Muna wa Wanjiru asked:


The Guitar can be defined as an instrument with a long fretted neck. Guitars have been popular since five thousand years ago. The word guitar has been derived from the Spanish language. This musical instrument has six strings but even four, seven, eight, ten and twelve strings guitars also exist. In olden days, guitars have been made by using various woods and strung with animal gut. Recently guitars are made of either nylon or steel strings. Guitars are one of the main instruments used for flamenco, rock music, and blues and even in many forms of pop. Guitars can be divided to two categories that referred to as acoustic and electric guitars.

There are different kinds of guitars and each produce different sound. The difference between each guitar can be recognized by the sound of each guitar. The different types of guitars are as follows

* Acoustic guitars uses a soundboard that is a wooden piece mounted on the front of the guitars body. Acoustic guitars are available with a variety of pickups that enable the layer to amplify and modify the raw guitar sound.

* Electric guitars are used in blues, jazz and pop music. Unlike acoustic guitars, electric guitars need an additional amplifier. These amplified electric guitars are different from other guitars.

* Arch top guitar has a hollow body and steel strings are used for this instrument. These arch top guitars have holes on top.

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* Classical guitars have nylon strings and they are played mainly for classical music.

* Russian guitars are seven string guitars that were very popular through out the 19th century.

* Guitar battened is smaller compared to the classical guitar and is played with four or five metal strings .It is popular in Calbria in Southern Italy.

Bass guitars enable the musicians to play a very low note as they have very thick strings. An electric bass guitar is very common. Guitars meet the demands of both the left-handers and right-handers. The various parts of guitars are as follows

Headstock is at the end of the guitar neck far from the body of the guitar. Headstock is used mainly for tuning the instrument.

Fret board is a piece of wood that is at the top of the neck and this helps in tuning the higher pitch notes.

All parts of guitars are attached to one long wooden extension and it is called as neck.

Strings are another important part of guitar and the strings made of steel are commonly used.

Guitars are transposing instrument. Its pitch sounds normal and the most commonly used tuning is standard tuning. Guitars can be played as solo or with other instruments .It can be used for pop music as well as for classical music.



Charlene

1NBAkid1 asked:


Is a Yamaha Acoustic Guitar FG720S a good guitar? Is a Lyon By Washburn Acoustic Guitar a good guitar? I am just looking for a nice sounding guitar.

Doris

Ricky Sharples asked:


Country guitar lessons in these days of the world wide web are now popular all over the world. If you are wondering what the fuss is about I will just mention some aspects of country guitar playing that excite the interest of music fans and guitar enthusiasts alike. This article will focus on a couple of the more individualistic guitar styles in country music and also talk a little about the Telecaster - the country musician’s guitar.

First let us look at a guitar style that has entered the country genre through blues and rock. The slide guitar, also known as the bottleneck guitar is a lyrical way of expressing feelings through guitar music. It was developed in the early twentieth century by the early blues players, and popularized by young white rock and blues players in the nineteen sixties. Now there are many country guitar players who see the musical possibilities in this style of playing. The key to this technique is sliding an object along the guitar strings to make a whining or wailing sound. This presents the guitar player with many opportunities to play notes that fall between the frets of the guitar as well as imitating the sound of a singing voice.

The term “bottleneck” refers to the practice of many slide guitar performers of producing the sliding sound by fitting the neck of a bottle to their first or second finger. Popular wisdom has it that other players used the blade of a knife. Modern slide guitar players usually go to a music shop and buy a slide. You can play slide guitar with the guitar held in the normal playing position or with the guitar in your lap. A player can use an ordinary steel string acoustic guitar tuned in the standard way or to an open chord, or a resonator guitar which has a distinctive metallic sound well suited to slide playing.

Another guitar style used by country guitar players is chicken pickin’, developed to high art by Walon Jennings. It is used in lead guitar solos and involves the guitar player pulling on the string with his right hand fingers and at the same time damping the string with his left hand. Most country guitar players use a plectrum or thumbpick to play bass notes in conjunction with chicken pickin’ on the treble strings.

Chet Atkins is a country guitar player who was adept at the chicken pickin’ technique but he was most well known for his adaptation of the Travis picking technique. Merle Travis developed an impressive solo playing technique using his thumb to pick bass notes and his index finger to play melody or filler notes. Chet Atkins was so impressed with Travis’ solos that he assumed that Travis was using his second and ring fingers in addition to his index finger. This mistaken assumption led to a whole new generation of country guitar players inspired by the Chet Atkins style.

