Philippe Bertaud - How to Play Fast Scales

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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.

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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.

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Beginner Guitar Video Lessons: Barre Chords

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Guitar Lesson: Practicing Or Playing Music?

By Peter Edvinsson

What is most important as you try to 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

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Guitar Lesson: Help Yourself To Practice - By Peter Edvinsson

By Peter Edvinsson

What can you do to make it easy for yourself to practice on your guitar? In order to continue to learn to play guitar and not give up you have to create an atmosphere of joy and fun around this activity. Let’s see what you can do to make it as easy as possible to play guitar.

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

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How to Tune a Guitar - By Victor Epand

By Victor Epand

A perfect guitarist is someone who not only plays good guitar but who also takes care of the instrument just like his child. It includes cleaning and polishing the guitar regularly, changing the strings, storing it in its suitable place and moreover, most importantly, it is necessary to know how to tune a guitar properly. Tuning is essential in order to keep the guitar sounding well. Therefore, not only the established guitarist but also the beginners should get acquainted with every prospects of tuning.

Discussing about how to tune a guitar, the first point to be mentioned is the perfect meaning of tuning. Normally a guitar has six strings, each of which is of different size and posses different note value. Tuning a guitar means adjusting the pitch of each of these strings so that they play the correct note. This basically is done by tightening and loosening each of the tuning pegs (as tightening raises the pitch of the strings and loosening lowers it).

Talking about, how to tune a guitar, the next point follows is the type of tuning. Mainly the process that is followed to tune a six-string guitar is the standard tuning. The pattern of the strings is like this:

- E is the 6th string and the lowest sounding one.
- A is the 5th string.
- D is the 4th string.
- G is the 3rd string.
- B is the 2nd string.
- E’ is the 1st one and the highest sounding string.

Other than standard tuning, the guitar tuning option also includes alternate guitar tuning. The guitar can be tuned to Drop D, Open C, Open G, , Open E or Admiral, Half step down, and Full step down. But the most popular one for both Electric and Acoustic guitar is the standard tuning and a perfect answer to the question how to tune a guitar.

However, it should be noted that in a perfect tune, the 1st and the 6th strings open must produce the same note, of course at different pitches. Therefore, following the standard tuning, lets see how to tune a guitar methodically:

E String Tuning - To tune the sixth string, the tuning peg has to be slowly adjusted after playing the pitch. And it is necessary to tune up by increasing the string tension. Until and unless the sixth string is tuned to E, the other strings cannot be tuned.

A String Tuning - To tune the fifth string, the first thing to be done is to placing the index finger of the left hand just behind the 5th fret of the 6th string and slowly playing the 6th string at the 5th fret with the right hand. Next is to adjust the 5th string tuning peg gently until both the notes are same.

D string tuning - Same as the last one, the tuning of the 3rd string can be done by putting the first finger of the left hand behind the 5th fret on the A string, which is the D note. Then gently tuning the 4th string i.e. the D note to the last one is the only thing to follow.

G string Tuning - Just like the last one, the tuning of the G - string needs placing the first finger of the left hand behind the 5th fret on the D string, which is the G note. Then a gentle tuning of the G-string to that note is all to be done.

B String Tuning - The tuning needs the first finger of the left hand to be placed behind the 4th fret and the rest is same as the earlier one, i.e. to adjust to the last one.

E’ String Tuning - The tuning needs the first finger of the left hand to be placed behind the 5th fret on the B String, which is the E’note. Rest is to adjust E string to that of the last string.

Now that you have learn how to tune a guitar, get tuning.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, and synthesizers. You can find the best marketplace for guitars, drums, and synthesizers at these 3 sites: http://www.sellusedguitars.com , http://www.selluseddrums.com , and http://www.sellusedsynthesizers.com .

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Strumming Patterns of Guitars - By Victor Epand

Are you a guitarist who practices a lot, but is not able to make the proper sound from the strings? If this is the case then the problem might be that you are not strumming the strings properly.

Strumming the strings properly is the most important part of playing a string instrument. There are lots of strumming patterns of guitars. Here are some of them:

Let us start with a basic 4 beat pattern. Tune your guitar first and then settle down with a chord, say D Major chord. Hold this chord properly. Make sure that every single string is sounding properly. Now, start counting the 4 beat rhythm. You do not have to make it complicated first. Just count 1, 2, 3, 4 and strum up and down. Strum down while counting 1. Then strum up while counting 2. Continue this pattern with every beat.

Your second step is to start playing off beats. To do this, start playing the 4 beat rhythm by counting 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Here offbeat is referred as and. Now while counting, start strumming the guitar in an up and down pattern. That means while counting 1, strum downward and while counting that offbeat, i.e. and, strum upward. Practice it until you get a proper hold of it.

These are the easy strumming patterns of guitars. These are the basics and mainly for beginners. Once you feel comfortable with these patterns then try playing some difficult ones.

Break the rhythm and strum with them. That means now count a 4 beat rhythm as 1 and and 2 and and etc. These two ands means you are breaking 1half beat to two-quarter beat. Use the previous patter of strumming here. That means strum up with the first and. Strum down with the second and.

Go for more complicated ones now. Break a beat into 4-quarter beats and strum with them. After this start to break the beats in as much quarter beats as you can. Remember, the more you break, the more it will become tough for you to maintain the rhythm.
To maintain the rhythms of the strumming patterns of guitars, you can follow some rules.

Tap your foot while playing. Remember; tap your foot downwards when you are strumming down. Do just the opposite while strumming up.

You can even count 1 2 3 4 louder. Count 1 and, when you are playing the off beats.
Do not play fast at first. Start playing very slow. After you feel comfortable with the pattern, then go for a faster speed.

While trying different strumming patterns of guitars, you should be aware of some basic rules.

If you play an acoustic guitar, then make sure that you are strumming over the sound hole. It will give you the best sound.

Be very careful that both the up strumming and down strumming are sounding same. Otherwise it will not deliver the correct sound.

Do not strum too hard. It will make a rattle sound. Do not even strum too soft. It will make a wimpy sound.

When you are playing different strumming patterns of guitars, be careful about your forearm. While playing, your wrist will move, but not your forearm.

So, practice these strumming patterns of guitars, and you will be surprised to see that how brilliant you can play.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, and synthesizers. You can find the best marketplace for guitars, drums, and synthesizers at these 3 sites: http://www.sellusedguitars.com , http://www.selluseddrums.com , and http://www.sellusedsynthesizers.com .

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