How-to tutorials, hints, tips and tricks for the serious acoustic or electric guitar player. If you want to learn how to play bar chords, read tabs or improve your guitar playing, you will find the answer here.
This is a quick guide for anybody who wants to learn how to use the Guitar Pro guitar tab editor. For anybody who does not know, Guitar Pro is a guitar tab editor with a suite of other really handy tools for newbie or experienced guitar players and composers. Guitar Pro gives a guitar player the ability to translate his musical ideas to written tab or musical notation, hear his music played back and share his compositions with others.
The guitar composer can import his tabs from other formats like ASCII or MIDI or enter his music by playing it on the computer’s MIDI. Alternatively you can use the mouse to play it on Guitar Pro’s fretboard or by simply using the computer keyboard.
Guitar Pro has an interface that lets you view your composition to best advantage, displaying any number or tracks and scrolling vertically or horizontally. You can switch from tab to music notation and back, of if you can’t read music, you can hear what your music sounds like. You can keep track of where the music is up to while it plays using the moving cursor.
If you are a new guitarist trying to get a repertoire together, you will be needing some kind of tool to help you learn solos fast. Guitar Pro’s advantage for the beginner guitar player is that it will import music in other formats and play it back at any speed you want. You can even loop a guitar solo and have it play slower each time the loop restarts. What makes Guitar Pro really good for the newbie is that so many other people use it and share their tabs on the net. You will find thousands of popular songs already formatted for you to learn.
Guitar Pro includes some other useful tools for the guitarist. The chord diagram generator shows you all chords known to mankind and inserts any chord you want into your music. You can also listen to a wide range of scales in the program and view them on the fretboard. You can also tune your guitar using the built-in tuners.
If you want to know how to use guitar Pro you will need to be able to read guitar tab. If you do not know how to read tab, don’t worry, the manual tells you how. It also tells you how to read rhythm notation so that you can learn to follow the rhythm of a song on the screen without having to hear it to know what it sounds like.
Guitar tuners of all kinds are basically very simple and how to use them should not be hard to grasp for the beginning guitar player. You can tune a guitar to a keyboard instrument if you have one handy or you can use one of the variety of devices that goes under the name of “guitar tuner”. First an explanation of the manual method of tuning your guitar. Using a tuning fork which vibrates at 440 Hz, you tune A on the fifth fret of the first string. The note E at the 5th fret on the second string is the same as the open first string, so you tune the fifth fret on the second string until it matches the open first string. Then you tune the fourth fret on the third string to the note B which is the open 2nd string. The fifth fret on the fourth string is the note G which is same as the open 3rd string. The fifth fret on the fifth string, which is the note D, is the same as the open 4th string. The fifth fret on the sixth string is the note A which is the same as the open 5th string.
Once you have gone through the above procedure, starting at the A note at 440 Hz, you will have your guitar tuned to “concert pitch”. This is just a standard so that guitarists can tune their instruments to the same pitch without necessarily being in the same room. This means they can simply start playing together with a minimum of delay. Of course your ability to tune your guitar with a tuning fork and your ear depends on a certain amount of natural ability and some experience at tuning.
Fortunately a beginner can learn how to use a guitar tuner to get his guitar in tune without any trouble. Many guitar tuners are available free on the internet and most have very friendly interfaces for the inexperienced and apprehensive guitar player.
One of the simplest guitar tuners is at hotfrets.com You go to the page every time you want to tune your guitar, and you simply click each string to get the correct pitch coming out of your computer’s speakers. This one is typical of online guitar tuners, and the drawback is that your ear has to be good enough to accurately tune your guitar strings to the sound generated by the tuner.
You can also buy a digital guitar tuner from your local guitar store, amazon.com or ebay. The basic way to use these tuners is to plug your guitar into the tuner’s input jack. When you pick the first string on your guitar, a light will appear on the tuner, and you will be able to read which note your guitar is playing and you can adjust it till you reach the note E at the correct frequency for the first string. You then repeat the process for the other strings.
You can also download guitar tuners from the internet which have the same interface I have described above. The AP Guitar Tuner is an excellent tuner and free of charge. With this type of tuner you do not need a good ear or any tuning experience because the graphic interface tells you when your string is playing the right note. This kind of tuner is the most user friendly and accurate of all for the beginner guitarist.
