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The guitar is a very popular stringed musical instrument. This book is mainly concerned with standard six-stringed acoustic or electric guitars; twelve string guitars are also applicable in most cases. It is definitely not necessary to understand music theory to read this book, although it can yield a deeper understanding of the principles contained herein.

The purpose of this book is to introduce novice and intermediate players to the basic concepts of good guitar playing. Important techniques are given their own section, and exercises and examples are provided whenever they can. When you have finished reading this book, you should have a good understanding of the fundamentals of guitar, and be on the right track towards mastering the instrument.

Table of Contents

Getting Started

• Different Types of Guitars
• Anatomy of a Guitar
• Buying a Guitar
• Buying an Amplifier
• Setting up the Guitar
• Tablature
• Lead Guitar and Rhythm Guitar

Playing the Guitar

For Beginners

• The Basics
• Double-stops and Power Chords
• Open Chords
• Muting and Raking
• Learning Songs
• Song Library

Lead Guitar

• Picking and Plucking
• Scales
• Arpeggios and Sweep Picking
• Slides
• Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, and Trills
• Bending and Vibrato
• Harmonics
• Tremolo Bar Techniques
• Tapping

Rhythm Guitar

• Chords
• Barre Chords
• Chord Progressions
• Alternate Picking
• Tremolo Picking
• Rhythm

Playing Styles

• Folk Guitar
• Blues
• Slide Guitar
• Rock Guitar
• Country and Western
• Metal
• Jazz
• Classical Guitar
• Flamenco

General Guitar Theory

• Tone and Volume
• Writing Songs
• Playing With Others
• Recording Music
• Tuning Your Ear
• Harmonica and Guitar Combo

Equipment

• Guitar Accessories
• Effects Pedals
• Cables
• Bass Guitar

Maintenance

• Guitar Maintenance and Storage
• Adjusting the Guitar
• Stringing the Guitar

Appendices

• Dictionary
• Alternate Tunings

Authors

• Authors

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Getting Started

Different Types of Guitars

There are many different kinds of guitars, and each has its own particular sound. The only true way to understand the difference between each style of guitar is to try playing them. And, since everyone plays a guitar differently, often you will find that one guitar sounds great to one person and terrible to another.

Acoustic guitars

Acoustic guitars are used in a variety of different genres across the globe. Because of the long history of the acoustic guitar, there are many different kinds; some kinds are rarely considered guitars, such as the ukulele, which was based on the four-stringed braginho or cavaquinhos from Portugal. The guitar is one of the most popular instruments in today's society.

When we refer to acoustic guitar, we usually think of a 'flat top' ('top' refers to the face or front)guitar, with a distinctive round sound hole. However, there are many different shapes and styles, and each provides a different sound. There are two general kinds of acoustic guitar: steel stringed, which have smaller necks and use metal string; and classicals, which have wide necks and use nylon strings. Steel strings have a distinctive sharp sound and can be strummed for playing rhythm in a wide range of popular music genres, including country, pop, and rock. Classical guitars are designed to enable full musical arrangements to be performed on a single instrument and are usually played fingerstyle, where the fingers are used to pluck the strings. However, both types of guitar can be played using a plectrum (pick) or by using fingerstyle.

The body of any acoustic guitar is large and hollow, allowing the sound of the strings to resonate. Large body guitars with big curves tend to have deeper or heavier tone, while guitars with a smaller body tend to sound brighter. Acoustic guitars can also feature cutaways, which also changes the sound. An acoustic guitar provides its own means of amplification, unlike an electric guitar. Acoustic guitars are also characterized by a weak sustain, meaning notes will fade after being struck. However, some master-built classical guitars, or "concert guitars", feature very good sustain and excellent overall performance.

Acoustic guitars are often used in performance. When the performance is in a personal setting or in an amphitheater, an acoustic guitar can often be heard with no additional amplification. This is because the shape and resonance of the guitar itself creates acoustic amplification. In most other performance scenarios amplification is required for the audience to be able to hear the guitar well. An acoustic guitar can be amplified by placing a microphone within several inches of the sound hole, or by installing an electric pickup in the guitar. Some guitars are sold with electronic pickups installed, but these are not considered electric guitar, they are acoustic electrics.

Electric guitars

The electric guitar is the workhorse of rock music, but it is used in other genres such as blues, jazz and pop music. While an acoustic guitar can be played without an additional amplifier, electric guitars require one to be adequately heard. Some electric guitars are archtops, meaning that they have hollow bodies, making them have some acoustic resonance (see below). However, no electric guitar is comparable to an acoustic guitar, and electric guitars are never played unamplified in performances. Amplified electric guitars sound very different from an acoustic guitar, even when no effects or distortion are used, and the pickups and amplifier define change in the guitar's sound. It has a high pitched sound.

Electric guitars are not limited to the acoustical qualities of the acoustic guitar shape, and thus can be more comfortable to play. The multitude of variations amongst electric guitars allow them to have a vast variety of tones. The two most popular basic shapes of electric guitar are the Fender Stratocaster style and the Gibson Les Paul style. Typically the strings are thinner than on an acoustic, because the strings do not need to resonate as much. They are also closer to the neck, requiring less force to press them down.

Obviously, the amplifier itself also makes up the sound; in fact, it is actually a better idea to consider the amplifier as the second half of the guitar. See the buying an amplifier section for details.

