Category: Articles

A Guide to Buying an Acoustic Guitar

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

Music is something that most of us cannot live without. It has become such an integral part of our lives that we have become spoilt for choice when it comes to pleasing our ears. But amongst the endless cornucopia of sounds, melodies and instruments stands the Acoustic Guitar. The Guitar is probably the most played and most used instrument of all time. This is mainly due to its affordability and ease of use. Many people adore it and if you’re one of them then might’ve thought of picking a Guitar yourself. If so, read on! 

  • Like all major purchases in life, the biggest factor is price. Many people like going for cheap things only to realise that they were duped. It is therefore of great importance that when you want to purchase a guitar, compare prices with a wide range of models and places. A good quality guitar is one that has a strong body and overall integrity.
  • The strings should be of high quality. Low quality strings wear out easily and do not last long. You might be thinking “I can always replace them, so why does it matter?” Well, in the long run it’s going to cost more to perpetually replace the strings than if you were to have high quality ones in the first place.
  • One should also make sure that the tuner is of high quality. This is because some of the tuners are weak and end up breaking easily. This may also be expensive as you have to go back to the shop to buy new tuners.
  • In this day and age, branding is of utmost importance. Always check out the company behind the Guitar. Companies usually have different styles and philosophies when it comes to instrument making. So be sure to do a little research about the company before you decide. My personal recommendation is Planet. They’re one of the best companies out there that constantly produce quality guitars.
  • The durability of the guitar should also be put into consideration. Some guitars can last for decades while some barely make it in the first year. 
  • Size of a guitar also matters when buying it. Acoustic guitars come in various shapes and sizes. Your own body size will be a big factor in this, be sure to feel physically comfortable with what you’re buying.
  • The casing of the guitar should also be considered as it’ll be needed for storage and transport. Poor storage will take precious years away from your Guitar, so ensure that the casing is of good quality.
  • Also, ensure that the store provides a decent warranty for your guitar. It’s a pain to have to give up the whole thing when some small part breaks down. 
  • Most importantly, you’ve got to feel for the guitar that you’re buying. I know it sounds cheesy but a guitar is a very personal thing and it’ll be with you for a long time, so make sure you feel some sort of connection with it before the big purchase.

How to Take Care of Your Guitar

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

When you play a musical instrument, it is quite natural that you would be quite possessive about it and would take good care to ensure that the instrument is in tip-top condition. After all, if you have taken the trouble to learn playing the guitar painstakingly and have chosen your guitar from a choice of thousands of guitars, you will also be careful as to how you take care of it, as it becomes a part of your very life and almost like an integral member of your family. More than that, if you are an avid guitar player, it is quite true that you would consider your guitar to be a true and close friend.

One of the key aspects of taking care of the guitar is to ensure that you keep playing it regularly. After all, if you leave your guitar in the corner, you cannot expect it to be in top condition. One of the keys to taking care of your guitar is to ensure that you take good care of the strings that make up the guitar. You have to be sure that you are able to decipher the condition of the strings of the guitar. If the strings seem dull and listless, o if they are ready to break, then you must be sure to change the strings immediately. When it comes to changing the strings, one can take a couple of months or so to change these, based on your usage of the guitar. 

The second aspect of taking care of a guitar involves ensuring that the guitar is properly tuned. You can use a tuning fork to tune the guitar or perhaps an electronic tuner to tune the strings. If you are net savvy, then you have a lot of online tuners to help you with the task too. If you love your guitar and enjoy playing it, it makes immense sense for you to keep it well tuned so that you do not have to scurry to tune it when you need to play the guitar.

Another immensely important thing to consider when taking care of your guitar involves getting a good guitar case. Guitars are made of fine wood that is well weathered in order to make it possible for you to get the high quality timbre. So you cannot afford to be careless with the guitar. In fact, this is what the guitar case is for, so that even if you go out with the guitar, it is well protected from wear and tear. At the same time, you have to be careful that your guitar is free from the extremes of temperature as that would protect it from cracking, swelling and also shrinkage.

One of the best ways to take care of your guitar is to take it to the guitar technician at least once a year. This is important as there could be some flaws or defects in the guitar that you as a layperson may not be able to know about, which the technician can correct.

Taking care of your guitar is not really as difficult as some people think it to be.

