Learning To Play Guitar Online - Does It Work

           

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Learning the guitar (or any other musical instrument) is a highly interactive task. You would normally be taught step-by-step how to tune your guitar, the basic chords and strumming rhythms and your teach would be able to correct you and show you how its supposed to be done.

But due to modern day technology, learning to play the guitar online is becoming more and more popular. In this article I'll discuss the pros and cons and if this method is indeed effective.

Pros

1. You can do it at your own pace and leisure.
   Most of us with fulltime jobs and families (but aspires to be a Guitar Hero) have only the late hours to learn and practice. An online course works great as you can login anytime and start the next lesson.
2. Its much cheaper
   As opposed to paying a tutor per lesson, an online guitar course can cost as little as $40 for an entire course with ear-training software to boot!
3. A good course is just like having a real teacher
   I found a wonderful guitar learning method that had well produced, high quality videos that showed me exactly how each chord should be played, and I can replay it as many times as I like without irritating a real-life teacher!

Cons

1. You can do it at your own pace and leisure.
   Yes, you read correctly. The same freedom can also work against you as you will not be motivated to practice. Make sure you set goals and motivate yourself constantly.
2. Your PC might be slow or distorted.
   Make sure your PC is all tuned up and your sound card and speakers are all working fine before you attempt an online guitar course.
3. Lack of personal guidance
   Sometimes you'll want to ask something and an online course will not have a one-to-one consultation. This can be overcome by making friends with other guitarists and getting together once a week to share and play together.

The verdict? It depends on your level of commitment to your craft, the more you put in, the more you'll get out of it. Guitar playing needs time and practice and there's no simpler way out, although a solid and complete online guitar learning method will help a lot! I've read of some success stories from online courses and like I said, it depends on your perseverence and determination.

I hope you've found this article helpful. Remember to never give up and keep practicing, that's how all guitarists got that way. No one was born with the skill to play, it was all cultivated!

Al Tan tries to be a guitarist when he's not building websites. One of the best resource to learn guitar online that he's come across which has step-by-step guitar lessons on video is http://www.LearnMusicFrom.us/Guitar

Learn Guitar Improvisation By Faking

           

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A fake book can really help you a lot in developing your improvisational skills. If you choose just one of the songs you will find a source to many exercises that will help you become a much better guitarist.

Do you know what a fake book is?

A fake book is made in a very compact format containing a lot of songs. This is possible because you will usually only find the melody of a song and the chords of a song.

The melody is written out with sheet music notation and maybe guitar tablature and if it is a song you can find the lyrics beneath the melody. The chords to play you will find above the notes.

Because this is a compact way of writing down songs a fake book can contain more than 500 songs.

This very rudimentary way to write down the songs gives you as a guitarist an opportunity to use your own musical taste when you interpret the songs.

The songs will usually only contain very basic chord progressions. When you hear these songs played the songs are often spiced up with more interesting chords. Often there are also more chords used which will make the chord progressions more interesting and exciting musically.

The act of trying to find more chords to use in a song and to spice up existing chords is an excellent exercise in chord theory. As you are working with a song you are interested in and also will use the exercise in you actual guitar playing you will be more motivated to do a good job.

You can now practice the new chords in the song. Concentrate on one chord at a time. There are many ways to practice a chord by for example playing the chord in various positions and with different voicings.

You can now take the chord practice a step further by using your new chord progressions in the song and practice changing chords. Take a few bars of the song and practice to play the progressions on your guitar as you vary the chord voicings.

When you have decided which chords you will use in a song you can use these chords to find suitable scales to use in your guitar improvisation. You can find many scale books on the net with suggestions on which scale to use for various chord progressions.

We will use the first chord of the song you are working on to show how you can find out which scale to use. If your first chord is a C-major chord you can choose between for example a C-major scale or a C-major pentatonic scale. The principle is to find a scale that contains the notes in the chord.

Now it is time to actually practice playing the scales on your guitar. Start with the first chord in the song and continue the same way with the other chords. First, strum the chord on your guitar and practice playing the suitable scale up and down in various positions and patterns.

Actually it is very common that you can use the same scale to many chords in a song. For example, the C-major scale will work together with the chords C-major, G7, Dm, Am and so on.

Now when you have mastered playing the suitable scales to the chords you can start to work on improving your improvisational skills by taking the previous method a little bit further. Strum a chord and use the scale you have chosen to create your own patterns, melodies and licks.

You are now prepared to improvise over the chord progressions you have written down using the scales you have chosen. The exciting part is when you come to a bar with a new scale to use. If you find it hard to change scale during your improvisation it might be a good idea to concentrate working on this skill for a while.

That means, use two scales and try to alternate between them as you continue to improvise maybe a couple of bars over each scale.

You can use a song in many other ways developing your skills in guitar improvisation. This should of course be a positive exercise leading you towards the goal to be able to play the song from start to end with melody and improvisation as you would like to play it in public.

Peter Edvinsson invites you to download your free guitar sheet music, guitar tabs, ebooks, music lessons and read his music blog at Capotasto Music.

