There is a short answer and a long answer to this question. Let’s deal with the quick answer first.
There are five ways you can play middle C on guitar:
This is the 5 ways you can play middle C on guitar.
Double stops are a great way to introduce some interesting sounds in your songwriting and your lead playing. In this article we’ll dive into what they are and how you can use them.
“Open strings” are strings that are not held down.
A “stopped string” on a stringed instrument is when a string is held down.
A double stop is when two strings are held down simultaneously.
Let’s talk about 7 different areas of neoclassical guitar playing, that you can study to improve your skill, musicianship and creativity.
Neoclassical guitar is great fun to play. When most people think of neoclassical style, they’re probably thinking of guitarists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Romeo or others. For a lot of people, neoclassical guitar playing is all about having blazing fast technique. While that is cool, there is a lot more to the genre than just how many notes you can play.
We are human beings. What distinguishes us from animals, is our ability to think. That fact that we have language, and thoughts, are a unique feature to the human race, which empowers our mind to accomplish great things - such as learning guitar! However, we are not taught how to use our mind -we also have the power to spectacularly sabotage ourselves.
We have to train our mind to work in a way that helps us, rather than works against us. Part of that training involves some introspection, questioning our thoughts, and seeing if they are an accurate reflection of reality, or not.
If you are feeling stuck with your songwriting, everything you write sounds the same, and you’re struggling to find some new creative ideas, try these 6 ideas to spice up your songs, and kickstart your songwriting creativity:
A big piece of songwriting is structure and arrangement, and arguably, this is also the thing that people find hardest. After all, writing a cool riff, that isn’t too hard… but writing a whole song from that riff? That is where a lot of people get stuck.
Playing guitar and practising guitar are two very different things, but we often get them confused. By drawing some distinctions between the two, we can use our time more effectively and get better results in our playing
For the first few years of learning guitar, I love to noodle. I would sit down and put hours into my playing… sometimes not really doing much of anything. I would jam some scales, play through a few chord changes that my teacher gave me, and I had a lot of fun doing that. A lot of fun!
In this free guitar lesson, we are going to look at two simple exercises that will drastically improve your string bends and vibrato on electric guitar.
String bends and vibrato are absolutely vital ornamentation techniques that you must master, if you want your lead guitar playing to sound good.
When we listen to lead guitar players and solos that we enjoy, one thing we are listening for (although, most people would not be able to say this), is that players’ use of ornamentation, and specifically, string bends and vibrato.
Sweep picking is an incredibly fun skill on guitar… but once you can blast up and down a few arpeggios… what do you do next? If you feel like you are stuck with your sweep picking sounding robotic and pointless, and you want your sweep picking to sound melodic, musical and badass, then read on…
So now you can sweep pick! Awesome!! It’s a great skill and one that is difficult to master. But once you master the mechanics behind sweep picking on guitar, what do you do next? Are you going to play the same arpeggio 30 times in a row… or do you want to do something else with it?
If you want to do anything creative, such as improvising or composing on guitar; then it is vital to learn where the notes go on the neck. It’s true, there are some people that have never learned any music theory in their life, can’t name a single note on the guitar neck, and can play great music and write hit songs.
But they are in the minority. The vast majority of musicians who are capable on their instrument can name the notes on their instrument.
Improvising on guitar is really run, and is something that anyone can get the hang of. One vital element is how you think about the scale you use, and today, we will discuss exactly what that means
The guitar is a strange instrument, shrouded in myth and legacy. A lot of players think that some things on the guitar can’t be taught, or, are a god given ability. This comes up most often with creative ideas, like song writing and improvising.
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