Is it really possible to conquer the guitar fretboard? Do you find the notes you want to find? Is tabulature cheating? Let me invite you to the guitar fretboard!

I suggest that you right now start to take command over your guitar. Usually when you are playing your first guitar sheet music melodies you will have to learn the notes in the first position on the guitar. To have a good grasp of these notes on the guitar I suggest that you learn them slowly and with concentration.

I usually begin by teaching the notes on the first string like E on open string, F on fret 1 and G on fret 3. On string two you?ll find B on open string, C on fret 1 and D on fret 3. With these notes you can play the song Mary Had A Little Lamb.

Using the previous notes the melody can be played as follows:

E D C D E E E D D D E G G E D C D E E E E D D E D C

I hope you recognized the melody. This kind of music notation doesn?t give any hints as to how the rhythm is to be played but you already know the melody, right!

Is using tablature cheating? My father taught me some interesting things about learning to read guitar sheet music.

My dad was the only guitar tutor in the town where I lived and he taught mostly classical guitar pieces. His young students, I was one of them, learned those first guitar pieces very rapidly because he used a system similar to tablature showing the frets and strings to play, along with the sheet music. Tablature wasn?t common back then. I remember somebody remarking that his system prevented the children from learning to sight read sheet music.

His reply was that if somebody really wants to learn the notes they will anyway!

I agree with that and I have found that if a pupil is not motivated learning guitar sheet music they will not advance in this area whether they play with or without tablature.

Do you think your fingers has anything to do with guitar playing? I guess you’ll answer yes!

A more important question is if the fingers you choose to use can have a bearing upon your guitar playing. Left hand fingering means which finger you use when playing a specific note.

Usually when playing the first pieces on the guitar on the first frets one plays the notes on the first fret with the index finger, notes on the second fret with the middle finger, notes on the third fret with the ring finger and notes on the fourth fret with your little finger.

Why mess up everything with this fingering stuff? Isn’t it possible to play every melody with your left index finger and forget about fingerings?

Well, of course you can play melodies with your index finger but your progress will be very limited beyond just playing easy melodies.

Besides you?ll have to move your hand all the time as you change frets and, most importantly when reading sheet music, you?ll have to look at the guitar fretboard all the time instead of looking at the sheet music.

The important thing when learning to play the notes on the guitar is to make a conscious effort to learn the notes and not to work on too many notes at the same time.

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.

A friend told me once, I would like to give you a piece of advice: Don’t listen to advice! May I give you some advice on how to relate to all learn to play guitar advising on the net.

I stand amazed when I see all fitness equipment being advertised on TV and I wonder, how is possible that ads on fitness incessantly is showed on TV and expensive equipment is sold? Is it the same people who buy these expensive things or is it new fresh buyers all the time?

Is it something wrong with the fitness training equipment? I don’t think so. Is it something wrong with all advice on guitar playing on the net or in books? I don’t think so.

See it this way; We are susceptible to advice or advertising because we are searching for something. Sometimes we are searching for something that doesn’t exist.

I think that we sometimes are searching for a quick solution to a problem. Sometimes there is a quick solution and sometimes you just have to work on a problem over an extended period of time. The guitar book you bought is probably a good book. You just have to work on the guitar lessons until you master them. One at a time with concentration.

Sometimes we are in reality seeking for the motivation to do something, like exercising our body or learning to play guitar. A new book on guitar playing or a new piece of training equipment might motivate us for a while but sooner or later our motivation will decrease if it is built upon new things only.

People are different and learn things in different ways. Some people can easily set their own goals and also work on achieving these goals over a long period of time. Others need a lot of help in order to organize themselves. Maybe they need a tutor and ordinary lessons to help them progress as guitarists.

What advice will I give you founded on the previous thoughts?

It is okay to buy training equipment if you like it. It is okay to buy a lot of learn to play guitar books and DVD’s if you feel good about it and can afford it. You might also help the market to flourish and so on.

The important question is; What do you want to accomplish? Is your main interest to test new guitar educational books and DVD’s or do you want to progress as a guitarist?

If you reflect over these questions and are honest with yourself you will find out your ultimate goal. If you want to progress as a guitarist and want to try out if you can do it all by yourself you can make this test on yourself:

Look through your guitar books or DVD’s and choose one exercise or lesson you want to work on. Give yourself a decent homework and decide on a deadline. Follow the advice in your books. Congratulations, if you can work this way! It will save you much time and money not having to pay a guitar teacher.