If you want to take country guitar lessons you should learn about the typical sound that is associated with country guitar music. While rock and roll has as many sounds as there are guitar players, country guitar has its own sound. This is due to most country players opting to stay with the clean, unadorned sound of the Fender Telecaster. The “Tele” had a sound that made aspiring guitar players sit up and take notice combined with a design that made it a dream to play. It is a solid body electric guitar with two pickups, and was the first electric guitar to be successfully produced and sold on a large scale.

In the early days of the electric guitar both rock and country guitar players wanted to be heard by the audience without feedback interfering with the sound of the guitar. The Telecaster filled the bill when it came out in 1950 and has remained a popular choice for solo guitarist ever since. Country guitarists noted for being enthusiastic Telecaster players include Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, James Burton and Merle Haggard.



Sue

Fred Peters asked:


Do you want to pick your first guitar? Picking your first guitar can be a difficult choice. There are so many guitars to choose from. Do you buy an acoustic guitar? Do you buy a classical guitar? Do you buy an electric guitar?

Buying your first guitar is an awesome experience. No instrument is cooler to play than the guitar. The guitarist is always the star of the bank. And let’s face it, chicks dig them.

It is important to know how much money you can afford to spend before you start looking for a guitar. If you go to a local guitar store without a clear budget in mind, you will continue to pull the more expensive ones off the shelf. But, for a beginning guitar player, you don’t need a really expensive one. You can probably get a good first guitar for around $300 to $500. Online you can also find some great deals on used beginner guitars.

Guitars have a beautiful sound and are a lot easier to learn how to play than most think possible. However, before you go out to buy one you need to know these tricks and tips to make sure you are getting the best guitar for your money. Online guitar stores are a great place to find the best guitars at the lowest prices. However, before buying a guitar online, I think that you should visit your local guitar shop so that you can look at the guitars in person and up close. You will want to see how the guitar feels in you hands, how it looks, and how it sounds. Take the guitar off the wall, plug it into an amp, grab a pick and start strumming. You should also look at buying an acoustic guitar. This is the best way to find out what guitar is the right one for you.

If you are having trouble narrowing down the guitar you want to buy, here are some good recommendations. For acoustic guitars, I love Takamine guitars, Martin guitars, Ovation guitars and epiphone guitars. For electric guitars, I would check out Ibanez guitars, Fender guitars and Gibson guitars.

Once you have found the guitar that you want to buy, check out the online stores to see if you can find one at the best price. I cannot stress enough the power of online stores. The prices are almost always lower.

Remember to look at some online guitar stores to find great prices on beginner guitars.



Eileen

Bg B asked:


I am buying my first guitar I need a amp and a guitar for no more than 300 dollars. Are guitars fun are they worth the money. I have played piano for 5 years and have fiddled with a acoustic for a year I can play the begging of songs and stuff. I was thinking of one of those ones at the music stores for 200 dollars are they ok for begginers?

Craig

Matt asked:


I am looking for a new guitar. Which of these would you reccommend? An Alpine White Epiphone Les Paul Custom with gold hardware or the Jackson Randy Rhodes Signature guitar that is white ane gold. I play almost any kind of rock.

Karen

jacqueline gharibian asked:


So, you would love to learn to play the guitar? Then why not learn to play guitar online. Yes you heard me right learn online! Who said you had to pay ridiculously high rates to a teacher when you can learn it yourself. No more trying to fit in lessons when they don’t suit you because you can do it at home at any time that suits you. No dealing with transportation, babysitting, illness, cancellations and so on.

 

You maybe someone who doesn’t have the money for lessons so this could be a great opportunity for you also. Most people who learn this way love the fact that they can do it at any time of the day. No traveling required or times to juggle. If you’re a mum with little kids then it can be done when they are in bed. In this day and age most people’s lives are very fast paced and there is often little time for going back and forth to lessons.

If this sounds like you then why not take the plunge and do something that you have always wanted to do in the privacy of your own home and for a minimal amount of money.

With the development of the World Wide Web, music teachers have gone online to offer lessons to adults in the comfort and convenience of their own homes. 

 

In This article you will learn the importance of learning how to play acoustic guitar by a very famous guitar player and teacher, Ben Edward.

 

Ben Edward is a highly respected guitar teacher. He is the former lead guitarist for the popular down-under band “DegreesK”, who he toured with internationally.

