What is a power chord?Power chords are a basic element of modern electric guitar playing. They are found throughout all genres of contemporary music, and feature heavily in rock, alternative, punk and metal guitar, because they will still sound clear, bold and full through an overdriven or distorted amplifier. A power chord has only 2 notes … Read more
An electric guitar really does sound a lot better when it’s in tune. Even the nicest, priciest, most gorgeous fourteen thousand dollar special edition Les Paul will sound terrible if the tuning is out. If you’re not sure exactly what you should tune to, here’s a guide.What tunings are out there?Standard tuning on a guitar … Read more
Electronic tuners are cheap, accurate and readily available. Even people with a very good ear will probably be able to tune faster with a tuner than by ear. You can even get pedal tuners, that you can step on to tune quickly and silently, before stepping on them again and being ready to play straight away, … Read more
What is a guitar pickup? A guitar pickup is one of those little rectangular things on the body of an electric guitar, directly under the strings. It will either be covered in a metal case, or in a plastic bobbin with some metal pole pieces or a bar magnet exposed.What does it do?A pickup is what … Read more
Why you should learn to play guitar? For many of us, our decision to learn guitar is not something we ever thought about too hard. It was almost as though it was made for us.. we just knew that it was something we had to do. For other people though, it’s something they will need to find some … Read more
Get started playing electric blues guitar with Hal Leonard’s Blues Guitar Method book. The book is written by guitar-celebrity Greg Koch. Greg lives in my hometown of Milwaukee, and I’m fortunate to catch his local gigs — he’s a great player and excellent writer/teacher. This book covers the core rudiments of electric blues guitar. Lessons … Read more
In my earlier post on guitar instruction methods I talk about why it is best to get private lessons from a good teacher. I still think this is the ideal approach for learning guitar, for the same reasons that I listed before. That is to say, that having a teacher right there in front of you … Read more
Hello and welcome to my “Blues Rhythm Guitar Master Class” review. Blues Rhythm Guitar Master Class by Keith Wyatt really delivers. It’s an excellent book that will have you well grounded in electric-guitar blues rhythm playing. It covers all of the classic styles: shuffles, boogies, jump, blues Rhumba, slow blues, turnarounds and more. The book … Read more
What I want to discuss is the C-A-G-E-D guitar system, a method of learning the guitar for beginning students, based on five basic chord forms and scale shapes that teach students all of the note locations on the fingerboard. The fundamental concept is to first learn five basic guitar chords – chords that everyone inevitably ends … Read more
DADGAD is becoming such a popular alternate tuning for acoustic guitarists that’s it’s called “the other standard tuning.” Mel Bay Presents Understanding DADGAD for Fingerstyle Guitar offers a clearly-explained introduction to playing fingerstyle DADGAD guitar. See the post, Guitar Players Who Have Tuned in DADGAD. The book starts out with the basics: how to get your guitar … Read more