However, I strongly suggest that you every now and then visit a good guitar teacher to advise you! An experienced guitar teacher will spot your weaknesses in seconds and will encourage you to climb upwards as a guitar player.

As a final thought I just want to suggest that maybe the cheapest training equipment is yourself and the most overlooked fitness exercise is doing push-ups because we give up on it so easily.

If you start doing one push-up everyday for a week and the next week two you will after a year be able to do 52 push-ups everyday. Don’t believe me, but try it if you like! After all, it is only a piece of advice…

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.

You are apparently interested in playing the guitar. Or maybe you are educating yourself before you make a time and money commitment for a child. I believe that being able to play a musical instrument can be very satisfying and enriching, provided the choice of instrument is appropriate and provided that it is voluntary.

This article focuses on the choice of instrument. The guitar certainly has been, and probably always will be, one of the most popular instruments. Why? I imagine it is because a classic guitar can be taken just about anywhere. You can always play a few strings and soon have a circle of people join you in singing. Even young people join in, especially when some of the classic rock songs are being played.

The classic guitar is generally played at a lower volume than the electric guitar. Many young people however are more excited about playing the loud electric guitar, which requires an amplifier and with that an electrical outlet nearby. It also might require some soundproofing, unless you live in a very remote location. Neighbors generally do not appreciate a group of teenagers jamming at full volume at 10 pm or on a Sunday afternoon. And it is amazing what sound effects can be created with guitar and amplifier. It opens up a whole new avenue of creativity. It is important when learning to lay the guitar, that a clean technique is learned from the start. This is especially critical when it comes to body posture. Wrist problems can arise by not properly positioning the hand and having to contort the wrist, in order to reach the strings. Ignoring any pain from the wrist, could result in having to stop playing the guitar.

Learning how to play the guitar requires a good teacher or good learning program (book, video, audio) and commitment on your part to hours of practice. You can find a good teacher in your local area and you can find good programs on the internet. Many of these programs offer a combination of books and videos. Some include free newsletters or free sample lessons. Check the different avenues out so you can determine what works best for you. It might be a combination of learning with a teacher in person, supplemented by a downloadable program.

So before you run out, buy a guitar and sign up for lessons, ask yourself if you will dedicate several hours each week to practicing and playing the guitar. If you do, you will be able to enjoy many hours of enjoyment playing this wonderful instrument.

Christiane Perrin is the mother of 2 teenagers who play guitar and drums. http://www.learnguitareasily.blogspot.com

Great guitar playing is more than playing riffs and licks; it?s about presenting your emotions and feelings in musical terms. That?s why it?s called it musical expression.

When I first started playing I was so concerned about hitting every note right. I?d spend hours practicing scales and chord forms and making sure that each note sounded perfect. After about two years of practice I knew everything in the world about making chord shapes and playing scale, and nothing about making music. I?d record myself and the listen to the playback and it sounded like a bored guitar student trying to play every note perfectly.

Time to crack a few eggs and make a new omelet. I started to listening to some great guitar players that I admired like David Gilmore, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix to figure out what they were doing different then me. I knew the same scales, and chord progressions, but I sounded nothing like these legends. I decided I wanted to sound more like David Gilmore so I spent the time to learn the solo from Comfortably Numb, but it still sounded flat and unexciting. I was try to play it exactly the way David Gilmore did, when what I should have been doing was playing it the way I FEEL.

That?s when it all started to come together for me. I figured out that I can learn for great guitarist, but the musical expression must come from inside me, to be of any interest. To channel what is in your soul to the guitar, I learned to simplify musical passages, and feel each note, and I learned not to be so worried about what my hands were doing. Magically my hand started singing because I had reached deep inside and cleared my head enough to allow for the musical expression I was unable to share in the past.

All the scales, chords and hours of practice just provide me with the tools I needed for self expression. My musical journey will never end, but my ability to explore is now at warp speed.

Bill McRea is the publisher of The Guitar Warehouse and Guitar Playing Techniques. Both sites offer free lesson and product sales.

To be on the right place at the right time is quite nice. It is called timing. In your guitar playing you will find that timing is crucial. This means to play your notes at the right time so that the result will be music.

To learn to play guitar notes at the right time is not the same thing as playing mathematically perfect. You cannot learn to play music by only using a metronome for example.

You have to listen to music and play together with other people and learn to react rytmically upon other peoples playing.

Anyway, in music there are usually a pulse that you can feel more or less and your ability to feel the pulse in the music will help you contribute with your musical and rytmic playing to the end result.

