10 Realistic Tips For Improving Your Guitar Playing

One of the more trying areas of playing the guitar is when you get to point where you are no longer showing any improvement in your playing. All guitarists run into this same problem regardless of their skill level and ask the same question, “why is my guitar playing not up to the level that I would like it to be, and what must I do to get there?”

To make matters even worse we see and hear our favorite guitar players almost everyday, and it seems as thought they are always coming up with new tricks and are constantly improving upon their skills. When we read about our favorite guitarists in magazines in order to learn how to do what they do this leaves us even more confused. Becoming a fantastic guitarist is no easy task. It is a lot harder then it looks.

What is the answer to becoming a successful guitarist? Although there is no single answer to solving every problem there are a lot of theories and concepts that may help you get through the sticking points that are holding you back from becoming the guitarist that you have always wanted to be.

One of the first things that you must understand is that you do not have to be a genius in order to become a fantastic guitarist. The top two things that you must posses if you want to be a great guitarist are commitment and desire. There is no such thing as a great guitarist that is not passionate about music. They did not get to be were they are by being lethargic and uninterested.

These guitarists took it upon their self’s to go ahead and continually learn new things.

It is guitarists that dare to challenge them self’s that take the chance of failure. This is where a lot of guitarist lose the fight with low self-worth and give up. The problem is not that they took the chance, but that they could not pick themselves up again. When you understand that failure is a part of the growing process, and that it takes a lot of practices to nail down some of the techniques, then you have just learned the first thing that you need to become a skilled guitarist.

I have put together a list of ideas that I believe every guitar player ought to try out.

Learn to Play Guitar by Ear

Picking up any new song by ear can be both extremely frustrating and wonderfully satisfying. The most frustrating part of learning any new song by ear is the amount of time you have to put in listening to the same song repeatedly. In most instances by the time you have figured out the song you are no longer interested in playing it, this has happened to me a number of times. In the past I would play a song that I really loved repeatedly until I was ready to throw my guitar out of the window, and give up in frustration.

A number of guitarists have a difficult time when it comes to learning a song by ear. The problem is speed, if you can’t hear what is being played how can you expect to learn how to play it? Even some of the most advanced guitarists have difficulty when it comes to learning a song by ear that is play at its normal speed.

Many guitar riffs and solos are played so fast and contain such difficult manoeuvres that it makes it almost impossible to learn them by ear. For example take a guitar solo that is played by Steve Vai, Jimmy Page, Eric Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, or Yngwie Malmsteen, in order to plainly hear and comprehend precisely what is being played by them is daunting task.

Wouldn't it make learning how to play the guitar so much simpler if you could only slow down the music? If you could slow down the music you would be able to hear each musical phrase note-for-note and have the time to duplicate these notes precisely as they are played.

Luckily, due to all of the advancements made in technology there is now software available that will slow down any piece of music for you!

Once you have the software you simply load any song that you want to learn into it, and play it back at any speed you want, without changing the pitch. With this type of software you can hear the precise notes, and even how they were played: using slides, hammer-ons, bends, pull-offs and so on. You have to be able to hear precisely what is going on in order to master demanding guitar riffs and solos. Without some kind of software for slowing down music it is almost impossible to learn to play the guitar by ear.

There are a couple of different types of software on the market, and I have tried them all. Some are good and some are just bad. The one that I use and recommend can be found by clicking on the following link:

 Riff Master Pro

Slow Down Any Guitar Solos, Guitar Riffs, And Music, this one is very reasonably priced, and it not only slows down music, but very importantly it does it without changing the pitch. Another great feature is that you can change the key that song is played in, for instance if you wanted to learn a song by Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan both of whom tune down their guitar a half step all you have to do is change the key of the song thus avoiding having to change the tuning on your guitar.



http://www.riffsnstrings.com/guitar_tips/learn_to_play_guitar_by_ear.htm

Adding Vibrato to Your Musical Phrasing

Out of all of the technical tools that a guitar play can posse, vibrato is probably one of the most expressive. Musical phrases that go on forever without the use of vibrato can sound dull and lifeless. Adding vibrato to your musical phrasing in the appropriate places and circumstances will make your phrasing much more exciting.

