Learn Guitar Quick

Archive for the ‘Blues’ Category

Scales are simply collections of notes arranged in a specific order—just as the alphabet is simply a collection of letters arranged in a specific order. We often think of scales as practice devices. The stereotypical image of the beginning piano student is that of the little boy or girl sitting captive and forlorn at the piano bench—plinking away at their scales as their joyful friends play outside in the background. And, in fact scales are practice devices—very useful and effective practice devices. But scales are more—much more than just practice tools as we shall see in this article.

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Face it. You have to play your scales. We all do. Everything we play on the guitar comes out of our scales—just as everything we write comes out of the Roman alphabet. So (and this is no big revelation) soloing or improvisation is simply a matter of disassembling our scales into smaller chunks and reassembling them in an order and a style that creates the mood or effect we wish to hear.

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The name “pentatonic” comes from a couple of Greek words: “penta” – a prefix meaning five and “tonic” – which makes reference to a tone. Thus a pentatonic scale is a scale consisting of only five notes. This is opposed to the full diatonic scales which contain all seven tones of the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). The pentatonic minor scale is a very popular scale and is heavily used in blues, classic rock, heavy rock, jazz and other popular genres.

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In this article we will be tackling the all important subject of speed as it pertains to the guitar. We have all seen incredible guitar players that seemed to defy the laws of physics and play and the speed of light. While it may seem a bit hard to attain, with a little work and understanding we can improve our technique and increase our speed on the guitar. After all, let’s be honest for a second and admit that playing fast on the guitar can sometimes be as fun as putting the pedal to the metal in a race car. The problems arise when our fingers just don’t seem to be moving or coordinating fast enough, or we may play fast but it sounds more like unintelligible mumbles rather than a coherent musical phrase.

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As an electric guitarist, your amplifier is one of the more critical components in your sound chain. In fact, in terms of sound, the amplifier may be even more important than the guitar. A cheap guitar played through a good amp can sound good, whereas a good guitar played through a cheap amp sounds poor.

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No doubt about it strings are important. They determine not only the sound of your instrument, but also the feel and playability of your guitar. Beginning guitarists may not put much thought into string selection, but the wrong choice can seriously degrade the sound of your guitar and make your instrument much more difficult to play.

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Effects are critical components in today’s guitarist’s sound-production chain. Guitar effects come in three general configurations. Compact pedals (stomp boxes), floor mult-effect units (like the Boss GT series), and rack-mounted effects.

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Want to start playing guitar? We found this Absolute Beginner Course on YouTube. These video’s include tips and lessons for absolute beginners of all ages! Follow along and grow with the updates! Today: Scales…

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Beginning students of the guitar often start out with high hopes. They envision playing like Jimi Hendrix or Joe Satriani or Synyster Gates by the end of the second lesson. Instead, after two months all they can play is Hot Cross Buns and Go Tell Aunt Rhody. So what are the things we can do to help insure the success of new guitar players? Here are a few good ideas:

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Want to start playing guitar? We found this Absolute Beginner Course on YouTube. These video’s include tips and lessons for absolute beginners of all ages! Follow along and grow with the updates! Today: the palm mute and some Sabbath…

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