Guitar Lessons For Beginners

What is a rake? It is a simple contraption used for removing weeds and other leaves on the garden.

Oops, wrong definition.

Rake is a guitar technique. It is used to put a percussive effect to the notes that you play. It is done by adding a clicking sound before you play a note. Just a quick and sudden click. On tablature, it is written like this:

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -7 – - – - – - – - – - – -

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -x – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -x – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Mute the 2 strings that has x indicated on them. Then pick down until you reach the 2^nd string. That’s it. That’s how easy it is. Just let your pick sweep across the muted strings and let the note sound when you reach the designated note. It creates a raking sound. Pretty cool for blues music. You can hear John Mayer use this lot.

Going out to buy your first guitar? Let me tell you this; buying your first guitar is one epic move to your music career. But you couldn’t just go out and buy a guitar. You will have to consider a lot of things before you do so. Electric guitars are much more preferred by aspiring guitar players than acoustic guitars. The reason behind this is because electric guitars are simply much easier to play with, much softer on the hands than the conventional acoustic. It is also more fun to play with. That is from the beginner’s point of view.

Determining which equipment you need to have is also essential. You should know the thin line that divides necessity and overkill. You should also know that it varies from a lot of different factors. Some have higher prices, different brands and millions of specifications differences. For beginners, this might be a bit confusing but with a little research, you could manage.

Buying your first guitar is simple. Make sure it is not too expensive. Make sure that you are comfortable with it when you hold it and make sure that the quality is checked. Of course, if you choose to buy an electric guitar, you should pair it up with an amplifier.

Barre chords are movable chord shapes. It is done by barring your index finger over 5 or six strings. To move to another note, simply move the barre chord up or down.

Knowing your chords is very much important since it is the most basic things that an aspiring guitar player should know. You don’t have to memorize all the chords in one go. But you could do it gradually and you could always start with the basic barre chords and open chords.

Open chords are a bit easier than barre chords but barre chords are moveable, you only need one chord shape to play other chords. That is the best thing about barre chords. Although I’m not really fond of using it most of the time, I do think that it is a very useful chord shape indeed. Once you know its pure potential, you could exploit and use it to your advantage and then you could experiment more with other chords.  It always has to be gradual when learning guitar, special y with chords. There are lots of chords to memorize and you couldn’t memorize it all in one go. So start with the easiest and practice. You won’t notice it but you would be better in no time.

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If you are already past the levels of being a beginner then it is time for you to develop your own style. This is very important because sooner or later, you will be recording or be performing your own songs and it is very much important to have originality, and not some rip off of other styles of other guitarists. It’s good to imitate legends but it is better to have your own thing going on. You see, it defines you more; it defines your taste of music and what you are really made of. You see, your own style is like your own scent, people are able to smelly our for what you play. If you smell similarly like Slash, well, you are just another Slash rip – off indeed.

But if you are original in your style, you can definitely brag about it or be proud it. But to tell you frankly, this is the most difficult thing to do. being original is not easy, many original styles has been rip –offs of some style long ago that is why most artists scrap the idea of becoming purely original because of its difficulty. Anyway, it’s up to you if you want to be original or not just as long as you don’t copy anyone word for word and note for note.

After writing your own songs and deciding to record it, the next most difficult part of being in a band is choosing the band name (that is if you still haven’t got one.) there are lots of names that would come up in your head and you won’t even know which one is good because you would think that everything is. Especially with a person like me who is pretty much indecisive, band names are not my thing. So if you are like me, you would be experiencing the same problem. But I have discovered some methods and I’m giving away some tips for you to ponder. This is good, man:

-          Vote

• List down the band names in your head and let your band mates do the same. Now, look at the words that you have come up with. And vote for the best.

-          Elimination

• Ok, I know voting would be not as effective if you will not eliminate the others so first go to some sort of elimination process. Do the same process above and then eliminate those names that you don’t want as a group. Until you come up with the fewest choices and vote for it.

Basically, these methods worked out well for me so I guess it would do the same for you.

The basic component of playing the guitar are chords. You cant do solos always and you cant play single notes either. Chords are group of notes that are formed to create a certain sound. These are shapes the gives variety to the music that you are playing. Chords are the most basic stuff that you should learn to be able to move on to other stuff. It is basically for beginners to learn and it is a good way to start learning guitar. proper knowledge of chords are essential in your guitar learning so better be sure that you have learned it before moving on to the next topic because you can’t possibly learn anything else without it.

There several types of chords that exists. The Barre Chords, Open Chords, Broken Chords, Genre – Specific chords, improvised chords and broken chords. Okay, some of these chords, I made it up but they do exist and it does make sense. These different types of chords works for different types of situations like for example, if you want open notes, you can use the open chords. These are chords with open notes with it. Should you feel the need to transpose it, you should use a capo.

