If you're like me and get bored of strumming the same old three chords, playing the same old songs, there's one thing I like to do, and that's to learn new, challenging songs. Some of the most difficult songs to play are either super fast, sweep and shred fests, or really intricate fingerpicking songs on an acoustic.

How many times have you plugged your guitar into an amp, and it just works? What if the amp is broken? What do you do? This happened to me a few weeks ago. My younger brother’s combo amp had a mind of its own and often decided to cut the music whenever it felt like it. Worse, he had a gig in just five days.

Being able to spec out your instrument with all the electronics and features you want is a cool way to learn what goes into making guitars. In this article, we will go over the basics of building your own guitar, mainly with some things to keep in mind before you embark on this journey.

Playing guitar and learning how to play guitar is great but there are things about playing guitar that can just be frustrating and difficult. From losing your pick to starting a band to breaking a string, these are some of the crazy things only guitar players can truly understand. 

Chord melody style is a way of playing a song as a completely self-contained solo arrangement.  It's essentially a classical guitar approach.

Just in time for Christmas!

Photo By DoD News Features (141111-D-DB155-038) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Going unplugged adds a degree of intimacy to a song that approximates playing in one's living room or around a campfire. If you are creating a solo acoustic version of a song that's played by a whole band, you'll need to compensate for what the band provides. The following are some tips to help you adapt an electric piece to an acoustic guitar and make it every bit as compelling as the song it's based on.

Playing in position helps to build strength and dexterity in the fretting hand and allows you to better express your musical ideas on the guitar. Check out these tips to get you started. 

Developing the habit of regular practice on your instrument is the most important factor in how you will improve as a guitarist over time. As with any good habit (the bad ones are easy to acquire), building the initial momentum is the hardest part, so here are a few tips to help get the ball rolling.

Most guitarists at some point experience periods of burnout—that feeling of being uninspired, unmotivated, completely uninterested in playing your instrument. If this is you, if your guitar is gathering dust in some corner, try some of these tips to help resuscitate your practice

Biographies ground us and help us to see the reality of trying to earn a living as a musician, which is often very different to what record companies and magazines would have us believe. These books give you invaluable insight into what things were like for your heroes before they made it big. You'll learn about the sacrifices and risks they were willing to make, the many failures they suffered, and how they overcame adversity to ultimately turn lemons into lyrics. In the process, you'll discover how you can develop work habits to maximize your own unique abilities, tendencies, and traits.

Most guitar players who are interested in playing the blues start by learning the blues scale. But exclusively relying on the blues scale for blues improvisation without ever considering other notes outside the scale has disadvantages.