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Archive for the ‘Beginners guitar’ Category

Learning guitar solos by ear  is hard work.  I remember many years ago, a friend of mine managed to secure a copy of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar solo to Smoke On the  Water slowed down to half space.  Suddenly we could hear how clean his runs were and how many notes he was actually playing.

I still love playing that solo note for note because it was the first real guitar solo that I ever  learned and the great thing was that it taught me so much about phrasing, light and shade and what notes not to play.  And I have to say that without being able to listen to the guitar solo at half pace I would never have attempted to study it the way I did.

Fast forward a quarter of a century or so and learning guitar solos is still a challenging and time consuming process – but technology has zoomed way past whatever reel to reel tape system my friend accessed to get that solo slowed down.

A great piece of software on the market is the recently updated Riffmaster Pro.

Riffmaster Pro saves hours of time and frustration by instantly enabling you to

• Slow down music to a pace you can play Without changing the pitch
• slow down Mp3, slow down Wav,wma,Mp4 , Ogg Vorbis and AFF files directly from your computer
• play any Riff or phrase over and over
• Zoom right into the wave allowing  You to find the exact phrase you want to work on(down to the note)
•  Save your own user settings
• Slow down an entire song so you can play along at your pace.
• Change the key of a music file for convenience
• Rip audio directly off a cd and save as mp3 or wav.
• Save a slowed down loop for training purposes
• Transcribe music of any song (tab or transcribe what you hear)

The benefits of Riffmaster Pro are simply awesome.

• You can master ANY Guitar solo faster than ever before
• You can master Any Guitar Riff faster ever before
• You can master the Chords To Any Song faster than ever before
• You can build and maintain Amazing speed of Any solo or riff
• You can master difficult phrasing like never before
• You can master any guitar solo, lick or riff Note for Note.
• You can learn the lyrics to Any song quickly
• You will discover the Magic of “Playing By Ear”
• You will learn any song Fast
• You can transcribe music of any song FAST

Riffmaster Pro is the Perfect Speed & Ear Training tool for all musicians  -from raw beginners to advanced.  I have bought this for myself – simply as a teaching tool to help me quickly teach students their favorite riffs, solos and tunes.

This is the shortcut to playing good quality guitar solos – slow down guitar solos learn them and increase the speed to full tempo as you master the solo.

I highly recommend Riffmasterpro

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Heavy metal (well, Hard Rock in any case) inspired me to pick up the guitar and start thrashing away, learning the riffs to such classics as Paranoid, Smoke On The Water and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

At a base line level learning Heavy Metal is easy – its all power chords, bass notes and the occasional splintering fourths sequence thrown in  -Smoke On The Water -  is played in fourths (as most of Blackmore's famous riffs were) not fifths like every kid in every guitar shop plays.  But to master heavy metal guitar playing is no mean feat.  The virtuosity of players like Kirk Hammet, Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malsteem has raised the bar and it has to be said that fans demand a very high level of musicianship.

Pioneering Heavy Metal bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath drew heavily upon a broad range of musical influences including  jazz, blues, classical and eastern music (Zeppelin's In the Evening and Rainbow's Stargazer spring immediately to mind) and todays players have pushed the envelope even further.

As with anything, a sound foundation is required to play Heavy metal properly.  I would recommend a solid grounding and knowledge of basic chords, before learning how to play blues guitar, as Heavy metal is often simply the blues turned up very loud with distortion.
This basic knowledge will give you a solid grounding before progressing further with  Heavy Metal guitar.  Once you have the basics, you can progress to more difficult lessons.  There are some great guitar lessons for Heavy Metal guitar available at guitar tricks,alternatively, there are some great Heavy metal guitar lessons  through the following sites

• Guitar Burning Speed- the ultimate Shred Guitar Course
• Burning Metal the fundamentals of guitar from beginner to advanced

Each course is priced quite reasonably and will help you on the road to learning Heavy Guitar.
 
 

Technorati Tags: Basic Chords, Bass Notes, Black Sabbath, Eastern Music, Eddie Van Halen, Great Guitar, Guitar Course, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Shop, guitar tricks, Heavy Metal Bands, Heavy Metal Guitar, Kirk Hammet, Musical Influences, Occassional, Power Chords, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Shred Guitar, Smoke On The Water, Sound Foundation, Yngwie Malsteem

Beginners learning guitar should ideally focus on getting the basics right.
Learning the Guitar in many respects can be likened to building a house.  You must lay true foundations so that you can build your guitar technique and your playing ability consistently.
Beginner guitar player’s must concentrate on the basics – learning to hold the guitar properly – thumb positioning for the left hand willl vary greatly depending on what type of guitar and style that you want to play.  Classical guitar players especially MUST pay attention to this, while Rock players would do well to realize that their left hand thumb will be required to hold notes down occassionally.
The names and sounds of the notes that you learn are especially important – be sure to invest in a tuner so that you play in tune all the time.  You are learning music, not gymnastics – you must learn to recognize what each note and chord sounds like.
Make sure that you learn how to replace a string.
Really concentrate on holding down chords properly and train your right hand to “automatically” strum in various feels and times.
But above all, make sure that it is fun, when you enjoy what you do, you will learn more quickly.

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When I started playing guitar many years ago I fell for perhaps the silliest trap that I could fall for. For some reason, I thought that if I could master the chord positions and get my left hand to move fast I would have mastered the guitar and be entertaining and amazing my friends in no time flat. As a result, I wasted an inordinate amount of time solely focusing on my left hand technique. Boy, was I dumb. Playing the guitar in many ways can be likened to driving a car.  Your left hand steers the course and the right hand provides the momentum, the brakes and the gear changes.  One is useless without the other . Imagine sitting in your car, with your hands on the steering wheel, with the motor running and no means of putting the car in gear or having the means to move but no steering capacity.  Each element needs the other to make it work properly. So how do you consistently build both techniques? At the risk of sounding boring, I find scales to be the most effective means of improving both hands' technique, while at the same time training my ears to hear the right notes.  Yes, I know that some people say you don't need to play guitar scales, but I'm yet to see a pro who doesn't know theirs backwards, sideways and upside down! You don't need to spend a lot of time each day – maybe 15 – 30 minutes at first, but the idea is to concentrate completely on getting your technique right during those periods.  Start slowly and focus upon the following points

• getting your left hand's fingers to land exactly behind the fret ensuring that each note sounds crisp and clear
• Whatever right hand technique you choose make sure that you are getting it right.  If it's classical rest stroke make sure you alternate your index and median figures on each note – if it's alternate rock picking as favoured by virtuosos like Steve Morse make sure that each note is picked in the opposite direction to the last.  This is easier said then done and requires concentration in the early stages.
• Listen completely to each note as you play it.  Say the note out loud to emphasise the point
• Work with a metronome to get your right hand trained to working in time
• FORGET ABOUT SPEED until you have your basics mastered than gradually build over time.  You cant play fast unless your technique is sound with both hands.  To attempt to play fast before you are ready is like trying to drive while under the influence.  You might fool yourself but you won't fool anybody else

In summary, what you need to do is to view your guitar as an instrument that requires total control  with both hands.  Focusing on basic technique with both hands is the solid foundation for good guitar playing.

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