Some Great Tips For Learning The Guitar

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

The World is filled with people who want to learn the guitar. In this day and age, the guitar has become a symbol of “coolness” and “class”. As such, there are hordes of people online looking for quick and easy courses and tips to better their playing skill. 

Here are some tips just for all you budding guitarists out there.

  1. Learn the Parts of the Guitar: It is important to first of all familiarize yourself with the parts of the guitar and their functions. The Guitar is made up of 7 main parts. They are the head, tuning pegs, fret board, position marker, sound hole, body and bridge. 
  • The head is the top part of a guitar that provides anchorage for the tuning pegs. It also supports the strings as they are attached to the tuners. The tuning pegs are used for tuning the strings when they become out of tune. The fret board is the part that bridges the body and the head of the guitar. It also contains the position marker which helps the guitarist in locating chords.
  • The sound hole is positioned at the centre of the instrument. The strings pass over the hole which amplifies the sound. The body is the whole casing of the guitar.
  1. Understanding the Fret Board: The fret board is the most important part of the guitar. It contains all the keys from A to G. Without the frets, a guitar cannot be played. 
  • Open chords: Some of the chords are open, meaning one has to open the chord while playing to produce the required tune. Some of these chords include E on the first string, A of the second string, D of the third string of the fourth string C of the fifth String and F of the sixth string.
  • Barred chords: Also known as closed chords, one has to press the chords before strumming to produce the desired tune.
  1. Music Interval: A good guitarist should learn the music interval of each song he/she is trying to master. Listening to a wide variety of songs can help you hone this ability to identify intervals. These dictate the strumming speed. Slow paced songs have wide music intervals. Alternatively, songs with a faster pace have narrower intervals.
  1. Changing of Strings: This is easier to do then it sounds. String changing is part of instrument maintenance and something you’ll have to do eventually. The first step is to use the tuning pegs to sag the string which makes for easy removal. Proceed to remove the strings and replace with new ones. Lastly, tighten the tuning pegs and you’re done.
  1. How to Tune: The tuning pegs are used for tuning the guitar. By rotating the tuning peg, you tune the string that has been attached to that specific tuner.

Top 3 Most Effective Ways of Learning to Play the Guitar

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

Learning the guitar is a lifelong journey that many begin and few finish. People master the guitar through a huge variety of means. Among these, there are certain habits and paths that budding guitarists can take to quicken this long and arduous journey. Here are 3 very effective ways to increased learning.

  1. The first way is to have interest and great passion in guitar playing. Love is an engine. Most of us would climb mountains just to see a single smile from the girl or guy of our dreams. Passion and undying interest are keys to success in any venture you take. And it’s no different when it comes to the art of guitar playing. When someone has passion for the instrument, the learning process becomes enjoyable and way easier. Passion propels us to spend time and effort and we all know that practice makes perfect. 

There were two guys, John and Adam. John picked up the guitar because his father wanted him to learn a new skill. He was forced to attend guitar lessons and although he did practice diligently, his involvement with guitar playing was motivated by a sense of duty rather than actual passion. He gave it up after he was free to choose for himself. 

Adam, however, was different, since young he had always wanted to play the guitar. He had seen Santana live and was awe struck by the whole performance. His passion drove him. He willingly put in the effort and time to practice and in just a few years, he became a highly sought after guitarist. You got to love what you do. 

  1. Another effective way is by having good listening skills. For one to be able to play an instrument well, it is imperative to have a good ear for music. This includes an appreciation for the different styles out there and the ability to recognise the sound of a guitar. If you have this, it’ll be way easier for you to understand the wide range of tunes, melodies and rhythms that have enraptured our society for so long. Having a good ear will also enable you to be creative as you get to hear the many different ways of playing the same instrument. 

Having good listening skills is especially important when you’re just starting out. It’ll boost the process because you are constantly on the audio “lookout” for a better way to play. Good listening skills are also required when you’re playing with a band or with other people in general. It’ll help you get used to sudden changes in tune or tempo and adapt to people’s unique styles and musical idiosyncrasies.

  1. Lastly and by far the most essential, is to practise hard. After all that’s said and done, you can never get good if you do not get down and actually do the work. For someone to become a great guitarist, one has to put in countless hours of practice, practice and more practice. Even if you’re some natural born guitar god, you’ll need to sit down and play. Even the best guitarist was a newbie at some point. It was only through hours of sweat, blood and tears that they refined their skills to such legendary proportions. 

