Welcome to Guitar Tips

Temperature

Keep your guitar away from extreme heat, cold, or humidity changes. Avoid placing your guitar on its stand near heat and air conditioning vents, windows, doors, outside, or in your car for long periods of time.

Driving force

Rhythm is the driving force behind the blues. It might not take a lot of notes to play good blues, but one important thing is that the rhythm must be strongly felt.

Your first guitar

When starting out playing electric guitar, you will be faced with many choices of guitar, amplifier and hordes of other pieces of equipment. While much of the gadgetry is fun, the SINGLE most important part of your setup is the guitar itself.

However much money you have to spend, try to get the best guitar you can - even if it means not being able to afford an amplifier to begin with!

Unless you are playing in a band, you don´t really need an amp to start off with, and the better your guitar is, the easier and more enjoyable your learning experience will be!

And in most cases - you get what you pay for!

Change Your Strings Often

Change your strings regularly, depending on how often you play. If you see signs of corrosion or rust, or your guitar is losing its resonance and sounding tinny, it´s time to change the strings.

Neck Wood

The neck is an equal partner with the body in terms of the overall sound of the guitar. In general, the more thick and dense the wood, the brighter the tone. To achieve the sound you want, you might choose a straight-grain wood or a highly figured maple or mahogany.

Rhythm

In rock and roll, as little as two notes played together can make a powerful rhythm background.

Preserving guitar leads

To ensure longevity of your guitar leads, roll them carefully up. Don't use a winding - over the elbow - method as this can cause separation of the wiring inside the connectors. Any sharp pulls or constant pressure can easily break the delicate solder joints in the cable. Roll gently into a circle about 10 to 12 inches across and store flat in a hard box, crate or road case.

Transposing music

To aid you in playing with different groups / singers, carry a transposition table with you to transpose music (on the page or in your head) into whatever key is comfortable for the band / singer.

To create a table, write out on a piece of paper the notes in the C Major scale from C up to B (in semitone increments) and then write each other key beneath, starting at the major and going up in semitones. This is a really easy way to transpose chords in an instant.

Using a Capo (capo d´astro or crutch)

The easiest way to raise the pitch in your guitar is by using a capo, which is a device that you lock onto your guitar at any fret. The key is raised one-half step each time you move the capo up one fret. A capo will bar all the strings and enable you to play in whatever key the song is in.

Guitar Care

Use only quality guitar care and maintenance products -not furniture polish or abrasive dust cloths.

Pick Problem

Don't you hate it when you are having a quiet session and in one moment of carelessness, you drop your pick in the guitar hole! Never stick your hand in there and reach for it; you'll just mess up your strings. Turn your guitar upside down and shake it!

Increase Your Musical IQ

Psychologists have shown that children can increase their IQs by teaching their younger siblings. Similarly, if you want to play better guitar, teach someone else what you know. Teaching reinforces what you already know and shows you how people learn. You can then apply these techniques to yourself.

Ball end

Ball end: the brass or plastic ball, nut or ferrule affixed to one end of certain types of guitar strings.

On some types of acoustic guitars, this ball end goes into a hole in the bridge below the saddle, and a peg is then inserted into the hole to hold the end of the string in place.

On electric guitars, a similar arrangement is used, or the ball slips into a keyhole slot.

Remove moisture from guitars

To remove moisture from your guitar / case when stored, place small packets of silica gel like the type you get in packaged items. The gel is designed to absorb the moisture away from the precious item. Discard and replace every 6 to 12 months as the gels lose their effectiveness after a while.

How are basses tuned?

Four-string electric and upright basses are tuned in perfect fourths, E A D G from low oo high. Five-string basses commonly add a low B, but some add a high C instead of the low B. Six-string basses usually have both the high C and the low B. Seven-string basses add an F# to the six-string layout. Eight-string basses are like 12-string guitars. There's an extra string added to each of the four standard strings, with the second set tuned an octave higher. 12-string-basses add two "octave" strings instead of one, making 4 sets of three strings.

Practice

Practice is a key element to playing the guitar; you can't really practice too much. When your fingers are sore, your hands ache, and you feel really great about it, you´re doing it right!

Don´t Worry

Don't get frustrated if you can't pick up each "lick" perfectly at first. This takes a lot of playing and practice. The most important thing is to get as close to the "vibe" and the over-all feeling of a particular phrase.

Stainless Steel Wound

Stainless Steel Wound: Preferred by many acoustic electric guitarists. Strings wound with stainless steel are excellent for magnetic pickup amplification and are noted for brightness and durability.

Volume Dynamics

"Dynamic" doesn´t have to mean "Loud." Experiment with picking notes as softly as possible -- at whisper level. Also try picking with your fingertips instead of the pick, for a rounder tone.