Before joining the band he gained a Bachelor of Education. His passion for teaching others, especially guitar, sparked him to develop Jamorama - The Ultimate Guitar Learning Kit and now the Jamorama Acoustic Guitar Learning Kit .

 He designed Jamorama Acoustic Guitar to be a complete learning system, and the easiest to follow guitar learning method available. It comes jam-packed with information. 

He teaches guitar fluency and teaches you how to use your ear to bring you to the stage where you can play virtually any guitar song that you hear. He uses well known songs to guide your learning right from the start! He has made each song very easy for you to learn by breaking them down into small parts, so you can practice each part individually and then put it all together. 

 

Jamorama Acoustic Guitar is packed full of quality step-by-step lessons, video files, games and other resources to get YOU results fast! .  

Ben has integrated 153 video lessons and 26 high quality Acoustic Jam Tracks for you to play along with! You can turn the guitar track off and play along with our percussionist and bass guitarist or you can leave the guitar track playing and try and keep up.

All in all, Jamorama Acoustic Guitar contains 259 pages of information in 153 step-by-step acoustic video lessons in two high quality books that take you on a journey from beginner to advanced in your guitar playing. That includes high-quality video lessons, Acoustic Jam Tracks, hundreds of lines of tablature, and my hugely popular software learning games.

To read more about What Ben Edwards has provided and done for you to make this as easy as possible to learn to play the guitar and also more about Jamorama Acoustic Guitar kit, please visit.. . http://tinyurl.com/4nzs5r,

http://tinyurl.com/4nxand. 

 

Advantages of Learning to Play the Guitar Online:

 

1. A beginner may forget about textbooks and magazines because online learning will provide a beginner the exact guitar lessons and have audio visual images that allow a person to see and hear the tones he will follow.

2. A person will be provided with high quality tablature. Online lessons will teach a person how to read TAB. This will allow a person to easily pick up the guitar TAB, and read it faster than learning from textbooks or magazines.

3. Online lessons about the same as hiring a personal guitar instructor. There are techniques and methods a person may develop in his continuing learning about the guitar.

4. It will provide a person unlimited access to the guitar lesson. A person may choose when he wants to access his lessons.

5. Online lessons will help a person develop his own technique of playing the guitar. He will be able to execute soloing styles and he may apply these when playing.

6. A person may save more money because of the free access that an online guitar lesson offers. Hiring a personal instructor may be expensive especially if he is a slow learner.

7. A person will learn the correct way to use finger style techniques and realize that he will have more knowledge of picking and strumming.

8. A person may learn how to write his own songs and be creative with the notes of his composition.



Keith

Dr. W asked:


The only 2 acoustic guitars I can think of right now are the Yamaha F335 and Epiphone Dove?

Which one do you recommend?

If you can thing of other better guitars please share. My budget is ~$200 for new acoustic guitar.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Rick Mariner asked:


Guitar purchase “off the rack” can be a mine field, consider “custom” versus “pre-fab” electric guitars.

I love guitars, and there’s nothing like a new electric guitar with a proper set up! I like the tone, the way it feels in my hands, and the way that I can make a guitar sound “right” for any kind of music that I play. Whether it’s jazz, blues, country, hard rock, R&B leads, guitar chords, or just working on guitar tabs, all it takes is a flip of a switch, some prep, a couple twists of the knobs, neck alignment and I’m right where I need to be. I’ve bought a lot of guitars over the years, and discovered that taking that beautiful new Strat or Tele guitar out of the box was always just the first step in finding the guitar that fit in my hands the way that I imagined that it would when it first caught my eye. After a close inspection I found that my new guitar wouldn’t be quite gig ready until I did all of the little subtle tweaks, repairs and modifications that would make it play just the way I wanted it to when I got it out onto the gig. I’d dress the frets, get the intonation just right, tweak the pick-ups, customize the configuration a bit, and before you know it, I’d be playing a guitar that felt like it was made to be in my hands. Playing music is always fun, but when I’m on the gig with a guitar that feels just right … it’s just pure guitar joy.

After a while I thought; “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to buy a guitar that felt gig ready right out of the box?” As wonderful as that idea may seem, in reality it’s almost impossible to pick up a guitar in a music store “off the rack” and have it play right. It just doesn’t happen. There are many things that need to be done to “prep” the guitar before it’s ready to play. At Haywire Custom Guitars (http://www.HaywireCustomGuitars.com) we recommend and perform all of the following in prep for a guitar purchase before it leaves the bench at the workshop. For our purposes here I will focus only on electric instruments for now. First, let me pose a question to the beginning through the advanced guitarist. What Is Guitar Intonation and why is it important? Do you know?

