Posts Tagged ‘backing tracks’

29 July

Beginners Guide To Increasing Your Guitar Playing Speed

There probably would be one in a million, who could actually pick up a guitar and start to play without even thinking about it, but this is a very rare individual, with a gift that doesn’t come along very often. If you are one of these people, consider yourself very fortunate. The rest of us have to take the time and more time and more practicing, before we can get to the point where our skill and the speed which we desire to have, comes without thinking about it too much.

We will need such helps as metronomes and knowledge which can be practically applied to our everyday practicing. Many young guitar players, when they first start and have a guitar in their hands, dream of the time that they too will be able to have their fingers flying across the fretboard, with the speed of lightning. This kind of playing will indeed blow the speakers and the ears of the people, who happen to be listening, as they think that the louder the better.

To be a speedy player on the guitar, you will develop fingers which bleed at some point, more dedication to the craft than you are capable of right now, the patience to overcome all the obstacles which might come in your way and lots of hard work, repeated over and over again. Speed does not come overnight, so don’t get discouraged, in time it will happen for you.

There is so much to learn, before you become a virtuoso on the guitar, and the time it takes to learn all these things, takes effort and endurance on your part. In time you will develop that trained ear, that you so want to have, with the skills and the speed that will come along for you too. Your rhythm will improve and everything else will also, but be very patient with yourself and don’t give up too soon.

Backing tracks will help you on your journey to play a better guitar. The tempo that will help you to improve your speed, will be applied so that it will also make it so much more fun for your practice time. Bringing to perfection, these skills, will happen with these tracks, by hearing the background with the professional backup that you need and you will find that you won’t get so bored with the practice times, compared to doing it all by yourself.

When you have mastered the scales and your own techniques, then you need to use a metronome, set it at the speed and tempo which is comfortable for you and then you will find that it improves your speed tremendously. Your accuracy will definitely improve with using the metronome, and you will find that your skills, will so readily all come together for you. Just playing fast, will not mean that you have achieved anything, if the notes are all wrong.

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17 July

Complete List Of Guitar Solos And Improvisation Techniques

If you are planning to entertain with the guitar by being a soloist then you need to learn some various guitar dramatization techniques this is not something that is easily done and you are really going to need to learn to practice all of the beginning steps of playing a guitar including how to play faster.

To begin with you better make sure that you know the music that your going to be playing totally you don?t want to be fumbling for cords or tunes half way through your solo. Once you have practiced the same tune over and over again it then gives you the ability to play it without even having to give it much thought this is the point you must get to before you start to dramatize your techniques where they become more individualized.

Once you know the song then you will know what to play in order to complement the various aspects then you are going to need to know what notes are going to go with the different type of scales that you need to concentrate on. The very first thing that you would of learned in music is your scale that goes from starting with your doe ray me?s all music including guitar basically centers around this scale so it is something that although may seem simple to you really must need to learn it properly.

Learning how to play your guitar as a solo and dramatizing your techniques is something that takes a long time to do there are many things however that are going to be able to help you along your way and this is by learning some of those special techniques.

1. One of the things you will want to learn is how to manipulate your strings by bending them in a certain way by doing this you?ll be able to hear the note that will be coming next.

2. Then you can learn a technique where you are going to string bend and release where when you do the release it goes back to where you were by this meaning the last note.

3. then you are going to have to learn to take the second note and pull it off this has to be done at a frat that is lower then the one that you are utilizing.

4. From here you can take a number of the notes and learn to do a slide taking your time doing it slowly moving up to another frat all the time that you are doing this you must stay consistent with the pressure.

5. If you take and play your first note and then take the second note by hammering it with a frat that is higher this is another technique that will individualize or dramatize your solo playing.

6. Another great technique is if you are going to utilize the bibrato here you have to do a repetition of pitch bending or you will go a little up and then back down to the pitch that you were playing at to begin with.

7. If you take your index finger and tap it on a frat that is the written one you will get a tapping technique.

8. Another technique is to take the string pick it and then quickly touch it with the thumb of your right hand just on the edge.

9. Then if you want to be sure that you are doing your best then you have to do harmonic natural and mute palm.

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12 July

Finally Revealed: Does Thinner Guitar Strings Give You Speed?

In the guitar playing community, there are many theories for making you a better guitar player. . Some of these ideas are only based on half truths, but much of it is based on myths more than anything else. They offer no help for the person, when they are wanting to play their guitar at a greater speed and improve their style.

