Tuesday, 17 July 2007

History Of The Acoustic Guitar by Samantha Clark

Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitar usually involve the following musical instruments:

Nylon and gut stringed guitars: * Renaissance guitar * Romantic guitar * Classical guitar

Steel stringed guitars: * Twelve string guitar * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Archtop guitar * Battente guitar

Acoustic bass guitar Russian guitar

Other instruments: * Harp guitar * Banjo guitar * Guitar lute

Guitar can be divided into two categories, acoustic and electric

An acoustic guitar is not dependant on any external device for amplification. The shape and resonance itself has the ability to create acoustic amplification. Today there are many acoustic guitars available with built-in electronics and power to enable amplification.

Acoustic electric guitars

Some steel-string acoustic guitars are fitted with pickups as an alternative to using a different microphone. These are called electric acoustic guitars and are regarded as acoustic guitar rather then electric guitars. It should not be confused with hollow body electric guitars, which are more of electric guitars fitted with hollow sound chambers.

Free acoustic guitar lessons

There several free acoustic guitar lessons available online for beginners. The free guitar lessons are designed for guitarists of all playing abilities.

Acoustic guitar magazine

The acoustic guitar magazine is for acoustic guitar players, from beginners to performing as a professional. The magazine usually contains free acoustic and electric guitar lessons, tutorials and videos for both beginner and professional. Some of the great magazine includes Flatpicking guitar magazine and Acoustic guitar.

Vintage acoustic guitars

Veteran musicians know firsthand that vintage acoustic guitars simply sound and feel better than their contemporary counterparts.

Vintage acoustic guitar body shape:

Steel-stringed vintage acoustic guitars come in two general body shapes.

Flattop vintage acoustic guitars - As the name suggests, flattop vintage acoustic guitars feature a flattop body. If you play blues, folk, bluegrass, or rock, flattops, which were pioneered by Martin, will suit you best.

Archtop vintage acoustic guitars - In contrast, archtop vintage acoustic guitars have a curved top and a hollow body. If you're a jazz or country player, then look for archtops, which were invented by Gibson. (The most sought-after Gibson archtops are the larger models dating from the early 1930s to 1959.)

Acoustic guitar notes

A musical note is a tone. However, a musical-note tone comes from a small collection of tones that are pleasing to the human brain when used together. For example, you might pick a set of tones at the following frequencies:

* 264 Hz * 297 Hz * 330 Hz * 352 Hz

Acoustic guitar reviews

Yamaha LLX-500C Acoustic/Electric Guitar

Price ranges from $2,399 or higher.

The Yamaha LLX-500C is hand built in Yamaha's Japan factory. Features include a solid spruce top, mahogany neck, and solid rosewood back and sides. The headstock and neck of the guitar are attractive trim in ivoroid binding, and the Yamaha name on the headstock just look great. Unlike many acoustic electric, the Yamaha LLX-500C sides are solid instead of laminated.

Guild F50R Jumbo Acoustic Guitar

Price ranges from $2,499 or higher.

The F50R is based on the original F50 specification from 1960s to 1980s. The Guild F50R features an ebony fretboard and a rosewood bridge. Neck dimensions include a 25.6-inch scale and a slightly narrower-than-normal width of 1.69 inches. The F50R does not lack for fine details - the fret board has eye-catching abalone and mother-of-pearl inlays and two racing stripes that run from nut to sound-hole.

Acoustic Guitar Tabs

Tablature is a form of musical notation, which tells players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. Tablature is mostly seen for fretted stringed instruments, in which context it is usually called tab for short. It is frequently used for the guitar, bass and lute. But in principle it can be used for any fretted instrument includes banjo and viola da gamba.

Acoustic Guitar Strings

Guitar strings are strung parallel to the neck, whose surface is covered by the fingerboard. By depressing a string against the fingerboard, the effective length of the string can be changed, which in turn changes the frequency at which the string will vibrate when plucked. Guitarists typically use one hand to pluck the strings and the other to depress the strings against the fretboard.

The strings may be plucked using either fingers or a plectrum. The sound of guitar is either mechanically or electronically, forming two category of guitar: acoustic or electric.

About the Author
Samantha Clark heads consumer reviews at http://www.dealsdepot.com.au. One of the web's most popular Online Shopping sites.

