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Where To Go For Spanish Guitar Lessons?

Finding good quality Spanish or flamenco guitar lessons on the web is not really that easy most because it’s a rather specialized style of guitar which not too many teachers understand or know how to play that well.

Up until recently there wasn’t that much available online so my main recommendation was to go the route of buying DVDs from Amazon or Book/CD combinations. In other words, to go “offline” when it came to Spanish guitar courses.

Recently however this course has come to my attention and I bought it, tried it and found it excellent.

It starts off with exercises to train your fingers first then goes into a collection of easy Spanish guitar pieces. The best thing is that the pieces or songs are suitable for intermediate players, even those just making the transition out of beginner guitar will find this course within reach.

You can try it here.

What’s The Best Way To Learn How To Play Guitar?

In my opinion the best way to learn guitar is to go to a guitar teacher. There are many of them registered here if you’d like to visit and check it out http://www.rgt.org.uk/

Your tutor should provide you with a structured plan of lessons for getting you to where you want to be on guitar. Make sure you think about the musical direction you’d like to take before the 1st meeting as they’ll more than likely want to know about what your ambitions for guitar actually are.

It’s amazing how many students I would get to my own private practice that had really never thought about this obvious thing at all. Just check out guitar play along dvd here.

Sometimes it can happen that you’ll come across a bad teacher – this is typically someone who may be able to play well but doesn’t have any talent for teaching or communicating how to play guitar. Your first lesson should also be your last with them!

Look for someone who is a decent player but perhaps more importantly, really does know how to explain and present information to you. You’ll make much faster progress with this kind of guitar tutor.

Spanish Style Guitar Lessons

Once you learn how to play basic guitar i.e. strumming and chord changes then you’ll find that you have enough to go and specialize into other styles of guitar. The five most popular styles in acoustic guitar are

  1. Flamenco/Spanish guitar
  2. Blues Guitar
  3. Finger style
  4. Country
  5. Classical

There’s a nice site here with some free flamenco guitar lessons if you’d like to give it a try. Just make sure that you only make this step forward when your skills on guitar are ready for it!

What Is The Best Way To Learn Chords On Guitar?

guitar-3The best way to learn barre chords on guitar is to start by forming your major chord shapes, the open position chords you already learned as a beginner. For example, if we form a C. major chord that you merely to place your fourth finger down upon the fourth string third fret in order to produce a C dominant seven chord which can then become a movable shapes across the fretboard. While this is not strictly classify the as a true barre chord provides an invaluable little steppingstone which will help you get used to the idea of moving chord shapes up and down the guitar neck.

From there the next step would be to form an E major chord however you need to form its using fingers 2, 3 and 4 instead of what is normally used (fingers 1, 2 and 3). This means you will be holding an E major chord which will sound perfectly correct however your first finger is now left free. The next step is to move that entire E chord shape further up the fretboard, say to the 5th fret, and then put your first finger across all six strings along the third fret. You can find a free barre chords chart online to help you find all the shapes available.

You will find that your first attempts may sound pretty awful especially if you have not yet developed enough strength in your left hand in order to push all six strings down at the same time while also having the necessary dexterity in your fingers in order to stretch the distance is required to form the typical kinds of Maj barre chords.

As always however there are plenty of free guitar chords online to learn from and the answer is to simply keep trying even though at first it may seem like an impossible task. With regular practice these chords will become much easier to do.

Try not to become too emotionally involved in your practice time. The trick is to simply do your daily practice and regardless of whether you notice an improvement or not to simply forget about until the next day. It’s only when you start to invest your emotional self into your practicing to become open to disappointment which in turn will lead to a significant drop in motivation and if at that point that you are in danger of giving up.

Many people give up on guitar with the false belief that they have the talent for playing it simply because they could not make the progress expected as quickly as they wanted it. Even the most talented of guitar players must work extremely hard in order to become good on guitar. It’s something which everyone has to earn, it cannot be simply bought that matter how rich you are.

Learning To Play Country Music On Guitar

Learning to play classic country songs on guitar is a popular pastime for many people especially older men. However there’s not too much help in terms of learning how to play it if you’re searching for lessons on the internet. The style is very easy going and sounds cool even today, I guess it’s true that good music never dies.

If you love this kind of music (as I do) then my best advice is to buy DVDs and books from your local guitar store or failing that there’s actually a ton of them on amazon.com. The last book I bought on country guitar was downloaded in PDF directly off the publishers site Mel Bay.

It’s called The Complete Country Guitar Book and I’ve linked it here so you can check it out for yourself.

I like it because the sample pages where exactly what I was looking for and it’s great value for the price – it’s completely jam packed with information. I’m still learning from it and getting a lot out of it.

The official description says it’s an encyclopedia of Carter style bass runs, chord fills, flatpicking, travis picking, rockabilly and Nashville lead styles.

All the examples in the book also come in audio so you can hear exactly how it all should sound. Gets my recommendation.

Learn To Play 2 Classic Beginner Guitar Songs

Most beginners find that they are able to learn the typical beginner guitar chords in Spanish guitar lessons with relative ease. After all, it’s really just a matter of memorizing where each finger goes. Soon after you’ll probably get around to learning a few strums and then the next step is to put both your chords and strumming patterns together.

So far so good.

Aside from being able to connect your chords together smoothly while strumming the first really big challenge will come when you attempt to play your first songs on guitar. This unfortunately is where most people fall down.

A classic mistake that many beginners make is to immediately try to play their favorite songs. They ignore the fact that these songs may be virtually impossible for them to do considering their current technical level on guitar and instead rush madly into trying to play them.

