- How to tell that my strings are in tune? There was no digital tuner by that time.
- How can other people change chords smoothly?
- Why can they find chords in a song easily?
- What makes them improvise easily?
- How long will it take to master my guitar?

Today I see that technology really ease up most of my past problems. To tune a guitar for example a newbie now can rely on the electronic guitar tuner. This device really means a lot because it give a high level of confidence to the beginning guitarists. Some electric-acoustic guitars now come with built in strings tuner, the same device you may also find on some type of guitar amplifiers. Technology makes it easy.

To learn chords movement people can visit youtube.com. There’s a lot of good guitar lessons for beginner can be found there, name it how to form a chord and fret it on the fretboard or how to strum or to fingerpick the guitar. If you are looking for the theory behind the chords family so you can learn to find chords for your favorite songs you can get this information from some informative guitar websites.

After mastering the guitar chords we normally are ‘tempted’ to play guitar leads. Again youtube is one of the best online resources to consult. There are tons of good guitar video lessons teaching how to learn the guitar scales and apply them to spice up your guitar playing. The limit is your imagination. You can also find the guitar tabs for the guitar leads you are looking for, along with the MIDI files to give you the sample of the said leads.

Unless you can’t afford to pay for your internet connection I do believe that it’s cheaper and better to learn guitar online. Some of you may say that hiring a guitar tutor is better because he/she can tell you if you make some mistakes or bad habits but I would say that you can find the same information online too. A guitar video lesson with 4 or 5 stars will normally tell you that you can learn some useful information from it.

This article is not to discredit guitar tutors at all. For intermediate or advance level a good guitar tutor can help you to improve your guitar playing. Some real good guitar tutors also sell their DVD tutorials online. This can be a good option if you can’t hire a real one.

Related posts:

1. Beginner Guitar Lessons – Introduction
2. Guitar Lessons DVD – Better Than Free Online Lessons?
3. How to Tune a Guitar

Playing the guitar requires more than the requisite musical ability, dedication and practice. A guitar player’s fingers must be dexterous and agile to allow quick single string or chord changes in rhythm or solo musical performances. Those fingers also need to be tough and strong to be able to press the strings enough during quick changes to produce clean tones.

All beginners will remember the first time they played the guitar for an extended period. Our fingertips are originally soft at the very end, with thin skin protecting them. First we feel pain after pressing down on the strings too hard when playing the fretboard, especially all of the fingers except for the thumb. If the aspiring musician hasn’t given up by then and continues to practice playing the blisters will eventually dry up and leave calluses on the fingertips. These calluses will protect the fingertips from the pain of playing for a little while but eventually the pain builds up again as the calluses keep building you end up with thick rough fingertips on a guitarist’s left (or fret) hand. Graduating to full chords, the entire 1st and 2nd fingers, which form bar chords across the strings, will also go through the process of pain, blisters and calluses. This process toughens up the fingertips, and makes it easy to press on the strings to produce the needed musical tone on the guitar.

The most effective way to strengthen the fingers and improve dexterity is to practice scales and chords on the guitar itself. Chords and scales will help the beginner become familiar with the different chord progressions and musical configuration of the fretboard – it will help the student master the instrument. Knowing and playing chords and scales will embed the musical secrets of the guitar to the player and make it easier to read, learn and perform music, and to create or write your own music for the guitar. As an added bonus, all that practice will greatly improve the strength and agility of the fingers. With the dual advantage of musical training and strength and endurance improvement, a guitarist can develop the ability to perform several full pieces or songs necessary for a long performance event.

However, there is a danger of over-training. Tendonitis is a common affliction of over-exercising and is prevalent in professional athletes and musicians alike. Tendonitis is caused by a repetitive action of a limited set of muscles, causing inflammation and possible damage to tendons and joints. Because certain athletes and musicians tend to use a focused set of muscles in their activities, they share a certain propensity to this injury. But this can be easily avoided. Many persons over-train when they choose to ignore pain during practice and instead continue to perform the activity which directly leads to tendonitis. For guitarists, once you feel pain in your wrist or the tender part of your hands, stop. You should incorporate 5-15 minutes of rest between sets of scales or chord practices. Put the guitar down and shake your hand for a few seconds. If you are not tired but still feel pain, change the practice method: if you are doing scales, switch to slow strumming with full chords.. Changing the set of muscles you exert can help avoid injury and increase the strength of your fingers.