How to strum is one of the first stumbling blocks for new guitarists. When you look at sheet music for a song, the guitar chords are written over the song’s lyrics, so that shows you where to strum but nothing on the music shows you HOW to strum. The answer to the question of how to strum a guitar is in two parts - finding strumming patterns to suit the song you are learning and how to use the muscles in your hand and arm to make these strumming patterns. Let’s take these two aspects separately.
You can find the strumming pattern for your song by listening to it on the radio or on a CD. You might be surprised how well even a newbie guitarist can pick up how to strum the accompaniment to a song. Try this first and fool around with it for a while before trying the next way to get stumming patterns which is to type “guitar strumming patterns” into a search engine. Try the search using the quotation marks, this will give you pages with the exact phrase. If you type the phrase in without the quotation marks you will get thousands of pages where the words of the phrase appear in different parts of the page. If you use Google you will see the words of your search appearing in bold type. Whichever way you use, you will get plenty of basic strumming patterns that you can use to practice your guitar chords.
To learn how to strum a guitar it is advisable to stick to songs that you are already familiar with. If you can sing the words in your head, try hearing the guitar in your head as well. If you start with songs that you already know and love, that will make learning to strum so much easier.
So far I’ve mentioned finding the strumming pattern that is on the recorded or published version of the song, but there is nothing to stop you from making up your own strumming ideas. Just play around until you find something that sounds right. You could even try some playing of single notes for variety. Remember, if you are having fun, even your mistakes can sound okay. I think Eric Clapton said something like, “if you make a mistake, do it a couple more times so the audience thinks it’s part of the song”.
If you have a song that you want to learn how to strum to, a good trick is to work on the strumming for a while without worrying about the chord changes. This way your strumming hand will get into the rhythm very quickly if you are not distracted by trying to change chords.
A good start for learning how to strum is to just do a simple up and down alternating pattern. If you can count a four beats to the bar rhythm in your head, you can strum: DOWN UP DOWN UP. Then try a slower bear which you count as ONE AND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR, where the ANDs are the upstrokes and the counts are downstrokes. Once you get your hand and arm moving, you will find that learning how to strum a guitar is not so hard. Oh, and remember to take a minute to let your arm relax every so often.
Using the thumb to actually do the work of fretting guitar chords allows you to use your first or second left hand finger to fret notes that you could not have reached otherwise. As you research this guitar playing technique you are going to find that it is a very controversial area of the guitar world. Some guitar players say that they use their thumb all the time to fret bass notes, others say they use it occasionally, while some guitarists call the use of the thumb “poor technique”. Your attitude to the use of your left hand thumb will be guided by the style of music you play and how adventurous you are in your exploration of guitar techniques.
So, basically, your thumb can be used to fret notes on the fifth and sixth strings of your guitar. Before you read any further, pick up your guitar, adopt the playing position and then try moving your left hand so that your thumb will bend over the top of the guitar neck and press down on the sixth string hard enough to give you a clean sound when you pick the string. You might decide to forget about it right now. Some people find it absolutely impossible to do. I should also mention that many guitarists feel that if you can’t execute this technique comfortably, then you are risking serious injury to your hand and arm if you try it for any length of time.
Let’s go a bit further into this technique. Fret a first position G major chord with your second finger on the G on the sixth string, your first finger playing the B on the fifth string, and your fourth finger playing the G on the first string. Now take your second finger off the sixth string G and put your thumb in its place. Quite possibly you will have to take your finger off the fifth string, leaving the thumb fretting the sixth string and your pinky fretting the first string. Your left hand palm is going to be flat against the back of the guitar neck.
Many guitar players who have trained their hands to use the thumb for fingering chords, love the fact that the little finger is now free to play extra notes that wold not have been available to them using the conventional chord technique. Jimi Hendrix made good use of this way of playing. Cat Stevens was another player who made use of the thumb to fret chords. If you are interested in blues guitar, you will find that many of the blues innovators like Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt used their thumbs for playing bar chords.
So the case is clear. Whether or not you use your thumb to fret bar chords is entirely up to you. Everybody’s hands are different, and if it is too painful for you to use this left hand technique then don’t do it. The degree of versatility you might gain is small compared to the damage you could do if you keep trying while your arm and hand are hurting.
Here’s a video lesson on using the thumb to fret notes . . .
If you are about to choose an acoustic guitar, there are a few things you should know. Going shopping for an acoustic guitar is a major event in a beginner guitar player’s life. It has the potential to turn sour if you just blunder around from store to store or from classified ad to ebay. Here is a little advice that can help you to maintain the excitement.
