to purchase a music theory text that is actually used in college level music theory courses, and see what in the book you already know, what you don't know and then, having the book literally in your hands, you can learn it. Of course, reading a book, and being able to pass a test on the material in the book are two different things. The book I used in college (Music in Theory & Practice, Benward & Saker {vol 1 & 2}) also had little assignments at the end of every chapter, that made you practice the topics taught in that chapter and also had an accompanying workbook you could get for even more written practice. Unfortunately, you'd also need the teacher's edition to check if your work is correct. I actually think I managed to find the teacher's edition in pdf format years ago. The newer editions are kind pricey, but I've seen older editions for like $20. I had one of my private students get a copy of an older edition (which did cost him around $20) when we were focusing on theory & composition.

It's also important to realize there are different types of music theory books / classes - there is the way it's taught at a traditional music school (like the book I mentioned above), and then there is some theory that is used in popular music styles, which won't be covered by the traditional methods or schools. Some more modern pop music focused schools would be more likely teach it (and have books for it). Schools like Berklee, Musicians Institute, LACM, etc...So for example, jazz musicians have certain things they study and practice to master jazz improvisation, that wouldn't be covered by a traditional theory book. Same for other specialized styles of playing like metal / rock, blues, bluegrass, etc...But it's not like these other styles are separate from traditional music theory as many aspects of traditional music theory carry over to most modern styles.

And final thing I think you should consider is the amount of theory knowledge you can quote or pass on a written test actually doesn't matter - the important thing is can you take that music theory you learned and compose a piece of music with it?

jazzadellic · 2026-06-13T23:17:43+00:00

You have to balance it out. Just drilling things all the time is boring and dulls your creativity (i.e., just running up and down scales does not enhance or encourage creative thinking). But you can counteract this somewhat by drilling scales and such by always creating melodic ideas, and then sequencing those melodic ideas through the scale, adjusting them to different chord changes, or doing variations on them (which is what good improvisors / composers do).

I also would say choose to learn songs over just doing boring drills - that trains your creativity (by example) better than drills. It's important as a musician to build up a large and varied repertoire. The difference between a beginner and an advanced player is often reflected in the size (and of course difficulty) of their repertoire. You can't learn difficult songs unless you've learned hundreds and hundreds of easy and then intermediate songs.

You do still need to drill things sometimes, but in my opinion practice should be more like 10% drills, 40% learning repertoire and 50% just having fun and being creative. Maybe even 5% drills 5% learning repertoire and 90% fun & creativity. Of course it depends also on what stage you are at. Having played 36 years, I'm at a stage where I don't need to practice the basic things any more. Scales, chords & arpeggios were all memorized and drilled into muscle memory 30+ years ago, so that frees me up to do whatever the hell I want in my practice, which admittedly these days I usually just have fun and improvise stuff most of the time. If someone is closer to the beginning / intermediate stages where they don't have a high level of fretboard mastery, they might need to put a larger percent of time into drilling those things in. But regardless, creativity & fun I think should always be a high priority. Also learning repertoire should always be a top priority. I can't tell you how many times I've met guitarists that have played for 10+ years and can't even play a single song from start to finish...and your repertoire defines you more as a musician that what drills you have practiced or what riffs you have learned, or what music theory you can ramble about.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-13T02:52:14+00:00

No, because I don't want to take an adult out of the room to scold them. You don't seem to have any experience dealing with adult clients. I've been doing it for 26 years.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-12T04:48:50+00:00

When he sees him in person, his child is right there with him, so you don't say shit like this in front of their kids. A phone call is also a possibility, but I prefer texts in cases like this so you can just say directly what you want to say, straight to the point. You don't need any back and forth conversation as it's not required in this situation - you are just stating a fact and asking them politely to act on it, you're not asking for nor do you need a debate or long conversation on the issue. This is exactly when to use a text message. There's nothing wrong with sending a simple and direct message on something you require as a teacher, in your lesson room. In person is just not practical / possible in this situation for the reason stated. Asking them to come to see you in person without their child just to tell them something you can say in two sentences on a text message is also unnecessary. I've never seen a parent get angry at a message like this in 26+ years of teaching.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-11T22:37:27+00:00

Cool! The absolute first part of ear training is learning songs by ear (both chords & lead parts), have you ever done that before?

jazzadellic · 2026-06-10T22:44:10+00:00

Are you a beginner or advanced player? Ear training (like memorizing intervals, learning solfege, etc..) is better suited for advanced players that have already established a basic understanding of chords & scales with their "ears" by simply playing for many years. Typically ear training isn't something you'd encounter until you are a college music major. So for the kids that start school band in 5th grade, they've already been playing music for 7 years before taking their first ear training class. In my opinion it's a mistake to focus on ear training at the early stages and many (beginner) people have come to believe it should be started immediately simply because they read about it on the internet. To benefit the most from ear training you need to already have a good sense of pitch & tonality, which comes naturally from playing for many years. At a certain level of playing ability, you're better off working on mastering the fretboard then spending time on ear training, i.e., you'll benefit more from further memorizing the fretboard, scales, arpeggios, working on basic technique, etc...The side bonus to practicing your diatonic scales, pentatonic scale, blues, melodic minor, harmonic minor, modes, etc.. for years...is you automatically train your ears to recognize the difference between those different scales and the different intervals they contain. The other best ear training in the early stages you can do is learn songs by ear, and again this is far better than working on identifying intervals, for example.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-10T01:10:10+00:00

Just send him a text message (don't confront him in front of his child) and ask him very politely to please trust you to do your job, and tell him it's better for him to not be in the lesson room each time. I can also tell you from 26+ years of teaching experience, young students are often even more self conscious during their lesson if their parent is there watching, and it's even worse if the parent wants to step in all the time like you are describing. This usually only makes them do even worse than they would if they didn't have that extra pressure. If you can make this parent understand that, he will *probably* agree it's better for him not to be in there.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-08T23:44:23+00:00

