Hammond Music

Posts Tagged ‘beginner guitar’

As the first method that beginner guitar players use to learn songs guitar tabs are an important skill to understand. If you’ve used a learn to play guitar dvd or other guitar lesson program tabs are usually introduced early on since they’re such a vital role to your learning. If this is your first intro to guitar tab don’t worry I’ll go easy on you, and if you’re using a guitar lesson course at home rest assured you will have some lessons on reading tab.

This article will explain how guitar tabs are made, how to read them and of course how to play guitar tabs. After reading this article you shouldn’t have any problems reading, understanding and playing most basic guitar tabs. Starting out take your time learning tabs, it’s a good idea to master a song or piece from a tab slow first then add speed, accuracy is what makes a great guitar player.

Let’s Begin

How Guitar Tab is Constructed

A guitar tab is like looking at your guitar neck if the guitar was in the case. A guitar tab has 6 lines, one for each string on your guitar. The top line of guitar tab corresponds to the first string on your guitar or the high E. The bottom string on a guitar tab corresponds to the sixth string or your low E string.

Here’s a quick example

1st ——–
2nd ——–
3rd ——–
4th ——–
5th ——–
6th ——–

Understanding the Notes of Guitar Tab

The next part of reading tabs is understanding what notes to play and on what strings. One of the great things about guitar tab is you aren’t required to know how to read music you just need to know which fret to play on each string.

Here’s another example

1st -2——
2nd ——–
3rd ——–
4th —–6–
5th ——–
6th ——-3

The number on each string line corresponds to the fret you are supposed to use when playing that string at that point in the song. In the above example you’re to play the second fret on the first string, then the sixth fret on the fourth string followed by the third fret on the sixth string.

Tabs will look just like this of course much longer. Sometimes it will be individual notes you need to play and other times it could be complete chords you need to play. There’s an example chord tabbed below, it’s a C major chord.

1st ———
2nd –1—–
3rd —2—-
4th ——–
5th —3—-
6th —x—-

Above it the right fingering for a C major chord. You might have noticed the ‘x’ on the sixth string, I haven’t mentioned this yet but the x on the string means you do not play that string during this part of the song. So if you see an x on a particular string don’t strum or pluck that string.

With this information you should be able to go out and find some tabs of your favorite songs. There are some more advanced symbols you might run into in tabs, don’t worry you’ll learn them as your progress.

Quality guitar lesson dvd will be of assistance to teach you more advanced tab reading skills. It’s important to not stop learning, tab is just one skill you should strive to master on the guitar. You will become a better guitar player and better musician if you push to learn how to also read music and understand theory as well as reading tabs.

I get a lot of questions about what it takes to become a faster guitar player. My answer is always the same, practice. Of course that answer doesn’t always go over well with beginners it’s the truth. In order to get great at anything you must first be able to do it slowly, then add speed.

In this article I cover three practice exercises you can start doing now to improve both your accuracy and your speed. If you consistently do them you should start to see results after the first week.

NOTE: If you’re currently taking guitar lessons you may want to discuss these exercises with your teacher. The same goes if you’re using a learn guitar dvd or similar self study product consider skipping ahead in your lessons to see if there are any exercises for playing faster coming later on. The course developer or your instructor may prefer you follow different methods to play faster

Exercise 1 – Practice Scales

Understanding the important major and minor scales, along with notes on the neck is something you should learn. If this is something you haven’t yet learned don’t panic. Using your favourite search engine search for Pentatonic Scales, or visit a beginner guitar website and search for pentatonic scales. What you’re looking for is an image of the first pentatonic position.

You’re going to take that first pentatonic position and memorize it. Don’t worry yet about what scale you’re playing the shape is what you need first.

Now start at the first fret on your guitar and play the scale starting on the low E string down to the high E string. Now play it backwards. Next slide up to the second fret and do it all again, then the third fret, fourth fret and so on.

The key here is to learn accuracy with hitting the frets and the notes as you move up and down the neck forwards and backwards through the scale position.

Exercise 2 – Increase your Pace

Now we want to do exercise 1 again, but this time move things a little quicker. Using a metronome find a pace that is comfortable for you to play the first pentatonic shape. For some that might be 60-70 BPM for others it might be 100. The key is to find a comfortable speed to start at.

Start your metronome and once again on the first fret play the scale position forwards and backwards. Now this time when you slide up to fret two increase the beats per minute on your metronome by one or two and continue to do this all the way up the neck.

This exercise allows you to “warm up” to the idea of playing faster while maintaining accuracy and skill. Once you make it all the way up the neck you’ll have increased your speed by 12-16 beats per minute and hopefully maintained your accuracy and technique Ideally do this exercise for a few weeks maintaining the same starting tempo for at least a few days to ensure you’ve mastered it, then increase your starting tempo.

