Title: Want to play guitar like the pros? Part 3 - Guitar Speed-Building

and Strength-Building Exercises

Author: David Woodford

Article:
As you probably already know, playing the guitar requires time,
practice, and passion. Just as in anything else in life, you
can't get better unless you practice. The rule sticks in guitar;
you must practice to get better. To play guitar, you also must
have good hand strength. That can be done by doing guitar
exercising and practicing a lot. Here I have written some simple
exercises which will build speed and strength.

I'm going to start out with speed exercises. The simplest speed
exercise is to play a scale, or cycling patters. There are
scales in the other lessons online, and it isn't hard to make
your own scale. A good way to increase speed with scales if by
playing the note 2 or 3 times while playing the scale. So if
you're playing a chromatic scale, you play each note twice and
then move on to the next note. As you get better, go faster and
add more notes, at the end you will have improved a lot from
where you began.

An important exercise I used for strength building is hammer-on
pull-offs. I start out at the 1st string 1st fret and hammer on
to the 2nd, then pull off to the first. I keep on moving up
until I reach the 6th string. After I reach the 6th string I
move over a fret, and then go back down to 1. I repeat the
process until my fingers get tired. While doing this it is best
to use a pair of fingers, then start over and change fingers.
Not only does this build on your hand strength, but this will
also help your coordination for hammer-ons and pull-offs. Also,
use the exercise in the previous lesson about positioning
yourself with chords without actually playing them; they will
make you play chords faster.

An exercise I use for barring is to bar the 1st fret. I bar the
fret, play every note individually, then play the fret all
barred, and then play the 1st fret open for all the strings. I
repeat the process until the 12th fret or so, and then I move
all the way back. Doing this will help you bar better and will
also produce strength in your fingers.

A good exercise I use for picking is called alternate picking.
I'll play a piece to warm up, but I will pick alternately.
Picking alternately means that you will pick one note upwards
and the other downwards. This will build strength in your
picking arm, and will also make you a faster picker.

While doing this exercise, the tip of your fingers might start
to peel a little and develop calices. You should take a rest,
but this is a good thing. The more your fingers peel, the harder
the tips of your fingers will get which will assist you in
guitar playing. It is always best to warm up before practicing
the guitar so doing these exercises will not only build up
strength, but they will also get you ready to play!

About the author:
David Woodford is a professional writer who specializes in
beginners guides for a variety of subjects. He is currently
writing this series of guides on learning to play guitar for
novices and 'false beginners'. More information can be found on
his site at http://www.info4u-services.com/guitar

Title: Want to play guitar like the pros? Part 4 - Basic Guitar Playing Techniques

Author: David Woodford

Article:
If you really want to learn the guitar, you should know by now
that it isn't just strumming and plucking. Guitar is much deeper
than those techniques, and it has many techniques besides the
two simple ones. I will be explaining the more complex
techniques such as: hammer-on, hammer-on pull offs, pull offs,
slides, bends, and vibratos.

Let's get started with the hammer-on. The hammer on is alike to
what it sounds like, a hammer- on. Basically, you play whatever
string you like, but you hammer your finger on to the fret. When
you hammer-on, you play two notes. Usually, the 2nd one is
played quickly. Hammer-ons are one of the easier guitar
techniques.

  Now for the pull-offs. Pull-offs are also similar to what they
sound like. You play the string AND fret, and then you pull off
of it. The pull-off can be pulled off to a fret, or to an open
string. For the pull-off to be pulled off to an open string,
then you will have no finger to be pulled off to. In other
words, you just play the fret, and pull off the string. For
example, let's say you were playing the 2nd fret of the 1st
string. You would play the 2nd fret, and then just pull off the
string not playing anything else. Although pull-offs seem easy,
they can get very difficult. A pull-off can be pulled off to a
fret. So if someone were to say play the 5th fret and pull off
to the 3rd, then that would require playing the fret and pulling
off to another fret. For example, you would play the 5th fret,
but at the same time you would keep a finger solid on the 3rd
fret so you would be able to pull off to the 3rd fret. Think
that was hard? Well, then your not in too much luck because
pull-offs only get harder. They can also have 2 or more frets to
be pulled off too. For example, let's say someone said to pull
off from the 5th to the 3rd to the 2nd. That would mean you play
the 5th fret, while keeping a finger solidly on the 3rd fret and
2nd fret. You would then pull off of the 5th fret on to the 3rd,
and then pull off of the 3rd fret on to the 2nd.

