In A Rut? 6 Tips to Improve Your Guitar Playing Ability Faster

November 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment
guitar-teacher

Learning to play the guitar can be one of the most difficult things you’ll do in your life, especially if you’re trying to teach yourself. There is nothing more frustrating than practicing for hours and not feeling like you’re improving as a guitarist.

Everybody wants to immediately start seeing progress when they start playing the guitar, and when they don’t they normally give up altogether. Some of the best guitarist to ever play the instrument struggle in the beginning before they finally figured it out.

Learning to play the guitar is tough but if you stick with it long enough you’ll be rewarded with the skill to play one of the most beautiful instruments in the world. Check out the tips below to help you overcome the rut you’re in and start progressing as a guitar player.

Learn Guitar Theory

If you don’t start learning guitar theory you won’t be able to go that far as a guitarist. Learning some guitar theory has been known to be the one thing that usually brings people out the rut they’re in.

You will be surprised at how much learning just the fundamentals of music theory will help your guitar playing improve. When you start learning guitar theory you’ll be able to learn to play songs quicker, understand the fretboard better, learn chords and scales quicker, write your own songs, learn songs by ear, and create awesome guitar solos. Also, when you get more familiar with guitar theory you won’t waste as much time during practice on things that don’t really matter.

Stop Playing

That’s right, stop playing your guitar for a day or two, or even a week can help clear your mind and keep you from breaking your instrument in frustration. When you take a break from playing the guitar you will get new motivation to pick it up and start playing again.

This new found motivation will give you the drive to put in the hours necessary to learn to play that scale or chord you have been struggling with. The next time you find yourself stuck with something take a break and when you come back to playing your guitar you will take on the challenges with a fresh view.

Learn Techniques

Focusing primarily on guitar techniques instead of trying to learn a song is a great solution to improving your skills as a guitarist. A good idea is to reserve a day or entire week to do nothing but work on certain techniques to improve your playing ability.

Some techniques you should begin working on to keep progressing include tapping, sweep picking, finger picking, and alternate picking. Once you have put in the time working on guitar techniques exclusively you can then go back to your normal practice routine.

Learn New Scales

If you just know how to play one scale you should start thinking about learning more guitar scales. Your fingers will begin to develop once you start learning new scales that challenge yourself.

Guitar scales that work together over a chord progression is what makes up the melody for a guitar solo. So if you want to progress and start creating good guitar solos you need to focus on learning as many guitar scales as you can. Continuing to learn new scales will help you make your guitar solos more interesting as you can add more variety to them.

Practice With a Metronome

One of the best ways to improve as a guitarist is to practice everything using a metronome. The metronome will help you develop your rhythm and help you determine how far along you’re coming.

With the metronome you’ll be able to see at what tempo you are able to accurately play a certain scale. Your goal would be to use the metronome and improve your speed by two or three beats per minute each time you practice.

Learn New Guitar Chords

It is easy to learn a few basic chords and not challenge yourself to learn more challenging ones. You need to learn as many chords as you can because over 80% of the songs out there require you to play chords.

One way to learn new chords is to buy a good guitar chord book and start learning new chords each practice session. One mistake you want to avoid when learning chords is not learn chords that you don’t plan on using. You need to learn chords that you are going to use so you don’t forget how to play them.

Follow some of these tips and you should get yourself out of the rut your in and start noticing improvements in your guitar playing ability.

 

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How To Record Your Guitar – Steps You Need To Take

October 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment
holding_plectrum

For a lot of guitarists recording guitars is one of the best things they like to do. If you want to record your guitar you need to know the sound will vary depending on factors like the kind of guitar, the player, the amplifier, and recording methods utilized. Check out some great tips to help you consistently record your guitar with great results.

Prepare Yourself

When you’re ready to start recording you need to make sure you prepare yourself properly. Make sure you have all the equipment you need like guitars, new strings (make sure they fit properly), new tubes, and any other necessary gear.

Make sure you thoroughly check your intonation and tuning. If you want to get the best tone possible during recording don’t wait to the last minute. Double check your tuning before each take so you don’t find yourself in the mix trying to fix any tonal issues.

Setup Your Amp and Mic

You need an amp and Microphone for your home recording. For the microphone you can get the Shure SM7. It will be up to you if you want to use a condenser mic or a single dynamic mic. The condenser mics are known for recording clearer sounds.