One of these myths, includes the theory that when you use thick strings with high action, you will not increase your speed. The indications to this is that the string action needs to be deep utilizing thin strings.

This is only a myth, because in reality, if you have thinner strings, making the action lower, this does not allow you to perform any better or even faster. Thin strings and the lower action, will decrease the resistance during your performance.

This action will make getting to those notes easier but really doesn’t do anything for the tone of your playing and doesn’t do anything else either, for the skill and speed at which you can play. What you will be accomplishing, is to only make noise and to make it easier to make noise.

Using thin strings will not help you to become a master at playing, even if you will be playing any faster. Accuracy and clarity is what it takes to become a master at playing any instrument well and at a speedy level. This comes with lots of practice. Accuracy only comes when you have taken the time to practice every day, for many years, so if you are a beginner, then you will have a few years ahead of you, before your speed will improve greatly. If you play fast and don’t hit the right notes, then what is the point. Fast fingers will come when you have mastered the accuracy skills first. If you want to be a well-rounded player, commit to memory, the scales and chords and the position that your fingers should have on the frets. This will be slow at first. With everything you tackle in life, start slowly at first and work your way up. Some day you fly through those solos with perfection , but time will be needed to achieve this.

For aspiring guitarists, in order to improve your accuracy and speed, it helps greatly to use backing tracks. This will help you immensely, by practicing your speed and your solos and this will become very beneficial for you. Its a great learning tool to be able to take the lead playing with great backup by utilizing back tracks.

This will help you to get used to playing with other musicians, while you are developing your skills. Some day, after practicing with the backing track, you will find that there will be a time, when you will be playing with a real group of musicians and you will be thankful that you had the practice time in this way.

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7 May

The Beginners Guide To Guitar Effects and Pedals

In this article, I just want to touch on the delight that you can get when you use a pedal, or distortion. In the beginning, distortion was thought of as something unwanted, as a malfunction that was to be corrected, but, over time, musicians began to realize that a distortion or the effect of a pedal could sustain a guitar note, if used properly, and it could also add some other interesting sounds to the guitar that gave it a whole new range, and audience.

When amplifiers were first used, they discovered that the tubes could not handle the sound well enough to allow it to disperse properly and so, distortion happened. However, when musicians realized that there was a completely new world to be explored with the different sounds, they began to play with all the possibilities.

Many musicians still like to use the old tube amplifiers because of the distortion they give. They have a warm, more resonant tone that puts audiences in that mood where they can appreciate better the qualities of the different tones that can be created.

Later, a thing called equalization was discovered, Equalization, or EQ, happens when certain frequencies are amplified within a signal. It can highlight the treble or the bass to make it a little more equal with the sound being produced, hence the name equalizer. You have to experiment with EQ, because the distortion or the amplification you get may not work with what the rest of the band is playing.

Other properties of the pedals are known as modulations and delays and those occur when the signal is split into two equal parts so that one follows the other at an interval of your choosing. Modulations don?t have the natural sound of a delay, and so have to be evaluated as you experiment.

The next characteristic of the pedals is the pitch shift. This is where you can alter the pitch of a note or chord by operating the pedal to your liking. Again, you have to experiment with all the sounds because with pitch shift, you can go too far and go completely out of key with the song being played.

Modeling while not really an effect as much as a program is also used to imitate a certain guitar sounds that is different from the one you were just using. You press the pedal and choose the desired sound that you have programmed in. This goes along with multi-effects that combine individual effects, or allow you to mix and match according to the sound you want. This gives a depth and range that can create a whole array of different sounds.

Individual pedals have different effects, from tone to sound variations to pitch alteration to different guitar sounds. What the pedal does is allow for you, the player to create a whole world of sound and variations that will invariably delight the audience, as long as you use it right.

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3 May

The Most Famous Guitars In Rock and Roll History

If you like music, then you know about an American guitarist, singer and songwriter named Jimi Hendrix. He was classed as one of best and influenced many a budding guitarists with his music.

Though starting in England it wasn?t until the Monterey Festival in 1967 that he was recognized worldwide. He later went on to headline The 1969 Woodstock Festival and with his style of playing using guitar feedback and overdriven amplifiers he turned an undesirable sound into a highly popular type of music.

HIS GUITAR-FENDER 60s REVERSE HEADSTOCK STRATOCASTER

Another amazing artist is Jimmy Page, from England he is also a composer and record producer. He started out as a Studio guitarist then joined a band called the Yardbirds, which played from 1966 to 1968. He then founded one of best and most popular English bands called Led Zepplin. In rock history, Jimmy Page is a legend in his own right. as a guitarist and songwriter. Page was also ranked the #9th greatest guitarist of all time.