Now for the hammer-on-pull offs. This is basically self
explanatory. They are the two techniques put together to form a
hammer-on pull-off. Let's say you were told to hammer on the 4th
fret and pull off to the third. You would play the note before,
then hammer on to the 4th fret, and pull off to the third.

Moving on to bends and slides. They are both very similar, but
very different at the same time. A bend requites to play the
note, and bend the string upwards or downwards. In most cases,
when someone says to bend, then it will be a whole step (2
frets). But, if they say bend UP half step then you would bend
the string up so it produces the same sound as the fret above.
Bending down will produce the sound of the frets below the note.
Slides also involving playing a note, and going higher or lower.
To play a slide, you play the original note and then slide to
the note that you are supposed to. For example, sliding from the
3rd to the 5th fret would mean playing the 3rd fret, and
literally slide your finger from the 3rd fret to the 5th fret so
you play ALL of the notes from the 3rd to 5th fret.

Last, but not least are the vibratos. To me, this is fun and
easy. All you do is simply play a note, and give it small bends
up and down, to "vibrate" the sound. So if you had to do vibrato
on the 3rd fret, all you would do is play the 3rd fret and move
the fret up and down. 

 
About the author:
David Woodford is a professional writer who specializes in
beginners guides for a variety of subjects. He is currently
writing this series of guides on learning to play guitar for
novices and 'false beginners'. A lot of help can be found at his
site at at http://www.info4u-services.com/guitar

Title:  Want to play guitar like the pros? Part 5 - Reading Tablature and Advanced Guitar Techniques

Author: David Woodford

Article:
If you're going to play music on the guitar, you're probably
going to read tablature at some point in time. Tablature is very
easy once you get an understanding. Also, if you stick with
guitar, you're going to have to know more techniques than just
the basic ones. Here I write on how to read tablature, and some
advanced Guitar Techniques.

Tablature is very simple. Usually it will have 6 lines with the
word TAB written vertically over on the left. The thing to
remember is that official tablature is ALWAYS written so that
the string at the top is the 6th, and the string at the bottom
is the 1st. There are always numbers within the lines, and those
are fret numbers. Usually, most tabs will have some kind of key.
They vary form source to source. Usually, h will mean hammer on
and p will mean pull off. Books usually use symbols. For
example, for a bend they will have the fret and then draw a
curved line up to the fret it needs to be bent to. Let's look at
a sample tab (http://www.presentersforum.com/tabs.jpg) to get
started.

 As you can see the numbers indicate the fret. The x's by the
chords will indicate that the string is closed. As you can see
when the lines curve to two frets, sometimes they have a letter
above them. For example at the beginning the 0 and 2 have a H.
The H indicates a hammer-on.

Now to move on to some advanced guitar techniques. When reading
tabs, you might see a chord that has all the frets the same.
This is called a bar. If someone tells you to bar the guitar
from the 3rd string and 3rd fret that would mean you would lay
your finger flat on the 3rd string from the 3rd fret down. Doing
that would result in also hitting the 3rd fret of the 1st and
2nd strings. Beginners will usually have a hard time to bar. A
good way to get your bar more clear is to play every note
individually before you actually play the bar as a whole. For
example, if you were to bar the 3rd fret of down from the 4th
string, you would have to play each 3rd fret of each 3rd string
individually. By doing this, you can see which notes you are
messing up on and how to correct them.

Another technique used in guitar is called tapping. Tapping
isn't too advanced, but is used in more advanced music. For
tapping all you do is repeatedly tap the fret without actually
playing the note. So if you were to tap the 2nd fret of the 1st
string, you would just repeatedly tap the fret.

To end it off, I'll finish with harmonics. Harmonics produce a
pretty sound, and aren't too hard. They don't work with every
single frets, and the most common are 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th.
To do harmonics you have to see the metal piece which separates
frets. Then, you put your finger on top of the string directly
above the metal. You lay the finger as flat as possible and DO
NOT press down on the strings. If all worked well, when you pick
the string you should get a harmonic sound.

Reading tablature is a requirement for all guitar players and
will help you throughout your guitar career. Learning the
advanced techniques will make you a better guitar player and
will add more skill to your music. They both are lessons that
are vital to playing the guitar.

About the author:
David Woodford is a professional writer who specialises in
beginners guides for a variety of subjects. He is currently
writing this series of guides on learning to play guitar for
novices and 'false beginners'. Some great help can be found on
his site at:  http://www.info4u-services.com/guitar  http://www.info4u-services.com/guitar

Learning the guitar can be great fun. Once you know a few chords
and can play a few tunes you feel a great sense of satisfaction.
You may also wish to experiment with alternate tunings for the
guitar - i.e. not the usual EADGBE standard tuning. For those of
you who wish to try some of these out, here are some to start
you off. Don't be scared of trying these out. Just make sure you
have a tuner handy to get you back "home" to the standard
tuning.

