Guitar tips

How to Practise if You Only Have Limited Free Time to Commit

2024-06-28T13:15:41+01:00

Practising guitar: one of the weekly tasks that often fall by the wayside for some of us with busy lives. So how do we find the time to practise if we only have limited free time to commit? Schedule in your practise Gym training, school pickups, your kid's basketball game, after-work drinks with your buddies, date night. Life is busy, and no matter where we look, it is often hard to find a little slice of free time for guitar practice. This is why it will be incredibly important and valuable for us to schedule in our practice time. Just [...]

How to Practise if You Only Have Limited Free Time to Commit2024-06-28T13:15:41+01:00

Getting Back to Guitar After the Holidays (how to get back in the groove!)

2024-06-28T13:11:00+01:00

Going on holidays is lots of fun, but often when we come home we find that our fingers don’t want to do what we tell them to do when picking up a guitar for the first time. Try these simple tips for getting back in the groove with your guitar practice after returning from a holiday.Start simpleThere are positives and negatives about coming home from a holiday. Positives: you had a great time, you come home feeling refreshed, you now have a sun tan.Negatives: you get the post holiday blues, you have to go back to work, you fingers are now [...]

Getting Back to Guitar After the Holidays (how to get back in the groove!)2024-06-28T13:11:00+01:00

How to Play Rhythm Guitar in a Band

2024-06-06T08:43:34+01:00

Often overlooked, the art of being a great rhythm guitarist is so much more than strumming chords and having to be quieter than the lead guitarist. It’s actually the rhythm guitarist that has the skill of gluing the band together and giving impact to their sound. So how do you play rhythm guitar in a band? Study the greats A logical place to start when trying to get good at rhythm guitar is to study great rhythm players from great bands that you admire. Although many of these are names that you will know from some of the biggest bands of [...]

How to Play Rhythm Guitar in a Band2024-06-06T08:43:34+01:00

Looking After Your Health When Playing Guitar

2024-05-02T15:26:16+01:00

Although it’s not the most rock ’n roll thing to think about as a guitarist, looking after your health will be incredibly important to ensuring longevity as a musician and also to maximise the most out of your practice sessions! Warm-up and cool-down Being a guitarist is much like being an athlete, although it may not seem like it at first. Playing guitar involves us using many different small muscles in our hands, wrists, and arms, which need to be warmed up thoroughly before playing challenging material. Would a professional athlete jump straight onto the track for a 100-metre sprint? [...]

Looking After Your Health When Playing Guitar2024-05-02T15:26:16+01:00

How to Learn Songs by Ear on the Guitar

2024-03-06T08:43:43+00:00

Listen to the bass! Learning songs by ear is a lot of fun, and a skill that will come in extremely handy for you both at home for your own enjoyment and in jam sessions/rehearsals when you need to be able to pick things up quickly without TAB’s or sheet music. When starting off on your ear training journey, keep things simple and try to learn a simple four-chord-song that will have pretty straightforward information for you to transcribe. Let’s take “With Or Without You” by U2 as our first example. This will use the same four chords the entire way [...]

How to Learn Songs by Ear on the Guitar2024-03-06T08:43:43+00:00

Should I Complete Grades On Guitar?

2023-05-08T13:45:47+01:00

Preface A question that I often get asked by students and parents of school aged students is should I/my child complete grades on the guitar? It’s a great question with no clear answer; this will very much depend on the student and what their goals on the guitar will be. If you are not familiar, many different companies will have a series of books designed to teach students the fundamentals of playing an instrument, requiring them to play several pieces as well as also scales and technical exercises. These come in different grades, usually starting at a Debut or Initial grade [...]

Should I Complete Grades On Guitar?2023-05-08T13:45:47+01:00

The Role Of Funk Guitar

2023-04-05T12:21:30+01:00

Less Is More When we’re talking about funk guitar or just funk in general, less is more is the mindset that we need to approach it with. Funk is all about the space between the notes, rather than the notes themselves. In fact, what usually makes up a funk song is rather simple. Unlike other musical styles, funk is often centred around one or two chords, usually one chord per section of a song, meaning it is much more rhythmically driven rather than harmonically. When we think of funk we often think of one artist in particular, that artist of course [...]

The Role Of Funk Guitar2023-04-05T12:21:30+01:00

The Importance of Rhythm Guitar

2023-03-16T08:47:15+00:00

Rhythm Guitar is The Glue! So we all love a good bit of lead guitar. Slash’s “Sweet Child ‘O Mine” guitar solos, Angus Young’s iconic solos during “Back In Black”, and Kirk Hammett’s shredding in “Enter Sandman”. But one thing that all these great songs and guitar solos have in common is that they all possess a great rhythm guitarist keeping the whole thing together. Guns ’N Roses have Izzy Stradlin playing a mix of arpeggiated open chords and thick distorted powerchords throughout Slash’s guitar solos, AC/DC have Malcom Young rocking away on those classic rock open chords, and Metallica [...]

The Importance of Rhythm Guitar2023-03-16T08:47:15+00:00

How To Play Major and Minor Triads Horizontally Across The Guitar Neck!

2023-02-03T13:30:35+00:00

What Are Triads? So before we start jumping into playing triads across the guitar neck, let’s have a recap of what  triads are to start with. The triad is the simplest form of a chord that we have in music, comprised of  three notes stacked on top of each other, hence the name. The triad comes from the major or natural  minor scale, and is formed when you play the 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees together at the same time.  These three notes can go on to form the core of many other different types of chords. Whether you know [...]

How To Play Major and Minor Triads Horizontally Across The Guitar Neck!2023-02-03T13:30:35+00:00

How To Get Started With Strumming On The Guitar

2022-12-06T15:22:57+00:00

How do I strum properly on the guitar? How do I hold the pick? Which way do I strum? All are valid questions when learning how to get started with strumming on the guitar, and are important to think about when learning the basics. Strum Some Simple Open Chords With A Plectrum Strumming can be a strange concept to a beginner guitarist who has perhaps played more simple riffs and single note melodies on the guitar. Many beginners will start off by learning a few simple open chords (such as C, G, Am, D, Em ect.) and may be strumming [...]

How To Get Started With Strumming On The Guitar2022-12-06T15:22:57+00:00
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