Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category

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Have you ever wanted to play guitar like the greats? While it’s easy to pass off their amazing guitar skills as pure talent alone, it’s more important to examine that massive amount of smart work that went into mastering those guitar skills. For every Slash and Eric Clapton, there are hundreds of wannabe guitarists wondering just how they could make it there, and without the right combination of inspiration and learning skills, it’s easy to think that you could end up along with them. Don’t worry, learning guitar isn’t something that has to suck up a lot of your time, nor does it need to be a hobby that you grow to dislike. By shedding the conventional learning styles and focusing on acquiring the most important and vital skills, you can fast-track your guitar progress and be out there playing your favorite songs and solos in no time at all.

It all comes down to mastering the most important techniques. While many guitar schools and courses focus on the less important skills; mastering kid’s songs and practicing scale after scale, very few actually put the most important skills in any real practical context. Instead of practicing mindless children’s songs that, while helpful, can be very demotivating, the best way to master guitar is by playing and mastering the music that you love to listen to. If you love the music you’re playing, you’re that much more likely to stick with it!

That’s right, learning guitar doesn’t have to be about mastering nursery rhymes and ‘Smoke on the Water’ (Although that is a classic every guitarist should learn!). Ask any experienced guitarist what part of learning they think is most important and they’ll tell you to simply focus on doing what you enjoy. I know for me, it was taking lessons I’d learned from reading and practicing and applying them in jam sessions with other musicians. All the essential skills of guitar, the scale learning, the playing positions, and the hand dexterity, they all extend from mastering the songs of your favorite artists and guitarists.

Ready to kick-start your guitar progress? Fast tracking the basics requires quite a lot of dedication and a determination to master what’s truly important. There are a lot of free lesson package, packed full of information on mastering the most fundamental and versatile guitar techniques for beginners looking to master guitar in a style that suits them.

So don’t despair learning guitar doesn’t have to be something that feels like homework. When you focus on the aspects of guitar that you already love, you can boost your dedication and fast-track your learning progress.

I have found a great resource for this on my own, which is listed on my blog. Using the knowledge and information within these types of unconventional methods, you can get the guitar skills that you dream of without the endless hours of monotonous practice. Once you’ve mastered some of the techniques in these types of lessons, go out and play with other, more experienced, musicians and learn all you can from them as well. It is the combination of lessons and experience that make guitar players into music legends.

About the Author

Matt Lee offers helpful and often witty insight into all things nerdy and/or geeky. He is a social networker and blogger who loves to share interesting information he finds on the web through his social media adventures. He has a newsletter which you can sign up for at http://www.MGL2Blogger.com. For more information about this Article, go here: http://www.mgl2blogger.com/post/598967414/so-you-wanna-learn-to-play-guitar

Blues guitar playing has evolved quite a bit since it initially started in the deep southern region of The United States. The blues style has changed with musicians adding their unique variations to the blues chord progression and blues scale. But to learn blues guitar you will need to study the fundamentals of the blues guitar playing style.

To be able to start playing blues on the guitar you will probably require private classes or find blues guitar lessons online. The right blues guitar lesson will initially teach you the most fundamental elements of blues guitar playing. The first is the 12 bar blues chord sequence (this sequence is also common in other genres of music). The second important element is the blues scale. Learning scales is vital for virtually any genre of music and they will allow you to make your own compositions.

The 12 bar blues chord progression will help with your guitar strumming. The lesson will teach you how you can switch chords while continuing to strum a particular rhythm. This chord progression can be played in any key, where the root chord is played for four bars, the fourth chord played for two followed by two bars of the root note, the fifth chord for just one bar, the fourth for another bar and the root chord played once again for two bars. This adds up to twelve bars and hence it is referred to as the twelve bar chord progression.

When the blues lesson shows you the strumming part of blues you need to start learning the blues scale. The blues scale is simply the minor pentatonic scale that has a sharpened fourth note. This fourth is also referred to as the blues note. When you master the scale you’ll be ready to start manipulating the scale making use of different guitar techniques and make your own solo.

Listening to a lot of blues guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B King will help give you the hang of blues guitar playing. When you listen to plenty of blues music while you are covering your blues guitar lessons, you’ll undoubtedly advance much faster. Also, playing the scale with a blues track backing or a drum patch will help you make your own modifications in the scale and start playing blues solos.

Blues guitar playing can be a lot of fun, but you simply must be focused and you must not force yourself through the blues guitar lesson. Getting a blues guitar lesson online will let you learn from your home and you’ll also be able to take your time for each session.