How can you learn to feel the pulse in the music? I will give you seven suggestions that might help you develop your timing when you play guitar and increase your ability to feel the pulse:

1. Dance to the music. If you can learn to feel the pulse with your whole body it will help you play musically. In this case it doesn’t matter how your dancing is performed.

Listen to music on your stereo and move to the music. The important thing is to develop the feeling that you are floating or surfing with the music without any effort on your part.

2. Learn to play drums. I think it would be a good thing if all musicians as part of their musical development on their particular instrument learned to play drums.

The ability to create rhythms and patterns when playing drums will help you a lot when you try to learn to play guitar in time and in a musical way.

Actually you don’t need drums, you might as well play rhythms on your laps with your hands. Try to play eights for example on your laps by alternating between your right and left hands and by accentuating different eight notes as you play.

What you can play with your hands on your laps or on a table or something else requires another article I guess.

3. Buy a metronome. A metronome will give you a 100% even pulse and can help you play in different tempos. It will help you play in slow tempos and help you keep a steady tempo.

How to use a metronome to your andvantage you can learn in other learn to play guitar articles.

4. Practice strumming patterns on your guitar. The act of strumming chords on the guitar resembles drum playing and will increase your overall ability to use a pick.

For example, playing eights with up and down strokes on a barr? chord and playing around with the rythm by releasing the left hand pressure on some notes thereby damping them and also accentuating some notes with the up or downstrokes with your pick can create interesting rhythmic patterns.

5. Play with other people. As I said before the art of timing when you learn to play guitar doesn’t mean the same thing as playing mathematically perfect even if it is sometimes necessary to do that in some music.

When I produce my own music on my preferred recording software I have realized that the bass part for example can be edited to play on exact beats.

When I have quantisized the bass part 100% it usually means that the whole production loses tension so to speak. I can see that I many times play a little ahead of the beat and other times a little laid back and this is done intentionally to create energy in the music.

When you learn to play guitar it is very important to learn to feel the pulse in the music. I hope my tips can help you be on time!

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

Have you ever done any of the following?

1. Made excuses for not practicing because you didnt have time?
2. Practiced the same licks and exercises that you did last year?
3. Felt like you had hit a brick wall in your progress?
4. Felt unsure as to what to practice?

Unless your name is Steve Vai, chances are youve done at least one of the above!

They are all symptoms of having a lack of vision.

What do I mean by vision? Vision in this context is having a clearly defined picture in your minds eye of how you would like to play. It must be a crystal clear, exciting and inspiring picture!

Without an absolutely clear picture of what you would ideally like to sound like, you will not know what you need to practice in order to realise that vision. You will also probably lose the drive and motivation to practice daily for many years until you can play like your vision. You may even start using the losers mantra which is I dont have time to practice.

Exercise One:
Think about how you would like to play in 10 years time. Close your eyes and try to see yourself playing exactly how you would like to play. Write down what you see now.

Make sure that it is detailed. What techniques are you a master of? What songs can you play? What bands are you in? How many students do you teach? How does it feel when you play like you do?

Exercise Two:
Now write down what areas of your playing you will need to start working on in order to reach your vision. What techniques do you need to start practising? What chords do you need to learn? What music theory do you need to start learning about? Do you need to start doing ear training? What books, teachers, CDs and other tools will help you realise your vision? How much time every day do you think you will need to practise in order to play like you want to play?

Exercise Three:
Spend 10 minutes a day for the next 30 days imagining yourself playing exactly how you would like to play. Do this with your eyes shut. Dont worry, it wont make you want to start eating tofu or go around the neighborhood hugging trees!

At the end of every time you do this, write down one small new detail about your vision. By the end of 30 days you should be feeling so excited that you’ll want to practice 24/7!

Copyright2005 by Craig Bassett. All Rights Reserved.

Craig Bassett (The GuitarSolutionsExpert) is a professional guitarist, guitar tutor and author.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com

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Imagine this

You pick up the guitar one day. Start playing your favourite song, and all of a sudden you feel this pain in your wrist. It’s a sort of pain that distracts you from your playing. You think to yourself I’ll toughen it out it’ll probably go away tomorrow, and continue to play some more. You continue to play like this day to day, and then you notice that the pain keeps getting worse. You wonder to yourself Will this pain ever go away? I hope so. The problem is, this might not be just a pain that will go away. It might be a pain that will cause serious injuries such as tendonitis.