Learn To Play The Guitar Twice As Fast In Half the Time

           

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If you really want to learn to play guitar well you must do one simple thing before anything else. You must learn how learning takes place between your muscles and brain. If you understand the process that your brain must go through to train your muscles your practice sessions will produce predictably effective results.

You have probably heard the term muscle memory. This is the process of your brain learning and storing a set of precise instructions for each group of muscles needed for every small task you want your fingers to perform on the guitar. When muscle memory is solidly established it becomes a naturally effortless and an almost unconscious act to play the guitar well.

These tasks need to be practiced at speeds that are slow enough so that you can consistently perform them perfectly. If you practice the guitar at a tempo that produces lots of mistakes you end up teaching your muscles how to play the exercise with the mistakes included. Unfortunately muscles cannot distinguish between playing with mistakes and playing without them.

Here are 12 tips for having practice sessions that will support the development of good muscle memory:

1. Prepare your whole body for the practice session. Practice while relaxed. Just like an airplane pilot checks over the plane prior to take off you should check your body for any tension, stiffness, tightness, pain or any discomfort. Tight muscles can become tighter during practice which can seriously limit the full range of motion needed to master the guitar. Even tension in the shoulders can travel to the arms and then eventually to the fingers. Stretch and warm your entire body before playing in order to stay loose. Begin practicing with slow, easy exercises to prepare your hands for more demanding new material.

2. Practice in a quiet, comfortable place where you are unlikely to be disturbed.

3. Commit to a specific time each day for practice. Begin each day with a firm commitment to a practice plan that includes the specific details of when, where and what to play.

4. Keep your practice sessions short, frequent and very specific. It is more effective to practice 20 minutes everyday than to practice two or three hours once a week.

5. Always practice with a metronome. Let me repeat that. Always practice with a metronome. It is surprising how often even good guitarists break this rule. Training yourself to play at a consistent tempo will make your music sound professional. This is valuable whether you plan to play just for friends at a party or in a stadium full of screaming fans.

6. Tune the guitar before each practice.

7. Determine your optimum practice speeds. For each part of a scale, exercise or song find the fastest metronome speed that you can play without making mistakes. Practice it for a day at 25% to 30% of that maximum tempo. Follow this with a day at 50% of maximum then another day at 75%. On day four practice at your old maximum speed. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that you have a new, faster maximum speed. Be forewarned, however, that this routine might seem ridiculously slow but, hang in there because it really will pay off.

8. Do not try to learn too many different things at each practice session. Practice only small sections of an exercise or song at a time. Working on an entire new song, all in one setting, makes it more difficult for your brain to cement solid muscle memories. Just like a newborn baby can't handle an entire meal of solid food we need to practice only a few, small musical spoonfuls at a time.

9. Work on the problem parts not just what you already know. This may sound extremely obvious but there is a tendency for new guitarists to play the easy parts over and over while continuing to stumble over the problem spots.

10. Spend the first ten minutes warming up, then split the remaining time equally between new exercises and new songs.

11. Set aside some time to just goof around with the guitar. Make sure to inject a healthy dose of fun in each practice session. If you have been working on blues scales then why not put on some jam tracks or even your favorite blues CD and try to improvise a solo. Select a favorite song to work on at the end of each practice session.

12. If you plan to perform in front of people perfect your songs in private then practice playing in front of sympathetic friends and family members. Create a practice environment that is as close to the conditions of your upcoming performance as possible. If you will perform standing up then practice that way. Tell your friendly practice audiences to feel free to talk and laugh it up during your practice. This will help you learn to become comfortable in a distracting concert environment. Consider recording your practice sessions with a simple home video camera on a tripod.

Opening night jitters can throw off your game no matter how well you know the material. If you have repeatedly practiced playing in simulated concert environments then the real deal can be a breeze.

The bottom line: to play the guitar well it is essential to design practice sessions that support the natural development of solid muscle memories. John Mackinnon has been enjoying learning to play guitar for over 40 years. He is the father of three wonderful children and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. John is the owner of the online guitar lessons website called www.CompareGuitarLessons.com which offers guitar related articles, online guitar lesson program reviews and a free newsletter.

John Mackinnon has been enjoying learning to play guitar for over 40 years. He is the father of three wonderful children and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. John is the owner of the online guitar lessons website called www.CompareGuitarLessons.com which offers guitar related articles, online guitar lesson program reviews and a free newsletter.

Learn To Play Guitar Chords: Learn To Play Turnarounds On Your Guitar

           

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Turnarounds are chord progressions with the last chord taking you back to the first chord thus making it possible to play these progressions over and over again as an intro to a song, an ending or between verses. Here are some nice sounding but easy turnarounds for you!

In order not to mess up the layout with the guitar tab staff I will not include left hand fingerings but I suggest that you choose left hand fingers carefully so you don't get into trouble!

However, in order to learn to play these guitar chord progressions as intended I will say something about your right hand fingerings.

