Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free

Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free

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As a guitar player you have probably trawled the internet looking for guitar lessons. Whether or not you want to learn to play guitar for free, your vision probably involved learning songs form tabs as well as getting as much theory and technique exercises you can handle.

Ten years ago a guy named Jon Broderick went looking for websites featuring high quality guitar lessons and, the legend goes, he had so little success, he went and made his own. The outcome was Guitar Tricks, another site that gives you access to their lessons in return for a monthly subscription. Not unlike Jamplay, but Guitar Tricks has been collecting guitar lessons for ten years, plus they have a collection of twenty-four free guitar lessons that you can try. Your free lessons are of the same quality as the lessons you get with your monthly subscription, taught by the same teachers who conduct the lessons for subscribers to Guitar Tricks.




These days four-hundred thousand guitarists take advantage of Guitar Tricks' lessons each month. And no wonder, because there are lessons in any genre you could name - acoustic, rock, metal, country, classical, jazz . . . and you can take lessons in special areas like chords, sound effects, harmonics, bottleneck, popping and guitar tricks. If you are not clear on whether your favorite guitar style has a name, you can simply request lessons based on the music of particular guitar players like Chet Atkins, Duane Allman, Stanley Jordan, Andres Segovia or Jimmy Page.

Your membership of Guitar Tricks gets you full access to a buttload of tutorials, sheet music, video lessons and backing tracks. Not only do you get the benefit of the Guitar Tricks guys' years of archiving guitar lessons but their content is updated every day.

One resource for beginner guitar players I'm always recommending is the collective expertise that you can find in guitar forums. Guitar Tricks has a forum that holds the records of questions and answers between thousands of guitarists. Would you believe there's over two-hundred thousand posts? And not only that, you can also have feedback from the Guitar Tricks teachers on any nagging question your brain can formulate.



Guitar Strum Patterns

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A typical issue that beginner guitar players come up against is the lack of guitar strum patterns in sheet music and tab. It sure would be nice if all tablature and sheet music had the guitar strum patterns included. It sounds logical, doesn’t it? You get the notes, the chords and the lyrics, but not strumming patterns.

You could even imagine a range of alternative strumming patterns included in written music. For example, you could have the pattern used by the artist on the record or a simplified version that would suit a beginner guitarist. You can tell from the sheet music where to change chords in a song, but for a beginner it would be much less of a chore if a strumming pattern was given.

This point of view seems to be purely that of a newbie guitar player. More experienced guitarists seem to hold the view that fooling around with guitar strum patterns is a natural part of the guitar player’s training. The key is to start with your own “near enough” idea of the song’s strumming just to give you enough practice to get the chord changes right. This process will give your muscles and your mind the kind of practice you need to make up your own strum patterns.

You can start the process of making up your own guitar strum patterns by listening to the song and getting the hang of the rhythm used by the guitarist. You should be able to come up with something that will at least fit in with the song. And remember to bear in mind the time signature of the song and to keep your metronome handy.

The final aim of learning to play songs on the guitar is to play YOUR way. Sure, many guitar players take pride in reproducing the sound of the original artist, but that’s already been done. You can come up with your own totally original arrangement of the song. Start with a basic pattern that fits the song’s rhythm. For a song in 4/4 time, as most popular songs are, a Down Down-Up Up-Down pattern works well. If you look on the internet for guitar strum patterns, you will see that the way of writing strum patterns is simply to use the initials like this: D DU UD.

Your search for guitar strum patterns will benefit greatly by a little visit to YouTube or a similar video host. Watching experienced guitar players play their versions of your favorite songs will be extremely helpful.

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Category: Chords

Guitar Song Sheet Music

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If you want to learn how to play the guitar you will need to consider how you should go about learning your first guitar song – sheet music or tab. Standard musical notation which we generally call “sheet music”, and guitar tablature, or “tabs”, are the two languages used to write guitar songs and instrumentals.

Guitar tabs are a quick way of learning where to put your fingers in order to play a song or finger a chord. Guitar song sheet music is more comprehensive language that not only tells you where to put your fingers but also where the notes you are playing fit into the full range of notes available on the guitar plus the time signature of the piece.