Learn to Play Guitar - A Beginner's Guide by Christopher Sung

This article is devoted to learning how to play guitar (and even those just thinking about learning to play or giving the gift of music to a loved one) and how to approach gaining some kind of proficiency on the instrument. Now, we've all seen people playing the guitar at various times, sometimes on TV, sometimes up close (a real treat), playing various kinds of music and at varying skill levels. I think the hardest obstacle to overcome when you're learning how to play the guitar or thinking about starting is the thought that playing the guitar is only something musicians can do, or is only for people who are musically inclined. The simple fact is that anyone can learn to play the guitar. It's just a matter of spending some time with it on a regular basis, and practicing in a manner that's both fun and productive. Once it becomes part of your routine, it's only a matter of time before your skill level and confidence develop.

When I started learning the guitar, there were a couple of learning aids I found to be indispensable. They include:

Learning to Play Guitar Chord Reference Book - This is really helpful when you're not sure how to play an F chord or a B minor, or want to learn some other ways to play it
Artist Songbook - This is a songbook which has the piano, lyrics, and guitar chords to your artist's favorite songs, and is great for learning how to strum and change from chord to chord
Classical Guitar Book - This helps you familiarize yourself with the feel of scales and arpeggios, and also improves your sight reading
Guitar Tab Songbook - As you progress, you're going to want to play some of the guitar parts from your favorite songs note-for-note, meaning exactly as your favorite guitarist plays them. This type of book has the music for this both in standard notation and guitar tablature
I had a very insightful guitar teacher who started off each lesson by showing me a new chord and how to play it. Some good chord reference books that tackle these types of chords are the Whole Book of Guitar Chords and The First Book of Chords for the Guitar both written by Dan Fox. Once I had a feel for the chord, he would choose a song from a songbook from one of my favorite bands that used this chord (say a B minor or an A7) and would have me learn that song using an appropriate strum pattern. My mom played the piano, and would often visit the music store to buy sheet music songbooks from her favorite artists, so eventually I got her to buy me a few gems of this type:

Beatles Complete - This is a valuable book for two reasons. One is that it's The Beatles. The second is that The Beatles composed songs with relatively few and very easy to play chords ("I Saw Her Standing There" has three), and also songs with many and often unorthodox chords ("Michelle" has, um, a lot), especially when used in rock music. This makes it a great vehicle for learning new chords incrementally via their songs
Neil Young - Decade - My brother wore out this recording and when I started playing some of the tunes from it on the guitar, it gave his little brother some instant credibility. Many of the songs in this book were recorded by Neil on the acoustic guitar, so it lends itself to the beginner who's learning on an acoustic
Led Zeppelin Complete - This is a strange and beautiful book. It has the main guitar riffs for every Led Zeppelin song on the first five albums (I - IV and House of the Holy) but it's in standard notation. I spent a summer learning every song in this book and not only did my guitar playing improve, but so did my sight reading
Eric Clapton Deluxe Revised - This contains some of the best songs from Cream, the Layla disc by Derek and the Dominoes, and some of Eric's early solo work, but it's unique in that it has a separate section with some of Eric's best guitar solos transcribed. Eric is a great role model when you start learning how to play a guitar solo, because some of his solos are simple enough that they can be played by a beginning-intermediate guitar player (though it takes a lifetime to learn to play it with as much feeling as Eric)
Once we covered the chord of the week and the song that went with it, we would tackle a classical piece. One of the best classical books I can recommend, especially if you're not a classical guitarist, is Classical Studies for Pick-Style Guitar - Volume 1. This book is great for developing your right-hand picking and also for developing your sight reading since all the music is in standard notation. There are some interesting pieces by Matteo Carcassi, which require you to arpeggiate various chords, and also some Bach Inventions that are arranged for duet guitar, so you can play with a friend. You can hear how this sounds in an on-line guitar lesson I created at WholeNote - Bach's 8th Invention.

The one thing that's changed over the past decade in sheet music for guitarists is the emergence of guitar tab songbooks. In the late 1990's, an archive of guitar tablature files was collectively created and dubbed the On-Line Guitar Archives (OLGA), in which random guitarists from around the world created text files containing their own transcriptions of how to play your favorite songs by your favorite bands. The problem was that the quality and accuracy of the transcription was hit or miss. Sheet music companies finally wised up and started releasing accurate note-for-note transcription books, which were the real deal. In my day, you were a god if you could play the guitar solo, "Eruption", played by Eddie Van Halen off Van Halen I, because you had to learn it by ear off the record, which is pretty much impossible. Today, you can just buy the Van Halen I guitar tab songbook and get all the music for Eruption both in guitar tab and standard notation. Oh, and they also throw in the rest of the songs from Van Halen I, and from Van Halen II, as well. I've always loved the whacked-out intro that Eddie plays in Mean Street, which opens the Fair Warning recording. The Van Halen Guitar Anthology Series has the tab for this, note for note, including every last harmonic, pick scrape, bend, and tap. It's unbelievable. And it's not just Van Halen. You can find similar guitar tab songbooks for The Beatles, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Matthews Band, Nirvana, Green Day, Audioslave and pretty much anyone else you can think of.