About the Author

We have provided information on some of the courses that we have researched. These Blues Guitar Lessons are excellent for aspiring the blues guitar players.

I found this video which has some pretty good information about how to adjust you truss rod.  Be careful!  Broken truss rods are a very common occurance.  I’ve never broken one myself but seem to run into them all the time when friends ask me to take a look at their setups.  A misconception is that ratcheting on you truss rod can improve you action.  The truth is that you need to make minor adjustments and then check in an iterative manner.  If you crank too hard, it WILL break!

Tune the guitar up normally. Play the 12th fret harmonic, and compare it to the 12th fret note. If the Fretted note is Flat, move the saddle Forwards(towards the neck), and vice versa.
If you have a 6 saddle bridge like the one shown to the left, you’ll be able to adjust each saddle position independantly. If you have a single saddle, like most acoustic guitars, adjusting the saddle will affect more than one string so small adjustments need to be made and then rechecked after you work on the next string. Note that it’s probably a good idea to loosen you strings a bit before you attemp to move the saddle. This will help to prevent messing up the screw heads. 

You should consider setting the intonation when you change the gauge of strings you use.  The thickness difference can play a role in changing the intonation. 

You really should check your guitar manufactures web site for any information they have about setting the intonation.  Fender has pretty detailed instructions but is a little overwhelming.  Others are the same way, but you should check them out anyway just to make sure you’re not missing anything.  My experience, however, is that if you follow the steps aboove, you’ll be happy with the results.

Chord Progressions for Modes: A How To Guide

Introduction
People often email me through my website – jamtracksforguitar.com – to ask how I write jam tracks in a specific mode.
Most guitarists have at least a vague idea about modes and many have got as far as learning some positions/shapes and are left thinking “what next?!”. This article will explain how to write chord progressions and vamps to accompany modes of the major scale and explain why they work with each mode.

Pre-requisites:
How to construct/spell the modes of the major scale
How to harmonise a major scale (chord scale, roman numeral analysis)

Harmony
Most players understand modes as the notes from a major scale but starting and ending on a different note. This is true but it’s not the full story. What is in the accompanying harmony, particularly the bass provides the all important (and oft-neglected) context. For example, playing in C major/ionian (CDEFGAB); starting and ending on an E does not instantly yield a phrygian sound. E phrygian over C major chord still sounds like C major. It sounds like E phrygian when played over an E minor chord.

The important thing is to get the tonality or the mood of each mode firmly into your ear and brain.

Three Methods for Writing Modal Vamps and Chord Progressions

Method 1: IV and V of the Parent Major Over the Root/Tonic of Mode
If you haven’t learned how to harmonise a major scale you should cover that now. Also, a basic understanding of slash chords is assumed. In this method you play the IV and V chords from the key that the mode is derived from. For example C# phrygian is the third mode of (and in the key of) A (spelled ABC#DEF#G#). The modal tonic (or root) is simply the note that gives the mode it’s name – in this example, C#. The IV and V chords of A are D and E. So, we would play D/C# and E/C# to create a phrygian sound. Let’s do another example in the same key. If we wanted to play in D lydian we would use the same IV and V chords as we’re in the same key but put D (the modal root) in the bass. Thus, D and E/D.

Method 2: Modal Root/Tonic Chord with an Adjacent Chord(s) for Movement
A simple but often overlooked principle is that scales/modes and chords are made from the same notes. We build chords from the notes in scales and we name the notes in chords according to their position in a scale. Scales sound good over chords that contain the same notes. This means that major chords are good for major modes and minor chords good for minor modes.
A vamp largely sticks to one chord. But this can get a bit boring so we add an adjacent chord to create movement and contribute to the modal sound. By adjacent chord, I mean a chord next to the tonic chord in the chord scale. For example, the chords in the key of C are I – CMaj7, II – Dmin7, III = Emin7, IV = FMaj7, V = G7, VI = Amin7, VII = Bdim7. If we wanted to play in D dorian we would play primarily the Dmin7 (IImin7) and add the Emin7 (IImin7) and Cmaj7 (IMaj7) as passing chords.

Method 3: Modal Root/Tonic with Cadence Chords
This method relies on using unstable chords, which sound like they need to resolve to move into more stable chords i.e. cadence. Each mode has a character note, which distinguishes it from other modes and is therefore critical to establishing it’s unique sound. They are as follows:

Character Tones
Ionian (Major) = natural 4th
Dorian = natural 6
Phrygian = b2nd
Lydian = #4th
Mixolydian = b7
Aeolian = b6

Chords with the character tone in resolve well to the more stable modal tonic.