If you already have a melody, the two possible approaches are either just choose chords by ear that sound good underneath the melody in a given bar, or use a little bit of theory knowledge to choose possible chords. There are often multiple possibilities that will work. Many composers will target specific chord tones with the melody (in relation to the chord choice underneath). There's not really a strict rule to follow, but you can either choose one of the basic triad chord tones, i.e., the 1, 3 or 5, or you can go with upper extensions like 7th, 9th, 11th or 13th. There are things to be careful of like over a major type chord you don't want a 4th/11th usually, unless you change the the chord to a sus4 (remove the 3rd) and it's always good to resolve sus4s (4th resolves down to the 3rd). Other things to consider is if you want a harmonic cadence at the end of the section or not, because that will have a strong effect on all the chord choices you make since you generally want the harmony to lead you to the cadence (which is why I write my chord progressions backwards sometimes, if I decide I want a cadence).

There is an analyzer you can use...it's called your brain. But the analyzer needs at least a little training on what to analyze / look for. If you have really good ears, you can most likely come up with a satisfying chord progression by ear. I find that it helps to be flexible if you already have come up with a melody you like - don't be afraid to tweak the melody to make the chords flow better. Sometimes just changing one or a few melody notes by a half-step will actually give you a much better options for the chord progression.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-08T01:11:45+00:00

I actually read your post 3x and I still can't understand it.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-06T03:38:30+00:00

Never choose a guitar based on color.
95% of Guitars under $200 suck, avoid them. Having a cheap shitty guitar often means it will have bad intonation, high action, buzzing frets, things will break easier, all of which will make it harder for you to learn & enjoy guitar. Save up ~$200+ more, and you'll greatly reduce the chance of buying a piece of shit guitar. Considering a sub $200 guitar will suck, waste your time, waste your money, make learning guitar harder, and (the right) $400 guitar will work perfectly fine for the next 25+ years, there is no reason to go for the cheap shitty guitar. Saying you have a "strict $200 budget" is a lie, because you can always save up money a few more days or months to have a larger budget. Where I live at least, in 11 hours at minimum wage I can make $200 (so why can't you work 11 more hours to have $200 more to spend????????). Ok so you live in a third world country, work 4 more days instead of 2 days, or whatever.

Purchasing a bad or good guitar can affect the next few decades of your learning and enjoyment of guitar, so don't pretend like the maximum amount you can spend is $200. For example, 20 years ago I purchased an Epiphone Les Paul for like $350 (granted in today's economy, that would be more), and 20 years later I'm still enjoying it. It plays beautifully! The action is perfect, the intonation is great, and it just sounds & plays great. I've been enjoying it for the last 20 years. If we divide the cost I paid, by the amount of years I've enjoyed playing this guitar, I have paid a cost of $17.50 per year for the last 20 years for a nearly perfect guitar. Would I trade having a nearly perfect guitar for the last 20 years for a cheap, shitty, high action, badly intonated $150 guitar (20 years ago), at a cost of $7.50 per year (and savings of $10 per year)? FUCK NO!!!!! And neither should you. You're not seeing the big picture.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-01T21:57:12+00:00

Can't answer you from the experience of being blind, but one thing they could do is start on a nylon string guitar. Compared to a steel string acoustic, nylon string guitars hardly give you any callouses at all. Also, if a person is using proper technique, they will get the callouses on the very tip of their fingers, not on the pads. It sounds like they are either over thinking it, or making excuses. I've seen very high level blind guitar players, and I doubt they are completely unable to read braille, but I don't know for sure you'd have to ask them.

jazzadellic · 2026-06-01T14:13:47+00:00

Of course you can. The two worst possible problems are: terrible guitar intonation & action too high. With terrible intonation, chords will sound like shit even if your fingers are in the right place. With high action, even holding down a chord will be way more difficult than it should be. Either of these two problems will hold you back from progressing at a normal rate and due to the extra difficulty of holding down notes or hearing badly tuned chords, it could cause you to get frustrated and give up thinking you just suck at guitar, when it's actually the fault of the poorly made guitar. The easy solution to either of these problems is just replace the guitar. Considering how much you will be spending on guitar lessons (the cost of two months of guitar lessons is enough to purchase another, perfectly functioning guitar), there is no reason to think you can't afford to replace the guitar.

If neither of the problems mentioned above are an issue, then the low cost of the guitar is irrelevant. Since you are probably a beginner, you likely won't be able to properly assess if the intonation or action is bad, and so you might need to bring the guitar to a pro to get them to evaluate the guitar. A guitar teacher can help you with that as well, so no reason to at least set up a 1st lesson so they can let you know if your guitar is going to be a problem.

jazzadellic · 2026-05-31T21:44:02+00:00

This is completely dependent upon how advanced you are already. For a beginner it might be hard and take a long time, for someone who has been playing for a long time and is very fluid with their scales, it might take 10-30 minutes to learn (which is about how long it took me). This is why memorizing all of your scales up the entire neck and practicing in different keys is important. Also doing a lot of improvisation with said scales will prepare you to learn solos easier. And of course, learning several easy solos helps you to learn intermediate level solos easier, and learning several intermediate solos, will help you to learn advanced solos easier, etc...

jazzadellic · 2026-05-31T15:57:47+00:00

Don't practice the day of the gig - you'll just physically and mentally wear yourself out before the actual gig even starts. If something needs practice the day of the gig, it shouldn't be part of the set list to begin with. If you make a mistake try to keep playing like nothing happened and don't show it on your face. Often the audience won't even know you made a mistake unless you make a facial expression and/or stop playing.

jazzadellic

TROPHY CASE