Classically trained singers spend years trying to master vibrato when they sing, where as a lot of guitar players do not spend much time if any trying to master vibrato. The majority of guitar teachers do not put much value on teaching this technique or just take vibrato for granted and unfortunately they do not emphasize the importance of learning this technique.

In my opinion the most expressive vibrato is one that is wide and played in a slow to medium speed. Although there are times a narrower vibrato is needed, typically over a soft and slow musical passage. At times a fast vibrato can be effective, but be careful when you use a fast vibrato, because it can produce a sound that is out of control and out of tune. I seldom use a narrow or fast vibrato and I never use a vibrato that is narrow and fast at the same time.

Following is a list of some common problems that a lot of inexperienced guitar players have with their vibrato.

The vibrato is so fast that it sounds like a tiny insect that is buzzing around your ears, and the notes typically sounds like they are out of control.

The vibrato is not wide enough in range, it is to narrow. Unless you are playing a soft and slow musical phrase a narrow vibrato will make the notes you are playing sound timid and faint.

Many inexperienced guitarists do not use vibrato enough causing notes to die out rapidly and sound lifeless and boring especially at the end of a musical phrases.

Some guitar players over use vibrato. Many inexperienced guitarists stuff in as much vibrato at possible. The overuse use of vibrato lessens its impact on the listener.

Perfect Your Guitar Sweep Picking Technique

If you are reading this piece then I am assuming that you have been practicing some sweep picking techniques and are struggling to improve it. If this is the case then read on, as I explain how you can avoid the four most common technical errors that many guitar players come across when they attempt to improve on their sweep picking technique.

Normally if you a problem in anyone of the four areas as described below you will have problems in all four areas to some degree. The good news is that as you improve in one area the others tend improve. Read on and you will understand why this is.

Separating the notes:

Many guitar players have troubles separating the individual notes of an arpeggio because they do not release their fingers from the notes that have been previously played, the results are that all of the notes ring together. Though keeping your fingers on the fret board goes along with the theory of minimum motion of the fingers, it goes against the rules of clean sweep picking: all notes have to sound individually and clearly! It is very tempting to want to reduce the motion of your fretting hand as much as possible, but you also have to make certain that the notes sound cleanly.

The secret is to find a balance between raising your fingers off of the fretted note after you have picked it, while being careful not to let your fingers come up so far from the strings of your guitar that it makes it hard to bring them back down to play the next series of notes. You need to learn how to lift your fingers slightly off of the strings after it has been struck to stop it from sounding, You will also have to learn how to mute that string with your picking hand.

Even though releasing your fingers from the fretted notes that you have just played is not an application of “minimum of motion”, it is required that you do this in order to play the technique clearly and cleanly. Although this makes perfectly good sense when reading about it, a lot of guitar players have a hard time with finding the correct relationship between the economy of motion and playing notes cleanly, not only when it comes to sweep picking, but all other techniques as well.

String Bending

We've learned some interesting new techniques in the past few lessons, but none that will give you as much trouble in the beginning as string bending. Bending strings is a technique used, when playing single note riffs and solos, to give the guitar a more "vocal" quality. Although it's a technique used mostly by lead guitar players, even three chord folk guitarists will call upon string bends from time to time.

Bending Technique

Bending the strings far enough to get the pitch to change (which is what we're trying to do) takes a good deal of effort. The key is to use three of your fingers to bend the string, instead of just the finger on the fret you're trying to bend. You accomplish this by placing your third finger on the fret you're trying to bend. Place your first and second fingers on the frets behind it, and exert pressure with all three fingers. Let's look at the first exercise.
  Start by fretting the note on the tenth fret of the second string, with your third finger. Your second finger should rest on the second string, ninth fret. Your first finger should rest on the second string, eighth fret. Our goal is to bend this note up one semi-tone (called a "half step"), and then return the note to it's original pitch. Play the tenth fret, then the 11th fret, so you can hear the proper pitch of the note you're trying to bend to. Then pick the note, and exert force in an upwards motion (towards you), while still putting some pressure on the string so it keeps ringing. Try and use all three fingers to bend the string, not just the third finger. Then, return the note to it's original pitch.