The understanding of a guitar song that you gain from sheet music allows you to get inside the music and improve on the existing arrangement, add instrumental solos or make the song fit more into your personal style. If you learn from tabs it will take many run-throughs of the song to reach the same intimate understanding that one sight-reading will give an experienced sheet music reader.

Sheet music for guitar songs and instrumental pieces takes more time to learn but the time used is an investment in your future as a guitar player. While guitar tab will give you the basic information needed to play a song in a short space of time, the ability to read sheet music gives you much more of an edge. If you research the question of how to learn your guitar song – sheet music or tab, you will find many guitarists will tell you stories of missing out on work with bands because they can’t read sheet music.

The thing with sheet music for guitar songs is that it is very confronting for people when they are considering learning to read it. The beginner guitar player wants to start playing. To show their friends how well they can play. It is natural for a novice to consider the short route of learning to read guitar tabs over the unknown territory of learning what the little black dots mean and the musical theory that goes along with it.

Learning to read guitar song sheet music can be seen as a series of steps. First, there’s understanding that there are only seven notes to learn. Next, you learn the six notes found on the open strings of the guitar. Once you have learnt these bits of info plus the C major scale in the first position, only about a week will have gone by and you will be on your way to a full understanding of guitar music.

After a year as a sheet music reading guitar player you will have an enormous advantage over a guitarist who started at the same time as you but who chose to only learn tabs and chord charts.

Category: Free Lessons
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Flamenco Guitarists – A Survey For Flamenco Guitar Fans

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Flamenco emerged as a musical force in the late nineteenth century. Flamenco is the musical expression embraced by Andalusian gypsies, and was originally a form of singing. Dancers – and guitarists to accompany them – came along later as Flamenco developed into an art form that people from other parts of the world wanted to witness.

The flamenco guitarists that I will list here are guitar players who grew up learning the rhythms of flamenco and who embraced guitar playing from an early age. All guitarists have their critics amongst flamenco afficianados, so we need to look briefly at who is thought to be good and who is not so good, and why.

Ramon Montoya is at the top of the chain of flamenco guitarists whose work enjoyed world-wide popularity due to the emergence of the recording industry. He was the first flamenco guitarist to emulate the classical guitarists that were emerging at the turn of the century, by creating melodic falsetas, or “themes” that fitted into the character of the flamenco forms of song and dance. He was the first flamenco guitarist to remove himself from the singers and dancers to give concerts as a soloist.

Possibly the most influential flamenco guitarist ever, Nino Ricardo began his career in the nineteen-twenties. His advanced guitar technique and lyrical approach to the guitar made him the idol of flamenco guitarists even after the new wave of guitar players emerged in the nineteen-seventies. His recordings are distinctive due to his habit of humming as he played the guitar and his lack of fear of making technical mistakes.

The dominant force in flamenco guitar playing in the mid twentieth century was Sabicas. Sabicas made his debut as a professional guitarist while still a child, and became famous after relocating to New York and making records. He pioneered multi-track recording and dazzled concert audiences with his blinding speed.

By the early nineteen-seventies, practically all flamenco guitar records featured guitarists either reproducing the music of Ramon Montoya, Nino Ricardo and Sabicas, or who were heavily inspired by them. Paco De Lucia changed the face of flamenco guitar playing totally. Although the influence of the early masters could still be heard in his recordings, Paco also brought influences from jazz into his solo flamenco guitar records.

The early nineteen-seventies heard the music of two other young flamenco guitar virtuosos – Manolo Sanlucar and Serranito. Serranito’s technique led him to record music that was perhaps a little too busy for the tastes of many flamenco guitar afficianados and Paco De Lucia’s style somehow had the edge over Manolo Sanlucar in the popularity stakes but all three were the spearhead of a new wave of flamenco guitar playing which inspired interest in flamenco guitar of young people all over the world.

There is a continuous stream of flamenco guitarists coming up through the ranks. Names like Paco Pena, Vicente Amigo, Oscar Herrero and Tomatito are names to look for in music stores and on YouTube.

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Category: Acoustic Guitars
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