Finally, like an athlete, a guitarist should take care of his body with exercise. Following are two stretching exercises that will improve the flexibility and strength of your fingers:

1. Stand straight with your arms at your sides and hands facing forward. Stretch your fingers down and outward as far as you can and count to ten. Relax and rest for a few seconds and do three repetitions.

2. With the same posture, hold the four fingers of your left hand (except the thumb) with your right and push them towards the back of the hand. Hold the stretch for ten seconds then relax and continue by doing three repetitions.

Remember, strength and agility is achieved by practice, proper rest, and stretching exercises. Now play on!

Related posts:

1. Changing Chords Tips for Beginners
2. Learn to Play Guitar – Some Useful Tips
3. Guitar Scales

The key to learning any instrument, like most intricate human activity, is to develop brain and muscle coordination, more commonly called, muscle memory needed to play the instrument. If you picture a basketball player, for instance, the key to a good shooting performance is the proper hand-to-eye coordination in order to bring the ball up, prepare, aim, and throw it towards the hoop. The different muscles of the arms, wrist and hands will learn the right movements and strength needed to score. Constant practice will condition the brain, eyes, and entire body to know the routine of shooting the ball.

This is similar to guitar playing. The muscles involved would be the arms, wrists and the fingers, with the eyes, ears and brain working in unison to relate the movements to the music being read and the notes produced by the guitar. This is the mechanism that works when a guitar player starts to change chords.

Luckily, there are simple techniques that can help the beginning guitar player to develop these muscle memories and ear training for proper chord changes. Read below and you will see that chord changes are not that difficult to do.

When changing chords, first memorize all the chords involved in the song, and then visualize exactly which fingers of the fretting hand are involved in playing the chords. When playing simple barre chords, the most important finger is the index finger, which will squeeze all 6 strings across the fretboard. So as you move towards playing the chord, you have to position the index finger across the proper fret, or place, along the fretboard before positioning the other fingers of the chord. When playing a broken or simple chord, it is usually the index finger that is the most important finger. Primarily, the index finger and the thumb will form a stable anchor on the guitar neck in order for the other fingers to press the other strings of the chord. The index finger is usually played on the lowest fret and the highest string (by pitch, or string 1), where it could more easily find the proper note, and the other fingers can follow to complete the chord.

When playing a particular song, keep time with the music, but anticipate in which bar and on which beat the next chord will continue. For beginners, it would be preferable to practice the entire song slowly from beginning to end, taking care to change to each chord on time and on tempo. When the student can play the entire song like this without chord errors, he can start increasing the speed to the song’s proper tempo. It would also be helpful to identify particularly tricky chord changes. For instance, 2 consecutive bar graphs would be a relatively simple change, because the guitar player needs only to slide his index finger (which is already in the barre position) to its proper position on the fretboard and quickly press in the other strings of the chord. Changes from simple chords to barre chords – and vice versa – and chords that are positioned at a far distance from each other along the length of the neck are more difficult to perform. Isolate these difficult changes and practice those chord changes. If it is still too difficult with the slow tempo, don’t play the last beat of the last chord and use the time to move your fret hand into position for the next fret. Keep practicing these changes until the short passage can be played without error. Afterwards, go back to playing the entire song as discussed above. When you can play an entire song properly, try different strumming styles to accentuate parts of the song, or a particular beat; or alternate strumming and light plucking to give volume and variety to the music of the song. First, it is best to complete the song by actually copying how the original artist played it on the guitar; then you can add your own twists and extra technique according to your ear and taste. This will help you develop your hands for more difficult chords and finger playing techniques.

