When you play a guitar using plectrum bystanders point and say that you are indulging in a bit of “flatpicking”. I guess they have to call it something. Anyway it’s a technique that most of us assume we can just “do”. You just pick up the pick and pick with it. But like most basic techniques, (and many people) it gets a lot less attention than it deserves. So I’ve found a very basic flatpicking lesson for you on Guitar Lesson World, a site with video guitar lessons available to subscribers plus a heap of free lessons covering all aspects of playing a guitar.
Once upon a time, long, long ago men and women learnt to play guitar from books or, if were lucky, a guitar teacher. Books could supply us with the information we needed like what the note symbols meant and what a major key is, and a teacher could guide us, explaining things we did not understand, and showing us the right way to hold the guitar and to change chords. If we could not find a teacher, and books were not available to us then we learnt what music we could from the radio or records, piecing together how to make the music come out of the instrument.
Video guitar lessons present the best aspects of traditional one-on-one or group guitar lessons combined with the permanent record of the theory and history that you usually learn from books or by talking with your teacher.
Now through the magic of video, guitar lessons can be presented to us again and again, showing us how to place our fingers, the fine points of acoustic clawhammer picking, and what pentatonic scales sound like, all in high definition video. Not only do we see the hands of a real guitar player showing us the chord changes but the hands are twice their real size and can be slowed down if we are having a hard time understanding the lesson.
There are video lessons of impressive quality for any style of guitar playing.
If you are a beginner you can find the basic first steps in guitar playing explained by an experienced teacher. If you are an experienced guitarist who wants to expand your knowledge, you can find advanced or specialised courses in lead guitar or jazz or flamenco guitar to introduce you help you explore new musical territory. If your guitar course is on video you can keep it and watch it many times.
One advantage of video guitar lessons is that your video teacher doesn’t expect anything from you. You can be as stupid or bumbling as you like and the teacher on video will not bat an eyelid. He will patiently go through the whole lesson again without so much as a sigh or a roll of the eyes. And you only have to pay him once.
So video guitar lessons have many of the advantages of expensive lessons with live teachers without unnecessary expense and inconvenience of travelling to and from a teacher with whom you might not have a good working relationship.
Throughout his solo career and his career with The Who, Pete Townshend has played (and destroyed) a large variety of guitars.
In the early days with The Who, Townshend played 6-string and 12-string Rickenbacker semi-hollow electric guitars primarily (particularly the Rose-Morris UK-imported models with special f-holes). However, as instrument-smashing became increasingly integrated into The Who’s concert sets, he switched to more durable and resilient (and sometimes cheaper) guitars for smashing, such as the Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster and various Danelectro models. In the late 1960s, Townshend began playing Gibson SG models almost exclusively, specifically the Special models. He used this guitar at the Woodstock and Isle of Wight shows in 1969 and 1970.
By 1972, Gibson changed the design of the SG Special which Townshend had been using previously, and thus he began using other guitars. For much of the 1970s, he used a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, some with only two mini-humbucker pickups and others modified with a third pickup. He can be seen using several of these guitars in the documentary “The Kids Are Alright”, although in the studio he often played a Gretsch guitar, most notably on the album Who’s Next.
During the 1980s, Townshend mainly used Rickenbackers and Telecaster-style models built for him by Schecter and various other luthiers. Since the late-1980s, Townshend has used the Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster, with Lace-Sensor pickups, both in the studio and on tour. Some of his Stratocaster guitars feature a piezo pick-up system to simulate acoustic guitar tones. This piezo system is controlled by an extra volume control behind the guitar’s bridge.
Townshend has used a number of other electric guitars, including various Gretsch, Gibson, and Fender models. He has also used Guild, Takamine and Gibson J-200 acoustic models. One Gretsch was a vintage model given to him by Joe Walsh.
There are several Gibson Pete Townshend signature guitars, such as the Pete Townshend SG, the Pete Townshend J-200, and three different Pete Townshend Les Paul Deluxes. The SG was clearly marked as a Pete Townshend limited edition model and came with a special case and certificate of authenticity, signed by Pete himself. There has also been a Pete Townshend signature Rickenbacker limited edition guitar.
He also used the Gibson ES-335, one of which he donated to the Hard Rock Cafe. Townshend also used a Gibson EDS-1275 double neck very briefly around 1968, and a Fender XII Guitar for the studio sessions for Tommy for the 12 strings guitar parts. http://pete_townshend.totallyexplained.com/
Learn to set up your guitar with this free e-book!! Basic Guitar Set-up 101
by Charles Tauber
The info in this book strictly applies to steel string
acoustic guitars, but the basic theory is the same for classical and
electric guitars, as well as a wide variety of other fretted string
instruments. Download it here!
The book is in PDF format. If you do not have the Acrobat Reader, get it here.