Use these chords alongside the tonic (I) chord to construct modal vamps:
Ionian = IVMaj7, V7
Dorian = Iimin7, IV7, bVIIMaj7
Phrygian = bIIMaj7, bVIImin7
Lydian = II7, Vmaj7, VIImin7
Mixolydian = Vmin7, bVIIMaj7
Aeolian = IVmin7, bVIMaj7

NB: In the example above, roman numerals refer to the modal degree rather than the parent major e.g. “IV” refers to the 4th chord in the mode not the key as in previous examples.

For those wishing to extend these chords, add available tensions.

Caveats and Things to Consider
Because the major (ionian) sound is so familiar we don’t have to work so hard to maintain it’s tonality. Therefore method 3 works best for the remaining, less familiar, modes.

The locrian mode is ignored in this method because it has the paradox of having an unstable b5 in the tonic/root chord, which we want to sound more stable.

Also, dominant 7 chords are avoided because they have such a strong cadence pull towards the root chord of the parent major. Replacing the dominant 7 with the diatonic triad namesake avoids this i.e. use GMaj rather than G7.

How to Begin
A sensible first step is to explore the tonality (mood or feel) of each mode. Start with jam tracks and play simple melodies that capture the mood of the mode.

About the Author

About the Author
Owen Gurry is a professional guitarist based in South East London, UK. He does regular studio sessions for high profile production and library music as well as writing, producing, and performing.  His website is jamtracksforguitar.com

The ability to play a spontaneous, improvised guitar solo is a truly impressive skill. Whilst anyone can pick up a guitar and play a song using three chords, playing a guitar solo, on the other hand, requires a lot of hard work and practice. I have therefore decided to write a short article on guitar playing to share with you 4 tips which have certainly improved my guitar soloing and improvisation skills over the years.

Tip #1 – Learn More Licks
In order to play a good guitar solo you need to have a good vocabulary of guitar licks. Most beginners don’t realize that only 30% of what good guitar players play during an improvised guitar solo is improvised – the other 70% are actually licks which they have pre-learnt and internalized. Too often, we run into the problem of playing the same licks over and over again when we solo – which is boring! Having a good number of licks stored in memory will make you a more versatile guitarist. Guitar licks can be learnt from a variety of books, websites or by listening to your favorite guitarist and figuring out their licks. The resources are there, so there’s no excuse not to learn your guitar licks!

Tip #2 – Practise Smart, Not Hard
A lot of guitarists either practice too little or practice too much. Whilst being lazy and only picking up the guitar twice a week is obviously not going to get you very far, playing your guitar for up to 8 hours a day can be bad for you. I have a friend who developed carpal tunnel syndrome because of playing the guitar too much. Having a sensible practicing schedule, and sticking to it, is the key to success. In my opinion, it’s better to learn a little everyday then to cram everything in one day. For example, why not promise yourself that you will learn one new guitar lick a day? Seems like nothing, but that’s seven guitar licks in a week, and 365 guitar licks in a year!

Tip #3 – Practise over Backing Tracks
OK, so you’ve learnt your licks. The only way you are going to learn how to apply these learnt licks in a guitar solo is to play them over a backing track and practise joining the licks together. There are numerous free backing tracks available over the internet which you could use to practise soloing over. Backing tracks for the 12 bar blues are the most readily available, which is great because the blues is the best place to start when learning to guitar solo. Alternatively, if you want more exotic chord changes, it may be a good idea to buy some professionally-made backing tracks or even create your own backing tracks. Software such as Band-In-A-Box allows you to input a chord progression of your choice and it literally creates a backing track for you.

Tip #4 – Be Self-Critical
The only you are going to improve, especially when it comes to guitar soloing, is to be critical to yourself. Unfortunately, when we are playing the guitar, how we think we sound is often quite different from how we actually sound. Recording yourself play and then listen back, is a great way of self-evaluation. Often times, you might even be shocked at how bad your playing sounds but don’t despair – continual practice using the tips outlined above will polish things out. It may even be beneficial to get a friend or bandmate to listen to your playing and get them to critique on you. You might find that you’re not very good at taking criticism – but it’s the best way for you to grow as a guitar player.

About the Author

Lex Robben is a guitar enthusiast who is on a path of musical enlightenment. For more FREE guitar tips, licks and lessons, visit The Shadow Guitarist Blog.

