When you first start playing guitar, your left hand goes through a workout. The strings leave your fingertips sore, your fingers search slowly and aimlessly for the right position, and some of the stretching may seem impossible. Luckily, it all gets better. With regular practice your hand starts to remember and adjust to the new motions. Improving your technique can also make everything easier to play. Peter Vogl has two new free lessons that will teach you about proper playing position. The first lesson will show you where to place your thumb on the back of the guitar neck. A neutral position in the back of the neck allows your fingers to stretch and bend more easily. The second lesson will address how close your left hand fingers should be to the frets and how much pressure to use. Combining these tips should help improve your speed and accuracy and avoid the dreaded buzzing and muted notes.
Acoustic Guitar Magazine has put together a list of guitar buying tips called How to Shop for Your Next (or First) Guitar. They asked owners of five well known music stores (Dusty Strings, Elderly Instruments, Gruhn Guitars, Gryphon Stringed Instruments, and Rudy’s Music) for tips on making sure your guitar buying experience is a pleasant one. The shorthand list is below or you can click on the article link for the full text.
1. Determine Your Price Range
2. Get a Solid Top If You Can Afford It
3. Pick a Body Size
4. Tonewoods: Listen to the Guitar, Not the Rhetoric
5. To Buy Online, Find a Reputable Dealer
6. Develop a Keen Eye for Quality Control
7. Treat Online Auctions with Caution
8. Get a Playable Instrument and Start Playing
9. Shop for Value, Not a “Deal”
10. Only Buy Used from a Reputable Dealer
11. Brand Names Provide Better Resale Value
12. Don’t Try to Invent a New Instrument When Ordering Custom
13. Bring a Friend of Similar Ability
14. Get a Pickup If You’ve Got a Gig
15. Buy Local for Better Service
16. Find a Store with a Knowledgeable Sales Staff
17. Court Your Instrument
18. Get a Guitar That Sounds Good Now
19. Keep an Open Mind
Nic Lubber is apparently new to Youtube. He has five videos up and they’ve all been uploaded in the last three weeks. So I can’t give you much more information than these are some really good fingerpicking Christmas tunes. Watch and enjoy!. If you’re inspired check out our Christmas guitar song tabs.
Carol of the Bells (inspired by Trace Bundy’s version)
Jody Worrell has two new premium lessons on beginning to intermediate level country guitar solos. Country soloing has come to be identified for it’s twangy sound. One way to create that twang is to use double stops or playing two notes at the same time. Using different scale intervals determines the sound of that double stop. In Jody’s Easy Double Stop Country 1 we will use 6th intervals as the double stops in our riffs. In the second lesson on this topic we will use thirds as the basis for our riffs. Both solos are taught in detail and then practiced over a backing track in the key of A. Go to the lesson page for more details or check out the previews below to hear what the solos sound like.
We have a new free lesson on learning how to play a guitar chord progression. The chords used in this lesson are C#m, A, E, and B. The C#m and B barre chords can be tricky for a beginning guitarist to play. If you’re having trouble with them, check out our barre chords lesson for tips on how to create them quicker and play them cleaner. In this lesson, you will also learn a couple of chord substitutions that can be used to create a different sound. Peter will then cover a couple of different strum patterns you can use to play over this set of chords. Go to the lesson page to get the chord charts and strumming notation.