There are also seven stringed electric guitars, which have another thicker B string above the thickest E string. These are most commonly used in metal.

Twelve string guitars

The twelve string guitar is usually an acoustic instrument, but electric twelve string guitars exist. Some people consider double neck guitars to be twelve string guitars, but this is different meaning. Twelve string guitars have string like a regular six stringed guitar, but they also have a second set of thinner strings, usually tuned up an octave, beside each regular string.

Twelve string guitars produce a more ringing tone, however they are harder to play and maintain than a standard six string guitar. They are usually confined to niche roles, such as rhythm guitar. They are played in the same fashion as a six string guitar, but each string is paired with another string, usually tuned an octave higher. Playing is more difficult, because the additional strings require more pressure to depress, and bending notes is also tougher. Twelve strings are usually more expensive than the average acoustic or electric, and tend to wear out faster due to the additional strain on the neck.

Archtop guitars

An archtop guitar is typically a hollow or semi-hollow body acoustic or electric guitar which uses steel strings and has an arched top which creates unique resonance. The hollow body archtop is a guitar whose form is much like that of a mandolin or violin family, meaning that the body of the guitar is hollow, or semi-hollow with a sound block in the middle; they also tend to have f-holes on the top.

Archtop guitars may be acoustic or electric and can look very similar, the only certainly distinguishing feature being an electromagnetic pickup. The electric hollow body archtop guitar has a distinct sound among electric guitars. One problem with hollow body is that when played amplified, they tend to generate feedback, which is one reason why semi-hollow is developed, as compromise between solid-body and hollow-body. Archtop guitars have been particularly popular in jazz music, usually because their thicker strings add tone.

Some solid body electric guitars are also considered archtop guitars based strictly on their body shape which includes an arched top, although usually 'archtop guitar' refers to the hollow/semi-hollow body form.

Steel guitars

The steel guitar is distinctive in being played horizontally, either across the players knees or on its own stand. There are two main varieties of the instrument, which is played using the metal slide, or 'steel', from which the guitar takes its name. The steel is held in the left hand, when used by a right-handed player. The two main variations are the lap steel guitar, which typically has six strings, and the pedal steel guitar, which can have more - and sometimes two or even three separate sets, each tuned differently. Pedals and knee levers are used to alter the tuning on particular strings whilst playing which, along with the sliding action of the steel, gives the pedal steel its distinctive voice, most often heard in country music and western swing.

Resonator guitars

Often also called 'steel' guitars due to some models possessing metal bodies and as an acoustic lap steel, the acoustic resonator guitar is distinctive in not having a regular soundhole, but a large—usually circular—plate which conceals the resonator cone. The cone closely resembles an audio loudspeaker, though made from spun aluminium. The bridge of the guitar is connected either to the centre of the cone or to the edge by an aluminium 'spider', and the strings' vibrations are thus amplified and projected outwards through the perforated plate on the guitar's top. The most common resonator guitars have a single cone, although the original model has three. Resonators possess a loud, bright voice, making them easily heard in a large room or in the open air. They are popular with blues musicians and country players, and they can be played in the conventional style, or with a metal or glass slide.

Bass guitars

Bass guitars have a longer scale length (and thicker strings) than six-string guitars, enabling them to play very low notes. Most often the bass is considered part of the rhythm section of a band, but there are some players who take it to new levels. There are both acoustic and electric bass guitars, but the electric bass is more common. The most common bass is the four string bass, but five and six string basses are also found. This has a low pitched sound.

Double neck guitar

The Double neck guitar is basically two different kinds of guitar sharing one body, allowing the guitarist to easily access and switch between two different guitars easily. Made famous by Jimmy Page, the double neck guitar typically have a standard six string and a twelve string guitar; however, other combinations exists, such as a six-string and bass, a six string with fret and its fretless version. Steve Vai had been known to play a triple neck guitar.

Anatomy of a Guitar

Both acoustic and electric guitars have many parts in common, but electrics are slightly more complicated and have extra parts. These are general guidelines; inevitably, you can always find one guitar that breaks the rules.

Overview of Components

• 1 Headstock
• 2 Nut
• 3 Tuning pegs
• 4 Frets
• 5 Truss rod
• 6 Inlays
• 7 Neck
• 8 Neck joint
• 9 Body
• 10 Pickups
• 11 Knobs (volume and tone)
• 12 Bridge
• 13 Pickguard
• 14 Back
• 15 Sound board (top)
• 16 Sides of the body (ribs)
• 17 Sound hole, with rosette inlay
• 18 Strings
• 19 Saddle
• 20 Fretboard (or finger board)

On Acoustics and Electrics

Body

The guitar's body the most important characteristic of the guitar: it provides the resonance that shapes the tone of an acoustic or electric guitar, and provides the volume (or heft) of an acoustic guitar and the sustain of an electric. The top, smaller curved part closest to the strings is called the "treble" or "upper bout", and the bigger curved part is the "bass" or "lower bout", and the waist is the narrow section that divides them.

There are many things that can affect the body's tone, but some are the type of wood used, the construction method (like layered or one-piece, hollow or solid-body), the shape, size and more. There is a hot debate about how much of a difference the type of wood makes on an electric. It is generally believed that denser, heavier wood gives a guitar a deeper sustain or richer sound, but since it is mostly high-end manufacturers that use these kinds of wood, the instrument may sound good because of better manufacturing.