Finally, as you develop your practice routine, the one thing most often overlooked during practice is being able to play in time. When you start to get comfortable with chords and strumming, there's a natural tendency to stop or to hesitate while switching between chords. A good metronome will make you aware of this and force you to play in time. The Qwik Time QT-7 Quartz Metronome is a good budget option and provides a good click, while the Wittner Wood Case Metronome w/ Bell and Cover is the kind you can hang onto forever and pass along from generation to generation (and I should know - I have one from my grandfather). The Fender MT-1000 Chromatic Tuner/Metronome is unique in that you get both a metronome and a guitar tuner in one convenient package. Very handy, indeed.

You too can learn to play the guitar today! Hopefully, this gives you a bit of direction as you learn to play the guitar. Remember that it's simply a matter of spending some time regularly practicing some of the basics and then applying them to your favorite music. Keep expanding your knowledge of the basic chords and learn to play songs that use them, along with the strumming patterns of the tune. Combined with some classical pieces for dexterity and developing your sight-reading chops, you'll be well on your way to mastering the guitar in no time!

About the Author
Christopher Sung Learn to Play Guitar

Thursday, 5 July 2007

Learn to Play Guitar - Free Tips for Beginner Guitar Players

Find a Good Teacher - There is no substitution for a good guitar teacher. You can buy all the books and videos you want, but in order to really become a good guitar player, you need to learn from a pro. A professional guitar teacher has the experience and wisdom necessary to teach you how to become a proper guitar player. Books, videos, and the Internet for that matter, lack in their ability to provide you with feedback and advice. A good guitar teacher will correct you if you are doing something wrong so that you don't form bad habits or techniques. A good guitar teacher will also encourage you when you are doing something right.

Do Not Get Discouraged - When first learning the guitar, or any instrument for that matter, you may find yourself getting discouraged, or perhaps saying to yourself "this is just too difficult". You may find yourself practicing the same song or chords over and over again, and never getting any better at it. Do not let this discourage you. Sometimes are brains just need a little rest, or need to be occupied with something else. Take a break and come back to your practice with a fresh mind.

Practice - The more often that you practice your guitar the more familiar you will become with the instrument. Your playing will become easier over time. Try and free up at least 20 minutes of time every day to practice your guitar. Find a time and location where you know you will not be interrupted. Interruption can really kill your concentration and snap you out of a good rhythm. Warm your hands and stretch your fingers before you play. Talk with your guitar teacher to develop the best practice exercises that are right for your style of playing.

Create an effective practice schedule - The length of your practice is not necessarily the most important thing. Usually it is the quality of your practice that is most important. Make sure your guitar teacher is giving you a well-rounded approach to guitar playing and helping you make the most of your practice sessions.

Slow Down - One great bit of advice with your practicing; don't play too quickly! Many new guitar players will rush through a lick or a song in the beginning, trying to play it exactly as they hear it and only wind up butchering it. Before you can play anything correctly, you must learn to slow down and play it right at a much slower speed. You can then slowly increase your speed as you improve.

Watch your posture - Guitar playing should not be extremely painful and uncomfortable. If you find yourself with various aches and pains in your shoulders, your neck, your back, etc., chances are you are not in a correct playing posture. Ask your guitar teacher to demonstrate a proper playing posture, then do your best to stick to it. Tell your teacher to observe you during practice and correct you whenever you fall out of the correct posture.

Get a metronome - A very important part of guitar playing is the ability to keep good timing. An instrument, which will help you become better at timing, is called a metronome. You can purchase this at any guitar center. When working with a metronome, in the beginning, you should start off at a slow speed. This will help you build your muscles and develop better control and good playing habits.

