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How to Tune your Guitar

January 25, 2012 — Leave a Comment

As we already mentioned in past articles, we always receive emails from users with interesting questions. Some of you already know how to tune a guitar but some of you don’t! For you, here is a reminder on how you can tune your guitar.

Learning how to tune your guitar is an important skill to learn if you want to become a guitar player. Having a guitar that is in tune will make a massive difference to how good your playing sounds. There are quite a few methods for tuning your guitar, some that you will use more than others. Still, it is good to know how to use all the methods that are available.

The most common way of tuning a guitar, is to itself. To do this you tune all your strings from the bottom (thickest) string up to the top string (thinnest). To do this you press down on the fifth fret and tune the A string (second thickest) so that is sound perfectly in tune with the bottom string with the fifth fret pushed down.

Repeat this process to all the strings except for the B string (second thinnest) which you press down on the forth fret on the G string (third thinnest) to tune.

The electronic tuner is probably the easiest and most effective way of tuning your guitar to correct pitch. With an electronic tuner you can get a very accurate tuning because it actually measures the sound wave frequency of your strings. Take your tuner and pluck each string individually until each string is perfectly in tune. Remember a guitar is tuned from top to bottom EBGDAE.

You can try tuning your guitar to another guitar. For this method take the guitar that is in tune and try and tune each string on you guitar so that you can hear that each string vibrates in tune with the other.

Regardless of whether you set out to learn a few simple chords, or if you just want to be the next biggest thing to grace the music world. When you pick up an instrument you are going to have to practice if you are to have any hope of getting better.

Try all these methods to tune your guitar to see which one works best for you.

Posted by Ben Edwards

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Writing Songs

January 18, 2012 — Leave a Comment

A very common question for every beginner guitarist:

How do I find musical ideas? How do I write music?
Not an easy question to answer I would say!

One of the challenges all musicians have is finding ideas for music. When you are creating original music it is important to have steady stream of inspiration. It is important to note that people can find inspiration from many differing things depending on their personality.

Living your life is the best source of material for songs. Try and be aware of everything around you. Take notes about people and situations you experience, documenting your reactions to them. Your own reactions are important because personal songs are often the best and easiest to write for many musicians.

Another tool that can be very useful when writing a song is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes or situation. If you find yourself stuck in a rut then this can also be a good way to change your style of writing.

When it comes to writing music it is important to try and develop you musicianship. New skills are like doorways to new songs. Many times you will learn a new technique and a whole song can be built around that. For this reason it is important to always be on the lookout for new skills and ideas.

One of the best ways to pick up the new skills is to learn other musician’s techniques. When you see one of your musician friends playing something interesting try and learn it. This does not mean you should rip off another person’s song, however use those musical ideas to inspire you.

Becoming proficient at your instrument will make it a lot simpler to think of good ideas for your songs.

Melodies are all inside you and they don’t have to be complex. When you are singing to yourself in the shower remember that even the simplest three note melodies have the potential to become songs.

You can find ideas for music and lyrics all around you. Don’t be afraid to open your mind and come up with new and interesting concepts. Experiment with your song and music writing until you create something that you believe in and that is fun to play. And be sure to let me know how your writing is going!

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Posted by Dan Orr

Posted in art, Artists, learning, music, recording | Tagged

Practicing Vs. Playing

January 18, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Today we are going to have a look at practicing versus playing. You may be wondering what this means exactly.

To simply define it; playing is when you are out on stage or in the studio by yourself or with a band. Practicing is when you are in a room by yourself or with your band getting ready to play a gig or record some music.

Practicing is important. If you never practice you will never reach a high level of skill and you will not get a tight sound with your band. When you practice you should concentrate on playing correctly and in time. These principals should be followed whether you are playing with a group or in your room by yourself.

Though you should try and be as accurate as possible when you are practicing, when it comes to playing you should feel free. Meaning that when playing live you should be in the moment and ignore mistakes.

It is important to remember the distinction between practicing and playing. You should always be trying to improve with practice, but when you are on stage playing you shouldn’t be worrying about playing perfectly. You should be worried about putting on an energetic performance, playing hard.