Remember Brandon Boyd of Incubus? Well, I don’t know if they split up, but I don’t think they did, but the thing is, he has just released a solo album called The Wild Trapeze. The album is filled with acoustic guitar mixed with ambience, percussions and stuff that I don’t understand. I don’t dig it much, I prefer the Brandon Boyd on the Make Yourself album. Anyway, I just got the album and I’m not that impressed or amaze, in short, I don’t like it all. Not that it sucks but most Incubus fans would agree with me. It lacks the Incubus goodness of the songs. Anyway, can’t expect that to happen since it’s not an Incubus album, it’s just Brandon Boyd. No matter how good Brandon Boyd is, without Incubus, he’s a different person. Besides, it’s not Brandon Boyd and the Incubus, it’s just Incubus. They work as one body functioning. So the luck with solo projects might be a bit gloomy. But we don’t know, let’s not judge it yet. That is just me saying stuff because I got his album last week and listened to it thoroughly and that’s what all I can say about it, I don’t like it.

There’s nothing else as good as writing a song with a good old guitar. Since the invention of the guitar that we now know, guitar – based songwriting has been the most popular thing in the history of music. It is pretty much easy to write songs on guitars and knowing some basic stuff on guitars, we could already write new songs. For example, you happen to know a basic chord progression like, G – D – Em – D, you can make countless songs already with that progression. Of course, it would suck but the point here is, it is easier to write songs with the guitar.

To write songs with a guitar, first we should know our basic chords. If that is ok already let’s move on to the songwriting process. You can either do the following:

1. Riff first, then lyrics
2. Lyrics first then riff

If you want to do it the easy way, you can always start with a riff or chord progression and then put in your lyrics and melody based on that riff or progression. Or you could do it vice versa. Start with a lyric or melody and find the correct riff or chord progression for the lyric or melody you created. As easy as that.

Are you a fan of Dimebag Darrel, Phil Anselmo or Vinnie Paul? Are you one of those rock dudes who banged their heads to the sound of the rocking guitar lick on cowboys from hell? Well, there’s good news for you. On July 24^th, it would be celebrating its 20^th anniversary and to celebrate that occasion, they are giving away the Cowboys from hell 20^th anniversary edition album, repacked and fortified with new features. There would be three versions of this album, a 2 CD expanded edition, 3 CD deluxe editions which includes the unreleased demo track, “the will to survive” and a 3 CD deluxe box set which includes also the unreleased demo.

The album was originally released on July 24^th, 1990 thru Atco Records, and was produced, engineered and mixed by Terry Date. Almost a year after, the album hit platinum status in the US, selling a million copies, peaking at Billboard on number 27.

So if you really are a fan of the great metal band, Pantera, you should definitely get your hands on this limited edition set. Another collectible Pantera item, worthy of staying on the display for years while enjoying a vulgar display of power.

Since the summer is over and there are floods of rain everywhere, I won’t give you songs about the rain. Here are the top 10 songs of summer. This is an all time list of summer songs or songs that are the best soundtrack of summer.

10. Boys of Summer by Don Henley – 1984 hit which came to the charts on holiday seasons. Don Henley won the Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for this song.

9. Summer Nights by John Travolta and Olivia Newton – John – Who haven’t heard of Summer Nights. Back in the late 70’s when Travolta was still thin and still wearing those tight jeans.

8. Surfin USA by The Beach Boys – This is very obviously a song about summer and the beach. This was way back in 1963.

7. Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and The Family Stone – back in 1969, popular band names goes like this. Name of main singer or main man and the name of the backing band.

6. Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince – this was when Will Smith was still no International Movie Superstar and when he still have those weird haircut. 1991.

5. Endless Summer Nights by Richard Marx – Yes, anyone could find love on summer seasons. 1988.

4. Surf City by Jan and Dean – Sings about the ratio of girls to guys. 2:1 this made me lol. But this track was number one on the billboard back in 1963.

3. Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka dot Bikini by Bryan Hyland – Fall Out Boy didn’t popularize the songs with long titles. It was probably Bryan Hyland.

2. Wipe Out by The Surfaris – this song has no lame factor. Everything rocked out right.

1. Summer in the City by The Lovin Spoonful – Scored them a no.1 on the Billboard in 1966.

In my own opinion, almost all of the guitar players out there would want to be a professional guitarist or a Rockstar. Well, that isn’t bad, no one’s gonna’ get mad at you for that. But then again, easy for us to say it but this technically the most difficult thing to do. Not that it is impossible, I do honestly think that it is indeed possible but the problem lies within ourselves. We don’t push ourselves too much. Those professional musicians we see today had their own share of darkness like beginners do our other guitar players do, but then, the motivation that they had were unmatched. They would push on further just to achieve success, and they had it in the end.