Chances are, when you first attempt this, you won't get the pitch to change much. This will be especially true if you try bending on an acoustic guitar - they are much harder to bend strings on. Be extremely patient... chances are you haven't used these muscles before, and they'll take time to strengthen. Keep practicing, and you'll get the hang of it eventually. Be sure and listen to the audio clip to hear what the bend should sound like.

A Harder Bending Technique 

Slayer's Kerry King's Top 3 Playing Tips

There's no one on Earth quite like Slayer's Kerry King. For over 20 years, the metal guitar master has defined and refined the meaning of the word 'heavy.'

 "Heavy is a sound," King told MusicRadar, "but it's also a state of mind. Basically, if you don't think heavy, you're not going to sound heavy - simple as that. Luckily, Slayer has always been about total impact and complete sonic overkill. You can't get any heavier than Slayer, but if you wanna try, good luck with that!"
During our conversation, which covered everything from Slayer's upcoming album Painted In Blood to answering many of your questions, King offered his 3 top playing tips. "I'm not saying that if you follow these rules you'll suddenly wind up sounding like me.
"In fact, you shouldn't try to sound like me. But we'll get to that..."

1. Don't worry about staying in key

"There's nothing that says playing out of key is wrong," says King. "Of course, if you're thinking of what's traditionally accepted and bound by the 'rules of music,' you might disagree. But to me, anything that sounds good is right. Or anything that sounds weird is right. Bend the rules.
"I never would have written some of my cooler riffs if I got all hung on what notes are in tune or what notes go together. Take In The Name Of God, which is totally edgy. It starts out with an open E chord and then I slide my index finger from a B to a B-flat. I think the overall tuning is in C#.
"Now, normally everybody would tell you that the sound of an E chord and a B-flat note don't go together, but to me it sounds awesome. Bottom line: whenever somebody says 'You can't do that, because it's musically incorrect,' just give 'em the middle finger and say, 'Fuck it, I like it.'"

2. Learn when to put the guitar down

"Man, when I go home from a tour, I don't touch the guitar sometimes for a month," King says. "I chill. I get involved in my hobbies, I kick back, I don't think about music.
"A lot of people will say, 'That's wrong. You've got to practice every day.' Why? Who said so? Some

Slide Guitar For Beginners

I’m not really an expert on slide guitar, so the following stuff is just for beginners. Slide guitar is an essential part of the Blues, I had to start with it. Duane Allman’s playing on “Layla and other assorted love songs” just blew me away, the same did EC unplugged. More than any other guitar technique it depends on the right feeling. The basics can be learned within a day, but to master it you need a long time.

Most slide guitar instructions start like “and now we use the open xyz tuning”. That means you can forget what you know about the fretboard and forget both your left and right hand techniques. You have to learn everything new. To avoid this, I’ll first explain slide guitar on standard tuning, so all you need is a slide. Open tunings (see below) give a different sound and have their advantages, but they are not better in every case. The late Muddy Waters for example played in standard tuning, also Duane and EC on some songs. Open tuning is often used for Delta Blues on acoustic guitars, because you need the bass strings in correct tuning. For soloing on electric guitars it’s not that important, so you can play in standard tuning. However, you have to damp some strings, which is usually done with the picking hand. That’s why most slide players prefer fingerstyle. Damping is more important in standard tuning, because you get dissonant intervals when the strings with all their overtones ring out.

The Guitar

You can use both acoustic and electric guitars, as long as they don’t have nylon strings. If you want to play much slide guitar, prepare a guitar just for this job. That means using heavier strings (no “super slinky”…) and a high action (distance of the strings to the fretboard). If you have an extra guitar only for slide, you can also try out the open tunings. If you have only one and play sometimes slide or want to switch between slide and normal playing, use the standard tuning.
Resonator guitars (i.e. a Dobro) are great for acoustic slide guitar, they give a loud, metallic “Delta Blues” tone due to the metal cones build in.