Intonation is the accuracy in which an electric guitar or bass can produce a fretted note and the most important issue with any instrument. Setting the intonation on a guitar is the act of adjusting the length of the strings (by moving the bridge saddles) to compensate for the thickness of the string and the stretching of a string due to pushing it down to the fret board to produce a note. To adjust the intonation of your guitar or bass guitar, you move the bridge saddles toward or away from the fret board until the 12th fret note and its harmonic are equal in pitch to the same open-string note, which are exactly one octave apart. Accurate intonation is critical to pitch quality. Pitch quality is essential to “in tune” playing. Poor pitch quality=”out of tune” notes which in turn = poor musical presentation. Wouldn’t you or the salesman want to present your musical talents in the best way possible? Of course, you do.

Now, it is not necessary for a guitar player to know this at all. It is essential however that the guitar possess this quality and maintain as close to perfect intonation as possible. Buying on looks alone can be very disappointing. If however, you like an instrument for the looks but realize that you will need to have it worked on to get it playable then that is a savvy notion. It’s best to speak to a luthier or guitar builder previous to any purchase. It’s akin to asking a mechanic which car he would recommend-before you walk into the show room. In this way you can benefit from his first hand knowledge and experience and not have to go it alone. After all he sees the ones that breakdown more often than you or the salesman do.

Below, I have outlined the essential adjustments to be performed prior to purchasing and playing a guitar under optimal circumstances.

1. 4-axis Alignment of the guitar neck. The guitar neck is checked and adjusted to insure that it is true and straight to insure proper alignment on all axis. This step insures proper action and allows for more accurate and easier guitar tuning, playing and set-up in the following steps.

2. Inspect and Lube the guitar tuning gears

Each tuning gear is adjusted so that there is no play in the mechanism. They are then lubricated to insure smooth and even movement to make your guitar tune accurately.

3. Potting the guitar pickups. Dip the pickups in hot wax to reduce squeal and unwanted guitar feedback.

4. Prep the guitar body. Upon installing the guitar electronic components, great care is taken to insure that all wires are properly routed, spaced, and grounded to insure years of trouble free service with your guitar.

5. Level and polish the frets. This insures that all of the guitar frets are level, eliminating any possibility of fret buzz due to unevenness.

6. Radius the guitar strings. Most guitar necks have a contour over the top of the neck called the “radius”. Adjust the strings to make sure the height of each string follows the contour of the guitar neck.

7. Adjusting the overall guitar string height and the action. Once the string contour and radius of the guitar strings is set, it’s time to adjust the overall height or “action” or distance of the strings from the top of the frets to the bottom of the guitar strings.

8. Set the guitar intonation. This step should be done twice. The intonation is normally set two times with a 24 hour period in between to allow the new guitar adjustments to properly re-seat.

If these steps are performed before playing your new guitar then, you won’t be disappointed. Your focus can then be on the music and not the problems of the instrument. If it is “set up” properly a player will not have to “get used to” it. Everything on it will feel natural and fall right into place and the music can flow.

In summary, Guitar purchase “off the rack” can be a real disappointment. A thoughtful purchase should include consideration in buying a “custom” or “Gig-Ready” electric guitar versus a “pre-fab” instrument built on a production line. Custom guitars are individually built for a specific customer and will have all of the above necessary operations performed. All the guitarist needs to do is-Play! Sincerely, Rick Mariner http://www.HaywireCustomGuitars.com

Rick Mariner - Owner and founder of Haywire Value Priced Custom Guitars (http://www.HaywireCustomGuitars.com) and a member of The Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (A.S.I.A.) as well as a guitar player. Rick holds a bachelors degree from University of Maryland and a Masters degree from George Washington University.

Rick developed an 8 - Point “Gig- Ready” guitar process that allows for Haywire Custom Guitars that are “GIG-READY”.

With many years of development and guitar set-up experience, we pride ourselves in helping to build you the “Just Right” Haywire guitar at prices well below market and “set up” to playing perfection.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Mariner

Rick Mariner

http://www.HaywireCustomGuitars.com



Theresa

thoughtoverload.com asked:


There are hundreds of choices in buying a new guitar, but not all of them are good. I’m sorry to all you folks out there looking for great bargains, but you get what you pay for. You aren’t going to find a great guitar that a professional would even think about owning for $100 at your local guitar center, it’s just not the way the market works.

