Tune Your Guitar

For anyone new to music and playing the guitar, learning to tune up correctly is definitely a challenge. This is mostly because the ear of a musical novice is quite often undeveloped and still coarse, accurate tuning requires delicacy and a sensitive ear.

Some much emphasis is placed on chords and strumming when you first learn to play guitar but it's all for nothing if your guitar is not properly in tune in the first place right? Even the greatest of players is going to sound bad on an un-tuned guitar.

Over time your ear will develop and you'll get faster and more accurate at tuning your guitar, just don't expect it to happen all at once. The musical ear is one of those things which cannot be forced and each person is going to develop at their own unique speed.

I would strongly suggest you invest in an electronic tuner as this can make things easy is a number of important ways. Firstly you won't have to rely on your 'unreliable' ear, instead you'll get a clear indication from the tuner if the string is in tune or not and what adjustments you need to make to get it in tune. Secondly it will give you the confidence to know that you really are in standard tuning the same as everyone else and that your guitar is properly in tune with all the strings set up correctly.

The real challenge with this method is learning to use the actual guitar tuner properly. You'll need to learn how to recognize if it's telling you the note is sharp or flat and what to do about it. This should take no more that a week to perfect and you'll end up hopefully with a guitar perfectly in tune because of it.

Whatever method you employ whether it be manual or assisted tuning, one thing tuning requires is silence and concentration. It really is a delicate art and you'll need to be calm when you do it. All the adjustments you'll make to the tuning pegs should be very slow, even and tiny. It's very easy to go too far flat or sharp due to over winding. We also always tune up to notes, never down.

If you tune down to notes within a few minutes the string will be out of tune again, it's not secure. Think of it in the same way as winding a clock... always wind up to the correct time, it's more accurate than winding down.

Lastly, even when your guitar tuner is saying everything is in tune the final test is always your ear. With a developed ear you'll find yourself making small adjustments to the tuning even though your guitar tuner is saying everything is perfect. Once that happens you'll really know that you have mastered tuning your guitar.

Two Basic Keys For Guitar Players

Rather than just learning chords at random it's far better to learn them in terms of Keys. We will always get the most value and purchase from the chords we learn when they are put into the context of a complete key.

All songs are set in a certain musical key and there are 12 Major and 12 Minor keys to choose from. To begin however you really just need to learn 2 of those and they actually share quite a few common chords as well.

The key of C consists of C Major, D minor, E minor, F Major, G Major, A minor and B diminished. If you count up you'll see that the key has a total of seven chords and playing the chords through will give you a perfect musical circle. All keys have a total of 7 chords and they will follow the same structure and design.



The second key to learn is G. The chords would be G Major, A minor, B minor, C Major, D Major, E minor and F# diminished. Again by playing through the chords in sequence you'll hear a perfect musical circle.

Now with those 2 keys plus the use of a Capo you'll be able to play a great many songs. You can see how the two keys share common chords and this is why it's much more valuable to learn chords in terms of keys and not just at random. Random won't give you any 'musical power' but keys are the lifeblood of music and songs. Learning them is essential to understanding so many things about playing guitar and music.

You should know them off by heart and once you learn Barre Chords you'll be able to learn more and more. Some people however never learn more than just 3 or 4 keys and this amount of knowledge combined with the use of a Capo will still allow you to play 1000's of songs. The choice is up to you!

You'll notice also that the final chord, number 7, in a key is a diminished chord and they are not used so often in pop songs. It's more of a jazz or classical chord. For more great acoustic guitar lessons be sure to check out Guitar in a Nutshell!

Use Drum Tracks To Really Improve On Guitar

One of the most important tools you can have for getting better on guitar are drum tracks at various different tempos. Ideally what you want is to have the same, identical drum loop but in increments of say 5 - 10 BPM (Beats Per Minute).

With this aid you can push yourself just enough to create a little pressure, with that pressure your improvement rate will sky rocket in comparison to not using anything at all.

Let's take an example... Say you have a chord change of G - C which you find difficult. Using the drum tracks you could begin by practicing the chord change at a rate which was comfortable. Every few minutes increase the drum track to the next highest tempo and gradually push yourself more and more to continue making the chord change in time with the drums.

You'll find a 'sweet spot' where you are challenged but not finding it impossible and this is exactly where you should spend the majority of your practice time. Practicing this way for 10 minutes is worth more that 4 hours of bad practice.

