By Michael Fletcher

We’ve all been there before… at the beginning. We all asked the same questions. For example, what should one learn first? Should we learn guitar chords, guitar scales, or songs?

The answer to the questions posed above is, it depends! I know this sounds vague, but hang in there with me for a second or two.

You’ll need to build strength and endurance on the guitar. Trust me, without learning these fundamental elements on the guitar, you might as well become an accountant, doctor, or lawyer (please, not a lawyer).

Most great guitarists started out by learning simple songs. With a little help from your friends (other guitarists), you’ll learn some of your favorite songs (riffs and all). This is a great way (and very normal) to begin to build strength and endurance on the guitar. The truth be known, this is what most of us did in the beginning… we wood-shedded! This is absolutely normal and natural.

Why would anyone jump into an advanced guitar course as a beginner? Answer… .not many! The advanced stuff could literally kill the enthusiasm for a beginner. Why? Too much theory, mechanical development, and not enough FUN. That’s right… FUN! It’s essential to have fun. Fun is learning to play songs that your peers are playing. Once one spends good quality FUN time, the rest (knowledge of theory, application, etc.), will eventually catch up to you (or not). The desire to progress as a player will hit you like a ton of bricks or you’ll be satisfied as an individual who knows a bunch of songs and commercial licks. The choice is always yours to make.

The choice to excel on the guitar is as much mental as it is physical. Personally, I think the mental part is more important than the physical (at least in the beginning).

In the beginning, have FUN, FUN, FUN,. That’s what it’s all about folks, fun!

Most professional guitarists will tell you (hopefully), that their good old days were spent on the front porch playing guitar with their friends (learning songs, figuring out solos, etc.). For those who pursue a professional career in music, the guitar becomes a way-of-life (very serious stuff folks). Why get ahead of yourself? Have fun in the early years.

I understand that you, along with most beginning guitarists, want to shred the guitar like a finely tuned chain saw. However, remember that willingness without action equals fantasy. Don’t kid yourself. Shredding is an art. It requires mechanical ability that develops over time. Hard work and practice is the answer. Facility on the guitar is everything!

In the beginning stages of learning to play the guitar it’s important to start with basic techniques. Learning how to properly hold a guitar pick, building hand and wrist strength, timing and tempo are all essential elements. Learning simple songs will deliver those elements. Learning how to play chords and chord progressions, in tempo, is another essential element of learning to play the guitar.

Whether one’s goal is to become an accomplished guitarist or to simply play a few songs, the common thread between the two types of players is practice. If one commits to quality practice, one will progress. It’s really that simple. Either way, it starts with one’s passion for the guitar.

?2011 Michael E. Fletcher. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

http://www.ultraguitarmethod.com/

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By Keith Dean

You can use it to hitch a ride. Roger Ebert has made a fortune using one or both – up or down. It’s universally recognized as the sign for a number of affirmatives – “okay”, “good job”, “looking good”, “it’s under control”, among others. It’s also the appendage that one would be inserting “where the sun don’t shine” in a well known metaphor for aimlessly idling one’s time away. We are, of course, referring to the thumb.

In terms of playing guitar, the thumb is like the “red headed step child” of the playing hand. More neglected than even the “pinky” finger (but that’s for another article).

The focus of our playing hand, the hand that attacks the fret board, is typically centered on the first three fingers. These are the easiest to use. They are stronger, longer and faster than the pinky or thumb, so they face the call to action much more than their “weaker” siblings.

But as guitar players, we would be wise to make full use of all of our appendages when playing. In fact, we might be surprised to find that the effort that goes in to incorporating the use of the thumb into our playing technique will result in making some tasks on the guitar neck even easier!

Here are some uses for the thumb when playing guitar:

1. Walk Downs

2. Chord Formations

3. Muting

4. Added Pressure

5. Playing Lead

Let’s take a look at some of these:

1. Walk Downs – The thumb can be put to good use when playing a “walk down”. This is when you start on one chord and “walk down” to a resolution chord, typically by way of a “passing” chord in between.