As a parting note, keep this in mind. It is not the most talented or the strongest or the fastest that will succeed. But the one who will never give up. 

Top 10 Essential Guitar Tips for the Beginner

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

For beginners, learning the acoustic guitar can be a challenging process that is often accompanied with many disappointments. However, here are some tried and tested tips that’ll give the budding guitarist a relatively bump free learning experience.

  1. Find a guitar that fits your size. It is important to feel physically comfortable with the instrument you are playing. This helps create a connection between you and the guitar which will make the learning process easier and more enjoyable.
  2. When you’re just starting out, it’s recommended that you master pick holding. If you get the habit early on, it becomes way easier in the long run. People I know who did it this way ended up being extremely good players, more so than the average guy.
  3. Learn to self tune your guitar. After all, you will not always be playing in the presence of your coach. Knowing how to tune your guitar is the most basic and essential skill for any learner. You could start by learning how to use a digital tuner and then move on to just using your ears.
  4. When playing, it’s a pretty good idea to keep your fingers and palms clean and dry. This provides better grip and will cause less wear on your strings.
  5. Always have good posture, especially so when you’re just starting out. Good posture gives you stability, comfort and confidence. This, in turn, helps you to strum and change chords better.
  6. Change your guitar strings regularly. The tensile strength within guitar strings is what determines the quality of the tunes played. Therefore, learn to change the strings by yourself and do this regularly.
  7. Use a capo; this is a clamp that you use to modify the tensile strength of your guitar strings. If your guitar does not have this tool, then you need to buy one as soon as possible. You can also learn to tune your guitar using the capo from online lessons.
  8. Do not be discouraged by the calluses. Calluses are painful spots in the fingertips that occur in beginners. This happens because the skin around the fingertips rubs against the rough strings so often that it causes wear and tear. This is inevitable. Instead of feeling annoyed, you should feel a sense of achievement when you see these calluses. It just means you’ve been practicing a lot lately.
  9. Be one with music theory; a good grounding in theory classes is what will prepare you to be a professional player.
  10. Get a good teacher. Period. I cannot stress how important this is, you must get a good teacher. It is as they say; you can only be as good as your teacher. The choice of a teacher is therefore one of the most significant decisions that you will make in your guitar playing journey.

Learning the Guitar? Top 5 Beginner Mistakes to Avoid

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

There are many people who can play the guitar, yet only a precious few ever end up doing so at a professional level. Many even quit within the first month of learning. If you have considered quitting, you are not alone and the good news is that you don’t have to!

Below are five of the most common mistakes that many beginners make. These mistakes cause discouragement and eventual burn out. If you keep away from these mistakes, you are likely to learn your guitar lessons faster and proceed to become a better player.

  1. Telling yourself that ‘I can’t make it’: Just in learning new skills, it is often easy for the beginner to listen to the negative voice that tells him or her that it’s impossible or it wouldn’t work. It is therefore important that you dress yourself with a positive attitude. Other than attitude, other factors such as physical strain and the tough discipline that is demanded for a guitar leaner are also factors that keep off beginners. However the joy of playing guitar at a professional league cannot compare to these teething problems.
  1. Over ambitiousness: this is observed among learners of guitar playing who want to make great leaps in a short period. Skills such as tuning, using the capo, strumming and so on all require lots of time to learn and master. Do it too fast and it would lead to burn out and also produce unseasoned guitar players. 
  1. Finger picking: trying to push the keys on the fret board using one finger can lead to quick giving up. This is because it would not only give the learner a poor tune, but will also make it a very slow process of learning.
  1. Not visualizing the chord playing: visualization referrers to the player seeing which finger is pulling the strings. This will be enabling you to learn how to place your fingers on the chord without having to check.
  1. Inadequate finger strength: because guitar playing involves pulling the strings in a tough manner, it will often result in painful fingers. For most learners, this is the stage where they give up. This is a grand mistake that steals off the opportunity to make a pro guitarist. It should be understood that such painful finger muscles are a stage in getting the finger to be used to pulling the chords. 

The selection of the above five common mistakes is based on frequently asked questions researched from several websites. The best way to learn fast and avoid these mistakes is to find a good teacher. 