The advantage of slide guitar is that you can play it on old guitars with worn-out fretboards or even cheap guitars with bad adjusted frets. You don’t need the frets!

Guitar Background

A member of the family of musical instruments called chordophones, the guitar is a stringed instrument with which sound is produced by "plucking" a series of strings running along the instrument's body. While the strings are plucked with one hand, they are simultaneously fingered with the other hand against frets, which are metal strips located on the instrument's neck. The subsequent sound is amplified through a resonating body. There are four general categories of acoustic (non-electric) guitars: flat-top steel-stringed, arched top, classic, and flamenco.

References to guitar-like instruments date back many centuries, and virtually every society throughout history has been found to have used a variation of the instrument. The forerunner of today's guitars were single-string bows developed during early human history. In sections of Asia and Africa, bows of this type have been unearthed in archaeological digs of ancient civilizations. Interestingly, one of these discoveries included an ancient Hittite carving—dating back more than 3,000 years—that depicted an instrument bearing many of the same features of today's guitar: the curves of the body, a flat top with an incurred arc of five sound holes on either side, and a long fretted neck that ran the entire length of the body.

As music technology developed, more strings were added to the early guitars. A four-string variety (named guitarra latina) existed in Spain in the late thirteenth century. The guitarra latina closely resembled the ancient Hittite carving except that the instrument now included a bridge that held the strings as they passed over the soundhole. When a fifth string was added in the early sixteenth century, the guitar's popularity exploded. A sixth string (bass E) was added near the end of 1700s, an evolution that brought the instrument closer to its present day functioning. The Carulli guitar of 1810 was one of the first to have six single strings tuned to notes in the present arrangement: E A D G B E.

Guitar technology finally made its way to the United States in the early nineteenth century, with Charles Friedrich Martin, a German guitar maker who emigrated to New York in 1833, leading the way. In the early 1900s, the Martin Company—now located in Nazareth, Pennsylvania—produced larger guitars that still adhered to the design of the classic models, especially the Spanish guitar. Another company, the Gibson company, followed suit and began to produce large steel-string guitars with arched fronts and backs. Known as the cello guitar, this brand of instrument produced a sound more suited for jazz and dance clubs. Another major innovation of the early 1900s was the use of magnetic pickups fitted beneath the strings by which sound traveled through a wire into an amplifier. These instruments would later evolve into electric guitars.

Raw Materials

The guitar industry is in virtual agreement on the woods used for the various parts of the instrument. The

What Do I Look For When Buying A Guitar Amp?

Shopping for a new guitar amp can be a tough decision. There are many questions that enter a guitarist's mind when considering a purchase. Which ones sound better? Are tube amps better than solid-state amps? Do I need a stack? All of these questions are important to consider. The most important things to keep in mind are sound and durability.

Tube Versus Solid-State

 Tube guitar amplifiers have been around for many years. Many guitarists prefer tube amps because of the deeper tone that is usually associated with them. Most professionals, though not all, tend to prefer tube amps over solid-state amps. Players who prefer clean sounds often choose solid-state amps. Others choose tube amps because it makes their sound seem more "alive." Tube amps are mostly associated with blues and rock music. Though most guitarists prefer tube amps, there are several disadvantages to owning one. They are usually heavier than solid-state amps. They usually cost more and require more maintenance. Tubes eventually wear out, thus resulting in periodical maintenance. Tube amps work with high-voltage electronics which are sensitive to dust and moisture. Solid-state amps usually don't require any maintenance other than an occasional cleaning.

What's Better, a Stack or Combo Amp?

There are several factors that go into making this decision. The "stack" usually consists of an amp head resting on a cabinet, usually with one or more speakers. A typical configuration usually consists of an amp teamed with two 4x12 cabinets, each consisting of 4-12" speakers. The "half stack" is similar to this, but with only one cabinet. The stack configuration is usually used for projection. A combo amp is an amp in which the speaker and amp are built into the same box. Most are extremely portable and often weigh less than the stack.

