Guitar Tricks Blog

Posted August 13, 2019

Guitar body styles for electric guitar include solid body, hollow body and semi-hollow body. Solid body electric guitars are made of solid pieces of wood, usually glued and pressed together, while hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars have one or two f holes carved out for greater resonance and a fuller, warmer tone. There are also a number of guitar body types for <a href="https://www.guitartricks.com/blog/Guitar-Shapes-on-Acoustic" target="_blank" rel="n

Posted August 1, 2019

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.

Posted July 25, 2019

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. 

Posted July 18, 2019

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. 

Posted July 12, 2019

Posted July 2, 2019

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

Posted June 28, 2019

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. 

Posted June 14, 2019

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.

Posted June 1, 2019

Posted May 15, 2019

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

Posted May 7, 2019

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.

Posted May 2, 2019

Dave will show you how to play “Wish You Were Here” which features a 12-string acoustic guitar as well as a six-string acoustic that repeats the intro riff a number of times before the vocals are introduced. There’s also a third guitar, an electric guitar used for the slide sections that give the song its signature haunting and melancholic sound.

Posted April 25, 2019

Avengers: Endgame is here and it marks the end of an entire saga of films that stretches for over an entire decade. From the very beginning, movies based on Marvel Comics have always featured an assortment of music that perfectly fit the action on screen just as the Infinity Stones fit perfectly in a magical gauntlet. Here are 10 songs from Marvel movies that are not only a ton of fun to listen to, but they're also a lot of fun to play on guit

Posted April 18, 2019

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&

Posted April 11, 2019

Learning how to clean guitar strings and your fretboard is important for any guitar player. You may simply use household items like lemon oil and a damp wash cloth to clean your fretboard. In order to clean the strings, you can simply use a towel or a cleaning kit.