Almost everyone knows how to become a pro, they know what it takes, but the problem here is they don’t DO what it takes to get there, tardiness. They say that you have to be very lucky to get there, I say, luck is out of the question. Luck is something that you create. You can manipulate it if you want to. It’s always up to you.

However, if you have what it takes and you are on the right place at the right time that is really something.

For most beginners or non – electric guitar players, they might disagree with the thought of using vacuum tubes on guitar amps because knowing vacuum tubes, it’s pretty much obsolete. Indeed, these tubes are obsolete when it comes to computers and techno stuff but in the field of guitar amplification, especially the modern and high – end ones, tubes are the “in” thing. And this is primarily the reason why manufacturers still create them. Almost all of the Amps that you’ll see on a music store have glass tubes in it.

The main reason why Amps with tubes are the front runner and the elite in the fields of guitar amplification is because of its distancing sound characteristics. Tube amps have a distinct superior sound compared to solid state amps. Modern amps have circuit boards to connect their internal components and parts however, when it comes to boutique amps which are a bit expensive, connections are hand – wired, and only select high – quality components are used. This is how they do it back in the 50’s and 60’s, the reason why vintage amps have sweeter sound compared to modern amps. This technique also allows easy maintenance and easy modification. Try and compare a solid – state to a tube amp and you will definitely know the difference.

Since it is Independence Day, why not share my list of good tunes fitting for the day of independence. While you pop that bottle and watch the fireworks, listen to these tracks and shout GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Number 1

Jimi Hendrix – Star Spangled Banner

In the final day of Woodstock 69, Jimi went upstage and performed the National Anthem on his Electric Guitar and amazed the fans and infuriate the haters. No matter how you put it, this is beautifully rock and roll patriotic!

Number 2

Ray Charles – America the Beautiful

No one has ever performed this song as soulfully as Ray Charles.

Number 3

Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA

Can you think of anything more patriotic than this chorus?

Number 4

Tom Petty – American Girl

I’m not sure if this is a compliment or sarcasm but it is good, man!

Number 5

Neil Diamond – America

Diamond has hit it with this track. I’ma say that is straight up patriotic and coupled it up with some good vibes, this song is the bomb.

So that’s it America, you’ve had my list of JULY 4^th Tracks and I would like to greet all of you a Happy Independence DAY!!!!!

Twitter has now been the most successful way of knowing what your favorite artist is thinking or doing or what he or she wants to say. It connects fans and artists all over the world, linking them together to create a solid fan base. Although, it has lots of benefits, some celebrities don’t like it because it opens up doors to un ethical harassment by haters and stuff. Stalkers might t abuses it to get to you. But place that all aside; I want to talk about the ten most active twitter users that are guitar players.

1. Joe Bonamassa – he’s one active guy on twitter. Tweeting about almost everything that he does.
2. The Edge (twitter.com/360FromTheEdge) not posting any words, just pictures.
3. Lita Ford
4. Jorma Kaukonen
5. Keb’ Mo’
6. Joe Perry – guitar player for Aerosmith, but he recently stopped tweeting, but I know he’ll be back soon.
7. Katy Perry – 3 million followers! Holy Cow!
8. Nikki Sixx – Motley Crue bassist.\
9. Slash – no intro need, must follow.
10. Zakk Wylde – former black Sabbath

How to follow them? Just go to twitter.com and search their names. If you the words “verified” then that is definitely them.

If you are tired of covering and doing the things that your guitar hero is doing, maybe it is time you develop your own style. If that is your goal then look no further. Everything that you need is briefly discussed in this article to save you the headache of looking for it somewhere else. This article will tell you the importance of having your own original style and the benefits that you would reap as well as the level of difficulty that you will have to deal. I hope that after you read this post, you would have an idea of what to do with your talent or simply know what to do next.

Guitar style is defined as the method used in playing the guitar. an original style refers to a way of playing only exclusive to a certain guitar player of group of players. Why bother to develop your own style when you can copy theirs? It is all about honor and passion. There is no reward in developing your own originality but this would be one epic achievement in your part. You might even get famous by doing so, but that is not the whole point and if ever that do happens, consider it a bonus for your hard labor. Keep in mind that guitar style is some sort of signature for guitar players. Look at Mike Einziger or Brian May or Van Halen? Do they all sound the same? Of course not, somehow, the guitar sound that they produce is different from each other. That is what we call originality.