What About Effects? 

During recent years, guitar amp manufacturers have started building effects processors into their amplifiers. This gives the guitarist the ability to control the amp and his/her effects in one convenient location. Companies such as Fender, Johnson, and Peavey (just to name a few) have really done their homework and these new amps are good proof. Effects such as: Chorus, reverb, digital delay, distortion, compression, flanger, phaser, and others are becoming incorporated into these new lines of amplifiers. Several companies, such as Johnson and Line 6, are building amp simulators that allow the guitarist to mimic the unforgettable amp sounds of Hendrix, Vai, Satriani, Clapton, and others. Fender just came out with a new amp with motorized knobs. The knobs automatically adjust when using different processor settings.

Electric guitar amplifiers are becoming more advanced each and every day. Be sure to shop around and play as many as you can before purchasing a new amp. Remember, the most important aspects of a new amp are sound and durability. Good luck and happy playing!!

http://www.hotfrets.com/tipDetail.asp?id=19

Practical Tips To Becoming A Pro Guitarist

What does it take to become a professional guitar player and musician? The answer remains a huge mystery for the vast majority of people.

The first step is to learn about the industry that you are seeking to enter into and don’t listen to anyone that hasn’t actually “lived in the industry”. If you want to tour the world, don’t take advice from anyone who has not done that. If you want to sell records worldwide, don’t take advice from anyone who has not done it himself/herself.





So, rather than trying to explain exactly how to become a pro guitarist and make it in the real world, I would like to share some practical tips that can save you time and help you grow faster. These tips can help you achieve the skill level of a pro guitarist.

Practical Guitar Tips

1. Play guitar all the time. Always have a guitar handy and try to play every day for at least 30 mins.

Back to Basics - Learn How To Play Guitar

So you want to learn how to play guitar do you? Well congratulations, because in my ever so humble opinion, learning to play the guitar is among the most rewarding things that you can learn. The goal of this article is not to turn you into some kind of overnight rock star, but rather to give you a bit of an introduction to the guitar, give you a couple chords to work on to get started.
But first… a question I come across all too frequently:

Can I Learn How To Play Guitar?

I had the good fortune of learning guitar when I was a teenager; however I’ve found that there are many people out there who are much further along in life, and are now wondering if it is even possible for them to learn at their age.
I’d like to answer that with a resounding YES!

YES! It is possible for you to learn to play guitar, regardless of your age. The oldest student of mine that I’ve heard from was 93… just starting to learn how to play guitar, and LOVING IT! The biggest

Using Accents In Your Guitar Strumming

This lesson is going to take a look at adding accents to your strumming patterns. To do this we will take a look at a simple strumming pattern that will uses some basic accents. Throwing accents into your strumming patterns can help make your rhythm guitar playing much more expressive, dynamic and interesting.

When you accent a strum you are basically just playing that particular down or upstroke a bit harder than all of the other strums in the pattern. Accented notes are usually indicated by a little arrowhead symbol right below the notes. This may seem like an overly simple topic but I think that a lot of players underestimate the creative power of using accents in their playing.

Let’s take a look at a simple example to get the idea of how to start using accents in our strumming patterns. Play a simple sixteenth note strumming pattern with the “and” of each beat accented. You would count the strumming pattern like this “1 y and a 2 y and a 3 y and a 4 y and a”.  When you strum the “and” of each beat just dig in a little more and hit the strings harder in order to accent those strums. Make sure to use alternating down and upstrokes.