It’s funny, being a songwriter myself, I always find that writing songs can sometimes be a chore. But why does it feel this way? Isn’t this supposed to be my passion? Isn’t this supposed to be something that I never get bored of?

… well, not exactly. Everything gets boring once in a while, even the things that you’re most passionate about. So every so often I like to take the lazy man’s route to doing things. And surprisingly, I often produce some very good results!

So listen up. If you newbie at songwriting, or even if you have been at it for a while — I’m going to a couple of simple tricks that will help you start the writing process within minutes.

Here we go…

1) Review a particular situation in your day. It could be at work, during your travels, or at home. It could be with your workmates, your family or your friends. Just any situation that affected you in either a positive or negative way.

An example of this would be “when you’re at work, your boss just keeps hounding you. But, the only thing that keeps you going throughout the day is that you know that somebody in the office has a crush on you”

(the above is a very dry example… but try to work with me here!)

2) Write down as many words as you can think of that relate to your situation.

Let’s follow the example from earlier on:

anger, pain, sad, happy, excitement, nervousness, anxious, misery, impatience, relaxation, goofy, sophisticated, annoying, frustrating, antagonising, fancy, sexy, cool, pretty, smile, etc, etc… you get the point

3) Write down random short sentences about your situation including the words that you mentioned him step 2. So let’s continue in our little experiment…

” the way he talked to me really angers me” ” if only he knew the pain I suffered inside” ” when I see her pretty eyes light up it makes me smile” ” I have to act cool and sophisticated — don’t want to get frustrated” ” he doesn’t know what makes my day go by” ” don’t want to be in this misery for much longer”

Etc, etc. at this point it’s important to note that you don’t have to use all the words that you mentioned earlier in step two. As you can see I’ve even started to make up my own lines *without* any of the words too! Sometimes, I’m rhyming the words without even realizing. And this is exactly where the magic starts to happen…

You can easily turn this idea into a full-fledged song. Use rhymezone.com to help you find words that rhyme… and also other related words as well.

My example was very average and simplified — but you can use an example that’s a little more dramatic. You should really get wild with your ideas! Really, just let loose.

4) Listen to a ‘backing track’ (an instrumental of a song) that you have NO CLUE about. While it’s playing, make up a melody. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just create a melody on the fly. You don’t have to sing any lyrics either. Just ‘humm’ or ‘laaa’ a tune out until you’re hearts content.

Why do this? This is an exercise that will subconsciously preparing you to create melodies for you’re own chord sequences in the next step.

5) Create a SIMPLE chord progression on the guitar or keyboard. When I say simple, I mean *simple*. Maybe TWO chords for the verse and TWO chords for the chorus. Now create a melody on top of that chord progression. Record the song on tape. There you have it.

NOTE: if you don’t play an instrument, then hook up with someone who does. After all, you pretty much have half the song now

Still think it’s difficult conceiving an idea? Want to know more? I have *plenty more* that I want to share with you…

About the Author

My name is manish shah. Am an avid blogger & social media representative. I am retailer by Profession & my blog is ask manish shah.I keep updating my blogs regularly. Do visit me for Keyword elite.One of the best tools to try out for automation of all your web site promotion techniques is Keyword elite

So, back to the old dilemma. Do I have to learn licks or make them on the spot? I just want to be myself… I don’t want to sound like anybody else… sounds familiar?

Well, I was there, years ago in my late teens, when my guitar teacher wanted me to transcribe Wes Montgomery’s solos and learn them by heart. I just wanted to sound fresh, original… I just wanted to be myself. And learning somebody else’s guitar solos felt unnatural.

Guess what… I still want to be free from having to remember patterns. But I can’t help remembering them while I play… confused? You should be.

You see, a great deal of what you do today is the result of what you learned in the past… consciously and unconsciously. The words that you use, the gestures that you make when you speak, and yes… the music you play when you solo on the guitar come from what you learned in the past.

Your brain acquired that information and internalized it. Filtered and reorganized it. This information is saved in your long-term memory and accessed every time it is needed to carry out a task that requires it.

So, when you are soloing, you are using all the information you have stored in your brain until that moment. However, the output will be filtered once again by your nervous system and will also be the result of the adaptation to a specific context (a tune with different chord changes for example, where you need to transpose the original key of your licks).

In other words, you’ll be playing original solos using the patterns that you studied. Voila’!

This seems quite easy to understand logically. It is a COMPLETELY different story when it comes to performing.