Change your strings - Your guitar strings are very important to the quality of sound your guitar produces. How often you change your guitar strings really depends on how often you play. Professional guitar players may change their strings before every gig. Others who don't play as often, may change their strings every 2 months or so. Again it really depends on how often you play, and how well you take care of your guitar strings. Don't wait until your strings break before you change them and you should change all of your strings at the same time.

Try new things/experiment - If you feel uninspired in your guitar playing why not try something fresh and different? If you have mastered a particular song on your electric guitar, why not try the same song on an acoustic guitar? If you only play your guitar using a pick, put down the pick and just use your fingers. Perhaps you only enjoy playing blues guitar. Why not try some jazz or classical?

I hope these guitar tips were helpful. The most important thing is to never get discouraged and never give up. Persistence is key when it comes to playing the guitar. If you really have a sincere desire to learn, and you continue to practice, you will become a better guitar player.

You can learn how to play guitar free online. Visit http://www.artsymmetry.com/Category/Guitar-Lessons/199 for more great articles on guitar playing.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Learning To Play The Acoustic Guitar Using Tablature

The acoustic guitar evolved from classic guitars. The strings of an acoustic guitar are typically made from steel rings, as opposed to the nylon or catgut strings used for classical guitars. That is why an acoustic guitar is sometime called a steel-stringed guitar. Acoustic guitars have a clearer and louder sound due to a much stronger construction than other guitars.

A acoustic guitar is usually played using a guitar pick, also called a plectrum (plural plectra), made from plastic, metal, ivory or other materials. The guitarist strums or strikes the guitar strings with the pick, which he will often hold between the index finger and thumb. Other guitarists do not use a pick, but play with their fingernails or bare fingers strumming or plucking individual notes on the guitar.

The type of construction and the materials used influence the price and sound quality of an acoustic guitar. A guitar with solid sides, back and top will be more expensive than one with laminated sides and back. The solid type guitars are generally made using maple, mahogany or Indian rosewood, whereas cheaper guitars are build with laminated woods. The neck and fingerboard are made with denser woods like cedar and ebony. The tone of the guitar is defined by the combination of woods used in the manufacture. To make the guitars a little less expensive, some manufacturers use alternative materials such as graphite and plastic.

A guitar tablature is a diagram of the strings with finger positions indicated by numerals corresponding to the appropriate frets. Tablature is sometime referred to in the short form "tab". Learning to play the acoustic guitar can be greatly eased by using tablature it corresponds more to how you actually play the guitar than standard musical notation.

Vertical lines on the tab represent the strings, horizontal lines represent the frets and the dots show the finger positions. For an acoustic guitar it is a six line staff with the lines numbered. Take note that the tablature is written "upside down" with the higher notes at the top and lower ones at the bottom to correspond to standard music notation. The numbers indicate which fret should be used.

Guitar tabs are standardized, but various publishers of sheet music may use different styles writing guitar music. Guitar magazines, songbooks and journals will provide a legend to specify the style they are using.

The six line guitar tab has several advantages over standard musical notifaction that use a five line staff for learning to play acoustic guitar. It is much easier to interpret guitar tab and new players can pick it up quickly. So go ahead, get some of your favourite songs in tab format and play away!

Get more Learn guitar music tips and resources at http://www.guitarmusicinfo.com, including How To Start To Learn Lead Guitar

Article Source: Ezine Articles

An Introduction to the Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitar usually involve the following musical instruments:

Nylon and gut stringed guitars:
• Renaissance guitar
• Romantic guitar
• Classical guitar

Steel stringed guitars:
• Twelve string guitar
• Steel-string acoustic guitar
• Archtop guitar
• Battente guitar

Acoustic bass guitar
Russian guitar

Other instruments:
• Harp guitar
• Banjo guitar
• Guitar lute

Guitar can be divided into two categories, acoustic and electric

An acoustic guitar is not dependant on any external device for amplification. The shape and resonance itself has the ability to create acoustic amplification. Today there are many acoustic guitars available with built-in electronics and power to enable amplification.

Acoustic electric guitars

Some steel-string acoustic guitars are fitted with pickups as an alternative to using a different microphone. These are called electric acoustic guitars and are regarded as acoustic guitar rather then electric guitars. It should not be confused with hollow body electric guitars, which are more of electric guitars fitted with hollow sound chambers.

Free acoustic guitar lessons

There several free acoustic guitar lessons available online for beginners. The free guitar lessons are designed for guitarists of all playing abilities.