Do this for every song, and before you know it, you’ll be playing a new song like a seasoned guitarist in a short period of time.

Related posts:

1. How to Play Guitar Chords
2. Stronger Fingers for Guitar Playing
3. Guitar Software – Useful Aid for Beginners

Metronome

If you want to play your guitar in time then you are going to need to buy a metronome.You can choose from modern electronic metronomes or traditional mechanical metronomes. Traditional metronomes look very nice and are made from either plastic or wood, they are also known as pendulum metronomes because the ticking sound is produced by a small pendulum that swings back and forth, much like the old Grandfather clocks. The Traditional wooden or plastic metronomes tend to be a lot more expensive than the electronic metronomes.

The leading metronome brands in order of popularity* are:

* Wittner
* Korg
* Yamaha
* Seiko
* Qwik Time

Cleaning and maintenance (polish, nut file set, wrench set, fret file set)

To look after your guitar you will need to at least buy some guitar polish. Gibson produce a good guitar polish and also Doctor Ducks Axe Wax is very popular.
If you are serious about guitar playing then you might want to have a nut file, fret file or wrench set. You can keep your guitar in top playing condition.

Footstool

The guitar footstool is used mainly by Classical, Spanish or Flamenco guitarists. Their style of playing and the way they hold the guitar makes the use of a footstool quite important.

Stringwinder (also known as a pegwinder)

If you have lots of guitars, own a guitar shop, or tune guitars on a regular basis, the guitar stringwinder comes in handy as a real time saver. Instead of turning the guitar pegs by hand, you can use the stringwinder to speed up the process.

Straplok set

For replacing the bolt that holds on your guitar strap.

Power adaptor for effects pedals

If you use effects pedals then you will need a power adaptor to connect to the mains.

*Please note that the above article makes references to guitar accessories listed in popularity order.
The popularity order of these guitar accessories is taken from http://www.Soundsmusical.com – the leading UK musical instrument website.

I hope this article has been useful and you are now more informed about guitar accessories.

If you are ready to buy some guitar accessories you can find a comprehensive selection here: Guitar accessories, tuners, bags, cases, guitar strings, stands and more…

About the Author

Graham Howard is known as ‘The Music Guru’ and is the chief writer at Soundsmusical.com. Graham has spent his whole life in music. He has played various musical instruments to a very high standard, learnt to build pianos form scratch, tuned pianos professionally and run several music businesses. He loves to share with everyone his experiences and immense knowledge of music. Graham hopes that the above guitar article will help you make the best buying decisions. If you have any questions you would like to ask please email: henrygenry@hotmail.co.uk.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Henry_Howard

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1. Guitar Accessories – Which Ones Do I Need To Buy For My Guitar? Part 1

Guitar stands or Guitar Hangers

There are lots of different types of guitar stands, it really depends on which stand is more suited to you.
There is the standard guitar stand, the universal guitar stand, the auto grab guitar stand, the double and triple guitar stand and the wall mounted guitar stand. The standard guitar stand is the most popular and comes in three different types: i) electric/bass, ii) classical and iii) universal.

The most popular* brands are:

* Stagg
* Hercules
* QuikLok
* Giraffe
* Warwick
* Fender
* String Swing
* Ibanez

Plectrums (also known as picks)

Plectrums are very cheap and can be bought individually, or in packs. Most commonly you can buy plectrums on the web in packs of 6. Guitar plectrums come in different gauges. Usually the thinner ones are used with Classical, Spanish or Flamenco guitars, the medium gauges with Electric and Acoustic guitars and the thickest ones with Basses.

There are lots of brands of plectrums. The most popular* are:

* Stagg
* Jim Dunlop
* Fender
* Gibson

Guitar Leads/Cables

Guitar Leads normally come in different lengths: The most common is the 15 feet/4.5 metre leads. This length is ample if you are playing in a band.

Popular* brands of guitar leads/cables are:

* Ibanez
* Peavey
* Stagg

Guitar straps

If you want to buy a gift for a guitarist, there is nothing better than a nice leather guitar strap.