IMPORTANT: If you need to tune a string down to a note you must
tune it down BELOW the note you actually want and then tune UP
to the required note - e.g. if you want to tune the E string
down to a D, first tune it down to around a C note, then tune it
UP to a D. This stops the string becoming slack and going out of
tune.

The first one is the "dropped D" tuning DADGBE (low to high)
Simply tune the low E string down to a D, using your open D as a
guide.

The second one is the "Double dropped D" DADGBD which is the
dropped D tuning with the high E string tuned down to a D as well

The third one is "Open G tuning" DGDGBD. This is the Double
dropped D tuning with the A string tuned down to a G, using the
already open G as a guide. This tuning was made famous by Keith
Richards of the Rolling Stones who went 1 step further and took
off the low D completely from his guitar, leaving him with only
5 strings! GDGBD.

The last one for now is DADGAD. This is the Double dropped D
tuning with the B string tuned down to an A. Use your open A
string as a guide.

With these alternate tunings you can create some beautiful
sounding chord progressions, plus by using open strings you can
make more use of harmonics. The key thing is to experiment. Try
using a capo with these tunings or why not play along with a
friend? You could both play the same song with one guitar tuned
to a standard tuning and one to an alternate tuning. The
possibilities are endless, just use your imagination. Most of
all, remember this is supposed to be FUN! If you enjoyed
learning these tunings, why not search the internet for more
alternate ones? There are many more. Thanks for reading, have
fun!

Chris.

About the author:

Chris Owen has been playing the guitar since he was 7 years old.

If you need to improve your playing then click and visit:

http://drawkward.guitarbs.hop.clickbank.net/

for the only guitar tutorial program he recommends.

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

Title: The Blues Scale & Cool Stuff You Can Do With It

Author: Duane Shinn

Article:
Most of us who took piano lessons as kids are all too familiar
with scales, and most of us hated practicing them with a
passion. But understanding scales and what they do is critical
to the process of improvisation as well as key orientation and
just a general understanding of what's happening in the song we
are playing.

 The word "scale" comes from the Latin word "la scala" which
means "the ladder". So a scale is a ladder of notes that starts
at the bottom -- called the root note -- and proceeds upwards to
the top of the ladder -- called the octave note.

 There are several kinds of scales, the most common being the
major scale, followed by three different types of minor scales.
After that there are several specialty scales, including the
blues scale used widely in jazz, R&B, blues, and quite a bit in
pop music.

 The "blues scale" is really a combination of the major diatonic
scale (the "regular" scale we all grew up with) plus three
additional notes:

The flatted 3rd; The flatted 5th (or sharp 4th -- same thing);
The flatted 7th

 As a result the blues scale really contains 11 notes -- the 8
of the normal diatonic scale -- and the 3 "blue notes". These
are used in various combinations, as we shall see, to create a
"bluesy sound".

 The blues started not as a piano style, but as a vocal style,
and of course the human voice can sing "in the cracks" between
the notes on the keyboard. So when we play blues on the
keyboard, we try to imitate the human voice by playing BOTH the
3rd and the flat 3rd -- BOTH the 5th and the flat 5th -- BOTH
the 7th and the flat 7th. We would play in the cracks if we
could, but we can't, so we do the best we can by combining the
intervals to imitate the quarter steps that a human voice can
sing. (Certain instruments can do that too -- for example, the
trombone. Since it has a slide, it can hit an infinite number of
tones between any two keyboard notes.)

 So in the key of C, for example, the blues scale would include:
C, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, A, Bb, B, and the octave C.

 In the key of F the blues scale would include: F, G, Ab, A, Bb,
Cb, C, D, Eb, E, and the octave F.

 In the key of G the blues scale would include: G, A, Bb, B, C,
Db, D, E, F, F#, and the octave G.

 So in improvising you can craft a melody out of any or all of
these notes. Start by creating a motif out of just 3 or 4 notes,
then repeat that motif as you change chords.

 For example, if you were in the Key of C, you might create a
motif such as C, C, G, Bb C and repeat it in various rhythms as
you play the C7 chord in your left hand, then again as you move
to the F7 chord, and so on.

 With practice and experimentation you can play your own variety
of the blues as you master the blues scale.

About the author:

A series or free lessons from Duane Shinn on the various aspects of
piano chords & the blues is available:

http://playpiano.com/101-tips/31-12-bar-blues.htm 

"Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!"

 

 

 

"> 

 

 

---