When you play these progressions on your guitar I suggest that you play the bass notes with your thumb and the first three guitar strings with you first finger, middle finger and ring finger.

Of course you can use a pick if you hate picking with you right hand fingers. If you strum the chords you will have to mute unused strings with your left hand fingers or otherwise you can pluck the strings with your pick using different patterns.

The first chord progression includes the guitar chords A F#m7 Bm11 and E7. You can use any right hand pattern you like as you play the chords.

1. ---0---0---0---0--- 2. ---2---2---3---3--- 3. ---2---2---2---1--- 4. ------------------- 5. ---0-------2------- 6. -------2-------0---

Our second turnaround consists of the guitar chords Amaj7, F#7, Bm11 and E7. When you learn to play these turnarounds I strongly suggest that you follow my advice above about left hand fingerings.

When you have found the most effective fingerings for the guitar chords it is important that you stick to the fingerings so that you can learn the progressions by heart and be able to move between chords fluently.

1. ---0---0---0---0--- 2. ---2---2---3---3--- 3. ---1---3---2---1--- 4. ------------------- 5. ---0-------2------- 6. -------2-------0---

Turnaround number three is a bit harder to play, at least the last chord which requires a bit of stretching. The chords are A, F#7+, Bm11 and Bb7add+11.

Try to move your fingers as little as possible when changing chords. To keep the fingers close to the fretboard will help you change chords smoothly. Here is the guitar tab:

1. ---0---0---0---0--- 2. ---2---3---3---3--- 3. ---2---3---2---1--- 4. ------------------- 5. ---0-------2---1--- 6. -------2-----------

The last guitar tab turnaround consists of the chords Aadd9, C9, Fmaj and Bb9+11.

The most difficult and most important thing when playing chord progressions on your guitar isn't to hold a chord but to change between chords.

To practice really effectively you can choose two consecutive chords and practice changing between them in a slow tempo.

1. ---0---0---0---0--- 2. ---2---3---1---1--- 3. ---4---3---2---1--- 4. -----------3------- 5. ---0---3-------1--- 6. -------------------

Now you can play four guitar progressions that of course can be mixed. You can replace the second chord in a progression with a second chord from another progression and so on.

I will end this learn to play guitar article by showing you a right hand pattern you can use with the chords. Use the pattern once for every chord in the progression. The thumb will of course be on different bass strings depending on the chord.

1. ---a---a--- 2. ---m---m--- 3. ---i---i--- 4. ----------- 5. ---p------- 6. -----------

There are many common turnarounds that are used frequently in pop songs like the old pop song Diana, Last Christmas and many more. To practice the common progression C, Am, Dm, G7 in different keys is a good way to learn how chords are related and also a good way to practice the art of changing between chords in a smooth way.

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music guitar tab and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

Guitar: Learn Guitar By Not Playing Guitar

           

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I suppose you think that you learn guitar by playing guitar. Well, do you learn to say the right things by talking all the time? Let's take a look at the art of not playing guitar...

How can you learn to play guitar by not playing? Is it really possible to develop as a guitarist without touching the instrument?

In weight training it is an established fact that muscle growth takes place during rest, for example when you sleep. It doesn't mean that you will become a famous muscle builder by sleeping. Sleeping is just a part of the overall picture called muscle growth.

Don't ever think that you will become a good guitarist by not playing guitar at all!

But I define a good guitarist as a good musician. A good musician can convey his musical emotions to somebody else and this ability takes more than just practicing moving the fingers among all those guitar strings.

What can you do to become a better guitarist and a musician when you don't play? Let me give you a few suggestions:

1. If you play classical guitar, get into the habit of often reading guitar sheet music without your guitar. This practice gives you training in the art of hearing the sheet music in your head and also gives you a better chance to really learn notational symbols in the music and rhythmic subtleties.

2. Take a week off from your guitar playing every now and then and use all your musical energy listening to good music or just being a good citizen. Learn to spot musical and artistic heights in the music. Listen to all types of instrumentalists. With concentration. My best listening position is laying flat on my bed with headphones on forgetting the rest of the world. Maybe you have another approach.

If you feel and enjoy musical and artistic expressions in the music these will probably be implemented in your own guitar playing sooner or later.

3. Be a good musical friend by helping somebody else to play. It will help you become more unselfish and like people more. Well, maybe you already like people sufficiently but to learn to like people is part of our development as musicians as we are supposed to give of ourselves to others when we play.

4. Prepare your body and mind for playing guitar by learning the art of relaxation and stretching your muscles. You can of course find articles on these subjects on the net. Performing in a relaxed manner will help you enjoy your own music more and will help your public to relax and enjoy your music too.

5. Take time to sit down, or stand up if you like, and ponder about what guitar playing means to you. Is there something that you would like to develop in your guitar playing that will give you more joy and happiness. Set a realistic goal and write down what you can do every week to accomplish that goal.

I believe in practicing on my guitar of course but I hope that these pieces of advice concerning not playing guitar will increase your love for your guitar and the art of playing and giving musical joy to others!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com