While there are several free causes or tutorials on guitar playing from websites, they are never equivalent to a human or real time coach. The benefits associated with the real time teacher far out way the costs. It does not eliminate the need for strict discipline required to produce star guitar players. 

Find the right teacher, get the correct instruments and avoid the above five mistakes and you are on your way to stardom. 

Top 3 Ways to Tune Your Guitar

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

There are millions of people who love to play the guitar and with good reason. If you are feeling down and you need some company, non judgmental and accepting, you can play a guitar. This will not only lift your spirits but also ensure that you spend many happy moments in personal reflection or with family and friends. 

When it comes to taking good care of your guitar, you will have to make sure that you are able to tune your guitar. While one option is to have your friends tune your guitar for you each and every time, there could be instances when it is not possible. This means that if you do not know how to tune your guitar, you will be handicapped and always at the mercy of others. At the same time, there is no fun in playing a guitar that is anything less than perfectly tuned.  This is why you should take the trouble to learn how to tune the guitar and by yourself. 

While there are quite a few ways in which you can tune the guitar, is always better to learn how to tune the guitar yourself, using your ears so that you do not have to depend on others.

If you want to tune your guitar, here are the top 3 ways in which you can do so:

  1. Using Electronic Tuners: Electronic tuners have always been quite popular with those who are just starting out and especially those who would like to effectively tune the guitar on their own. These tuners are readily available in the market and one can use tuners that have in-built microphones that can decipher the sound when you play the strings. The sound is captured by the tuner which then compares it to the kind of sound that should have been made. The meter or a special light indicator will let you know how close or far the sound was. In this way, you can keep adjusting the string till the meter indicates that the sound is perfectly in tune with the desired sound.
  1. Manual Tuning: Manual tuning is not as tough as it is made out to be. You start off by making use of a reference pitch for tune comparison. You can start using a low E –string, as it is the 6th string in a 6-string guitar. It is easy to get the reference pitch by using a tuning fork, a piano or perhaps a midi file. You need to turn the tuning peg of the sixth string so well that the pitch of the guitar sounds exactly how it should and is in harmony with the pitch of the 6th strings. After this is done, you can move on to the 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and the 1st strings till all the strings have been tuned.
  1. Online Tuning: There are quite a few online tuners or virtual tuners that people can use to tune their guitars. These online tuners help guitarists to trigger the notes and then tune each string by matching it with the note being played online. 

Advantages of Learning How to Play the Guitar Online

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

There are a lot of people who love to play the guitar. It makes them feel as if they are rock stars, which explains why there is so much interest in this. There are a lot of young folks who love to get their hands on a guitar and try to play it. But just play acting and actually mastering the instrument are two very different things. In order to be adept at playing the guitar, one has to take the trouble and go through the whole learning process. While a lot of people take lessons from teachers and attend music class offline, many others are now looking online for guitar courses as well.

One of main advantages of learning how to play the guitar online is that you can do so wherever and whenever you want. This is the magic of self paced learning, where your life and normal duties or responsibilities do not have to be on standby just because you want to learn a new skill. With traditional music schools, teachers and classes, everything is pre set on fixed schedules. With online learning, however, there is perfect flexibility in terms of when and where you want to learn. If you feel like getting into the online course at night within the comfortable confines of your home, you can do so without any hassle.

Learning online provides various methods of instruction and the luxury of choice. You can literally choose how you learn. You will be able to look at various charts, e-books and pictures that will help you get to learn guitar better and also according to your own pace and learning ability. In an offline class, there are some fast learners and others are slow, which means that fast learners become impatient and the slow learners are unable to pick up better nuances of guitar playing. In addition to this, you can also listen to various guitar players and midi or wav files online which will help you to learn how to play the guitar quite effectively. 

In other cases, it is also possible to look at video clippings and lessons that are so very effective in helping you get a hold of the intricacies of playing a guitar. It is also possible to look at various masters of guitar as they play this wonderful instrument and learn special tips from them.

The beauty of learning how to play online is that there’s such a huge variety of courses out there. There’s a course for every level of proficiency. If you’re a total newbie, you go for introductory and beginner courses. If you’ve got some experience, you go for the intermediate courses. And even if you’re already an expert player, there are courses out there that can help you get even better. 

In addition, there are even courses on the various styles of play as well. Examples include acoustic, bass, blues, jazz etc. All of which require specific knowledge to master. 

