Archive for: October 2007

Electric guitars have made their home in our universe. There are even classical pieces composed for electric guitar. This is a new kind of musical instrument. Not only is the sound amplified by electronics but the sound itself is MADE by electronics. Soooo . . . is playing electric guitar as easy as it looks?!
Well first of all it is best to start to learn guitar using a nylon string acoustic guitar. Steel strings are rough on the fingers when you are just learning how to play. So whether you get it from ebay or the local music store, you need an acoustic guitar that’s halfway decent. It doesn’t need to be expensive, just playable.
When it comes to buying an electric guitar, you can easily start off with one of the less expensive models. You can get the buzz from playing a real honest to goodness electric guitar on whatever no-frills Stratocaster copy your music store has, and it will get through your initial guitar playing experiences.
If there’s one single lesson that all guitar students of all styles of music need to learn, it’s TAKE IT EASY - SLOW DOWN. The music will still be there, you don’t have to rush out to meet it. If you have a tendency to go too fast, to try to force your body to do chord changes before the muscles have learnt them properly, ask youself if you want to be still sounding crappy in a year’s time. Because if you don’t slow down when you are learning you are going to be sounding like a hat full of baby seals in one year - and probably twenty years time!
An important aspect of learning to play electric guitar is how you are going to be holding the guitar during your long hours of practice. If you do not pay attention to this stuff now, you could end up with back, neck and shoulder problems later from straining your muscles and skeleton.
Now you have your guitar, and of course a decent amplifier. A practice amp is good for use when playing near loved ones if you want to remain loved yourself. Another good idea is to get some kind of guitar effects program for your computer but be aware that some of them can be very hard on your cpu.
A tuner and a metronome are essentials. These are two bits of equipment which are part of the discipline of electric guitar playing. Get into the habit of tuning your guitar from time to time during practice sessions - you might be surprised how far out you can get without being aware of it! While you are first learning how to play electric guitar you probably won’t be able to do too much jamming with friends until you develop a familiarity with your instrument. So once you feel you have gotten the hang of a song or a riff, try it out with the metronome. As slowly as you need to; you are not doing anybody any favors by rushing.
Do you need a teacher for electric guitar? Can you get all you need from books in your local music store or off the internet? It’s true that looking for a person who can teach you what you need to know in a way that you can handle it is a bit of a trial. It’s like any relationship, alot better without the other person, but what can you do? If you want to try learning without a teacher then make Google your friend. If you are not used to using search engines, just type any questions into the search box in your own words, and the results you get will at least point you in the right direction. Start by looking for guitar forums. This is where you will find people like yourself who have questions together with people who have answers. There are many ways online to learn to play guitar, some involve buying packages of videos and books which will be delivered to your house. Some give the less expensive option of downloading the videos and instructions. For the most part these guitar teaching methods are excellent. Another way to go is an online course where you can interact with your teacher and ask questions by email or on a forum. This is by far a better way to go because it can’t be quite as easily forgotten about as a course that consists of physical goods or computer files.

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Beginning guitar players experience problems changing electric guitar strings, so to lessen the pain, here’s a guide to the string-changing process. But first you need to give some attention to your strings during their life on the guitar.
On electric guitars, you will find the first three strings are plain wire, and the other strings are wound around a central core. Some strings use nickel-plated wrap wire which gives a great overall sound, but many electric guitar strings use a stainless-steel wrap which gives a bright sound.
To keep the strings fresh for as long as possible, get in the habit of wiping your strings down with a soft, dry cloth. Get the cloth between and behind the strings every day before you put away your guitar, and you’ll be giving them extra life.
After some time you will need to bite the bullet and change your strings because worn out strings are a pain to tune, and sometimes cause dead tone in your guitar playing. Humidity in the air with oil and stuff off your fingers gets to your guitar strings and deadens the sound. As a rule of thumb you should change your electric guitar strings around every two weeks if you’re playing a couple of hours a day.
As you remove each string wipe oil and dirt from the fingerboard.
You will need a pair of small needle nose pliers to cut and bend the strings and a string winder, a little item that will save you a whole lot of time.
Remove and replace one string at a time. Once a new string is on the guitar, tune it. It will go out of tune again, but start on each one right away.
Use the string winder to turn the tuning peg so the sixth string loosens. Use the pliers to cut off the twisted end of the old string and remove it from the tuning peg.
Take out the old string completely paying attention to how your old string comes off so you can do the opposite when putting a new one back on.
Feed the new string through the hole in the body or the tail piece of the guitar. Pull until the ball is anchored in place.
Pull the new string over the bridge and the nut and past the tuning peg. Use your pliers to cut off excess string. There should be enough string to go around the tuning peg a couple of times.
Pull the string through the hole of the tuning peg and wind it, keeping it tight all the while.
Place your string winder above the tuning peg and wind til the string tightens up. Then take off the winder and tune the string.
Repeat the process for all the other strings.
Always wind so the string wraps from the inside of the post out.
Once you have all the strings on the guitar, do a little strumming and pull on the strings and retune them til they stay in tune.
While you are still new to guitar playing set aside a whole afternoon for changing your strings. Pay attention to detail to make sure you are clear about what you have to do and why.

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Free Guitar Videos has beginner guitar lessons by Peter Vogl and Jody Worrell. They have free lessons that are generally 5-10 minute Quicktime videos that cover specific techniques and ideas. They also have a variety of beginner books and DVDs. The premium downloads are generally around 20 minutes and take a more in depth looks at different concepts. If you’re new to playing the guitar, you can learn many of the basic guitar techniques with the easy to follow Intro to Acoustic Rock Guitar Video by Peter Vogl. It will teach you the parts of the guitar, chords, and easy songs to get started on playing the guitar.
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