Tone wood

• Agathis, also known as "commercial grade mahogany" or "poor man's mahogany," is actually a type of pine that grows in East Asia. As it is a "plantation wood" design for building cabinets, it is cheap, and thus usually employed in budget guitars. Its tone is similar to mahogany, but more bland sounding with a less complex sound.

• Alder is a light weight wood that provide a clean, balanced tonal response and good resonance. Its soft, tight porous structure is similar to basswood; but with a bold, harder grain pattern that adds to the stiffness, making it more robust. It is usually in a medium light tan. Alder provides a balanced tone across the frequency with a slight upper mid-range, producing a clean sound; and its good resonance provides a good dynamic range.

• Ash actually comes in two varieties, in terms of guitar building. While both are excellent quality, they do sound different. As both variations have an open grain, a lot of lacquer is required to seal the wood, which may result in less sustain than other woods. Ash is typically used in midrange guitars.

• • Northern hard ash, aka "baseball bat ash," is hard, heavy and dense, which gives it a bright tone and longer sustain.

• • Swamp Ash, or "Southern Soft ash," comes from swamps in the Southern USA. As they are grown underwater, the wood is lightweight and porous. Many Fender guitars from the 1950's were built with Swamp Ash. It has hard grain lines between its softer layers. It has creamy light tan color with bold, darker grain patterns. Tonally, it has a very nice balance of brightness and warmth with a lot of dynamic range, with clear, bell-like highs, slightly scooped mids, and strong lows. Since it has good resonance across the whole frequency spectrum, it can sound quite complex.

• Basswood is a lightweight (lighter than alder), closed-grain wood with a consistent and tight grain pattern. It is very soft, with light colors that range from almost white to medium tan. Because it dents easily, it requires a good, hard finishes such as polyester, and good engineering, lest having the screw-holes screwed up; the installation of a tremolo system on such a softwood also means the body needs to be thicker to prevent cracking. Tonally, basswood has a warm, soft tone; attenuates both the high and extreme low frequencies; and thus have a pronounced midrange fundamental frequency response and a reduced, smoother high end response. Compare to other softwoods such as ash and alder, the tonal response is not as complex, and has a limited dynamic range. Thus, while it is not as good for playing clean, when played for overdriven, it provide the well known metal-lead sound, and thus is employed from the low-end budget guitars to Steve Vai's JEM.

• Cedar In the mid twentieth century master luthier Jose Ramirez III of Madrid pioneered the use of red cedar as a substitute for the increasingly scarce European spruce. It is now considered one of the world's premier tonewoods.

• Mahogany is a highly dense, heavy wood with a fine, open grain and large pores. The color is reddish brown. Tonally, it provide a good low frequencies, a compressed midrange, and smooth sounding highs. Overall, its tone is mellow, soft and warm, with a full and thick quality. Thus, it has a punchy dynamic, and its heaviness provide excellent sustain. Its density also make it very stable and less suspected to dents and scratches. Due to its heaviness, however, it may not be comfortable to be used while standing, unless you have Ibanez S series (which is much thinner than most Mahogany bodies).

• Nato is another type of eastern mahogany, but most current stock now comes from South America, and is also a kind of commercial grade mahogany originally designed for cabinet building. Typically used as a mahogany substitute for budget guitars, it is also brighter with pronounced midrange, but lacking the mahogany's sensitivity and punch. However, B.C. Rich used Nato for their Assassin range, so it's debatable whether it is as bad as many players stated.

• Maple, though rarely employed for body itself, is used as a top. It is usually white in color, with tight pores and thin grain lines. Typically, there are two kinds of maple:
  • Eastern Hard Maple, also known as "hard rock maple" or "sugar maple," is usually used for maple syrup, but can also be used as an excellent tonewood. As named, it is very hard and dense, with medium weight, making it harder to work with, and thus is usually reserve for necks. As a body wood, it provide a bright sound, with very strong highs and upper midrange but quieter bass frequencies. Overall, hard maple has a very long sustain.
  • Western Soft Maple, also known as "big leaf maple", is much lighter weight than Hard Maple. Like its harder brother, it has a bright tone with good bite and attack, but is not as brittle as hard maple, and has singing highs with a tight low end. Typically, these are used as a top instead.

• Rosewood, though typically reserved for back and sides of acoustic instruments, is also sometimes used for fingerboards. It possesses an extremely high density making it very reflective acoustically. Its color is dark brown wood, with reddish, purple or orange streaks running through it.

• Poplar was, in the past, only used for budget guitars, especially by Danelectro (as center block, with masonite as top and bottom!). However, due to resurgence in popularity of the old garage rocks of the 1950s, guitars made out of them are relatively expensive for such "budget" wood. It is a closed grain wood with a greyish-green color, and similar to alder in weight and tone. Whether it is a good tone is completely up to the player.

• Spruce For centuries European spruce has been the premium tonewood used for stringed instruments. Increasing scarcity has resulted in the increased use of substitutes such as North American species of spruce and red cedar.

• Walnut is a medium hard wood, with strong grain pattern, but its body has a constant density. It is harder, heavier and more dense than Mahogany, closer to maple. Tonally, it is warmer than maple, with solid low end, while the midrange is relatively complex, and the top end is a smooth bright. Due to its density, it provide a good sustain.

Body top

For higher end guitars, luthers tend to incorporate an additional top on top of the body to blend the benefits of body types of wood together. Typically, the top employed are maple with figuring, as while the figuring does not affect the tone, it provides a much more pronounced look.

