Archive for: April 2008

There’s a new generation of guitar fans coming up from the realms of air guitar and Guitar Hero. These people want to learn to play the guitar like the guitar players of decades gone by. At Vanderbilly they can get their opportunity. It’s a guitar lesson site where the memberships are free and the video guitar lessons are clear, crisp and loaded with the kind of info you want to hear. And another thing - you can request a lesson. Yep, you can post your request and they will find somebody to upload a video lesson for you. At least they will give it some serious thought.
“You can easily learn every riff of your favorite songs by your favorite guitar players. Don’t spend weeks trying to figure this stuff out, let us do the dirty work. There’s no need to learn tablature or read music. Simply watch the slow motion videos and listen to the instructors as they share their secrets and demystify the guitar parts you love. You can even log into your own private area and view your favorite videos at regular or half speed. You will finally have an insiders view of the best solos and guitar part ever written. We explore the styles of Page, Clapton, Hendrix, Van Halen, Vai, SRV, Eric Johnson, Schon, Santana, Satriani and the rest of your favorite guitar players. Their secrets are exposed in slow motion video by professional instructors.”
That’s right, you don’t have to learn that nasty old music, just start playing right away! Doesn’t get any better than that! They also have a forum where you might accidentally pick up something worthwhile.
Learn to play guitar like [fill in the blank] at Vanderbilly

Technorati Tags: learn to play the guitar, video guitar lessons, slow motion videos

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wikiHow is a great place to learn very specialized skills. I thought I would present a couple of these mini tutorials for guitar players.
How to Rapidly Learn to Play the Acoustic Guitar Yourself
“Successfully learning how to play guitar is within the grasp of most people, yet many beginners give up too quickly. Frequently, quitting beginners will blame their lack of time to practice and that playing hurts their fingers. The problem is that they just don’t practice enough. This page can’t give you more time to practice, but it will show you how to successfully become an adequate guitar player without the expense of paid instruction.”
How to Rapidly Learn to Play the Acoustic Guitar Yourself
How to Start a Rock Band
“You don’t have to study music for years to start a rockin’ band, and you don’t have to spend a fortune on gear. It’s a great way to have some fun with friends, plus it exercises your creativity and your brain cells too. Learn three or four basic chords and, voilà! — you can play nearly anything. To start off, you’ll need some basic equipment and a place to play.”
How to Start a Rock Band
How to Guitar Swing
Ever wonder how guitar players swing their guitars around their backs to catch it and resume playing? This normally goes with the “Hardcore/Metal core/or anything -core” music type. The guitarist, or even bassist, will swing his/her guitar around their backs and still play! It’s actually quite simple. Say, as soon as a breakdown is occurring and the other guitarist guitar squeals, it is the perfect time to guitar swing.
How to Guitar Swing

You can find lots of handy lessons on practical subjects like:

How to Buy Your First Guitar
How to Tune a Guitar
How to Change Guitar Strings
How to Get Started Playing Hard Rock and Metal Guitar

. . . to more esoteric areas of expertise like:

How to Play Guitar Like Eddie Van Halen
How to Be a Guitar God
How to Become a Rockstar

Technorati Tags: tutorials for guitar players, How to Rapidly Learn to Play the Acoustic Guitar, How to Start a Rock Band, How to Guitar Swing

Here is a little tool for guitar players who enjoy building their own chords. I have been fooling around with a nifty gadget called Virtual Guitar. If you start at the desktop you can click on links where you can see the notes of scales on the guitar’s neck. You can play the scales by clicking on the notes. You can choose from major, natural minor, melodic minor and pentatonic scales. Another view of the guitar is devoted to the exotic Hungarian minor scales and peaceful sounding whole tone scales. The “guitar builder” mode allows you to generate your own chord diagrams. You can hear the notes by toggling the sound on or off. The most hypnotic aspect of the virtual guitar is the “guitar player” where you can build chords and either play the individual notes or strum the chord. You also have the choice of playing a seven string guitar plus the use of some basic effects. All in all this is a great tool for working on musical ideas when you have your laptop with you but not your guitar. Of course, there is the added aspect of being able to play notes and chords without the burden of worrying about hitting wrong notes or not playing cleanly. Be sure to click on the links at the top of the site to explore the free lessons on scales and chords plus a note on how to take screenshots of your chord diagrams.