Guitar Tutorials Plus

Things To Understand Before You Start Playing Guitar

2010-03-19T13:49:00.001-07:00

A beginner guitar player must understand that it takes time. He/She must set aside time on a consistent basis for guitar lessons. He/She must realize that by exercising and learning the primary techniques slowly, he or she will understand what is required to master the guitar. Here are a couple tips to know for the beginner guitar player:

1. It is essential for people to learn how to hold the guitar the right way. You must be able to hold it in the correct manner to avoid retarding your progress. When playing he/she must realize that you must be comfortable to play at your top performance. Try sitting down and leaning forward a bit. Try to keep your feet flat on the ground too.

2. When the musician is in the sitting position, the body of the guitar should rest comfortably on the leg that corresponds with his or her playing hand. For example, a left-handed guitar player would allow his or her guitar to reside on his or her left leg. And the same for right-handed people, the player must rest the body of the guitar on his or her right leg.

3. When an individual is playing, he or she should try to put the majority of his or her attention on his or her fretting hand, as this is the hand the has the most control over the sound. Her or she must position his or hand where he or she has the best reach to the neck of the guitar. He or she should Remember to place his or her thumb on the back of the neck of the guitar. This will allow your fingers to reach the top of the neck comfortably. His or her fingers must curled in a way that they are positioned above the strings of the guitar.

4.Lastly, he or she should be doing picking exercises on a daily basis; this will help improve your picking skills. He or she should remember not to get too stressed out about how fast her or she plays, but to focus on playing smoothly and carrying out the correct notes with perfect clarity and precision.

The guitar provides people with a fun way to express their feelings. By practicing regularly, by regularly I mean on a daily basis, you will improve drastically. If you follow these simple tips, you will definatly enhance your guitar skills. Who knows, you could have a couple of your own songs a year from now.

Guitar Tutorials: Learn To Play The Guitar At Lightening Speed

2010-03-18T14:26:00.001-07:00

Have you ever looked at someone playing the guitar at lightning speed? Have you ever imagined yourself in his shoes one day? Why don't we go over how you can put yourself in his shoes and play the guitar at lightning speeds.

Firstly, you will need a metronome. You can find them at your local department stores, music stores, pretty much anywhere. You can even find them online, free too. In our world today, everyone is susceptible to searching for the easiest and quickest way to accomplish something, the reason for most failure.

So you have gotten your metronome, let's start. The second thing you will need is something to practice. It can be a solo from your favorite song, or an exercise (a picking exercise for example). You need to choose your material cautiously because you will need to acknowledge exactly how quick you would like to play in terms of the settings within your metronome. You may or may not need to spend time going over your passage because more acquaintance with the piece is essential in deciding how fast you will play it.In terms of acquaintanceship I mean the muscles in your fingers, hands and arms need to be able to play your piece without hesitancy.

You will begin to see results almost immediately. If you are ready to begin, determine a setting on your metronome that you would like to play your excerpt at. Make sure you know what your present speed is. Next, you will need to adjust the settings to a little bit higher and make that your goal.

Let's go over an aspect that is not need: Muscular tension. You must practice playing guitar quickly, but you do not want to create a degree of stress in the muscles that will set you back. To get away from this, you will have to forget about time. Your goal is based solely on turning up the metronome, not turning down the clock. The theme of this article is to work a little bit on playing faster each day.

Lastly, if you chose an excerpt to play at lightening speed, and practice it daily, I can almost guarantee you will see improvement in any amount of tie. As soon as you have mastered one exercise, why not move on to another? Just remember to start back at the beginning, and work your way up. Have fun :)

How to Tune a Guitar by Ear - What to Listen For

2010-03-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share a little guitar playing story with you and I'll understand if you don't believe it, I know I'd have trouble believing this story if I had not seen it with my own eyes.

After I had been taking guitar lessons for about six months my teacher asked me if I would like to go to a concert he was playing in that night; I always jumped at the opportunity to see any live music so I immediately said yes. This was back in the days when picture theaters and concert halls featured live music at the beginning of the performance often the band would also play during intermission.

As it turned out his band was on first that night so he had go to the hall and tune up his banjo; yes, I said banjo but stay tuned (pun intended) and you will see how this relates to guitar.

Since I was his last lesson for the day he asked if I'd like to go to the hall and watch him "tune up"... I agreed and waited for him out the front of his home while he locked up.

After a few minutes I received my first two shocks of the day: (1) I noticed my teacher didn't have a car; (2) I also noticed he did not have his banjo!!! Sooo, being the newbie student I decided to overlook these issues (particularly the bit about not mentioning he had forgot his banjo) and trotted off 'on foot' and 'banjo less' in search of the concert hall (which I hoped was not too far away).

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the hall... here was shock number three...

My teacher when up to the piano. lifted up the lid, played a note... listed carefully, closed the lid and preceded to head back home (with me following close behind, puzzled as to what was going on... hadn't he noticed that he had forgot his banjo?)

Back at his home shock number four was waiting for me... he open his banjo case (obviously he had intentionally left it behind) and began tuning his banjo; now remember, we had been walking and talking for twenty minutes with cars whizzing past us on our way back from the hall.

Shock number five of a day I will never forget... at the concert without any further adjustment to his instrument the bandleader counted in 1...2...3...4... "bang" to my amazement everything sounded great!