Bridge

The bridge is found somewhere between the middle and bottom of the body. Depending on the guitar, the strings may start at the bridge or they may only be supported by it. Most electric guitars allow the bridge to be raised or lowered, allowing the guitar to be finely adjusted. This is typically done by adjusting screws, which are either thumbscrews which can be rotated with the fingers, or traditional screws requiring a screwdriver. This is discussed further in the Adjusting the Guitar section.

Acoustic guitar bridges usually have a saddle. A saddle is a piece of plastic or polished bone that is used for the string to rest on. The smoothness prevents the guitar from buzzing, and can also be used for very fine tuning. Synthetic bone substitutes are becoming more common.

Fretboard

On the front side of the neck is the fretboard, or fingerboard. These are commonly made of rosewood, but many other hard woods are used. Embedded in the fretboard are a number of metal frets, usually 20 to 24. Strings are pressed down behind a fret to change the note that the string will produce. There are variety of frets; jumbo frets means tall frets, and thus you do not need to press down to the board, while medium means closer to the board and thus need to be pressed onto the board in order to be heard. The first fret is the one nearest the nut (see below), unless there is one immediately after the nut, which is called a "zero fret". Most fretboards have inlays on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th frets. Some also have inlays on the 1st, 15th and 17th.

Headstock (Head)

The headstock lies at the end of the guitar's neck. The major mechanical purpose of the headstock is to support the tuners, which terminate the strings of the instrument. The tuners are attached to the tuning pegs, which allows the pitch of the string to be modified. A secondary purpose of the headstock is identification; many guitar makers use a distinctive headstock shape, often in combination with a logo or model information, or they imitate that of a more well-known brand.

Neck

The neck of a guitar extends from the body. It can be a single piece of wood, but often it is several pieces glued and cut to the proper shape. The fretboard is attached to the neck, along with the head stock at the end. Some necks are glued to the body, which is called a set neck, and others have it bolted on. Set necks are almost universal amongst acoustic guitars. The bolt-on or screw-on neck are most common in electric guitars. Most necks are wood, but there are several alternative materials, such as carbon fiber composite. A few guitars are made entirely of one piece of wood, where the body is carved from one piece and sides are attached. These sorts of guitars often do not have truss rods.

See below for more details on electric guitar necks.

Nut

All strings pass through the nut at the end of the fretboard. It roughly divides the fretboard and headstock, and it's function is to maintain proper string spacing and provide an endpoint for the string. On acoustic guitars, the nut and saddle are usually made of similar material. Electric guitars commonly use plastic, synthetics, and sometimes metal nuts. As tremolo bars can cause tuning problems, guitars equipped with them usually have some manner of locking nut, where the strings are clamped down. Fender produces a roller nut, where the nut incorporates a system of ball bearings, making it similar to a locking nut, but without biting into the strings.

Pick Guard

This is a flat piece of plastic on the body of the guitar, beneath the sound hole. It prevents the body from being scratched when it is being played with a pick. Some elect guitars have raised pick guards, so when you strum through a chord, your pick is directed out and away from the volume and tone knobs (but also the strings). Most pick guards can be replaced, but it is best to take the guitar to an experienced luthier.

Soundhole

This is where the sound waves made by the strings exits the body. Most sound holes are round, but some electric guitars (archtop guitars) have classical style, f-shaped sound holes.

Truss Rod

Most acoustic and electric guitars have a steel truss rod that runs through the neck under the fretboard. It counteracts the pull of the strings on the neck, strengthening it, and allows the curvature of the neck to be adjusted. Classical guitars do not require a truss rod, because there is less tension from their strings, and some less expensive acoustics do not have truss rods. Adjusting the truss rod is a step in setting up the guitar, but you should know what you're doing before you perform this adjustment.

Tuning Pegs

These are attached to the headstock, and these are where the strings end. They are used to raise and lower the pitch of the strings. There are two main styles, those found on steel string acoustics and electric guitars, where the tuning pegs are attached straight into the side of the headstock, and on classicals where they are perpendicular to the headstock. The style of tuning pegs on classicals resembles the tuning pegs on violins.

Electric Guitar Specific

Pickups

On an electric guitar, a pickup is a magnet wrapped in a coil of copper wire. When the string is plucked, the vibration of the strings cause magnetic flux, which is then amplified and played through a speaker. There are three main kinds: passive single coils, passive humbuckers, and active humbuckers.

Passive single coils have one electromagnet, and are typically found on Stratocasters and their copies. They have a bright ("twangy"), clean sound, but traditionally have less output, resulting in a thinner sound. Also, due to their design, they pickup a background hum caused by the induction of the AC current. Single coils are used by guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan. Some single coils, such as P-90, are larger than regular single coils, and thus warmer than a standard single coil. However they still retain more of a single coil sound, and still can pickup background hum. Another single coil style is the “Lipstick” style (commonly found on Danelectro Guitars), where the entire pickup is placed in a metal enclosure with a small gap left between the two metal halves. It tends to be brighter sounding, and the magnetic field caused by the gap in the metal case causes some hum reduction.

