Guitar tone can be tricky to nail down, especially when gear can cost an arm and a leg. Luckily, playing music is not all about the equipment. As long as you have a decent, completely working instrument, you will be able to extract great tones and sounds from it. Here is a list of super-easy-to-implement tone improvements you can complete right now.
How to sing and play guitar at the same time is something every singer and guitar player wants to do eventually. Singing and playing guitar at the same time can be challenging especially when if you’re a beginner guitar player. You may get mixed up on the timing of the lyrics versus the timing of the chord changes. Here are a few tips on how to practice singing and playing guitar at the same time.
The guitar blues scales are 6-note scales similar to a pentatonic minor scale but with the addition of an extra note. What are the notes of the blues scale? And How do you find the blues scale? The major blues scale pattern is 1 - 2 - b3 - 3 - 5 - 6. There are major and minor blues scales and they’re used in blues music but are often used in other genres as well. We’re going to break down the difference between pentatonic and blues scales here, so continue on for all the de
There are a number of different shapes and sizes when it comes to guitar. Jumbo is usually the largest shape for a guitar, while parlor refers to one of the smallest. Between these shapes are dreadnought, orchestra and concert sizes, which all have their uses and are great for playing different styles of music.
A guitar harmonic is usually a note that is played but the string is muted slightly to dampen the vibrations, giving it a bell-like, ringing effect. Harmonics are most commonly played on the 12th fret but you can play them all over the neck.
There are a bunch of great tricks when it comes to harmonics. Here are just a few.
Phrasing is how a guitar player presents their notes and licks within music. Usually musical phrases are short licks or notes, each separated by space, and are full of dynamics and emotion. B.B. King was a master of the blues and also used phrasing to create his signature sound.
Dynamics are, according to the Guitar Tricks guitar glossary, “the loudness or softness of a piece of music. Latin words such as 'forte' (f - loudly) and 'piano' (p - softly) are used to indicate this within music notation. This is an effective and simple way to add emotional expression into your playing. It can work in both lead and rhythm play.”
You can use dynamics to emphasize certain parts of what you’re playing like a bass note or the treble notes. Seasoned g
Rock guitar started in the 1950's thanks to artists like Elvis and it slowly morphed once artists like The Rolling Stones took it and made it their own. Flash forward to today and there are a myriad of hits and classics. Rock guitar may bring about fantasies of complicated solos and riffs but there are a huge number of 3 chord songs for anyone to play. Let's take a look at 5 songs below.
Nylon guitar strings are guitar strings that are made from nylon. Generally, the treble strings are made out of pure nylon while the bass strings are wrapped in metal so that they're heavier. Nylon guitar strings are great for a number of reasons. They're lighter, and easier on your fingers. This is helpful if you're just beginning to play guitar. They also last a long time and sound great. Here are five things you should know about using nylon strings on your guitar.
It’s often been joked that a lot of music can be played with just a handful of chords, and this is also true of the music from John, Paul, George and Ringo. As The Beatles grew in popularity and acclaim, so did their music. From the early days of With the Beatles to Let it Be, they experimented with the basic foundations of their work. We’ll take a look at some of the opening chords of a few key songs, and see how the band progressed and employed varying
Vibrato systems on a guitar is a device, usually a tremolo arm, or whammy bar, that is attached to the guitar’s body and is used to change the tension of the strings, which gives the instrument a vibrato-like quality.
The vibrato sound resembles a pulsating change in pitch, or another way to think about it is a when a singer sings a note and holds it, but the note sort of vibrates. There are a number of systems used on guitar to give you a vibrato effect, but before we get into that, let&
When it comes to guitar-playing, it’s super important to be able to find specific notes on the guitar’s neck at will. At first, this seems like an impossible task since the neck features a bunch of notes spread across 22 or more frets and six or more strings! So how does one memorize where each note is? Luckily, Marc Seal has a bunch of great tips for you.