Have you ever been in a situation when in the middle of a solo you start thinking: “Maybe I should play a fast lick now”, or: “this is too simple…I should play something more involved…”. And while you are busy saying that, you realize that you just lost the song form or your creative train of thought.

So how do you let the music come out and use your memory to your advantage?

I thought you’d never ask…

Try this: sit down and breathe deeply 4 or 5 times. Then from that state, play whatever note wants to come out, with no timing, following no harmonic setting. Just do this for 5 minutes. Don’t worry if it sounds terrible. In fact, your goal should be sounding bad… as bad as you can… just let go of any judgment and let your fingers move as if they were 4 little mice on the fretboard. And whenever you catch yourself thinking, stop… just stop playing.

Then, as soon the 5 minutes have past, stop, get up and do something else. Do this every time you practice soloing, especially after you have been practicing within specific restrictions. Very soon you’ll be able to find this state of mind while you are soloing and you’ll find that you are capable of playing with more “taste” and creativity than you can possibly think of. Just leave worry and fear of sounding bad out of your mind. Enjoy your music… have fun.

Good Luck!

About the Author

Francesco Amico Author of Top Guitar Lessons Reviewed.Com Join the newsletter and have immediate access to your first video lesson for FREE: http://www.topguitarlessonsreviewed.com

The guitar since its introduction has never lost its charisma and appeal among all music fans and professionals.Despite all of the changes it has undergone throughout the times, this iconic musical instrument is still one of the most revered and widely utilized instruments of all-time. It is no wonder why guitars are extensively utilized in almost all music genres known, including rock, country and folk, R&B and flamenco among others. A lot of the known musical compositions and songs were composed with the help of this musical instrument.

Guitars are present in numerous varieties, with each variety having a unique characteristic. Of all the known guitar models, nothing comes close to acoustic guitars’ popularity. This guitar variety is known for providing a distinct kind of sound that no other guitars can match. By employing acoustic methods and principles in its production of sound, this guitar variety can stand alone and does not need electric amplification to produce sounds.This is one of the reasons why this type of guitar has gained the recognition as the ideal alternative and the retronym for electric guitars.

Acoustic guitars also come in a variety of styles and models. Each variety has a unique characteristic especially with regards to capability, sound production and materials used. Despite all of the varieties available, this type of guitar remains as popular as ever due to its more affordable costs and being user-friendly.Moreover, this guitar is also revered worldwide due to its ability to produce wildly diverse sounds. Among the most sought-after varieties of this type of guitar are acoustic electric guitars, which are noted for having plug-in capabilities. This type of guitar shares a lot of similarities with regular acoustic guitars especially in terms of appearance, the only difference is in terms of sound production. Acoustic electric guitars use electronic amplification in their sound production, making it possible for the user to make some modifications with the sound. This type of guitar is perfect for users who want something more out of their guitars.

Meanwhile, for users who are searching for more powerful sounds from a guitar, the dreadnaught acoustic guitar is perfect for them. These types of guitars are known for having a larger body as compared to regular sized guitars. This type of guitar invented by C.F. Martin & Company, is deeper and larger than most other guitars and can produce a more powerful sound. This guitar model since it was first introduced has been widely utilized by many guitar manufacturers and makers.

These guitars can be purchased in all sorts of types, designs and materials used.Most online music instruments stores and even furniture shops are selling this type of guitar. Aside from providing users with an ideal way of spending their leisure time, guitars are also great choices for decor for any home. Due to its wood materials, guitars can perfectly blend with any type of furniture inside the home, which is also part of the reason why guitars are always present in every home of music professionals and music fanatics.

About the Author

Acoustic guitars are among the most popular musical instruments of all time. These fundamental instruments come in different varieties. Acoustic electric guitars are built with plug-in capabilities.

OK, this is a pretty basic tip but it’s my first one so give me a break…lol. I believe that you absolutely need to tune your guitar (or Uke) everytime you pick it up, even if it’s just for a minute. The reason for this is that you need to develop an ear. What I mean by this is that you need to get to a point where you can strum a chord and know that something is out of tune. You can develop this skill by always having an insturment that is in tune. A benefit of knowing what an “in-tune” E sounds like, for example, is that when you hear one on the radio, you’re going to know it. That puts you that much closer to being able to listen to a song and be able to decipher it into the appropriate chords. If you let your tuning go, you won’t be centered where you should be and your ear won’t get trained. So tune it EVERY time you pick it up. It only takes a minute or two.

Here’s a link to an online tuner that you can use if you don’t have a tuner or a piano as a reference.
Tuner