Humbuckers, however, use two magnetic coils, operating in opposite magnetic polarity, to cancel out the hum generated by single coils. They provide a warm, fat sound and it is interesting to note that they are used most in metal and blues genres. Humbuckers allow you to use a lot of overdriven gain, and you can make the guitar sound very heavy. Some humbuckers also allowed either coil tap (using only one of the coils) or parallel connection, which provide a sound similar to single coil. Passive humbuckers are for rich, thick, naturally decaying distortion, and they are used by artists like Dimebag Darrell from Pantera. Active humbuckers use battery or phantom power to provide enhanced sensitivity, and thus have longer sustain and can take heavy distortion. Active humbuckers are used most famously by James Hetfield of Metallica.

Ultimately, however, any pickup can and has been used for any genre: some people use humbuckers for blues and jazz, while others may use the single coil for the sound they prefer. It is also important to remember that amplifiers and effect pedals can greatly change the tone of any guitar.

There are many different arrangements for pickups. The most basic is a single pickup, typically near the bridge. There also the following:

• S-S - telecaster style; due to the large spacing between, provide what is typically known as "country twang", a chirpy sound with lots of treble. Even when using thick single coils (eg Jazzmaster and P90 Les Pauls), the tone is more emphasized on the treble side.
• S-S-S - Strat and and Strat copies
• H-S-S - "Fat strat", basically the pickup at the bridge is replaced by a humbucker. A common choice for people who may like both the clean tone and hum-free fat (and dirty) tone.
• H-H - Gibson Les Paul, and common humbucker arrangement. Also known as "Double fat strat" when mounted on a Strat like body.
• H-S-H - "super strat". Typically used for metal, such as Ibanez's Steve Vai signature model.
• H-H-H - Gibson Firebird VII, SG Special, Les Paul Special.

Of course, these are some of the basic configuration, since a S-S-S configuration can be configure into H-S-H or even H-H-H through single-coil sized humbucker. An humbucker slot can easily utilize a much hotter super distortion type humbucker (essentially 2 single-coil sized humbucker connect together), giving output that is as high as an active pickup.

On almost every electric guitar there will be a pickup selector that allows you to choose which pickups to use. A 2 pickup guitar will usually have a 3 way switch, the first for the neck, the third for the bridge and the middle for both.

On guitars with 3 pickups there is usually a five way switch.

• neck
• neck-middle. In the case of H-S-H without coil tap, it will be two single coil in between
• middle
• middle-bridge. In the case of H-S-H without coil tap, it will be two single coil in between
• bridge pickup.

For 2 humbuckers, there could be either 3 ways (as mentioned above for 2 pick ups) or 5 ways:

• neck
• neck at parallel (which produce a tone similar to single coil)
• both humbuckers
• both humbuckers, each in single coil mode (inner coils)
• bridge humbuckers

Sometimes, instead of neck at parallel, it could be both humbuckers, each in single coil mode (outer coils); said to produce more of a telecaster-like tone.

While it is rare, some guitars, such as Fender Jaguar, Fender Mustang, and Red Special utilize independent switches for each pickup, which can provide even more flexibility.

Bridge

In an electric guitar, there are basically two kinds of bridge: those that have a tremolo (whammy) bar, and those that do not, (also known as hardtail). For the sake of discussion, we also include the tail end, where the string terminates.

A tremolo bar is a bar that stretches and slack the strings, causing the sound to change pitch. Pushing down on the bar lowers the pitch of the strings, and pulling up will raises the pitch. Rapidly pushing and releasing (or pushing and pulling for exaggerated effect) will produce a modulation in pitch, called vibrato. Vibrato is often confused with tremolo (modulation in volume), hence the misnomer tremolo bar. While traditionally used for vibrato, It is more commonly used for dive bombs and various other guitar tricks.

There are basically four kinds of tremolo:

• Bigsby comes with a tail piece that natch at the bottom end of the body, it usually provide only a half pitch bend on both up and down. Typically installed on Archtop, though its modified version exists as Gibson Vibrola. Despite its limited range, it does go out of tune as easily and other non-locking tremolo.
• Vintage synchronized tremolo, aka strat-type tremeolo, can only down bend. Can go out of tune easily, though not as much as floating
• Floating bridge tremolo Out of all non-locking tremolo, these can go out of tune most easily, due to the fact that it can upbend and downbend for two half-steps or more. On poorly designed version, these can go out of tune even during palm mute. However, it can be convert to downbend only, by tipping the "down" side of the bridge against the body.
• locking tremolos (Floyd Rose). These tremeloes can stay in tune almost indefinitely. However, once set up it's hard to change tuning with these, and changing strings and setting up in the first place is a huge chore, and thus can be overly complicated for a beginner. The way to tell if it's a locking tremolo is to see if it has a set of locks at the nut section. The benefit of having a locking tremolo is that the guitar stays in tune, but you should always tune your guitar every time you play, even if you have locks (In the case of Floyd Rose, by microtuner).

The only way to rarely go out of tune is to either use the Floyd Rose tremolo or a hardtail (no tremolo). If you prefer to ease of setup while staying in tune with a tremolo, you can also try Yamaha's "finger clamp" locking tremolo, which requires no tools when setting up, or use locking tuners and roller nuts, as in Fender's locking tremolo.

As mentioned, a hardtail (no tremolo) bridge is great at staying in tune. However, it also has additional benefits, in that it also improved sound and sustain. The fixed bridge also makes it easier to perform string bends, and gives an altogether warmer and rounder sound than one with tremolo.

