Philippe Bertaud – How to Play Fast Scales
Do you want to learn how to play faster scales on acoustic guitar?
Watch this lesson from the Philippe Bertaud’s Instructional DVD to learn how.
New Squidoo Lens on Acoustic Guitar
This Squidoo Lens contains information and resources on Acoustic Guitar, including acoustic guitar lessons & tips, books, videos and more.
Click here to to visit my Squidoo Lens on Acoustic Guitar.
Beginner Guitar Video Lessons: Barre Chords
Here is an introductory lesson on how to play barre chords. Barre chords are the most challenging guitar chords for beginners to learn and this video will help you learn how to play them better. Enjoy.
Guitar Lesson: Practicing Or Playing Music?
By Peter Edvinsson
learn to play guitar? Technical guitar exercises or playing music? What areas should you focus on as you try to use your practicing time as effective as possible?
Could it be that both these areas are important and should go hand in hand?
You could practice in various ways and you could practice many various things as you try to learn playing guitar. You are probably already identifying yourself in a niche of guitar players. Even if you are not you will experience sooner or later that different approaches will lead you in different directions.
For example, if you only learn small parts (the coolest parts) of famous songs you will end up with knowing small parts of songs. Obvious, but that is very common among beginning guitar players. If you only practice this way you will of course miss the long term development as a guitarist.
You wanted to become one type of guitarist but ended up becoming another type of guitarist. Why do things like that happen?
Probably because we know that what we saw we will reap but do not realize that this applies to guitarists as well!
If you never practice skill exercises in your guitar playing you will not develop your skill very much. If you don’t want to become a proficient guitar player but only want to sing songs you can relax and develop your time to learning songs.
If you really know what you want it is much easier to determine what exercises you will need.
If you have a somewhat vague idea about what type of guitarist you want to become I would suggest that you balance your guitar practice by choosing both melodies and other musical exercises and also skill building guitar exercises.
If you only practice speed by learning scales, arpeggios, licks and other technique building exercises it is an imminent risk that you will sooner or later get fed up with practicing because of the lack of stimulating musical content.
It can actually be a great investment in your musical development to take some time off every now and then by going to a concert or listening to other music that will inspire you.
Yes, you are right, you will not practice your fingers, but music and playing guitar has to be a joyful experience for you if you are to inspire and lift others when you perform. You will gain so much by filling yourself with inspiring music that it will compensate for missed skill building exercises.
Music is the key in this discussion. It has to be the basis for all other guitar playing activities. Otherwise you will as before mentioned lose interest in the activity.
Sometimes I remember my first steps learning to play guitar and I remember that I did not think in terms of becoming a better guitarist than my friends or being the fastest guitarist in the world or a lot of other disturbing unmusical considerations. I was just enjoying the music I created.
I guess that keeping this feeling of why I wanted to learn to play guitar in the first place in vivid memory will help me not to be too carried away with only technical exercises.
Okay, what then is more important as you try to learn to play guitar? Technical guitar exercises or playing music?
As in so many other aspects of life balance is probably the key to reap optimal benefits from your guitar playing.
Peter Edvinsson invites you to download your free guitar sheet music and guitar tabs at http://www.capotastomusic.com
Guitar Lesson: Help Yourself To Practice – By Peter Edvinsson
By Peter Edvinsson
As a you boy I had a lot of interests at the same time. Reading, sporting, playing piano, playing chess, a lot of more things and, of course, playing guitar.
I developed a habit to always have my guitar laying on my bed. Always as I walked into my room my guitar was laying there waiting for me. It was very easy to sit down on my bed starting to play because of two facts:
1. I could see the guitar as I walked into my room which immediately reminded me of how fun it is to play.
2. The guitar was easily accessible. The only thing I had to do in order to play the guitar was to grab it and start playing.
This made it possible for me to play a lot on my guitar in spite of all other activities. All other things I did was interwoven with my guitar playing and my musical experiences connected with it.
This way of working with my guitar was not a conscious plan to maintain energy and motivation to practice. It just happened to be that way. These moments with my guitar became a part of my personal development.
When I sat there playing guitar I also had time to digest life as it proceeded. It way a form of meditation because as I played on my guitar I allowed my mind at times to wander and I remember that some important decisions in life were made as I sat there playing.
Enough talk about myself! What can you learn from my experiences?
Let’s apply my experiences to the art of learning to play guitar and see if we can find principles that are applicable to all guitar players.
Here are some thoughts and suggestions:
1. See to it that you have your guitar as accessible as you dare to. It will be a reminder for you that playing guitar is fun. I have sometimes reminded my guitar students to pull out the guitar from the hard case or gigbag as soon as they come home from the lesson and start to play something connected with their homework. Otherwise there is an imminent risk that they will not open the case until the next lesson is at hand.
This is how humans often react. If it is a little effort involved in starting to do something we want to do there is a risk that we will procrastinate the activity until it is too late.
2. If you have set goals or have homework to do on your guitar I recommend that you also have these sheets or written down goals handy. No use to have goals if you are not reminded of them on a daily basis.
To facilitate all things that can be facilitated is one way to accomplish more of the important things in life including playing guitar.
Peter Edvinsson invites you to download your free sheet music, guitar tabs, ebooks, music lessons and read his music blog at http://www.capotastomusic.com
