Flash Guitar Tuner

The first thing you should do before even trying to play your guitar is tune it.

Tuning seems scary and it may benefit to get a digital tuner but if you don’t have one then this great online flash guitar tuner can be used.

Guitar Tuner courtesy of the folks at Wimpy Player

You may be wondering what this is all about but tuning your guitar is very easy.

 

Listening, comparing and adjusting to each note played out by the Flash Guitar Tuner will help you train your ears and the series of notes will make you become totally familiar with over a long period of time.

 

Other alternatives to make sure your guitar is calibrated:

• Compare the low E string with an E played on a piano, or any other instrument available to you.
  Once the E is in tune follow the easy step-by-step instructions suggested by HowToTuneAGuitar.org
• Compare with a song that you know how to play. If the intro of the song starts with E (like most songs on Metallica’s Black Album) and try to adjust according to the recording!

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Guitar Hero: Enemy or Ally?

Guitar Hero has often been dismissed by many a guitar player as dumbing down actual guitar playing. Claims like “It’s not like playing a real guitar.” and suggestions such as “You do know you’re not actually playing that song, right?” are often batted around on forums and in YouTube comments. But is that really the case?

Guitar Hero, as well as imitations and improvements such as Frets on Fire and Rock Band, are great tools in helping any musician practice one of the most crucial elements of music and composition. Rhythm and Timing.

When teaching guitar I have often been told that getting to grips with strumming in rhythm is a difficult task. The only real suggestions I had were to “keep practicing”, or “pat rhythms to songs on your lap to ‘feel’ it more naturally”. But now I can truly recommend Guitar Hero style games.

Unless you’re using a hand controller for playing the game (which makes the game more of a whack-a-mole kind of deal) playing the guitar-style controller comfortably sets your posture into guitar-playing stance ready to strum like the heroes of rock!

Another massive aid Guitar Hero style games can give to the beginner guitarist is the practice needed for left hand / right hand independence.

Quit hating Guitar Hero style games and go play with your mates with the knowledge that it’s good practice for the real thing!

Treat yourself.

Image from xkcd.com A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

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Tab is your friend

I cannot stress how much gutar tab (or tabulature) can help in learning guitar.

If you have no idea what I mean by guitar tab, let me give you a link to wikipedia’s article on the subject.

Here it is, though don’t get too excited. It’s quite a comprehensive and in depth article.

Simply put, tab is a clearer way of reading what note(s) to play than a classical musical score on a stave and also shows what number fret to hold on which string.

To get started I recommend going through About.com’s How to read Guitar Tab tutorial.

Once you’re up to scratch on how to read tab what’s stopping you from playing all your favourite tunes?! There’s plenty of sites that display tab to help you learn songs from Abba to ZZ Top.

Just type your favourite song followed by ‘tab’ into google and hey presto!

Get stuck in!

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3 Inspirational Home Guitar Videos

One great way to get inspiration is to check out real home guitarists, just like you, on YouTube.

You can find some amazing videos if you just take a little look around.

Here are 3 amazingly inspirational videos to get you started.

Now go play something….

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Fresh Guitar 101 - Easy Chords To Start You Off

So, you’ve just bought a guitar but have no idea where to start?

Allow me to suggest a few simple chords that are tried and tested so much that their relation to each other has been the backbone of many much loved pop songs since the sixties.

Learning a few easy chords is one of the best way to get over that frustration of holding the guitar and not knowing what to do with it! So give these a try.

Simply put, these chords are E, A and D.

Reasons to learn these chords:

• Relatively easy to remember.
• They do not require difficult stretches.
• These chords sound in-key with each other.

Guitar Image Source: Wikimedia

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