Despite such simple concept, there are at least three versions of ending the string:

1. The first kind is the stop bar method, used from cheap budget types to expensive archtop and PRS guitars, where a stop bar that's mounted on top of the body holds the string's end. Sometimes it is also integrated to the bridge.
2. The second kind is known as thru-body, where the string goes into the body; this enhanced sustain, but typically more expensive. the bridge, however, is a separate piece of hardware. Example would be Gibson's tune-o-matic. Despite this, strings still slide over the nut and saddles when playing/bending strings, just not as much as they do on a normal synchronized tremolo.
3. The third kind of tail bridge is the fixed locking bridge, based upon the Floyd Rose tremolo except it is fixed; in this configuration, the string is clamped down, which ensure the string is stay in tune. Due to the fact that it's a fixed bridge, there are no spring cavity in the back; instead, the bridge is more or less mounted directly above the tail piece, which is usually thru-body. This is the best method to stay in tune. Currently, only Ibanez makes fixed locking bridge.

Switches and Knobs

Almost all electric guitars have a switch that changes which pickups are being used, and at least two knobs, one for the master volume and one for the master tone. If the guitar has four knobs, then it has two volume and two tone, with each-volume-pair assigned to a pick up. Fender stratocaster typically have one master volume, and a tone control for the neck and mid pickup.

Do note that, unless it is active-pickups, the volume and and tone control are much closer to a set of filter for the signal. Even if you turn the amplifier to the eleven, if the guitar's volume is set low, it won't generate enough current to drive the amplifier to overdrive. As for the tone, it acts as a low pass filter, which help "boost" a certain range of frequency.

Neck-joint

This is where the neck is connected to the body, and there are several different kinds of joins:

Bolt-on neck - as the name indicate, the neck is attached to the body by a series of bolts and mounting plate for stability. Typically, there should be no less than 4 bolts, otherwise it will start to be detestable (as demonstrated on CBS Fender guitars). The mounting plate, as well as a square-shaped joint, typically made accessing the upper frets difficult. To rectify it, some manufacturers, such as Ibanez, uses hidden plate bolt on, with the bolts mounted deeper into a smoothed body, while some like MusicMan have a contoured joint that follows the angled contour of joint (though still use metal plate); both results in an easy access for the upper frets. The standard Bolt-on is famously used by fender, with Ibanez making all its bolt-on joins with hidden plates, even for the budget range.

Set-in neck - For acoustic guitar, this is the common joining, but for electric, this is typically reserved for more expensive guitars, as it requires more careful manufacturing to ensure a good result. This method involves joining guitar neck and body with some sort of adhesive. This yields a stronger connection than a bolt-on neck, though not as strong as a neck-thru body joint. Gibson and Epiphone is most famous with set-in neck. It has the following advantage in comparison to bolt on:

• Warmer tone
• More sustain
• Usually better access to top frets in comparsion to bolt-on necks utilizing a metal plate; even on a hidden-plate bolt on, due to the neck join can slop even more, set-in still give more access to the upper frets.

Thru-body necks involves extending the piece (or pieces, in a laminate construction) of wood used for the neck the entire length of the body. The strings, fretboard, pickups and bridge are all mounted on this piece. So-called "ears" or "wings" (i.e. side parts of the body) are glued or laminated to the central "stick". The "wings" may be bookmatched in order to give a symmetrical appearance, and are often cut from one piece of wood. It was pioneered by Les Paul, who made his "The Log" out of the same method.

As this is significantly harder to mass-produce than bolt-on or set neck constructions, it is primarily found on high-end guitars. It is somewhat more common in basses than in guitars. Neck-thru construction allows easier access to upper frets (those nearer the guitar body), because there is no need for a heel – the thickened area on the neck where it bolts to the body. Many musicians also hold the opinion that neck-through construction provides greater sustain, though guitar greats such as Eric Johnson, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai (Ibanez JEM) and Joe Satriani (Ibanez JS series) have managed quite well with hidden-plate bolt-on necks. Neck-through instruments supposedly stay in tune longer., and due to the fact that the string is on the entire piece of wood, it has much better sustain.

Set through can be seen as a modification of a thru-body neck, which is done by the following

• A pocket in the instrument's body for insertion of neck, as in bolt-on method. However, the pocket is much deeper than usual one.
• Long neck plank, comparable to the scale length, as in the neck-through method.
• Glueing (setting) the long neck inside the deep pocket, as in the set-in method.

The result is usually told to have combined advantages of all these methods, mostly eliminating their disadvantages. Luthiers frequently cite:

• improved tone and sustain (due to deep insertion and body made of single piece of wood, not laminated as in neck-through),
• "warmer" tone (due to set joint)
• comfortable access to top frets (due to lack of hard heel and bolt plate),
• better wood stability.

The main disadvantage is relatively complex construction that leads to higher manufacturing and servicing costs. Another cited disadvantage is the inability or relative complexity of adding a double-locking tremolo to the guitar, as the routing for cavities would interfere with deeply set neck.

Amplifier and effects

The amplifier is not part of a guitar per se, but it is nevertheless absolutely necessary in playing the electric guitar, and sometimes also used for an acoustic electric guitar. Different amplifiers will give the guitar a different sound, and different amps are more appropriate for different genres of music. Many amplifiers have effects built in, the most common being distortion, often called overdrive. If the amplifier has a "lead" channel, then turning up the pre-amplifier (or "pre-amp") will overdrive the amplifier's tubes or transistors, causing the amplification not to be linear, and thus distorted. The higher it is, the more distortion there will be.