Acoustic guitar magazine

The acoustic guitar magazine is for acoustic guitar players, from beginners to performing as a professional. The magazine usually contains free acoustic and electric guitar lessons, tutorials and videos for both beginner and professional. Some of the great magazine includes Flatpicking guitar magazine and Acoustic guitar.

Vintage acoustic guitars

Veteran musicians know firsthand that vintage acoustic guitars simply sound and feel better than their contemporary counterparts.

Vintage acoustic guitar body shape:

Steel-stringed vintage acoustic guitars come in two general body shapes.

Flattop vintage acoustic guitars - As the name suggests, flattop vintage acoustic guitars feature a flattop body. If you play blues, folk, bluegrass, or rock, flattops, which were pioneered by Martin, will suit you best.

Archtop vintage acoustic guitars - In contrast, archtop vintage acoustic guitars have a curved top and a hollow body. If you’re a jazz or country player, then look for archtops, which were invented by Gibson. (The most sought-after Gibson archtops are the larger models dating from the early 1930s to 1959.)

Acoustic guitar notes

A musical note is a tone. However, a musical-note tone comes from a small collection of tones that are pleasing to the human brain when used together. For example, you might pick a set of tones at the following frequencies:

• 264 Hz
• 297 Hz
• 330 Hz
• 352 Hz

Acoustic guitar reviews

Yamaha LLX-500C Acoustic/Electric Guitar

Price ranges from $2,399 or higher.

The Yamaha LLX-500C is hand built in Yamaha’s Japan factory. Features include a solid spruce top, mahogany neck, and solid rosewood back and sides. The headstock and neck of the guitar are attractive trim in ivoroid binding, and the Yamaha name on the headstock just look great. Unlike many acoustic electric, the Yamaha LLX-500C sides are solid instead of laminated. Guild F50R Jumbo Acoustic Guitar

Price ranges from $2,499 or higher.

The F50R is based on the original F50 specification from 1960s to 1980s. The Guild F50R features an ebony fretboard and a rosewood bridge. Neck dimensions include a 25.6-inch scale and a slightly narrower-than-normal width of 1.69 inches. The F50R does not lack for fine details - the fret board has eye-catching abalone and mother-of-pearl inlays and two racing stripes that run from nut to sound-hole.

Acoustic Guitar Tabs

Tablature is a form of musical notation, which tells players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. Tablature is mostly seen for fretted stringed instruments, in which context it is usually called tab for short. It is frequently used for the guitar, bass and lute. But in principle it can be used for any fretted instrument includes banjo and viola da gamba.

Acoustic Guitar Strings

Guitar strings are strung parallel to the neck, whose surface is covered by the fingerboard. By depressing a string against the fingerboard, the effective length of the string can be changed, which in turn changes the frequency at which the string will vibrate when plucked. Guitarists typically use one hand to pluck the strings and the other to depress the strings against the fretboard.

The strings may be plucked using either fingers or a plectrum. The sound of guitar is either mechanically or electronically, forming two category of guitar: acoustic or electric.

Samantha Clark heads consumer reviews at http://www.dealsdepot.com.au One of the web's most popular Online Shopping sites.

Article Source: Ezine Articles

Tuesday, 29 May 2007

Free Acoustic Guitar Tablature

Free Acoustic Guitar Tablature is essential for any guitarist who is just getting started with the acoustic guitar. Before splashing out on expensive books it is important to find some free tablature, which you can use to practice with. I have played the guitar for 4 years now and I am very glad I started off using free guitar tablature! It would have cost a massive amount of money if I had bought the sheet music for every single song I learnt.

I am not suggesting using only free tablature but free tablature is a great way to get started and to find out the style of music you like to play. Yesterday, I bought the best of Dire Straights music, it was over £16. The free acoustic guitar tablature this site links to is much better value and I highly recommend it for beginners and experts alike.

Friday, 25 May 2007

free acoustic guitar tablature

Free acoustic guitar tablature is one of the hardest things to find online. I am a big acoustic guitar player myself (I will soon be uploading some videos of myself playing!). I started off learning guitar by searching for free guitar tablature online. This is a great way to start and I recommend doing it like this for anyone starting off playing guitar. Once you have got to a certain standard it is important to move on and start buying tablature, because often there are mistakes and/or songs can be over simplified when they are free and on the internet.

Free acoustic guitar tablature can be found via in the links this on this site or by a simply Google search, which may be how you found this site! Best of luck with your guitar playing!