What happens? A week or so later they are completely frustrated at their lack of progress and have all but convinced themselves that they simply must not  have any talent for playing guitar.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

With all of that in mind let’s look at how you really should go about taking guitar lessons and learning your first songs. It’s easy… just forget about what you’d like to play and instead concentrate of what is easiest to play. That’s how you’ll make some measurable progress, trust me.

The first song I’d like you to try is below, it’s a classic beginner tune called “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King. Here’s a youtube video to help you through it.

Know Any Christmas Songs?

The second video this series is here, at time of posting it’s just before Christmas so I hope you’re reading this with enough time to get practicing some easy Christmas guitar songs!

Play Like BB King

Play Like BB King

We all know that we have our own guitar heroes to look up to. In a sense, that is a good thing to do because without them, we will not be inspired to pick up the guitar and learn how to play it. However, if we have exerted some effort to look up to our guitar heroes, we should also exert the same or probably much more effort to learn how they play. Knowing how to play like your guitar idols is indeed a huge step to your guitar maturity. Its leaking wearing their shoes and becoming one with them.

Play Like BB King – Knowing the Gear

If you want to play like your guitar idol, you must first know what they used. From the guitar, to the effects, and up to the amp. These are the three important factors that you need to know. Plus, you need to know the configuration of the guitar the idol is using. You also need to know the mix or the blend on his amp, the tone on his guitar, the pickup position and other stuff. That is if you wanted to truly know how they play. The skill alone is not what makes a guitar hero, the equipment matter a lot too.

Play Like BB King – how to play like him

First, you need to have the gear. Now BB king doesn’t use too much. His guitar, the Vintage ES 335 Signature Model, The Lucille by Gibson is his axe of choice. So if you want to really copy the tone, you should have his guitar. Next, he doesn’t use too many effects. No distortions, just a warm overdriven tone will do. Also for amps, try using a Marshall for that maximum blues effect. Play like BB King.

Troubleshooting your hand problems..

If there is a certain riff or solo that you could not play and you are blaming your cheap guitars, you are doing it wrong. It has nothing to do with your guitar. It is because of your own hands. So if you want to know more about this subject matter, here’s something very useful. I have just the right information that you need to know about this subject and it would definitely  save you from the trouble of looking for it elsewhere. So dig in and enjoy this new information.

  1. Use all your fingers. It is an important thing that you should do. You can be play a lot faster by using all of your fingers. There is lots of chromatic exercise that you could do.
  2. Do not raise your fingers too high from the fretboard when you are moving them around the fretboard. Just get them close enough so that you won’t mute it and not too high.
  3. Do not barre a fret when you are doing a solo. There are lots of guitar players doing this if they have a note that doesn’t move too much. Give your fingers as much freedom as possible.

Backing tracks

Jamming with the band to improve your guitar solo skills or your knowledge of guitar chord progression is one of the best methods of doing so. However, you couldn’t always do that, especially if you are just an ordinary person in your homes, want ing to learn guitar. So what is the solution? Backing tracks. Want to know more about backing tracks? we have just the right amount of information that you need to know about this subject matter and this would definitely save you the hassle of researching it yourself which could prove to be a trouble because it is time consuming and might have risks of getting unreliable information. So avoid that risk and get the information you need here. And by the time you finish reading this article, you will have a vivid idea on what is backing tracks.

Backing tracks are simply music tracks of a whole band except the lead guitar. Why is the lead guitar missing? Is he sick? Tardy? Or busy with something else? No, not really. The lead guitar part that is missing is to be filled up by none other than you. This is very essential for practicing guitar players because you would definitely hone your lead guitar skills with this.

A heavier sound

Ever wonder how metal artists get those heavy metal grinds on their guitars? Well, basically, we got the distortion going on, heavy as usual, but it is actually all about the tuning and the strings. If you really want to obtain a heavy sound, try the following:

  1. Tune down – try tuning down your guitar a whole step down (whole step means to semitones or two frets) so instead of the standard E, A, D, G, B,  and E, we have the standard D tuning; D G C F A D.
  2. Heavier Gauge Strings – if you are tuning down, you should first use a thicker set of strings or heavy gauge strings. Tuning down with late gauges could cause it to loosen, which results to murky sound and uber sofa string action. That is why, string with thicker gauges are better when doing tune downs.
  3. Distortion – try using a heavier – sounding distortion. I like the heavy sound of the BOSS MetalCore pedal. Simple control, thick and massive tone. Perfect for punchy heaviness that we are trying to accomplish.
  4. Guitars – not all guitars are suitable for this kind of playing. It’s ok to use Stratocasters and Les Pauls but if you really want a heavier metal sound, use guitars that have active pickups, like EMG’s.

The Truth about Piracy

For more than 10 years the major label music industry has claimed that digital piracy is the main reason why there is a huge decline in album sales.  But if you look closely you would definitely understand that this is not about piracy. There are a lot of factors affecting album sales. First, CD sales are killed by digital sales and it is also affected by the option that is available nowadays, the option to purchase one or two songs only, the only songs that you want to listen to. That kills it. And it is not piracy. If piracy does kill artists, it is only the mainstream artists or those pop and RnB acts are affected. Musically established bands that create real music don’t have to rely on album sales because they know that a multitude of supporters would be following them and supporting them. They would go to any lengths just to purchase their new record. That’s a hardcore fan. And their concert tours are enough to keep them alive. But that only goes for those who create music that is worth it. Real musicians will be appreciated by real music lovers and they would forever be cherished.