Turning up the pre-amplifier will, by definition, increase the volume of the sound, so to compensate amps also have a "gain" knob, which can be turned down to reduce the volume after overdrive. Heavy amplification can result in sounds loud enough to damage the amp, even on small 25-watt amplifiers, and one should be careful on unfamiliar equipment. Always turn down the gain when plugging in, and slowly and carefully adjust to the appropriate level. Distortion can also be provided by effects pedals, along with other effects like chorus, reverb, wah-wah, compression, and more. Some amplifiers have these effects built in.

Buying a Guitar

There are two things that hold true, whether you are buying a guitar or an amplifier:

1. A guitar that doesn't get played is worthless at any price.
2. There is no such thing as bad tone; There are only tones that you may not like.

A guitar is an excellent instrument for almost anyone. A guitar that is difficult to play is not a good choice for a beginner. While it takes dedication to learn, if the guitar is comfortable for the player, it is easier to learn.

Whether you are buying a beginner guitar for yourself or a parent buying a guitar for your beginner child, it is not worth spending any money on a guitar that the player won't enjoy. How the guitar feels in the players hand is more important than how it looks hanging up in a store, and the key to learning to play is being excited about playing.

Be careful about buying a guitar for a person that already plays. Unless you know exactly what they want, buy the guitar with the person. Players who have played long enough know what they like and what they don't like. If you really cannot figure their taste, the best option is to give them a gift certificate.

Always remember (and this will be obvious after playing a few dozen guitars) every single guitar is different. Even if the guitar is exactly the same make and model and color, it may play completely differently than the next. The way the shop or the manufacturer sets up the guitar is responsible for some of this, but in some cases one guitar will be great and another seemingly identical guitar will be a dud.

Acoustic or Electric?

The first question you should ask is what kind of guitar you want to buy. The player should always make this decision, because if the player does not enjoy playing their guitar, then it will be more difficult to continue. Then instead of being fun, it becomes a chore, and the player will get frustrated easily. Getting a guitar that the player will not be frustrated with will help naturally encourage or allow the player to be the best they can be. Usually the kind of music the guitar player listens to is a good indicator of the kind of guitar they want to play, but other things should be considered.

An electric is typically better for a beginner because it is easier to play. Because the strings are easier to push down and pluck, feelings of success will come much sooner and frustration will be less likely. These things are important for a beginner. However, if you start on electric and decide you want to move to acoustic, you have the rest of the learning curve ahead of you. If you plan on using both, it might be a better idea to start off with an acoustic.

The acoustic guitar has thicker strings that are more difficult to fret down, and also is harder to get a big sound. If the player is excited about an acoustic guitar and feels they can overcome the more significant learning curve (compared to an electric), they will find in the future that playing an electric guitar will come much easier. On the other hand, the more significant learning curve on the acoustic may be enough to frustrate the player and cause them to lose interest.

If the player wants an acoustic, but expects to go out jamming with an electric guitarist and/or drummer, they should get an acoustic-electric. There is no way a mere acoustic guitar can be heard with those louder instruments.

If the desired guitar is too expensive, there is quite often a more affordable model of the same kind. For example, the Squier-branded guitars look and sound like Fenders, Epiphone makes guitars that look like Gibsons, and Ibanez makes a wide variety of styles. For Ibanez, anything with a "G" as a prefix is the cheaper model. For example, GRG model is the cheaper version of their RG guitar.

Please see Different Types of Guitars and Anatomy of a Guitar for more information.

Acoustic guitar

There are basically two kinds of acoustic: classical guitar and steel-string guitar.

Steel string-guitars, also known as a folk guitar, typically has a large sound box, which gives it a big sound. This is the typical guitar employed in blues, jazz, country, and early rock. Steel strings can be hard to press, especially for beginners that have not developed callouses. Picking is also harder on these; they are best suited for playing with a pick.

Classical guitars have nylon strings and have a wider fretboard. The peg box resembles the peg box of a violin, which has tuning pegs that are perpendicular to the neck. The body is also smaller. The tone is mellow when compared to a steel string guitar, and thus is much better for classical music. Classical guitars require more string maintenance than do steel strings, because the strings take a while to settle in.

Electric guitar

If you are buying an electric guitar, also read Buying an Amplifier

The electric guitar is the workhorse of rock music, but it is also used in other genres such as blues, jazz and pop music. Amplified electric guitars sound very different from an acoustic guitar, even when no effects or distortion are used. The pickups and amplifier define the guitar's sound. Electric guitars come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Pickups are an important part of an electric guitar's sound. There are two main kinds of pickups: passive single coil and humbuckers. Passive single coil pickups have one magnetic coil, and are typically found on Stratocasters. Humbuckers have two magnetic coils, allowing for the use of more overdriven gain and generally give a heavier overall sound. Furthermore, as the name implies, humbuckers cancel noise from electrical interference. Ultimately, however, both kinds of pickups are suitable for any kind of music, and you will have to decide what kind of sound is best for you.

However, a guitar usually has more than one pickup, and it is the arrangement of the pickups that generate the end tone. Aside from the tone, however, another consideration is the "playing area" between the pickups, as too much contact with the pickups can change the tone drastically, if not damage it; the lack of a pickup "sticking out" also allows harder (and slightly less precise) picking. Such a problem is even more prevalent when it is either the H-S-H or H-H-H arrangement, where there was little clean region, if any, and thus will require a more careful playing, which can be an important concern when buying for a beginner

A Tremolo bar, also known as a Whammy bar or Vibrato bar, is a bar that is used to slacken and stretch the strings, causing the sound to change pitch rapidly. When used lightly, it can create a vibrato effect, but it is more commonly used for dive bombs and various other guitar tricks. Some whammy bars have locking mechanisms that allow you to stay in tune more easily, but these may be too complicated for beginners to maintain.