If you are a beginner with a normal pocketbook, you should buy a medium priced guitar. You don’t know if you’re going to say “Screw it!” after a few weeks or months, so it is best that you don’t put too big of a dent in your wallet for something that ends up collecting dust in your closet. I won’t tell you to buy a cheap one because if your guitar is absolute shit, you’re much more likely to give up because you aren’t getting that sound/playability that you should have. Also, cheap guitars lose their resale value pretty much as soon as you pay for it, but more medium/high priced guitars do not. Some may even grow in value over the years.

If you are planning to get an electric as your first guitar, I highly discourage you from doing so. Guess what you need with an electric? An amplifier. A good one will cost you a pretty penny. A bad one will make a crappy sound, which may lead you to give up. So, what’s the solution? Learn on an acoustic. That’s right folks, you heard right, learn on an acoustic. Acoustics are usually more difficult to play than electrics (yes, that is IN DEED a good thing!). Your fingers will hurt, but that’s a sign of building those finger muscles that any guitarist should have. Those finger muscles are harder to obtain when learning on an electric, because they’re easier on you. If you learn on an acoustic, your first words when playing an electric will be “Holy crap! This is easier than I thought!”…maybe not that much excitement, but you hopefully get the point. Now, I know that some are reading this who are completely devoted to getting an electric as your first. I’d just like to remind you that virtually all forms o f music utilize the acoustic guitar in them. Yes, that includes rock.

Another benefit of acoustic guitars is their portability. You can take the acoustic guitar anywhere you want, and you don’t need a power source…or to lug around an amplifier with a bunch of cables. An acoustic guitar is an all-in-one learning machine, while an electric is a semi-complex system.

Now, if you unfortunately have a habit of giving up as soon as you’ve determined that you “can’t do it”, then you may want to learn on an electric.

Acoustic Guitars - Acoustic guitars, besides being a better choice for learning with, are easier to choose from in that there aren’t so many options. With an electric, you can change things out to radically change the sound. Plus, if the amplifier you try it with sounds terrible, a great guitar will sound terrible along with it…leading you to make an incorrect choice.

Acoustic Guitar Size - There are many sizes of acoustic guitars. How the size affects the sound is quite simple: larger guitars have more bass (they sound deeper).

Steel Stringed versus Classical - Two main categories of acoustic guitars exist: steel stringed and classical. Steel string guitars have steel strings, classical guitars have nylon strings. They both make different tones, which you will have to hear for yourself at a guitar store. The necks on classical guitars are generally wider, also - which should affect your choice if you have small hands.

Acoustic Guitar Construction - One of the first things to look at is common sense structual integrity. If the guitar seems as though it will far apart as soon as you drop it (you will eventually), don’t buy it. In guitars, it is better to be safe than sorry. Cheaper guitars have plywood (AKA laminate) backs/sides/tops. Most of the sound from an acoustic guitar comes from the top, so it is best to get a guitar with at least a solid top (plywood doesn’t sound as good). The more expensive the guitar is, the more solid wood it has, generally speaking. If you have a deep wallet, go ahead and buy an acoustic guitar with all solid wood.

Make sure that the neck is straight by looking down it from the headstock.

Then, make sure that the guitar is tuned (if you don’t know how to, ask a salesman…they will help, they want you to buy their guitars). Strum it a few times, and even to the untrained ear it should be apparent as to if it has a good tone to it. Be careful with this though, don’t strum one guitar and say that you’ll buy it because you happen to like it. You need to compare it to all the other guitars, in all price ranges, so that you get a good idea as to where it stands among them.

What’s it for? - Now, decide what the hell you are going to do with the guitar. Are you going to record with it? Play live with it? Or just sit on your porch and play songs with your friends? For recording, it is best to get a guitar with a bright tone (high pitched), as bassy guitars will sound very muffled through a microphone. For playing on a stage, you want to double check that the guitar is made well. A guitar that is played live often takes a beating, so you don’t want it to snap in half in the middle of a show. For playing just for fun, it’s pretty much up to you: what sounds the best to your ears?

Hey, guess what? You’ve (hopefully) bought yourself a good guitar that will become one of your closest friends through the years. Don’t forget to name it!



Jared