This example is pretty simple but it does a good job of getting the idea of using accents across nicely. Accents are a simple but often overlooked way to make your strumming patters more interesting and dynamic. When you are coming up with your own strumming patterns, or learning new ones from your favorite songs, don’t forget that you can kick your self-expression up a serious notch simply by using a few accents here and there. If you are playing with other musicians make sure to keep an ear out for what they are playing. The accents that other players use will often dictate the accents that you should use in your playing.

http://www.taylorguitars.com/blog/lessons-tips/using-accents-your-guitar-strumming-nate-savage

Developing Your Guitar Strumming Timing

You don’t have to be the world’s greatest strummer to make great sounding music. In fact, if you can play a simple strumming pattern solid and in time it will make you sound like a real pro. In this lesson on strumming we are going to take a look at a simple exercise that will help you develop your overall sense of timing.

If you have a metronome, set it to 100 bpm. If you don’t have a metronome you can simply put on one of your favorite tunes; most songs are recorded with metronomes nowadays so it’s pretty safe. Now, choose any chord you like and strum straight quarter notes to the beat. Remember to alternate down and upstrokes. Play the quarter note strumming pattern for four bars or so. Once you have strummed several bars of quarter notes, switch to eighth notes for four more bars. Move on to eighth note triplet strumming for the next four bars. Kick it up one more notch by playing sixteenth note strumming for four more bars. Work your way back down all the way from sixteenth notes, to eighth note triplets, to eighth notes, and finally back to quarter notes.

I actually stole this exercise from a drummer friend of mine and let me tell you, this is a great way to help you develop your strumming and overall sense of time. This exercise really doesn’t take long to do and it is very effective. The first time you try this exercise you will probably immediately notice how good, or not so good, your timing really is. Don’t be discouraged if you timing isn’t so great at first. A little consistent practice with this exercise works wonders.

http://www.taylorguitars.com/blog/developing-your-guitar-strumming-timing-nate-savage

Improve Your Guitar's Tone For Better Performance

1 Pick Out a Winner

Many underestimate just how much their choice of pick affects their tone. Not so with jazz legend Jimi Hall, who carries a pocket full of them in different gauges: light ones for strumming, heavier ones for single note picking. Indeed, switching from a medium to a heavy pick, while requiring an adjustment of technique, can do as much as to thicken your tone as installing a humbucker in the place of a single-coil pickup.  (Meanwhile, opting for a light-gauge pick on a strummed acoustic in a band setting well help the part sit better in the mix.) And you can't complain about the cost-there's no cheaper way to change your tone.

2 String for Your Style

Strings come in flavors as well as gauges. If you're seeking a classic jazz sound, flat-or half-rounds will get you close to it without to spring for an arch-top.  And if you want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, .009s ain't going to cut it-try using at least .011s. You'll also want to tune down a half step, not only to further deepen your tone but also to ease the added string tension that come with bumping up your gauge.

3 Learn to Unwind

If you play really loud or with gobs of gain, stay away from over wound pickups-they'll only muddy your sound. A lower-output pickup, on the other hand, will help maintain clarity while the volume and gain, or both, supply all the girth and sustain you need. The greatest rock tones of all time-including Eddie Van Halen's "brown" sound were created with relatively weak pickups.

4 Go Wireless

In other words practice without plugging in. The reason being, you want to make sure you're not using the mask of high gain to cover sloppy or uneven playing. Try to get the best sound possible out of your instrument before you plug in, with just your fingers, and the rest will follow.

5 Speaker Up

Perhaps you like the way your old combo feels when you play, but just aren't crazy about its tone. Well, before you trade it in for a new one, first consider changing its speakers. A more efficient speaker model can make a huge difference: in addition to taming nasty high end or beefing up the lows, it can actually make your amp louder.

15 Guitar Tips for Non-Guitarists

When professional musicians set aside time to practice or take lessons, it is usually on their primary instrument. But in the world of the working musician, doubling on another instrument every once in a while is common, and there’s few instruments more common than the guitar. I’ve watched many talented musicians pick up the guitar and struggle to get comfortable with the instrument. Because of it’s popularity (and now video games with guitar-shaped controllers), a lot of people think the guitar is an easy instrument to just pick up and play, but I’m afraid that’s not the case. Perhaps it’s the guitar teacher inside of me, or the fact my friends often ask for pointers, but here are the most common guitar tips I give to non-guitarists starting to play guitar.

