3 Tips to Play the Guitar Faster

September 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment
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One of the first things many beginner guitar players want to learn how to do is play faster. Most of the time it is because they want to learn to play a song that requires them to play faster or they just want to impress people by shredding on the guitar as fast as they can.

The obvious answer to playing faster is to practice on a regular basis. However, if you are looking for a little more detail check out the tips below to help you start playing faster.

Practice Slowly

Most of the time the reason why beginners have a tough time playing faster is because they try to play too fast too soon. It definitely isn’t the most exciting thing to play slowly when you really want to play fast.

However, if you really want to increase your speed you have to start off playing slowly first. Once you slow it down you’ll be able to examine your playing technique and see what is keeping you from playing faster.

As you keep practicing playing slowly you will begin to get more comfortable and make less mistakes. You can then gradually increase your speed each time you practice as your technique improves.

If you find you are having problems playing one section of a song you should keep practicing that particular section everyday until you get it down. Once you have perfected one part of the song move on to the next part.

You should use a metronome each time you practice playing slowly. The metronome will help you increase your speed and dexterity by allowing you to control the time element of your playing.

When you turn on the metronome start off very slow like around 80bpm and then gradually build up your speed. Practicing this way may be a little boring but it is the best way for you to develop the physical discipline to play fast correctly.

If you choose to not begin slowly you’ll end up developing bad habits that hurt your efficiency. The real key is to practice playing very slowly with perfect technique. When practicing playing slowly try to maintain a good form and keep all your fingers in the position they need to be. Once you have these things programmed into your muscle memory begin setting your metronome to a faster tempo and begin playing faster.

Relax

The next biggest key to playing the guitar faster is to just relax. When you are playing rushed you might feel like you’re playing faster but you are probably off beat and using the wrong technique. In order to play more relaxed so you play faster you’ll have to release the tension in your arms, hands, and fingers. If you watch your favorite guitarists play fast you’ll notice that they hardly look like they’re breaking a sweat.

To help you relax while playing fast you should only move as much as you need. You have to avoid making any unnecessary movements. Wasted movements will jeopardize the speed you play the guitar dramatically. You also have to make sure you monitor your breathing.

Proper breathing technique is what gives athletes like track runners the ability to run as fast as they can while still looking relaxed. Focus on taking long, slow breaths to help you be more relaxed while playing.

Sometimes you may find that your fingers and hands are too stiff to play as fast as you want to. You can soak your hand in a bowl of warm water to keep your hands and fingers more relaxed so you can play faster. As you soak your hands in the warm water try to stretch your fingers as much as possible to get them more loose and relaxed.

Alternate Picking

Alternate picking will help you a whole lot when it comes to playing faster. With alternate picking you won’t have to waste time by plucking each note with a downwards stroke. Doing this will cause a lot of unnecessary movement that will slow you down tremendously. With the alternate picking you’ll be able to speed up your playing by picking every string alternately with an up and downward pluck with the pick.

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3 Tips To Help You Teach Your Child How To Play The Guitar

September 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment
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Most parents have kids and want to see them like the same things they have interest in. Maybe you are a parent who wants to see their kid play the guitar because you love the instrument. Or maybe you just notice your child has a serious interest in the guitar and you want to help them learn to play. Either way, teaching your child how to play the guitar will be a an experience the both of you will share forever.

Limit the Lessons

One of the first concerns a parent has is if their child is too young to start learning. Of course they’re not too young but they can easily get frustrated when the lessons get too long. When teaching a child to play you should limit the lessons to about 15 to 20 minutes so they can maintain their concentration much better.

Most kids will immediately want to start playing their favorite songs without even learning the chords properly. It will be your job to make them realize what they need to focus on so they can learn to play the instrument properly.

Best Kind of Guitar to Get

The best kind of guitar to get for your child will be a classical nylon string guitar. Classical guitars are highly recommended for kids because the fingerboard is wider and allows the child to see the notes easier. Also, the nylon strings will help him or her build up calluses so their fingers don’t get cut when they start playing steel strings on an electric or acoustic.