Levys and Gibson are the most famous brands of guitar straps, Levys have the most comprehensive selection.
Other guitar straps to look out for are Dickies and Wrangler.

Guitar Capo

A capo is a clamp that you can use on different frets of the guitar to change the pitch of the open strings. Each fret on the guitar is a half step. If you place the capo on the 1st fret, all of the open strings will sound a semi-tone higher than normal, this makes changing the key of a song easy.
Dunlop and Shubb are the most popular* guitar capos.

Guitar Slide

The guitar slide is a tube of some hard material about one to two inches long. Commonly, it’s made from glass and metals. Each type of guitar slide has distinct characteristics, tonality, and overall sound. The guitar slide is pressed lightly against the strings so as not to touch the strings of the fret, producing a sustained tone which can be varied in pitch by moving the slide across the neck. A quick side-to-side motion is often used in this way to generate vibrato.
The most popular brand to go for is Dunlop.

Headphones

If you want to play at home but don’t want to disturb your neighbours, then a good set of headphones is recommended.
Any headphones will do, so take your pick from any of the following leading brands:

* Acer
* Acoustic Research
* Advance
* Advent
* Aiwa
* AKG
* Alpine
* Altec Lansing
* Amphony
* Apple
* Artwizz
* Audio-Technica
* Behringer
* Belkin
* Beyerdynamic
* Bluetake
* BoomGear
* Bose
* Bravo
* British Telecom
* Clarion
* Compucessory
* Cornbow
* Creative Labs
* Denon
* Design Go
* Direct Sound
* Dolphin Music
* Etymotic Research
* Fostex
* Franklin
* Gainward
* Gemini Sound Products
* Genius
* GN Netcom
* Grado
* Griffin Technology
* Grundig
* Hama
* Harman Kardon
* Hewlett Packard
* Jensen
* JVC
* Jwin
* Kenwood
* Kinyo
* Kondor Limited
* Koss
* Labtec
* Logic 3
* Logitech
* Macally
* Maxell
* Ministry Of Sound
* MM Gear
* Nady Systems
* Nesa Vision
* Nike
* Numark
* Olympus
* Panasonic
* Philips
* Pioneer
* Plane Quiet
* Plantronics
* Power Acoustik
* Pyle
* Pyramid
* Roland
* Rosen
* Samson
* Sanyo
* Sennheiser
* Shure
* Skull Candy
* Sony
* Stagg
* Stanton
* Starvision
* Technics
* Toshiba
* Trust
* Ultimate Ears
* Ultrasone
* Unwired
* Vestax
* Vic Firth
* Vivanco
* Wharfedale
* XO Vision
* XtremeMac
* Yamaha
* Zalman Tech

To be continued – Part 3

Related posts:

1. Guitar Accessories – Which Ones Do I Need To Buy For My Guitar? Part 1
2. Guitar Capo
3. Guitar Fret – What You Need to Know

Here is a list of guitar accessories to consider (in order of the most popular):

* Guitar bag or case
* Guitar tuner/pitch pipe
* Guitar strings
* Effects pedals/Foot Switches
* Amplifiers
* Guitar stands
* Plectrums (also known as picks)
* Guitar Leads/Cables
* Guitar straps
* Guitar Capo
* Guitar Slide
* Headphones
* Metronome
* Cleaning and maintenance (polish, nut file set, wrench set, fret file set)
* Footstool
* Stringwinder (also known as a pegwinder)
* Straplok set
* Power adaptor for effects pedals

Guitar Bags and Cases

If you plan on gigging a lot or travelling on planes/trains etc. I recommend buying a guitar case, otherwise a padded gig bag will do just fine. The Kinsman guitar cases and guitar bags are a very good quality and are also one of the most popular. The Kinsman guitar bags come in three grades.

1) Standard – hardly any padding and one small pouch for music books and accessories

2) Deluxe – quite well padded, with two pouches

3) Premium – extremely well padded, with large and small pouches and a shoulder strap.