Exercise 3 – Picking Up and Down

Most beginners only hit the string on the down stroke with their pick. How ever as you speed up, especially in exercise #2, you’re going to find that hitting the string on the way down just isn’t enough. It’s time to start plucking the string on the way down and up. In the beginning this may feel strange so again starting slowly and getting the right technique is key.

First on the open low E string pluck up and down with your pick. Next move down to the 5th string, then the 4th and onwards all the way down to the 1st string. Then go back up. This exercise will help you feel comfortable picking up and down on all the strings and changing strings.

Finally add in the same pentatonic shape we’ve been using in the first and second exercises. This might feel strange at first, down pick for note one then up pick for note two and switch strings. Getting the right timing between your picking hand and fretting hand is tough but start slow, master it then add speed just like before.

If you consistently do these 3 exercises for a period of four weeks you will get faster. I’d urge you to also ensure you’re practicing the other new material and concepts you’re learning as well. It’s important that you keep up with your guitar lesson dvd or guitar lesson plan Learning guitar is fun but to be good it takes practice and work. The great thing is if you put the work in then you’re almost guaranteed to come out a better guitar player then you were going in.

If you look around you, you will find that a number of people want to play the guitar but never get to actually commit to doing it. That is such a waste as the guitar is one of the most beautiful musical instruments to pick up.

It has a great sound and it is very versatile, and not forgetting it’s relatively easy to carry around. Looking at all these features, it has definitely made guitar very desirable to those who want to learn it.

In fact, in most cases time and money are the two main reasons why people are not able to learn guitar. Most of us simply are not able to afford the time going for lessons or even a guitar teacher. To add on, some schools are not targeting at beginners who want to play for leisure, but rather focus on more advanced guitar courses.

The next best solution is to learn how to play the guitar by yourself. But it does seem nearly impossible doesn’t it? For a long time, it used to be pretty difficult to learn on your own. Not many people would have the discipline and commitment to learn on their own. It’s not! But we’re not talking about books in the first place!

With the internet, anyone can purchase a good set of multimedia guitar lessons. Compared to traditional media, a multimedia course allows you to monitor your own progress as you will be able to play and compare it to the proper tune. Your video instructor is patient and will be willing to repeat its instructions as many times as you need.

Furthermore, a PC-based guitar course will allow you to go at your own pace which may even be faster that the pace many schools or many instructors teach their students. Add to that the fact that you’ll be saving a huge amount of time and money and you have every reason in the world to try an online guitar course at a fraction of the cost. So if you are ready to get started to learn how to play the guitar, head over to http://www.how-to-learn-guitar.com

After Playing the Guitar Hero game, are you considering taking guitar lessons? Guitar Hero is a fun game to play, but it won’t help you learn to be a true guitar player. You might be thinking you would like to become a guitar player and get that same rush by playing the guitar or performing in a band.

Ironically, it takes “work” to “play” at guitar – but as you get better, it feels more like “play” than “work”. When you learn a song, it gets more and more fun – when you learn two songs, it’s double the fun. At least, that is how it was for me when I started to take guitar lessons (when I was ten)! I learned to play some chords that you can use for many songs. That is a good way to start – you’ll feel that you accomplished something. For example, if you learn these chords: C, G, and D. You’ll find that those three chords will allow you to play many easy guitar songs.

Look up good information online about guitars (learn what the parts are called, learn about tuning and putting strings on a guitar). There are beginner lessons on videos that can teach about guitar chords.

How hard is it to learn a song?

When I learned to play guitar, I had a guitar teacher and used some guitar chord books. But that was before the Internet (I know – a long time ago) and today there are so many other options to find guitar lessons for beginners. I know that the online lessons are good. Some things haven’t changed, one of the fasted ways to become a guitar player is by learning an easy song. After that, learning the second and third song will be much easier!

What kind of guitar should you buy?

Most often, beginning guitar lessons are taken with acoustic guitars or sometimes a classical guitar. Here is an article that shows the three main types of guitars. Basically, those two guitar types have strings made of different materials – classical / folk guitar use nylon strings – acoustic and electric guitars have steel strings. Believe me, the nylon strings are much easier to start out with because they don’t hurt your fingers as much!

There are benefits to learning to play on either kind of guitar. Students who are definitely planning to play rock and roll usually start with electric guitar lessons. Acoustic guitars are great for most kinds of music, you’ll need a classical guitar if you plan to play Spanish or Flamenco music, though.

Go buy a guitar, if you don’t have one. Make sure you hear the guitar played first. If you are looking at guitars in a store, get someone there to play the guitar for you. Or take a friend with you that knows about guitars. Then, start learning your first song. You will become your own guitar hero!