The body of the classical is slim so your child can easily reach over it and fret all the strings. You can search online for a guitar size/age chart to see what overall length of the instrument would be good for your child. A typical 3 to 6 year old will be able to manage 1/2 sized guitars, wile 6-10 year old can normally manage 3/4 sized guitars.

You can start your child off with learn simple chords such as D, A, and E. Once they start getting comfortable playing these chords introduce some songs she can play that has those 3 chords in it. Eventually as he or she gets more comfortable start introducing Em and other notes.

To help teach your child chords you can purchase a chord book to help give the visual of the chords. Teach your kid that every finger corresponds to a certain number in the chord book. Get him or her familiar with the chords designated for each of the strings.

Give them Encouragement

Your child is going to need some encouragement from you if you want them to continue learning. It will be rare when a child 6 or 8 years wants to pick up their guitar and actually practice their fundamentals.

It’ll be your duty to encourage them to practice so they can continue progressing. You can also encourage them by giving positive feedback on what they play. Encourage them to play by pointing out the important part the guitar plays in their favorite songs. Once your kid gets that type of encouragement from you that’ll be the extra push they need to stay focused and learn to play the guitar on their own.

 

 

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Why You Should Focus on Learning to Read Sheet Music instead of Guitar Tabs

August 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment
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Most beginner guitar players will begin their career learning to read guitar tablature, or guitar tab for short. The reason for this is because sheet music looks like a bunch of hard to learn music notations, while tab allows you to read music by just learning a few numbers.

Guitar tab makes learning to play the guitar a lot easier for most beginners because they don’t have to read complicated notes or learn the meaning of various symbols, tempo, and repeated signs. If you look at sheet music for the first time it does look like a complicated code you have to try and crack. This is why most beginner guitar players fall in love with TAB so much and forget about learning to read sheet music.

However, why should you be interested in learning to read sheet music when you can just learn guitar TAB quickly and get it over with it? Is there an advantage to learning sheet music and not just guitar tab?

The Vulnerable Guitarist

When you don’t learn how to read sheet music you are making yourself very vulnerable as a guitarist. There are songs out there that you cannot learn if you don’t know how to read sheet music.

There will be times when you want to learn to play a song but it is only written out in sheet music and not TAb. So if you don’t know how to read sheet music you will never learn how to play that particular song.

Learning to read sheet music is essential if you want to be taken seriously as a guitar player. Once you learn sheet music you will have the freedom to play any song out there you desire.

The Guitarist That Can’t Keep The Tempo

The next big reason why you should start learning to read sheet music is so you can learn new songs and keep the tempo at the same time. When you learn to read sheet music you will be able to learn new songs more effciently because sheet music assists you more with the tempo and time.

This is a huge advantage that guitar tablature doesn’t provide you. Sometimes you’ll come across some music tablature that doesn’t give you any tempo markers, bar lines, dotted notes, or whole notes so you know how fast or slow you need to play a song.

It’s pretty much impossible to start playing a song with the proper melody if you have never heard the song before. However, when you know how to read sheet music you will always know how fast to play and when you should play notes because the tempo for that song is guaranteed to already be included.

The Professional Guitarist That Isn’t Taken Seriously

If you have aspirations to be a professional guitar player you better take the time to learn how to read sheet music. You can just imagine how embarrassing it can be if you are a professional guitar player and you have been requested to play a song but you can’t because you don’t know how to reed the sheet music.

When you are playing the guitar on a professional level you may even be asked to make some changes to a particular song and if you don’t know how to write music you’re in trouble. Once you are ready to take playing the guitar seriously you should learn how to read and write music so you have a better chance at landing great gig opportunities. It doesn’t matter if you want to start performing on stage, teaching guitar, or writing songs you need to learn to read sheet music if you want to be taken seriously in your career.

Learning to read sheet music can seem intimidating at first, but when you really tackle the challenge head on you will be rewarded. All you need to do is slowly improve your abilities to read sheet music everyday each time you practice.

Filed Under: Acoustic Beginner Online Guitar Lessons