Everything is truly at the touch of your fingertips when it comes to online learning, so go wild with it! 

 How to Read Guitar Tablature

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

When you want to learn how to play the guitar, there are some tools as well as aids that you can use in order to help you with your quest. One of these is learning how to use guitar tabs or tablature, which has been widely accepted around the world as being the acceptable way of learning how to learn a guitar. There are many people who learn to play by ear, by watching a friend play or perhaps by learning from a guitar teacher. There are some others who also learn online that is in some ways effective in helping people learn the intricacies of guitar playing.

But it is said and not without good reason that one needs to take care that one learns lessons in depth. Reading music is no easy task and it takes a lot of work to read music as well as the various notations that go into it. While the informal approach may be expedient and rather easy, the real test of how committed a person is to the pursuit of music is based on whether the person takes the trouble to read the guitar tablature. It is also a misconception to think that reading music and learning guitar tablature needs to be learnt when one is very young, because it is not correct in the least.

One of the important aspects of reading guitar tablature is that it makes the task of reading notations quite simple. You can even download these from the net and find the time when you can read at the notations quite easily. One of the first things that you should know is that the tablature consists of 6 lines where each of the lines represents a string of the 6-stringed guitar. The lowermost line stands for the ‘E’ strings and the second line represents the ‘A’ string. There are also quite a few numbers that are contained in the middle of the lines, which are the strings. These numbers are used to denote the particular fret that the tab indicates that you have to play. In the case of the number ‘0’ it is an indication that one has to play the open string.

Another important aspect of reading guitar tablature is to remember that playing chords it is certainly not as tough as it seems to be. The tablature is able to indicate the chords in a simple manner. When the tab shows quite a few numbers, it means that all the notes have to be played together. Sometimes the tab also indicates the chord name so that those playing the chords may be able to decipher these easily and play accordingly.

One of the aspects of guitar tablature is that it is unique to guitarists only. In the normal course, those who know how to read normal notation can read notation for any instrument. This is why those who do not play guitar and do not know the tab will not be able to decipher it at all.

Top 5 Benefits of Learning the Guitar

Posted on by Guitar Lessons Nelson

Among all musical instruments, the guitar stands out as being the most popular. Many people find guitar playing very ‘cool’ and is deemed as an image enhancing pursuit, this perhaps has a lot to do with the ‘rockstar’ image the instrument conveys. 

But that apart, it goes without saying that a lot of school kids, college students and even young professionals love to learn the guitar. This is obvious from the fact that guitar classes are burgeoning and there are so many online courses also which seem to be bursting at the very seams. 

While there is a certain dowdy and rather traditional image that learning and playing the piano seems to have, the guitar does not suffer from such bad press. While a lot of the joy of guitar playing seems to come from just being able to create tunes on the guitar, there are other benefits as well from this passion. Here are 5 of these benefits:

  1. Mental Ability and Agility: There have been many types of research that indicates that playing the guitar is good for your mental ability and agility too. For instance, when learning to play the guitar, you have to assign a lot of things to your memory which jogs the grey matter of your brain to a very large extent. When children learn how to play the guitar, they have to memorize chords and charts, aspects of songs and even music theory as well as other aspects that help in keeping the brain quite agile. This also helps in multi-tasking as you have to use both your right brain as well as the lefty brain in order to ensure that you are able to do a good task while playing the guitar.
  1. Self Esteem: Playing the guitar great enhances the self esteem and confidence of any person. If you know how to play the guitar, and are able to perform, at whatever level, you get a lot of personal satisfaction. This also greatly boosts your self confidence as you feel more assured of your capabilities
  1. Social Skills: When you are young, it seems as if playing the guitar can serve the purpose of enhancing your social desirability. A guitar is always a great talking point whether it is in the college canteen or a train that you decide to start playing. A lot of guys also get some valuable help with dates from attractive girls by means of guitars.
  1. Musical Inclinations: Playing the guitar is quite beneficial for those who want to hone their musical appreciation and skills also. Learning musical notations as well as chords also helps one to develop oneself musically and perhaps take up music as a professional artist or a music composer and director too.
  1. The Fun Element: Playing the guitar spices up your life and makes it much easier for you to spend time with yourself, friends and family too. It can also help to brighten up the mood when you are feeling low or blue.

There are indeed so many benefits to learning how to play the guitar that you can start learning right away!