The Blues Guitar Scale and How to Master It
If you are new guitar player who wants to make a career or a hobby out of playing blues guitar, then this essay will give you the basic points to get you on your way as a player and interpreter of the blues. Or maybe you have no intention of specializing in blues guitar playing. In that case my essay will give you the bare bones of musical interpretation using the guitar. These basic points can be applied to any genre of guitar music.
So, let us start with a minor pentatonic scale. Whenever you see the word pentatonic you know the scale has just five notes. This is the A minor pentatonic scale starting at the root note – A at the fifth fret of the sixth string:
Accelerate Your Guitar Playing
By Mike Hayes
First, define your objectives and determine your approach. These objectives may change as you progress, but a goal is important before starting to play the guitar.
Begin by forming good study habits. Part of your study will be physical performance and part will be mentally engaged in the study of theory, listening to recordings, tapes and the radio, watching television, Internet and watching live performances. You will be talking to other guitarists, students and professionals, studying in classes and with private teachers and of course via online guitar courses, guitar training software etc. You will also be improvising. All of these activities will give you valuable information and experience, increase your skill, broaden your scope and develop your insights. Keep an open mind and learn something from everyone you meet …even if it is not what to do!
The following suggestions should help you in your study and practice:
Never practice or study when you are tired or worried. Relax a bit before you begin. If possible study in a quiet place where you can be undisturbed. Have a music stand adjusted to your eye level when you practice, and make sure that you always have good light. Form the habit of studying in a regular place and at a regular time.
Learn Guitar Online – Practice Traps & How to Escape Them
By Mike P Hayes
Over practicing for your next performance can be a trap because it can lead to information overload, physical burnout and decreased performance. Practice makes perfect right? We’ve all heard that phrase before from music teachers, parents etc., with so many people telling us it’s got to be correct.
Actually, that popular phrase is only half true. To achieve our performance goals we need to make an important distinction. Instead of that phrase.
Here is what we need to know …
“Perfect practice makes perfect.”
What Guitar Scales Should You Study?
By Mike P Hayes
What are scales? What guitar scales should you study? If you are new to the guitar, and new to music, you are probably not even quite sure exactly what a scale actually is, which certainly adds to the aura of mystery that begins to surround the subject.
Learning and practicing scales can become an obsession for many guitarists. Scales can “free your fingers and freeze your brain”, if you’re not careful. Always keep in mind that scales are part of the preparation work we do so we will be free to express ourselves musically.
Scales are to the musician what skipping a rope is to a boxer, it’s part of the preparation work. Scales are simply a means to an end. What guitar scales should you study depends on the type of music you want to play. It’s far better to master a small number of scales and be able to apply these scales to many musical settings.
The first thing to understand is that there are hundreds of scales, to give you an idea of what you’re up against, here’s a short sample of some of the names of scales starting with the letter “L”. Leading Whole Tone Locrian Locrian #2 Locrian b4 Locrian Flat 4 Locrian Minor Locrian natural 2 Locrian Natural 2nd Locrian Sharp 2nd Lydian Lydian 7b Lydian Augmented Lydian b7 Lydian contracted Lydian diminished Lydian Diminished 1 Lydian Diminished 2 Lydian Dominant Lydian dominant scale4 Lydian Minor Lydian Sharp 2nd Keep in mind, this is only a sample from a very long list of scales. Each one of these scales can be played in 12 different keys as guitarists we have the added issue of multiple fingering options on the guitar fretboard.
Guitar Lesson: What Is The Ultimate Way To Practice On Your Guitar?
Is there a best way to practice on your guitar? Of course you have to make your practice sessions effective but could there be a way to practice that is more effective than other ways?
There are many principles involved in an effective practice session and I think some of these are:
1. A motivation founded on a love and passion for the music you can produce on the guitar.
2. An acceptance of the fact that you must practice on that technical level you have reached.
3. A working knowledge of muscle tensions and how to minimize them when you play and how to work on reducing them when you don’t play.
Free Fallin by Tom Petty Guitar Lesson
Easy Guitar Song – Free Fallin by Tom Petty
This song is very easy to play for all you beginners out there. You will only need to know 3 chords for this song: D Major, G Major and A Major. You will need to use a capo on the third fret for this particular lesson. Don’t know what a capo is or how to use one? Click this link for a guitar lesson on how to use a capo.
Free Fallin Video Lesson
Learn Acoustic Guitar – The 13 Most Important Open Chords Explained
By Dave Long
Open chords are one of the first things you learn on acoustic guitar.
The open chords consist of most of the very basic chords used in music, and while not every style makes as much use of them, it is still an important fundamental even to those kinds of music.
What differentiates the open chords from other chords is the use of the open strings within the chord shapes. This feature gives a little more play to some of the chords by allowing the guitarist to fret and unfret strings to form the sustained versions of several chords (chords where the third is replaced by a major second or perfect fourth).
Using sustained chords in the middle of progressions can make bars that really are just one basic chord sound much more interesting than just strumming the chord for the entire time. A very good example of this is the Dsus4,D,Dsus2,D chord riff in the chorus lead in of The Beatles ‘You’ve got to hide your love away”.
Do Guitar Players Muscles Really Have a Memory?
By Daniel Lehrman
What is muscle memory and how does it work?
Is it the most challenging thing about learning to play the guitar and going from beginner to expert? Probably yes at least in the beginning.
In the world of guitars and related equipment, part of that learning process means memorizing how to use fingers, picks, and even pedals in a coordinated way to play a guitar and produce desirable sounds.
How does this memorizing phenomenon take place?
At first, you need to learn to concentrate or focus with great intensity on the subject, in this case music in order to make your fingers, hands, arms (and feet) move in just the right way.
A Guide To Reading Sheet Music
By Kevin Sinclair
To read basic sheet music is not difficult once you have mastered the odd and peculiar looking notes and symbols and understand exactly what they mean. Did you notice that the notes are written on a set of five horizontal lines? This is known as a staff. The vertical lines placed at intervals on the staff are used to divide the music into measures. Each measure contains a number of notes and the name of the note is determined by the horizontal line it is placed on or between. So, let’s start at the bottom line and work upwards on each line. On the treble clef these notes are E, G, B, D, F., easily remembered by the little rhyme, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor. The notes located in the spaces between the lines are F, A, C, E which no doubt you have spotted, spells the word face.
On the left hand side at the beginning of the music there is a clef sign, either a treble clef where the notes are usually higher in tone or bass clef where the notes are lower. The clef dictates which octave the notes are to be played in. Alongside the clef you fill find two numbers written as a fraction and this is the time signature of the music and how many beats should be played to the measure.
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.