If you are a beginner your first criterion should be with how the guitar feels to play. You might have a basic idea of what kind of venue you want to play in when you have some experience, but that can come later if necessary. The important thing now is to get yourself over the learning process easily, and a player-friendly guitar is what you need. If you know what kind of music you are thinking of playing then you will know whether you want a nylon string guitar or a steel string. You should also have given some thought to whether you are going to need a built in pickup and an amp.
Nowadays a beginner acoustic guitar player can get a solid wood top, good action and intonation plus a balanced tone for under $1000. Washburn, Taylor and Takamine seem to be the most highly recommended brands of acoustic guitar for beginners.
Many beginner acoustic guitars are made of laminated wood on the backs or sides but the Larrivee D-03 and the Taylor 300 series are made from solid wood. You might already be aware that alot of the tone of your guitar comes from the wood it is made from. Rosewood has a warmer tone, and maple gives a much brighter and sharper sound. Tone is also governed by whether the top of the guitar is finished with lacquer. A raw wood top has a warmer tone.
With the Taylor 300 you also get electronics so you can play amplified. Martin, Larrivee and Taylor are makers of high-priced guitars who have started making instruments for the low end of the market.
Try taking a guitar-playing friend with you when you are looking for a guitar. Once you have played a few models yourself, and have an idea of which suits you as far as playing is concerned, have your friend play your final choices for you so you can make a decision based on how the guitars sound.
Having looked at a few things you need to know when buying your first acoustic guitar, here is another piece of advice: do not put off starting to play the guitar because you can’t find a guitar you really like. If you are short of money or live somewhere you can’t look at a range of guitars, choose whatever acoustic guitar you can get to learn on. Choose the acoustic guitar of your dreams later.
The question of how to accompany yourself on the guitar may have been sitting at the back of your mind ever since you started to play the guitar. You learn your chords, you learn your strumming or fingerpicking techniques, but putting it together with your singing is a whole other story. So let us have a look at the basic components that make up the process of how to accompany yourself on the guitar. There is the question of whether you can stay in time for the whole song and you need to check out how you are presenting yourself to your audience as you play and sing.
Whether or not you are playing the guitar while you sing, you should always be using a metronome while you practice your guitar playing. The sound of the metronome is not a source of tension, it is there to do the work of keeping the beat. You only need to get used to playing along with the metronome and you will see that you can do it without stressing. First try it without doing any singing. Play the song with the metronome ticking, until you can do it without losing the beat. Then do it a few more times. If you are using any right hand techniques that you cannot get right with the metronome going, try something more simple first, then keep going back to your original technique to see if you can do it.
One technique that works for a lot of people is humming the song instead of singing. It might even be a challenge for you to do that to begin with but it should help you identify what is interfering with your playing the guitar smoothly to the beat of the metronome. Do not be in a hurry to move past this step. Keep at it until you can hum and play at the same time. Remember that you will be concentrating on improving the quality of your singing and guitar playing later so the humming is only a small part of learning how to accompany yourself on the guitar.
The aim of analyzing the parts of the process of singing and guitar playing is so that you are comfortable enough to listen to your guitar playing or singing as separate elements and to have enough attention to spare to make slight changes your phrasing or how long you hold notes or when to add an instrumental break. One way of improving your performance as a singer-guitarist is to record yourself and listen to the playback to see where there is room for improvement. This way you can hear any spots where your voice fades or you muffle chord changes as you accompany yourself on the guitar.
This is a quick guide for anybody who wants to learn how to use the Guitar Pro guitar tab editor. For anybody who does not know, Guitar Pro is a guitar tab editor with a suite of other really handy tools for newbie or experienced guitar players and composers. Guitar Pro gives a guitar player the ability to translate his musical ideas to written tab or musical notation, hear his music played back and share his compositions with others.
How to strum is one of the first stumbling blocks for new guitarists. When you look at sheet music for a song, the guitar chords are written over the song’s lyrics, so that shows you where to strum but nothing on the music shows you HOW to strum. The answer to the question of how to strum a guitar is in two parts - finding strumming patterns to suit the song you are learning and how to use the muscles in your hand and arm to make these strumming patterns. Let’s take these two aspects separately.
The question of how to accompany yourself on the guitar may have been sitting at the back of your mind ever since you started to play the guitar. You learn your chords, you learn your strumming or fingerpicking techniques, but putting it together with your singing is a whole other story. So let us have a look at the basic components that make up the process of how to accompany yourself on the guitar. There is the question of whether you can stay in time for the whole song and you need to check out how you are presenting yourself to your audience as you play and sing.