For the amp you can try out the Shure SM57. First plug into your amp and then position your mic in the middle between the speaker and yourself. You can experiment a little to see if you like the mic closer or further away from you.

How close or how far the mic is from you will dramatically affect the sound. Make sure your mic is plugged into an input on your audio interface. Use your recording software to pick what input you are going to use to give your mic a signal. Now just ready the track to record and start recording your guitar sounds.

Adjust the Gain on the Amp

If you don’t adjust the gain on the amp it could cause the recording sounds of your guitar to sound too light in the mix. You must achieve the best gain so you can get good recordings and avoid distortions. Use reverb to add more flare during the mixdown. If you are going to add a stereo reverb during recording you will need a couple tracks.

Use Compression

You should definitely make use of compression because it can make the tone of the instrument sound more even. Try implementing EQ after compression to get cleaner sounds. If you want a more laid back sound you can add the EQ before the compression.

DI Feed

Use a high input DI box to record a DI feed on a spare track. Recording a clean DI track with the amps will allow you to reprocess it later on. So if you aren’t really feeling the original sound you can play the track back using unique guitar effects. You can even use both the original and the reprocessed sounds to produce an original stereo effect.

 

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Important Tips for Using a Guitar Pick Properly

October 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
pick

The guitar pick is one of the most important tools you can have as a guitarist. The guitar pick is also called the plectrum and there are many different shapes and sizes to choose from. Of course you can use your fingers to strum your guitar but playing with a pick will produce a much brighter sound.

Type of Guitar Pick You Should Use

The type of guitar pick you should choose to use totally depends on your preference. You can find guitar picks in thin, medium and thick gauges. The gauge that is mostly recommended for beginner guitarists is the medium pick because it makes it easier to strum chords.

The picks that produce the best guitar tone are the thick gauges. However, thick gauges are only recommended for experience players. Thin guitar picks don’t have much resistance when they move across the strings, making them great for strumming chords.

Most experienced guitarists avoid thin picks because they bend to easily and aren’t very accurate. At the end of the day you are going to have to do a little experimenting with different pick sizes and styles until you find what you are most comfortable with.

Holding The Pick Properly

You have to know how to hold the guitar pick properly if you want to use it at it’s full capability. Position the pick on your index finger and allow the little tip of the pick to point away from your palm.

Now grip the pick with your thumb making sure to grip it as close to the tip of the pick as possible so just a quarter of it is showing. When you hold the pick too far away from the tip it will allow the guitar pick to easily fly out your possession while playing.

Gripping the pick as close to the tip as possible will allow you to relax more since you won’t have to use too much force when picking the strings. To help you get familiar about where to place your thumb and index finger you can get a pick that has groves or holes that indicate where you need to place your fingers for ultimate control and playability. Once you can hold the pick and only let a very small area of the pick hit the strings you will be able to produce crisper sounds without having to worry about the pick flying out your hand.

Striking the Strings

The way you strike the guitar strings with your pick is very important. In order to pick the guitar strings properly with the pick you’ll need to keep your strumming arm as relaxed and tension free as possible.

The biggest mistake a lot of guitarist make when using the pick is that they apply too much force when strumming the strings. You don’t need too much force when you are strumming the strings with a pick so don’t try to over do it.

You also want to hit the strings at a certain angle when you’re using a pick. Probably the biggest mistake beginners make when using a guitar pick is that they strum too flat against the strings. You need to strike the strings at a certain angle so the strings sound off properly.

The perfect angle to strike guitar strings is at a 45 degree angle so you don’t have to move your pick too much to hit the following string. When you hold the pick at a flat angle it will produce a soft sound that has no kind of sharpness to it. When you hold the pick at the right angle it will produce a nicer sound than your finger could ever do.

Practice

You will never get comfortable at using guitar picks if you don’t practice with them. One of the best ways to practice and develop your skills with using picks is use alternate picking. With the alternate picking exercise you will have to strum the sixth string in a downward motion and then strum the sixth string in an upwards motion.

You can do the same exercise with the fifth, fourth, third, second, and first strings in a downward and upward motion. Practicing exercises like alternate picking using your guitar pick is a great way to learn how to use it properly.

Conlcusion

When you first use the guitar pick it will feel a little awkward at first but with due diligence you will get the hang of it. Pay close attention to the rhythm you’re playing with when picking your strings. Make sure everything sounds fluent and not rushed.

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