Some times musicians can fall into the trap of over-practicing. You do this when you spend too much time practicing and not enough time devoted to getting yourself out there and playing your songs.

Many musicians are perfectionists and they feel that they can never be ready to perform. You need to ignore the little problems when you are deciding whether or not to play a gig. Work had to fix any problems but don’t stress out about them.

In conclusion get out there and play your instrument in front of people. You can iron out problems as they come up but don’t forget to keep motivated and play hard.

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Posted by Dan Orr

Posted in guitar zen, learning, music | Tagged , ,

Alternate Picking

January 18, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Let´s start, for those of you who do not know what Alternate Picking is…
It is a guitar playing technique that employs strictly alternating downward and upward picking strokes in a continuous run, it is just as simple as that. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

But now, playing this technique is a completely different thing. If you are having problems with it, this is what you can do:

The main problem with alternate picking comes when you are picking a note in the opposite direction of the next string that you’re going to play. For instance, if your last note was a down stroke on the G string, and your next note is an upstroke on the D string, then your pick has to travel a more complicated path than if you are picking up on G and down on D. What to do?

Some people just refuse to let their picking hand do the more difficult move, by trying to put a hammer on or a pull off to time the direction of the pick to a more favorable direction. Others might just be using the pick to start the string in motion, but are doing all hammer or pull offs other than the first note on a string.

But let’s concentrate on what to do if you are using the versatile alternate picking method. Since we don’t want to limit the note choices, or string choices, in any way, we have to just get good at dealing with the problem.

Practice going back and forth between two strings picking in the opposite direction. For example, play a C on the 3rd string (5th fret) with a downstroke followed by an E on the 4th string (2nd fret)with an upstroke. Repeat the C and E one more time.

Next, bring the C down to a B (1 fret) on the 3rd string with a downstroke, followed by the same E on the 4th with an upstroke. Repeat the B and E. Just to make a slightly musical pattern, do the same thing, but change the B down to an A, doing the same pattern. To make the pattern symmetrical, return the A back up to a B and play B,E,B,E, just like the second pattern.

It will take a lot less time to play this than to read about it, so try to muddle through this explanation to get to the actual notes, it’s not hard to play this as long as you don’t try to play it too fast.

As with all exercises, do it slowly and as accurately as possible at first. Doing this exercise addresses one of the most important points about practicing and improvements.

If you have some free time, check out this video which is an extract from Paul Gilbert´s instructional DVD “Get Out Of My Yard” – It is insane what you can do when getting this technique right! Check it out:

Good luck with your practice. See you next week!

Posted by Moses Robbins.

Posted in acoustic guitars, Artists, Electric Guitars, guitar strings, guitar zen, learning | Tagged , ,

To Warm up or not to Warm up, that’s the question!

November 24, 2011 — 1 Comment

If you have ever played any sports you will know about the importance of warming up. It is important to stretch your muscles and ligaments before you take part in any strenuous exercise. Playing the guitar is no exception to this rule.warmingup 106x300 To Warm up or not to Warm up, thats the question!

When you play the guitar you can put a lot of strain on your hands, fingers and forearms. It is important to warm up your fingers before you start playing. The reason this is important is that it can prevent overuse injuries, which will hurt your playing.

If your hands start to hurt then it is time to stop playing. Stop playing and identify the pain and assess how serious you think it is. If you have a severe aching pain in your hands or wrists you should take some time off and rest your hands. And next time you play remember to WARM UP PROPERLY.

The most common way that people warm up is by playing scales. The best way to do this is pick a simple scale and run up and down it a few times. You should do this slowly at first and build up to full speed. It is also a good idea to warm up with some slow chord changes before you get into playing as hard as you can. Try and slowly build up your repertoire of warm up chord changes.

This is not totally related to warming up but when you are playing or warming up try and maintain good hand and body position. This will make a big difference to your playing and reduce the chance of you having any problems with pain from playing.

Warm up and practice hard and enjoy your playing but play safe.

Posted by Ben Edwards

Posted in guitar zen, learning, music | Tagged , , ,
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