The Kinsman guitar cases are made for Stratocasters, Telecasters, Les Paul shape, electric, acoustic or bass guitars.

Guitar tuner/pitch pipe

There are hundreds of guitar tuners to choose from on the market. The best brands in order of popularity* are:

* Korg
* Stagg
* Yamaha
* Intelli
* Seiko
* Qwik Tune
* Boss
* Ibanez

The two guitar tuners that stand out from the rest are the Stagg Automatic Guitar/Bass Tuner and the Korg GA-30. These two guitar tuners are sold more than any other guitar tuner on the market.

Guitar strings

It’s always wise to have a spare set of guitar strings to hand. You never know when one will brake and leave you in a difficult situation.
You will need to buy steel strings for electric, bass or acoustic guitars and nylon strings for classical, Spanish or Flamenco guitars

Here is a list of the top brands of guitar strings, in order of popularity*:

* Ernie Ball
* D’addario
* Martin
* Fender
* Elixir
* GHS
* Augustine
* Earthwood
* Dan electro
* Gibson
* Markley
* Newtone
* Savarez
* Rotosound
* Darco
* Dean
* Elites
* Thomastick
* Tonesearch
* Maxima
* Warwick
* Rickenbacker
* PRS
* Legacy
* John Pearse
* DR

Effects pedals

For some groovy sounds you will need to buy an effects pedal. The two most popular are the Jim Dunlop GCB-95 Original Cry Baby Wah Wah Effects Pedal and the Ibanez Tone-Lok Series SM7 Smash Box Effects Pedal.

Here is a list of the top brands in order of popularity*:

* Ibanez
* Jim Dunlop
* Korg
* DigiTech
* Vox
* MXR
* Yamaha
* Danelectro

All guitar amplifiers sound different. Some (like Marshall and Line 6) are good for Rock and Roll, others have a softer and less bright sound like the popular Vox amps and Mesa Boogie.

For beginners, I would recommend either the Peavey Backstage or the BB10 blaster amp.
The Peavey Backstage is by far the most popular and best value for money beginner’s guitar amp on the market.

To be continued – Part 2

Related posts:

1. Guitar Accessories – Which Ones Do I Need To Buy For My Guitar? Part 3
2. Guitar Accessories – Which Ones Do I Need To Buy For My Guitar? Part 2

Custom paint jobs are expensive. A good guitar custom paint shop can charge you easily $200 for a simple coating work, and the more complicated the custom design the more expensive the cost will be. I find it ridiculous to send a cheap guitar to this shop because the paint job price is more expensive than the guitar price itself. If you don’t know how to custom paint your guitar there is a good tutorial you can buy, and when you master the work there is always a possibility to make this custom paint guitar as your side job. A good guitar painting tutorial will cover everything needed to paint your guitar including how to select a good combination of paint colors and how to do airbrush custom paint as well. Many guitarists are inspired by custom motorcycle paint jobs so they want to see some airbrush custom paint works done on their axes too.

The first thing you have to deal with is removing the existing finish on the guitar. You can do this with the help of a heat gun and a metal putty scraper. Other tools such as belt sander and or oscillating sander can be used to remove the old painting. Be careful with the belt sander, if you you accidentally make the surface of the wood slightly uneven,don’t attempt to even them out with the belt or oscillating sander, this will be better done by hand later. In my opinion using the heat gun and scrape is safer for your guitar because they don’t change or damage the guitar body.

Be very careful with your guitar pickups. They have to be removed and depending on the guitar design this job can be tricky. You may need screwdriver set and soldering iron to remove them and sticky labels to label the wiring.

Once the old paint is gone you will need to some sandpaper works on the guitar body. Use the coarse grained paper to even out any steps or imperfections and also to remove the old paint that may remain in curvy places such as the cutaways. Once you finish with the coarse grained paper use the medium grained sandpaper followed by the fine grained paper. Sand the guitar body with the fine grained paper until your fingers can’t feel the bumps or even the wood’s grain anymore. Wipe off the dust with a dry cloth and wet sand the wood with a high grit sandpaper to provide a better surface to paint. Let it dry before you proceed with painting the guitar.