Up to now you may have been used to practicing your chord changes in a relaxed way and giving yourself all the time in the world but that's the slowest way to improve. Without that all important little bit of pressure to push yourself you won't improve at your maximum rate.

After a practice session in this way you'll feel like you've 'really' practiced! It's hard work and challenging but the rewards are massive when you do it consistently day after day over an extended period of time.

Drum tracks are available on the web when you learn acoustic guitar or you could also use a metronome which you can buy from any music store. A metronome will give you just a simple click so it's not as rewarding as a drum track but it's fully adjustable in terms of tempo and it will give you the same result in terms of improvement.

Give it a try and break out of beginner guitar land!

What Makes An Easy Guitar Song?

It's really important that you have a nice and very even learning curve when first starting out with guitar lessons for beginners. An even learning curve means that your instruction or programme of lessons flow nicely into each other without any big jumps in technique.

This 'flow' is essential to learn easily and all good guitar programs and tutors will try to create this for you.

Equally when you have learned enough to be able to start playing your first songs on guitar you also need to continue with an even learning curve. For this reason, most people look for easy guitar songs, but what makes a guitar song easy?

Well it normally has no more than 4 chords and very often the same progression going all the way through the song. That means that the verse, bridge and chorus or any other parts of the song are all the same four chords and always in the same order.

You could be surprised by how many songs are really that simple! With all the production and studio effects applied to songs it's very easy to be fooled into thinking they are much more complicated than they really are. I've had lots of occasions teaching guitar 1-1 where students would be amazed at just how simple some of their favourite songs were in terms of their structure and design.

So we have the same progression throughout the song, next we also need it to be just the one strum. This means that to strum through the whole song you'll only need to learn one strum pattern which will repeat over and over from start to finish.

You can see that an easy guitar song is defined really by its simplicity, this means that as a beginner on guitar you don't have too much to practice and master before you can play the song all the way through.

There really are hundreds of these types of easy songs and a great deal of them are big hits and very well known too. Many guitar websites will have a list of easy guitar songs for you to try and after learning some chords and strums make sure you continue to keep things nice and easy for yourself by attempting easy songs - the harder ones will become available to you in time.

Remember what I said in a previous post about staying within your technical range, it's very important.

Things To Make Learning Guitar Easier

One of the most important things to have right is your guitar set up. I'm especially referring to the 'action' on your guitar, that basically means how far the strings are away from the fretboard when the guitar is in tune. Ideally you want to have as low an action as possible. This will mean you have less distance to push the strings down before they make contact with the fretboard.

It won't hurt your fingers nearly as much and you'll require less strength and tension to make your chords sound. This is important because when you play guitar you want everything to be as relaxed and as effortless as possible.

This simple set up will make playing guitar a lot easier and you'd be amazed at the difference in playability between a guitar with a high action and another with a low action. It will make your beginner guitar lessons that much more fun to do!

Fortunately the action is adjustable on guitars so even if you bought your guitar with a high action you can still take it to a music store and get the action lowered. It won't cost very much to do it and it's well worth the time and trouble as learning to play guitar will seem immediately much easier!

You should also use soft and flexible picks as these will produce a smoother sound and feel much easier to strum with. For most beginners I recommend a .60mm nylon pick as the perfect one for strumming. If you use a harder pick the sound produced from your guitar could seem quite harsh and won't sound very nice. You could also find your strumming feels stuttered and hard especially if you strum with a stiff wrist action.

10 Chords + 3 Strums = 100's of Songs

As a complete novice you may be under the assumption that in order to be able to play lots of songs you need to know lots of different chords and strums. This is not the case and with a compact system of just 10 chords and 3 strums you'll have all you need to start playing a huge variety of songs.

The selected 10 chords will give you 2 Keys and combined with something known as a Capo you'll be able to transpose all those chords into many different keys to play along with the original songs in their original keys. This is very important.

The strums are universal meaning that they will transpose across a great many different songs and tempos. When you learn acoustic guitar you'll find that after some practice your strums will all become completely automatic and you won't need to think about them. Instead your attention will be all on your chords or lyrics if you are singing.

The process of simply learning or memorizing chords and strums is easy, it's when you have to change from one chord to the next fast enough to keep up with the songs that things get tricky for beginners and you'll have to put in some decent practice. People can also find connecting chords and keeping the strum going a challenge. Each of these problems though are classic for beginners and a number of good work-arounds are available to get you over these hurdles.