Holding the Guitar

Whether sitting or standing and using a strap, the guitar should be in roughly the same position. Despite what you see some guitarists in rock bands doing, the guitar is much harder to play when it’s hanging at your knees. Consider the type of music coming out of that guitar before you model your technique after the person holding it!
Note: This article will assume you play the guitar right handed, meaning your left hand pushes down on the strings and your right hand holds the pick or plucks the strings.
Every beginner’s guide to the guitar is going to start out telling you how to hold the instrument. My general advice is to first pretend that you are holding a guitar and pay attention to where your hands, wrists, elbows and arms line up with your body. The guitar should rest comfortably within the natural posture of your body. If it feels wrong, it’s probably wrong.
Tip: Sit down in a comfortable chair, sitting up straight with your shoulders in line with your hips and your knees straight in front of you, relaxed so they are slightly open. Let your left hand hang at your side, completely relaxed. Now bend at the elbow, raise your hand, and rotate your wrist so that your palm is facing nearly up. Your left hand should be almost over your left knee. There should be a slight curve to your fingers and thumb. The neck of the guitar should pass through your hand in this position comfortably. If you were to look down at yourself from a birds-eye view, the guitar will be at an angle, only touching your right leg and the right side of your stomach.
The exact position of your right arm will vary based on the size of the guitar and guitarist. The only advice I can give without seeing you hold the guitar in person is make sure you are not contorting your shoulder or elbow to reach over the top of the guitar. This is especially true for smaller body types playing larger acoustic guitars. To compensate, bring your left elbow forward, pushing the neck a little further from your body so the body of the guitar pivots back under your arm a little more. You’ll have to get used to not being able to see all the strings when you look down.

Session Guitar: 10 Life-Saving Soloing Tips

Hi, gang!

Seventy percent of my time as a session guitarist is spent soloing and/or coming up with parts. These can also be considered mini solos or licks. Or, as we call them from a songwriting POV, hooks. A memorable little snippet that repeats through the song. Or maybe just a part to wake listeners up during the second verse.
Now, how do I come up with something out of nothing? I rarely get to hear the song before I am called to play on it. I like that word "play." That's what I am doing. Playing around with various ideas. No one expects instant magic, but it has happened. Sometimes it's quick and easy, and sometimes it's like pulling teeth. You just never know. So how do I do it? Where do the ideas come from?

One word: EXPERIENCE.

Let's remember one thing right off the bat. When a person is hired to play, they are usually hired because the person who did the hiring has heard them play already. There is usually a sense of confidence. When these jobs come in the mail, I try to send back several solos and parts. Give more than is asked of me. Now how do I do it.

There are several tried-and true-methods I call upon to get me started. Here's a brief list of my top 10 life savers!

01. I SING THE SOLO FIRST. 

We guitarist use our hands. We fall into patterns. Now sometimes that's a good thing. But if you want to be original, sing it. It takes away your finger patterns and muscle memory and forces you into uncharted territory and new licks.

02. DECIDE ON A RHYTHM PATTERN. 

Begin with something slow and think whole notes, then move on to 8th notes. Change the feel and work with triplets. End on 16th notes or faster. Create a build. Tension. Or just stick to a main pattern and keep coming back to it.

03. USE LIMITATIONS.

10 Essential Principles for Learning Guitar

The guitar is a great instrument. It’s fairly portable, relatively inexpensive, easy enough to learn the basics – and you can take your playing as far as you want. Lots of people – from kids to grandparents – learn the guitar every day. And if you’re one of them, here are ten things you need to know.
On a recent Open Mic we asked the question, “What advice would you offer someone considering learning the guitar?” Lots of you answered, and your main points are included in this article alongside my own thoughts. And please feel free to add even more advice in the comments. Thousands of learners will appreciate it.

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1. Practice!