You will need to buy primer (normally acrylic lacquer), base (color coat) and also clear to paint your guitar. The whole guitar painting process is not difficult provided you follow the guitar painting instruction. If you want to know the work details please click here to continue.

No related posts.

There are many ways to learn guitar and one of it is by joining an online guitar tutorial site like JamPlay. With the membership fee as low as $19.95 you can get unlimited access to the guitar lessons, name it metal, rock, blues, bluegrass, classical, fingerstyle, country, jazz, celtic and many more. Whatever your choice is you will be satisfied with the video and tutorial quality they offer. They even have guitar lessons for Christmas in case you are planning something to show off for the big day.

Should you plan to join the membership program please be aware that you can easily get distracted – like kids in a candy shop – there are so many high quality guitar tutorials available and if you don’t pay attention to your main focus you will be ‘lost’!

Related posts:

1. Guitar Lessons DVD – Better Than Free Online Lessons?
2. Finger Picking Lessons

Most guitar newbies tend to look for free online guitar tutorials but unfortunately it’s very hard to find a good site that can teach you the well structured a to z beginner guitar lessons. A lot of time, money and efforts are needed to create a good guitar tutorial and this information can be found only either in the paid membership guitar sites or in high quality guitar lessons DVD so if you are serious about your guitar playing you have to take this route.

I by no means am a good guitar player and I still purchase some real good guitar lessons on DVD, rock guitar lessons DVD to be precisely because that’s my weakest part. Below is a picture of some of my collection from Will Landrum (Interfocus Music Inc.):

guitar lessons dvd

Here is the FREE online lesson sample you can find online done by Will Landrum:

In his guitar instructional DVD series Will Landrum broke the theory into parts that most beginning guitar players want to know.

The Powerful Modal Theory and Soloing tutorial is a must for people who want to learn about rock guitar solo. Will Landrum covers modal scale patterns and theory and how to apply modal theory to your solos. These information can boost up your solo higher. If you have been trying to do solo but end up stuck in the rut playing the same pentatonic scales and notes over and over again you may want to consider buying this tutorial.

The next video guitar lessons I purchased from Will is called Sweep Picking and Arpeggios. Here he teaches how to execute the arpeggios in light speed sweep picking. Sweep picking is the right hand execution method (assuming you are playing guitar right handed) and arpeggios are set of notes in chords played individually by the fretting fingers. Again if you are looking into lead guitar lessons this tutorial will give you a lot of idea.

The third guitar lesson video is called Essential Rock Guitar Techniques. You will learn how to do hammer ons, pull offs, trills and right hand tapping fundamentals, string bending and ghost bending, natural harmonics, tap harmonics, artificial /pinch harmonics and other techniques such as string picking, string muffling, string silencing, vibrato and volume swells – all the guitar gods’ skills you need to know.

Will Landrum produced his album called Living Digits in 2006. I got the CD together with another video tutorials showing how he executed the melodies, riffs, licks and chops from the album. Cool products!

Related posts:

1. Guitar Arpeggios with Sweep Picking
2. Finger Picking Lessons
3. How Much Do You Pay for Your Beginner Guitar Lessons?

I just found a good guitar website that give you some guitar items for FREE (You read it right, no selling at all). There are 4 good quality items but I’ll write two only here:

1. Guitar Fretboard Trainer with chords and scale library
2. Ultimate Guitar Chord Book

The first one is a guitar software and the second one is a pdf e-book. If you are a beginner and having some difficulties understanding chords and scales these items may suit your need perfectly so go grab them while they are still available. To download your freebies please click here and hit the ‘View Our Free Downloads’ Button. That’s it!

Enjoy your free stuff and talk to you later!

-TJ-

Related posts:

1. Guitar Software – Useful Aid for Beginners
2. Stronger Fingers for Guitar Playing