Tendonitis is a serious injury that causes inflammation of a tendon. When you over stretch your tendons it begins to tear which leads to swelling. This is very dangerous because tendons are hard to heal, and will unlikely heal to the original strength. A lot of times this pain is caused by not stretching before you play. Stretching plays a big role in guitar playing. When you stretch your hands, fingers, wrists, and arms you widen the range of motion of your joints. Which will also enable you to play more effortlessly, and faster. When you play without stretching you have limited joint movement. Which means that your hands and wrists won’t be as flexible as if you were to stretch before playing.

Here are a few stretches that you can do before you play:

*Place the palm of your left hand to the inside of your fingers on your right hand. Push with your left hand so your fingers are going towards your forearms until you feel a burn in the wrist. Hold for 10-15 seconds. Now do the other hand. You can also do each finger individually. *Extend your left arm fully across your chest, and with your other arm pull your left arm towards your chest. Hold for 10-15 seconds. *With your left palm push the inside of your thumb towards your forearm, hold for 10 seconds. *Extend your arm behind your shoulder by holding your elbow with your other hand. Pull until you feel a burn. Hold for 10-15 seconds for each arm. *Thoroughly massage your hands and fingers individually. This is a crucial step. This will really relax your hands.

Not only should you stretch just before you play the guitar, but also any other time you get the chance. Guitar is not the only place that you can get an injury such as tendonitis. You can get it from exercise or physical work. Always stretch before doing a lot of movement that’s involved in working and exercising. If you start to feel pain, STOP PLAYING. This is a danger sign to a minor or serious injury. Just give it a rest, and if the pain continues consult a doctor. Remember, it’s all about having fun.

Mike Morin is the writer of the Awesome Guitar Lessons Newsletter. Awesome Guitar Lessons provides free guitar lessons to new and experienced guitarists. Also, up to date information on guitarists around the world. Click Here ==> http://www.awesomeguitarlessons.com

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In many articles on the net on learning to play guitar you will find many article authors stressing the importance of setting goals. Well, it would be interesting to find out if you can learn to play guitar without goals. Let us investigate the matter!

I have many memories of my first attemps to play the guitar. Like many boys I had many interests like reading, playing piano, singing, listening to music, athletics, chess, stamp collecting, painting and other things at different times. Playing guitar was just one of them.

I remember that I had my own way of practicing guitar playing. I always had my guitar on my bed waiting for me. I sat down on my bed many times everyday playing for a while and then starting to do other things.

Sometimes I felt inspired to play guitar for an hour or two and other times just for a minute. Did I have goals or not?

I know that I was developing as a guitarist quite fast and I think it must have been something in my way of playing and practicing guitar that was good.

I believe that some of the reasons for my progress during those early days of my learn to play guitar career were:

1. I felt no pressure to become an accomplished guitarist. I just felt the joy of sitting down with my guitar trying to find out the treasuries in the land of music.

2. My father was a guitar teacher giving me lessons at times and I always heard him play guitar in our home. Other guitarists visited our home many times and these visits inspired me a lot.

3. I never felt a pressure to play fast and thereby building tensions by playing too fast. This is one of the big mistakes beginning guitarist and even accomplished guitarists sometimes make.

4. As I mentioned previously I did a lot of other things besides playing guitar and I guess all these things I was involved in kept my mind quite healthy and helped me retain my joy when I learned to play guitar.

I guess in a sense I had goals that was not so apparent to me that directed me towards somewhere even if I was quite content being on the road of progress towards guitar land.

Can you learn something from my early guitar experiences? At least you can learn the following:

1. When learning to play guitar always remember to enjoy the act of playing without thinking too much on what you can or cannot do as a guitarist.

2. Try to associate with good musicians and guitarists that inspire you to play musically and that give you the motivation to learn to play new things on your guitar.

3. Beware of playing too fast on your guitar. There is a risk of building up muscle tensions and thereby actually reducing your ability to play fast. A remedy for this and a way to tame yourself is to use a metronome at a low tempo to reduce your speed to a level where you can play your guitar in a relaxed manner.

4. To become an interesting guitarist and musician you might benefit from being involved in other activities like listening to good music, having another hobby, reading good books, assiciate with other people and more.

Do you have to have goals to become a good guitarist? Well, even if you don’t have learn to play guitar goals in the ordinary sense you can help yourself to play everyday by having easy access to your guitar.

I had my guitar on my bed. Maybe you want to have your guitar in your favorite armchair. I guess you understand the principle….

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

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