HIS GUITARS-GIBSON LES PAUL CLASSIC, GIBSON CUSTOM SHOP JIMMY PAGE DOUBLE NECK ELECTRIC

You can?t talk guitarists without talking about? Slowhand? Eric Clapton. This English award winning rock guitarist, singer is also a songwriter and composer. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 3 times and was one of the best musicians of the 20th and 21rst centuries. Though he?s tried different styles, the blues are always present in his playing. He has played with Cream, The Yardbirds and blues ?rock band John Mavril & the Bluesbreakers.

HIS GUITAR-ERIC CLAPTON ARTIST SIGNATURE STRATOCASTER

Another great guitarist, from America, is Joe Satriani. His style of instrumental rock music in a world previously dominated by pop opened the doors for a completely new type of music. His blues and rock tone has a warm sound and the influences of such artists as Jimi Hendrix , Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck can be heard in his music.

HIS GUITARS-IBANEZ JS100, IBANEZ JS1000, IBANEZ JS1200

Fame came to Carlos Santana and the Santana Blues Band in the late 60s and early 70s. With a fantastic blend of rock, blues, jazz, salsa using Latin instruments such as congas, and timbales it was a sound with great melody that Santana perfected over the decades to come.

HIS GUITAR-PRS SANTANA II GIBSON SG

AC/DC is an Australian hard rock band and its co-founder Angus Young is an amazing guitarist and songwriter and is ranked in the magazine Rolling Stones list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time at 96th. He is known for his schoolboy ?uniform outfits and his hard edge style lead guitar playing.

HIS GUITAR-GIBSON ANGUS YOUNG SIGNATURE SG

One of the most famous bands of all times is by far The Rolling Stones. One of the co-founders. Keith Richards is a guitarist from England and sings as well as produces music with lead vocalist Mick Jagger. Together they have written and produced many hit songs and Richards is rated number 10 on the Rolling Stones Guitarist list.

HIS GUITARS-FENDER 1950s TELECASTER, GIBSON LES PAUL CLASSIC

These are but a few of the most famous guitarists and the guitars they play!

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28 April

How To Choose The Right Guitar Amplifier - Amp

If you go shopping for an amp, it is easy to get confused, as there are so many to choose from. There are basically four kinds of amplifiers made, and they are hybrid, tube, solid state or analog, and modeling or digital. Tube amps are the best liked among performers for their rich and warm sound. They produce more volume at the same wattage as solid state, allowing for ?That fat sound?, and have a softer distortion that is gentler and more pleasing to the discerning ear. Unlike solid state which are made of transistors, the tubes in the amp will need replacing after time.

Solid State amps, as mentioned above are made of transistors, instead of tubes. Also unlike the tube amp, solid state rarely, if ever need replacing or repair, hence the name solid state. Solid states are pretty much a safe bet if you are just starting out, because initially you will want an amp that has a clean sound.

For those who are into high tech, there are the digital or modeling amps. Basically these amplifiers use digital processors and they imitate the sound of tube amplifiers by the use of software designed to duplicate the sound. The advantage of these amps is that they have different programs for different sounds, so you can alter it for whatever style you want to change to.

Hybrid amps, as the name suggests, use the parts of other amps to make one single amp. For instance, tubes can be combined with solid state, or analog. You can have an amp called a valvestate that use tubes in the pre-amp section and solid-state technology drives the power section.

Then there is the combination, or combo amps and they combine both the amplifier and the speaker into one unit, or you can do a combo of amplifier and speaker in different ways for a different sound, and easier portability. Amps that are purely for practice are normally solid state or a combo and generally have a lower power output.

For a decent amplifier, the wood should be half an inch thick at least so that it can take the vibration and that is an important thing to know when shopping for a good amp. When you are looking for an amp, also consider the speaker size, as it will matter what purpose you want to apply it to. Ten-inch speakers at thirty watts are ideal for practice and for a small crowd twelve inch at fifty watts is ideal ? large crowds need at least one hundred watts.

So, when you?re shopping for an amplifier, make an educated choice using this information as a guideline. Type of amplifier, speaker size and wattage and different built-in distortion effects are all crucial, as well as telling the sales rep what purpose you want it for ? they?re always happy to help. Make sure to tell them what price range you want to stay within as this narrows down the choices and find out what the return policies are.

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