This might seem obvious, but it never stopped anyone giving this advice when I started learning.
I started learning music when I was 20 – keyboard first, then guitar later. I was keen and enthusiastic, and constantly asked every musician I met for advice about the best and fastest way to learn. Every person gave me just one word of advice: “Practice!” It drove me crazy as hell – I wanted more – but it was good advice.
A big part of learning to play the guitar (and any instrument) is finger memory – motor skills. Your fingers need to know what to do without your brain needing to tell them. And that comes just one way – practice.
How much do you need to practice? I still stand by the advice I was given at the time: half an hour a day, or an hour a day if your really serious about learning. And the daily part is important – practice every day. One three hour session a week just isn’t going to cut it. Remember we are trying to develop finger memory, and that comes by regular, constant practice.
Most of you agree. Here is the advice you gave in the Open Mic:

• “Practice, practice, practice. There’s no substitute for actually playing music.” (vladh)
• “Practice practice practice.” (lisote)
• “Be prepared for hard work, playing the guitar is hard at first and requires patience, determination and above all time. If you are prepared to practice half an hour a day you will start to get results within a month or two and you will be playing your favourite songs which is when the fun really begins.” (Jon)
• “Persistence. To begin with your fingers won’t like it & it can be frustrating, but with regular practice (said countless times, 10/20mins a day is better than a 4hour practice once a week) it will suddenly click & feel very natural, almost so that you’ll find it hard remembering what it was like in the beginning.” (Simon)

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2. Find a Way to Stay Motivated

Physiology of Guitar: 5 Practical Ways to Improve Your Guitar Playing

Like many guitar players, I’m self taught. While I believe that we autodidacts develop a degree of independence and creativity in our approach that eludes some schooled players, the cost of this is that we also tend to develop an impressive array of bad habits.

While some “bad” habits and unconventional techniques can be the very things that endow us with a unique style, others are the barriers that prevent us from realising our musical ideals.

With this in mind, I’d like to share with you five practical, personally tried and tested ideas to revamp your playing by re-examining the rudiments of how you connect and interact with your instrument.

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Mea Culpa

I’m not a great guitarist, and probably never will be. I’m neither a technical wizard, great through sheer application and effort of will, nor an inimitable one-off, endowed with an unfathomably idiosyncratic style. Then again, most of the players I admire aren’t the image of perfection either and, come to that, even many of the “great” players have noticeable flaws: Jimmy Page is famously sloppy, Kirk Hammet has a notoriously iffy vibrato technique…

Point is, being a good guitar player means being exciting, interesting, passionate and musical. It doesn’t mean being perfect and, besides, if there really was a one-size-fits-all foolproof recipe for perfection, we’d all be virtuosos.

But don’t quit your practice regimen just yet! Just because you don’t have to be perfect doesn’t mean you don’t need to work on finding and expressing your style, and even if you’re not interested in the traditionally
“technical” disciplines of jazz, classical and shred metal (a weirder trio is hard to imagine!), it doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from borrowing some of their ideas.

So, here we go. No crazy scales, no pythagorean gobbledegook. Guaranteed.

10 Ultimate Guitar Tips

Improving on the guitar, for many guitarists, is the reason for playing the instrument in the first place. The warm, self-satisfied glow inside when you finally see the benefit of all those hours of practicing can't be beaten – but all too often those hours are meanderings in the dark: aimless and not actually all that enjoyable.
But it really shouldn't be that way. So this lesson (complete with tab) is designed to put some life back into your learning.

To bring you this lesson, MusicRadar's sister magazine Guitarist asked some of the top guitar tutors in the business for their wit, wisdom and home truths about what it takes to really improve your playing. You'll find 10 of those tips below.

1. Golden Rule: practice with a metronome

Great players have great timing, so practice with a metronome – every single time you practice. (Mike Goodman)

2. Know the intervals

Most guitarists don't know the notes on the fingerboard – which means there's no point venturing into the world of musical theory as you won't be able to apply it. Here's an exercise that'll get you knowing the intervals between notes in no time… The exercise cycles through the four triads in one area of the neck: witness the intervals as they change and then use the roots, 3rds and 5ths as a reference from which to work out where the other intervals are. (Mike Goodman)