AC/DC, Australia's primo Rock 'n Roll powerhouse is nothing new to selling lots of albums, but not only is their new album very hot, it's triggered an amazing upswing in sells of previous albums also.

For the week ending Oct. 26, 2008, Black Ice has sold over 784,000 copies, and their older catalog efforts have sold a combined 92,000 copies!! Those are obviously some impressive numbers.

Back in Black, the band's huge 1980 hit, sold 21,000 during the week in question, that's up from 9,000 the week before. According to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the album is the fifth all-time biggest seller in the United States. Sells to date are a staggering 22 million copies.

The album High Voltage, the band's 1976 debut, sold 11,000 copies in the week ending Oct. 26, 2008, that's up from 4,000 units the week prior.

What's the reason for these awesome numbers ? It's simple, AC/DC ROCKS!! As a guitarist, I've always loved Angus Young and his playing. Although he hammers out simple chords on his famous Gibson SG, nobody does it better, or makes it work so well.

This however isn't a review of AC/DC, or any of their music. I just wanted to mentiont the new album and the fact that the boys down under haven't lost their touch. I doubt they ever will either, as long as they still enjoy what they're doing. You can tell from the cuts on Black Ice that they still do enjoy playing their fantastic music.

If you haven't heard the entire album yet, you need to get a copy. It's very deserving of the accolades it's been receiving.

Let There Be Rock!!

it will take to keep it going. There's nothing more that I would like than to have a useful site for aspiring guitarists, so I'm going to do everything I can to make it happen.

In the mean time, I'm going to be posting what I can, anything that may be useful to someone, anyone.

I was just flipping through a book on playing guitar. It's entitled, 'The Infinite Guitar', and is written by a fabulous guitarist, Chris Juergensen. This guy has paid his dues and put in the time and effort necessary to reach the upper limits of what can be accomplished when you set your mind to something. I highly recommend you get a copy of his book. Yoy can get more information at ChrisJuergensen.com.

I entitled this post 'Music Theory' because I caught a glimpse of a section of Chris's book about Music Theory. I'd just like to say that I realize many guitarists either seem to have the mindset that music theory is something that's maybe too hard to learn, or something that they don't need to learn.

Although you can get into some rather complicated aspects of music theory, what you need to learn from theory, is very doable....and very necessary. Obviously there are many musicians, not just guitarists that never bother to learn very much as far as theory goes. This doesn't mean that you can't become an excellent player...obviously. Although my theory knowledge isn't extensive, I know enough to help me tremendously. That being said, there are many, many players that I'm sure now less theory than myself, but are still better players. It just comes down to, if it helps you, why not do it ?

I can tell you, if you take some time to devote to learning some theory, you will never regret it. When you can hear the music, analyze it, and truly understand it, it opens up a whole different world to you as a musician.

If you're like me, and probably most players, you've spent your time listening to the same tracks over and over, trying to learn that blistering lead, or that different chord progression. Well, when you understand some of the theory behind the music, you can analyze what's being played, and then you can understand why it sounds like it does, and what is being played, even before you pick up the guitar. Believe me, that's better than just jumping all over the neck trying to see what fits.

Before I started to learn theory, I saw that the same chords would be used together in certain songs, but I didn't really understand the progressions. It makes it a lot easier to concentrate on your actual guitar playing technique, and not spend most of your time trying to decipher just what is being played.

I have a friend that studied, actually studied music from early on. When most of us where out partying, playing, and running around, he was hard at it. Needless to say, it paid off... very well. When I was trying to figure out the basic chords to a simple (now) classic rock song, he could just listen to music, understand the chord progression, and pick up a guitar (or sit at the piano) and play it.

I guess a good way to put it into words would be....use your ears and brain BEFORE, AND during your playing. It shouldn't just always be about picking up the axe and 'jamming'. It's fun, but there can be so much more.