Things will always feel impossible at first but you'll be surprised at how easy they'll seem after a few weeks. Remember that all guitar players were once where you are now, playing guitar to them felt really hard too. Remember that when you learn to play acoustic guitar consistency over time is the key.

Learn Guitar and Stay Within Your Level!

Here's the number one reason people get frustrated when learning to play guitar. They try to learn things which are too hard for them.

By this I mean that you should recognise your current technical level on guitar and stay within those boundries. Don't attempt things which are too far beyond your current level of playing especially when your on guitar lessons for beginners.

You see, the most effective way to learn is through consistant success. Each time you try to learn something new on guitar and succeed, you'll be automatically encouraged to want to learn more. It's like a cycle of postive feedback which constantly encourages you to continue.

By killing yourself trying to play things way out of your range you break this cycle and hit a very big brick wall. Within a week you'll be frustrated, thinking you have no talent for playing guitar and want to quit. But all along you were trying to do the impossible and on guitar that means trying to play things which are currently too technically difficult for your level.

You have to build gradually on guitar and yes I know it's your favourite song, the reason you wanted to learn guitar in the first place but you must be patient and build up to it over time.

Since learning guitar is a long term commitment, loss of motivation is your greatest threat to failing. If you are careful to only learn things within your reach you'll constantly experience a rewarding sensation and naturally progress onto being able to do harder things.

Sometimes your fingers just can't do what you want. You have to be patient, practice the technical exercises necessary to improve it and over time you'll get there.

It'll all be worth it!

Learning Guitar Is A Long Term Commitment

Many students fail at guitar not because they didn't possess the talent to succeed but because they simply didn't have the motivation to continue working at it for long enough.

It's very important that you realize from the beginning that learning to play guitar is a long term commitment. You should prepare yourself for that and accept it. Looking for quick fixes is not going to work - when learning guitar you're dealing with muscles and co-ordination which must be carefully trained over time if you want to become good.

Some students will start out full of enthusiasm and vigor for practicing - they'll go all day everyday but that level of motivation is very short term and short lived. It's far better to pace yourself and make contact with your guitar just a little bit each day - every day - for as long as it takes.

Try not to put any emotional energy into it, there will be times when you'll hit brick walls and it can be very discouraging but even the greatest players went through those same experiences. Practicing correctly and consistently over time is the key. Trust me.

Simply do your practice and forget about it. Don't worry if you improve or not... this is what I mean about not investing any emotional energy as your learning guitar. It's a long road so pace yourself.

Isn't it great though they you have to earn the right to be able to play guitar? It's not possible to simply go out and buy the ability to play, it's something special which everyone has to earn through their own hard work and perseverance. Somehow that preserves it as something very genuine in life, a real achievement.

So now that we've talked about the importance of practicing correctly and that learning to play guitar is a long term commitment, in the next post we'll discuss why you should stick to learning music within your current level and not kill yourself trying to do things which are too difficult.

Learn To Play and Practice Guitar Correctly

We're going to look at some of the most important points for learning to play guitar successfully. For this first post we'll discuss the important subject of practice and the importance of doing it properly.

Firstly, just sitting down to play guitar is not really practicing. Real practice is done in a concentrated way in that you need to decide upon a specific thing your going to practice before you begin and stick to that goal for the entire session.

Also, practicing is done at a VERY slow pace and this goes for any musical instrument you might be learning. All good musicians from classical pianists to jazz drummers to rock stars became proficient on their chosen instrument by practicing slowly. It's actually hard work to do that and you'll need dedication and patience but trust me, 10 minutes of quality slow practice is worth 2 hours of hurried practice full of mistakes.

The science behind this is that your brain needs time to correctly record what you are trying to do. By playing slowly and without mistakes you are giving your mind the best chance of being able to record the information perfectly. Most musicians would do this a minimum of 10 times.

Once this slow foundation has been laid you can start to speed up gradually. The idea being that your mind has now been correctly programmed to play the piece and will continue to do it without mistakes even though you are speeding up.

Through developing a correct practice technique your fingers will get something known as finger memory and simply go to the right places on the guitar fretboard on their own. This is why great guitarists seem to be able to play effortlessly - to them it is effortless! All because of finger memory and correct practice.

You shouldn't practice guitar to much because there is a point where you'll actually find yourself getting worse instead of better! I would recommend practicing for no more than 1 hour a day if you are a beginner.

To learn guitar successfully it's really all about making daily contact with guitar and keeping up that consistency for at least a year. Over the long term you'll become great on guitar, it's not a short term contract - you have to really earn it.