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Posts Tagged ‘guitar lesson’

Get 5 Guitar Playing Tips to Help You Play Better Guitar

August 17th, 2011 No comments

In this helpful article, you will get guitar playing tips designed to help you improve your playing skills. So let’s get started…

1) The first guitar playing tip is to use good posture while playing the guitar

You should sit up straight in an armless chair. If the chair has arms, you will not be able to hold the guitar properly for playing. Sit up straight to protect your back.

If you get a backache after a bit of playing, you will realize how having good posture while playing the guitar is so important.

2) The next guitar playing tip is to hold the pick firmly but not too firmly.

If you do not grip the pick firmly enough, you may lose it during a vigorous bout of strumming! But if you grip it too tightly, you may find your whole arm getting tired. Middle of the road is the best guitar playing tip I can give you where pick grip is concerned.

3) Choosing the right pick is another guitar tip that is important.

Picks come in finger and flat styles. Most guitarists use a flat one. They also come in three different levels of flexibility.

Several professional guitarists have given me the advice of getting the softest, flabbiest pick I can find for learning to keep up with fast strumming. It’s easier on the arm. Flabby picks are harder to use, however, if you are trying to pick out individual strings, as in adding a bass line, or flat-picking.

After some practice with a soft pick, you will probably want to move on to a firmer one. A final guitar playing tip about picks is that the firmest picks make the richest sounds.

4) Here is a guitar playing tip – learn to play arpeggios.

It’s fun, great for old folk songs, and sounds beautiful! You won’t be able to use a pick, though. Finger the chord. Now, pick the bass note of the chord with your thumb. You can use a thumb pick for this, however, it works just fine to use your thumb. You will grow a little callus there which will make it easier.

Now use your index finger to pluck the third string. Next, pluck the second string with your middle finger. And then pluck the top string with your ring finger. You’ve picked four notes.

If you repeat the sequence, giving each note the timing of an eighth note, you will fill a measure of a song written in four/four time. This guitar playing tip will make people sit up and take notice, but it does require practice, and calluses, to play this way. Try playing the strings in different order, and alternate bass strings.

5) A final guitar playing tip involves the chord D.

While playing the D chord, try adding your pinkie finger to the chord at the third fret. This new chord is often called “D-suspended” or “D-sus.” Then play D again. Now try lifting your middle finger so that the top string of the chord is open. And back to D again.

You can do the same thing with the A-chord, but have to do the change on the second string. Up one fret to the third makes A-sus, and you can also lift that finger to go down a step on that second string. C-suspended requires you to go up a half step on the fourth string. G-suspended requires you to do it on the fifth string. Learning suspended chords is a guitar playing tip you’ll find yourself using when you play contemporary songs.

I hope you’ve found these guitar playing tips helpful. It’s important to remember that the best way to improve your guitar playing skills is to practice, practice, practice. Good luck!

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How to Learn Guitar Chords for the Very First Time

June 6th, 2011 No comments

Have you at any time been hopeful to learn to play guitar just immediately after watching an incredible performance brought by a famous rock band? You actually couldn’t help but feel like grabbing a nice guitar then actively playing beautiful music straight from the soul. Well, undoubtedly a lot of people young and old do really feel that way because music provides tremendous impact on their lives. I would say the guitar is actually one very widespread musical instrument found broadly in every nation. Nevertheless, when you need to become an expert in this instrument you need to invest a whole lot of effort and dedication.

The absolute very basic guitar chords which you have to know would be the C, A, G, E and D major guitar chords. Again, they’re the simplest guitar chords which you will encounter. These chords can support you for developing your power and toughness of your fingers when you are shifting chords. Fascinatingly, as soon as you are confident with playing these guitar chords, it is possible to perform a couple of beautiful songs which you can definitely enjoy.

When learning to play a chord, it is essential to study on how to read any chord diagram. The guitar chord diagram has six vertical lines that signify the 6 strings. Along with the horizontal lines show frets other than for the topmost line which is the head of the guitar. You may really see these diagrams in any music book or tune hits generally located at the backside portion. The darkened dots (or full dots) which are discovered in the diagram instruct you on what fret and string to position your fingertips on. The unshaded dots (or empty dots) tell you to play the open string that would mean the string is strummed without being fingered within the fretboard.

You can also see diagrams that show numbers with the black dots which show precisely what finger to use in pressing a string. So figure one (1) is for your index finger, two (2) is for that center finger, three (3) is for that ring finger and finally four (4) is for that pinkie finger. The moment you will get accustomed to reading these kind of diagrams, it will certainly be exciting for you to learn guitar chords.

Finally, you should constantly keep in your mind that guitar chord diagrams are all the resources you need to assist you to study fresh new chords, chord advancement as well as the rhythm aspects of any song. Your capacity to comprehend and read guitar chord diagrams doesn’t need the capacity to read music notes. So be positive in knowing that you can learn to play guitar, at least the basics of it all, in a bit short length of time. So on the long run, you’ll discover that you are in a position to render good music to your buddies during social events.

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Blues Guitar Scales : Which Ones And Where To Use

April 16th, 2011 No comments

It is important to understand what scale is appropriate or available when soloing over a blues progression. The most common blues is a I, IV, V progression or a twelve bar blues. These progressions tend to contain the same types of chords, usually all of them being seventh chords, major or minor chords. The most common of these arrangements contains only seventh chords.

Now if we examine a typical blues composed of seventh chords we will find that there isn’t one particular scale that contains all of the notes within these chords perfectly. The best match might be to play the mixolydian mode over each corresponding chord. This would mean mixolydian mode in the key of the I chord, played only over the I chord, mixolydian mode in the key of the IV chord, played only over the IV chord, mixolydian mode in the key of the V chord, played only over the V chord. This is one way to do it, your solo will certainly sound good over the chord changes and bright with the major 3rd.

A blues progression can also be constructed around entirely major chords in the I, IV, V pattern. In this instance, use the I major scale to solo with. It will fit perfectly with the chords, and it will difficult to hit a wrong sounding note.

A blues progression can be constructed with entirely minor chords. In this case use the natural minor scale to solo with. This scale will fit perfectly over this progression, because the chords contain the exact same notes as the corresponding scale.

What I would like to do now is introduce the most common blues guitar scale and explain when it is best suited. This scale is called the blues scale, and it is simply the minor pentatonic scale with a flat five added to the scale. Previously, I mentioned that the most common type of blues progression is composed of entirely seventh chords(R,3, 5,flat7). The blues scale is the most popular scale used to solo over this type of progression. You may have realised that this scale contains a minor third, however the chords use the major third. How could this sound good? Wouldn’t they conflict? Well, put simply this is what gives the blues such a distinctive “bluesy” sound – the flat 5 also gives this “bluesy” sound.

I hope you’re not too confused by now! So, to find a scale to solo over a typical blues progression, typically a I, IV, V chord progression, firstly look at the I chord. If it is a seventh chord, you could match each chord with the mixolydian mode in three different keys. You could also just use the minor pentatonic scale or the blues scale in the key of the I chord. For example if the I chord is a B seventh, you would use the B blues or minor pentatonic scale. If it is a B major or B minor as the I chord you would use the B major and the B minor scales respectively. You could also just use the B blues scale over these two progressions as well, or a combination. When playing the blues you have many options available to you, so have some fun and experiment with these various blues guitar scales.

Clause N Dillon, a guitarist for over twenty years, has recently written an easy to follow and practical guide to guitar scales and soloing, and is available FREE for a limited time by clicking the blue text : Learn Guitar Scales or Blues Guitar Scales