When the bass notes of a walk down occur on the 6th string (low E in standard tuning), it is often easier to use the thumb to play some or all of those bass notes, rather than trying to use the fingers.

A good example would be the commonly used walk down from an open G chord, down to an Em. The passing chord between these two chords is normally a D/F# (D over F#). The easiest way to play this chord is to form an open D chord as normal, then wrap the thumb up on to the 2nd fret of the 6th string (F#). This method makes for a smooth transition.

2. Chord Formations – The thumb can also be used to assist in the formation of chords. Many chords are conducive to using the thumb. For example, a minor 7th chord could just as easily be played with the thumb.

Jimi Hendrix was known for making use of the thumb to form chords where most of us would use barre chords. Rather than “barring” the 1st finger across a fret to make a standard barre chord, he would often use his thumb to play the bass note, form the rest of the chord like normal, and then play the remaining notes as necessary with the first finger.

Try this next time you pick up the guitar. Play an A barre chord at the 5th fret. Now lift off your 1st finger that is making the “barre”. Then take your thumb and use it to play the A root note on the 5th fret of the 6th string. Finish by placing your 1st finger in the 5th fret of the 1st and 2nd strings. You are playing the same identical notes as the barre chord version, just with a different hand formation. Try this with minor barre chords as well. It can be a little liberating once you get used to it!

3. Muting – The thumb is a great tool to use for muting strings when strumming rhythm patterns. For example, an F chord in the open position is normally played using only the first four strings. It would be difficult to perform some aggressive strumming maneuvers without striking the 5th and 6th strings. Using the thumb to lightly mute these two strings will solve the problem. The same can be said for many open chords that do not use all six strings, such as the C, D and Am chords in the open position.

4. Added Pressure – There is a natural tendency when playing guitar to keep the thumb in a position that is wrapped over the top of the neck. There are times, however, when you may need some extra finger pressure on the strings to form a chord or play a lick. That extra pressure can often be found by bringing the thumb down to a position where the ball of the thumb is planted firmly on the middle of the back of the guitar neck. This increases the amount of pressure for the fingers and provides extra pivoting power.

In terms of conventional guitar instruction, this thumb placement position is often considered to be the accepted way to play guitar.

5. Playing Lead – There are some players who incorporate the thumb into playing lead runs and solos. It is really a matter of personal preference and what you get used to. I have never mastered this approach to playing leads but have seen other players use it effectively.

Regardless of your guitar playing style or approach, there are probably times when using your thumb when executing chords and licks might make good sense, and, make life a little easier. So when your fingers go out for a “dance” on the fret board, don’t forget to take the thumb along for the ride!

Keith Dean is founder of AdultGuitarLessons.com and a 30 veteran of stage and studio. He toured extensively as a road musician throughout the US and Europe, was a former lead guitarist for Jason Aldean, and has shared stages with Little Big Town, Wild Rose, Winger, Confederate Railroad and more. He is a published songwriter, owned and operated a successful music store, and has instructed numerous students in guitar. http://www.adultguitarlessons.com

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By Jay Wyshak

Many factors come together into the puzzling and complex issue; what goes into a custom acoustic guitar to make it sound great? To answer this question is very complex and I’ll suggest to you step by step. Articles will follow this one that will encompass the details of each of the factors involved.

THIS ARTICLE IS INTEND TO BRIEFLY TOUCH UPON SOME OF THE BASICS OF THIS SUBJECT – Great sound in Custom Guitars

First of all, the sound that comes out of any guitar is just what it is, as you hear it. Our Judgment of it is based on what we come to judge throughout history and what we have come to accept as todays standards set by others to what a Good or Bad Sounding guitar for should sound like.

In other words, in nature there is no such thing as a good or bad sound in a strict sense. It’s only what we have come to accept as standards to what a guitar should sound like. Developing this idea further, hopefully, in the future we can learn to set higher standards and maybe the custom guitars at that time would even sound better than todays guitars. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

The standards were achieved by ground breaking companies such as Martin Guitars and Gibson, who spent money and research to allow standards to exist within the ‘sound’ of a custom acoustic guitar, or any custom guitar for that matter.