I relating this true story to you because I want you to understand how powerful our mind is and what a musician can do if they train and develop their memory for sound.

My teacher grew up in a time when electronic tuners had not been invented and the musicians 'ear' was a much sort after skill (it still is); in fact in the early days the ability to tune your instrument was one of the distinctions between amateur and professional. The fact that amateur players could not tune their own instrument prevented them from getting on the bandstand with the professional players.

Tuning by ear - what to listen for:

You probably know where to place your fingers to tune your guitar but are confused as to exactly what to be listening for, here are a few ideas to help you get started.

Listening tip #1: It's essential to understand that there is a difference between 'tone' and 'pitch'.

Tone refers to how bright or dull the note is. Everyone has their own way of describing tone; I might say a note has a mellow tone and you might disagree and describe the note as having a dull or dark tone.

Pitch refers to how high or low a note sounds, it's the pitch of a note we are listening for when we are tuning our guitar, we want to adjust the pitch of the note so that it is vibrating in agreement with the note we are comparing it with; both notes are vibrating in agreement with each other because they are at the same pitch.

Often the beginning guitarist hears a 'mellow' tone as being 'flat' and a 'bright' tone as being sharp, take your time a listen carefully to each note to mentally separate the tone of a note from the pitch of a note.

Listening tip #2: listen for "the pulse" when you are comparing the pitch of two notes; if you listen carefully you will hear a "pulse" or "beating" created by the two notes; what you are listening for is the slowest pulse between the two notes this is when your two notes are in tune.

As you get closer to the correct pitch will hear fast beats or pulses; turn the machine heads (tuning gears) slowly while listening to the pulse rate; if you go past the correct pitch you will hear the pulse rate increase.

Important: When the pulse between the two notes is the slowest, when it almost disappears... that's when your two notes are in tune.

Listening tip #3: record your open string notes - it's a great idea to use your electronic tuner to tune your guitar then record the correct pitch of each open string, don't forget to identify each pitch with a reference ID on the tape i.e., string six... "E" then play the sixth string slowly three times, string five... "A" then play the fifth string slowly three times, string four... "D" then play the fourth string slowly three times etc.

Bonus listening tip: practice tuning 'by ear' daily - it's easy to take the easy way out and rely on your electronic tuner, but remember your greatest asset as a musician is your 'ear' practice tuning 'by ear' every day just like any other aspect of your guitar playing and you will so overcome the 'lazy ear' syndrome.

And now I'd like to invite you to get free access to my "How To Remember 1,000 Songs" eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

You'll learn about hit song templates, easy chords, simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes - The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System

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2010-03-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

For beginning players, guitar tutorials are as basic as the instrument itself. For most musicians, the learning process can seem overwhelming. The guitar tutorial provides all the basic information and instructions for advancing play that can help the aspiring guitarist for years to come. While there are tutorials for all levels of play, the beginner has the most to learn, therefore the most to gain with this valuable resource.

For beginners, the guitar tutorial is a roadmap to success. Would you drive through Europe without a map? The guitarist who tries to learn without using a tutorial reference guide will most likely become discouraged very quickly. Here are a few things that can be learned for using a guitar tutorial from the start.

* Guitar Basics - The tutorial will explain the guitar, the proper way to hold, strum and pick the instrument. Structural terms, like bridge, neck, head, body, frets and fret board will be explained and identified. Basically, everything you need to increase your comfort level is in the tutorial.
* Musical Basics - There are 12 tones A through G. The 13th tone is the octave of the first tone. Musical theory is a big topic that the tutorial will simplify and clarify so that the beginner can get started. The concept of musical steps has puzzled many aspiring guitarists, but the tutorial will guide you through the learning process.
* The Strings - Some guitars have six strings while others have 12. The lowest string is the string closest to the top of the guitar. Learning the strings and the relationship between the strings is an important step in understanding how your guitar really works.
* How to Tune the Guitar - The same note can be played on different strings. By tuning one of the strings correctly, the other strings can be tuned by either using a piano or by ear. The tutorials will provide tips on how to tune your guitar, which should be one of your first steps as your begin to practice.
* Chord Basics - The guitar tutorial will introduce the beginner to the major chords and teach a few simple songs. Most players learn the basic chords and either try to create a song from these chords or find a song where these chords are dominant.

A musical chord is a group of notes that are played at the same time. The way these chords sound is determine by the frequency of the notes and the intervals between the notes. A beginning guitarist who does not learn the basic chords is in for a long, hard trip. Chords are named by the notes in the chord and by relationship between those notes. The tutorial can clarify these relationships.

While these topics simply touch the surface, the material in the tutorial can take the mystery out of learning to play the guitar and get your guitar experience started in the right direction. Try it! You will love it!

Looking for guitar tutorials? Discover which guitar tutorial is the right one for you to begin your musical journey. Visit us at GuitarTutorialsBlog.com today!

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Youtube Video of The Week: Insane 9 Year-Old Definatly Knows Guitar Basics

2010-03-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

This 9 year old Internet sensation claims to have first discovered the guitar at age 3, upon seeing his dad playing the guitar, who was,"Not so good." Yuto Miyazawa started learning the basics of guitar and progressed on, pretty amazing. The video speaks for itself.