Guitar Lessons For Beginners

If this is your first time to hold that guitar, you should know a few things before you start. Guitar playing is one of the coolest thing ever and also one of the most difficult to learn. But if you have the right approach and attitude, it wouldn’t be that difficult at all. So if you want to know more about these things that you should first consider, you came to the right place. Ice old tells the things that you need to think about before you start your journey in the world of guitar playing. By the moment you finish reading this, you will be enlightened about this and your guitar learning would be running smoothly. So sit back, relax and enjoy reading.

Where to learn?

1. Private Lessons – you could always hire or pay for a guitar instructor to teach you personally. This is very effective and a bit expensive too. However, learning is guaranteed with this method as long as your teacher is really good.
2. Online guitar lessons – this is the easiest method to learn guitar. All you have to do is find a decent online guitar lesson website and register and you are on your way to learning.

It is really a sad year for musicians and fans all around the world as we receive the news about Michael Been’s death. if you remember, Been was the front man for the band, “The Call” ho was big back in the 80’s, popularly – known for the global hit “the walls come down” in 1983. He was also a regular with regards to the bands who played for Harry Dean Stanton. He died of heart attack, back stage on the 19^th of August. He was at the Pukkelpop Music Festival, doing sound engineer work for his son Robert Levon Been of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. He’s not the only one who lost his life on the Pukkelpop, Charles Haddon of the Ou Est Le Swimming Pool also killed himself by jumping from a tower, on that very event. Weird.

My thoughts: well, Been’s death was natural that was his time, condolence to his family. But Haddon is a bit, subnormal in the way he killed himself so I don’t think that counts. But what is weird is that both front men died on that festival, makes me want to think about Asian horror movies about curses that kills people.

Bending is a lead guitar technique that is capable of enhancing your overall guitar playing capacity and ability. It is a very essential technique if you want to put more life in your guitar playing. This is how you put accent and emotion in your guitar solos. This is an essential guitar technique. There are two aspects that are important in bending:

1. Finger Strength – this is how strong you could push the strings up. Bending needs a good amount of strength to reach those intended notes. Light gauge strings are nice for bending. So be sure you have light gauge strings.
2. Ear Training – bending would be sucky if you don’t know how to listen carefully. You should know which note you are shooting for. To practice this, try alternating between the bended note and the regular note to be accustomed to it.

Bending is common with rock and blues and almost on any genre. If you really want to have a superb guitar solo, and not a lifeless one, you should learn how to do a bend properly. That is how it is. Practice this together with your daily routine and time will come that you will get used to it and perfect it.

If you had one chance of getting a guitar and having it customized to your own preference, what would it be? This is pretty interesting because I have a lot of guitars in my head that I want mutilated. So, here’s my list:

1. Fender Stratocaster – there might have been a custom superstrat like this one but still I wanted to do this. I wanted a wider one piece maple neck to cater seven strings and I want it to be 24 jumbo frets. I know, it would be huge. Then, instead of the traditional three single coils, I want 2 atomic humbuckers on the neck and the bridge and a single coil on the middle. I don’t want tone controls, I just wanted a single volume control on the top and a pick up selector, a solid one. Traditional bridge, and a chrome finish. Can you picture it out?
2. Gibson Les Paul SG – I always wanted to do something evil with this guitar because it looks mean already. Well, I want a lighter body if possible, if not, that’s ok. Then I wanted EMG active pickups on it, two of it plus a single coil on the middle. I want a 24 fret neck and a Floyd rose bridge. How you like that?

Before I move forward and explain you what is alternate tuning, I would like to warn you that I am no expert when it comes to alternate tunings.  But I do know that what I know about alternate tuning is sufficient enough to teach people.

There is plenty of alternate tunings, and some of it I know you are familiar with an example is drop D tuning and modal D tuning or what is popularly known as DADGAD. But the question is why do we need to do alternate tunings? The answer to that is this: some songs are more comfortable to play with on certain tuning especially when the chords of the song need a certain open chord or open notes. But of course, it is always dependent to the song creator. It’s up to him, if he created the song using a certain tuning, well, people have to play it like that if they want to cover it or it would never sound right.

An example is the song “You Stand Here with me” by Creed. It is on drop D. the reason to this is they want to hit a certain low note, lower than E. Drop D allows them to have a low Eb and Low D.

This month, we celebrate the anniversary of Stevie ray Vaughn’s tragic death.  And there is nothing more better to give him honor then to devote the entire week to legendary guitar player’s music of choice.  And Of course I am definitely talking about the blues…

For your information, today is the 20^th anniversary of Stevie ray Vaughan’s death.  He is one of the most influential blues guitar players in the whole world.  And he contributed a lot in the world of blues music.  He used a fender Stratocaster in all of his performance.

He was born October 3, 1954.  A Grammy award winner for his guitar playing and song writing skills.  He has released 18 albums which are all buzz worthy.  She hears the man behind the band double trouble and later on when successfully solo.  He is very much recognized for using the fender Stratocaster which now has several models under his name.  Because of its contribution and works, he became part of the blues hall of fame which was held in Washington, DC.  He was inducted on February 22, 2000.

Stevie ray Vaughn has influence a lot of guitar players of today and it’s clearly one of the most influential guitar player of all time.