OK, let’s get to it.

When you pluck a string, this produces an energy wave that we know as sound. What this guitar must do is transfer the energy introduced by plucking the strings. This is what I call the ‘final common denominator’.

The guitar string energy in motion is transferring through the whole thing (glue and everything, with a dependence also as to the current temperature), how this perceived sound being generated by a complex system, finally producing that resulting factor we call ‘resonance’.

In other words, everything combined about this “Complete Unit” and all its complexity called a “Guitar”, contributes to the sound you are hearing at the moment the strings are put into action.

Therefor the sound depends on:

• The Design of the guitar, it’s shape.
• The construction, the manner in which the guitar is constructed.
• The types of woods used in the guitar making process
• The types of bracing inside on the soundboard.
• The materials used for nut and sandal, including the bridge pins.
• The finish used on the outside of the guitar.

There’s more on this later. Ideally a guitar should sound like, what? It’s only limited to our imagination. Therefore a custom guitar builder of any size has the same ability to further advance the sound quality of any custom built guitar.
What I’m going to share with you over the course of several articles, are some secrets about this and how do we go about constructing a great sounding guitar in practice.

This article will concern itself with the Construction in general and we’ll touch upon the woods and others stuff in a later article. After I built my first Martin Guitar, many years ago with the guidance of my Father a Master craftsman himself during my youth;
I discovered that:

As a general rule, a lighter built guitar would bring out tones more clearly, and with the right construction technique, a louder response.

The energy brought forward by plucking the strings had less mass to hide in, less places to get lost or trapped. The energy had less ‘knee jerk’ obstacles to overcome hence forth, due to fine shaped braces, more on that later. In other words as a direct result, the guitar became more alive and responsive.

The advantage of that is that the whole guitar becomes more flexible and at the same time more producing a likable and even louder sound. The thinner I made, the back, sides and top, (up to a point, more later) the more sound was able to transfer through the woods. The wonderful advantage of this is that the player can feel the sound transferring into his ear, guts, and body while playing my guitars. As a result, a better and direct connection and relationship with the musician. The guitars simply talk better to the players.

This has to be done within it’s own limitations for obvious reasons, the overall strength of the guitar must be maintained we’ll discuss it in a later chapter.

THE INSIDE GUTS

When you look at the basic Martin Cross bracing pattern for the sound board, you’ll feel the representation of a water reservoir or lake. The idea is that if you throw a rock into a calm lake, it produces wave patterns, getting smaller the farther they travel until they disappear back to the balanced state of the water surface or to its original neutrality.

Because the waves of water are essentially the same as the waves in the air, slower because of a thick medium; the idea is to construct the soundboard bracing pattern in such a way that the wave energy generated by the strings, is gently and ‘smoothly’ transferred into the guitar’s soundboard. To help transfer this energy wave back to a state of natural balance of the sound board shape, just like it’s counter example in nature, the rock thrown into the water.

These are the kinds of revelations one receives as a master guitar craftsman, like myself. This way we can create the sound waves the way that I want. This is the doorway to understanding a bit more on creating even better sounds in the future, like the sounds that are produced in the Peace Guitar.

In the case of making a guitar sound good, or Great, on this one point:

It is the individual shapes of the braces that represent water waves. And, the idea is to help the energy waves return to their original balance of rest.

But the fun of all this is, that I get to surf the waves right in my guitar building shop. I am proud to say that the more attention I pay to this phenomena, the better the guitars turn out and come to sound.

My favorite quote: “better sound is a concept that may be in perpetual changing mode due to human perception.”

Stay tuned for more, folks, and see my shop at JonasGuitars.com/Custom-Guitars

RockinJay gathers information for a variety of helpful sites. In this case Learn more about Jonas @ Jonas Custom Guitars

RockinJay@creativeheadspace.com

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