Cables

You will also need a cable to connect to your amplifier. Sometimes they may throw in a free cable, which aside from having poor shielding, typically have a short head-shell that requires you to unplug it the wrong way (i.e. grabbing the cable to pull it out, instead of grabbing the head-shell). This is especially true for Fender-type body-front-embedded plugs, which is also used on other big-name guitars. This method of removing the cord could result in damage to the guitar (for those without the plug guard, such as Ibanez S series) or getting the plug stuck in the jack on the guitar.

Thus, let's start with the headshell. If you are just using one that plugs to the side of the guitar, then even a standard AV-sized head plug is enough. If you are using the body-front plugs, such as Fender and Ibanez S series, you may want to use the ones with larger head-shell, which should be about three inches including the plug itself. When plugged in, the head-shell should be long enough for you to grab the plug comfortably and easily. The material also matters somewhat: some swear upon a metal head-shell; others find an injected plastic is good enough.

The minimum cable length greatly depends on how and where you play the guitar. If you play it with the amplifier just next to it, six to ten feet (3m) is enough. In a live or even a normal jamming situation, however, you may need 20 feet (6m) or more. If you want to connect the effect units, you may want cables as short as 3 feet. Also, watch for the cable's durability; some have plastic-based wrapping, some use knitted outer shell.

"Special" guitars

There are a variety of less common guitar types. These include archtop guitars, 12-string guitars, bass guitars, and multi-neck guitars. Each kind of guitar has its own pitfalls, depending on the player, and this is most true about these guitars. They can be expensive, difficult to maintain and play, and this can deter learning. For more information on these kinds of guitars, please see the Different Type of Guitars article.

What to look for (and what to look out for)

• The height of the strings above the fretboard is called the "action". Action can be extremely low, meaning that the strings buzz when struck, or very high, meaning that it takes much more effort to push the string down to the fret. Guitars with really high or low action could be a sign that the neck is warped. Sometimes this can be fixed, but it can be costly. It is best to buy a guitar that is set up properly.

• When a string is struck, it produces the note you hear, and also a variety of harmonic tones within the note. The harmonics give each guitar a special character to its sound, known as the "intonation". How a particular guitar's intonation sounds depends on the straightness of the neck, nut, bridge, and scale of the frets. You can quickly check if the intonation is setup properly by playing harmonics, with attention paid to the harmonics on the 12th fret. Please see the harmonics chapter for more details.

• The guitar should be played from its first to last fret as well, to check for fret buzzing, which is undesirable. Frets buzz when the truss rod in the neck is not properly adjusted, when the saddle or nut is too short, or when the frets are not properly filed down. Sometimes strings also go slack if the guitar hasn't been played in a while.

• Stamp of Inspection. These are usually a good indicator of quality, if the stamp hasn't been forged.

• If you are buying a name brand, read reviews on places like www.amazon.com to foreshadow problems down the road or find problems common to similar types of guitar.

How to get a guitar you love

• The player's hand must fit comfortably around the neck of the guitar. Almost against reason, a player with smaller hands will likely prefer wider necks, because the wider space between the strings allows more lenience when arching your fingers.
• The guitar should be easy to play, meaning the player can strum and move their hand up and down the neck easily. Often the most common beginner mistake is getting a guitar that is too large or too small.
• Medium action on the frets. Enough to prevent the strings from buzzing, but not so much that the strings feel like they are miles away from the frets. Your strings should be somewhere around a centimeter above the fretboard.
• Check for body and neck damage. Even brand name models can get damaged in shipping, and you should always check the guitar over for cracks, warping and chips.
• Lastly, feel free to play the guitar for a few minutes. Appearances can be deceiving, and most problems will show themselves quickly with a "test drive". If the seller won't allow it, move on.

Buying the guitar

Where to buy the guitar

In this day and age guitars are sold by many vendors, and the place you choose to acquire the guitar can be as important as any other choice you make. A good places to look:

• A trusted friend or relative - often a friend or relative who started with a beginner guitar and has since upgraded. If they recommend that guitar and will sell it for a good price then this is ideal. Simply take this guitar to a local music store and have it professionally 'set up'.
• A local guitar or music store that seems to have plenty of satisfied customers. If you can find a deal on a guitar you are comfortable with from a store like this, go for it. If they tell you that they do 'set up' on their guitars before they leave the store then this is a good buying scenario. Look up 'musical instrument retail' in the phone book to find one of these stores. Even a used instrument from a local store can be a good deal.
• Online guitar superstores or mail-order guitars. The major difference between these and a local store is that the player cannot hold the guitar in their hands before they buy it. Just like some tall people cannot comfortably drive a 1990 Honda Civic, some people's hands are bigger than others. Luckily the necks of guitars come in all shapes and sizes. An uncomfortable guitar is less likely to get played, so contact a local music store and try to find a similar guitar to try before you buy. If you must buy without ever seeing the guitar, first verify that the business has a liberal and long (preferably 45-day) return policy, then cross your fingers and order. If the return policy works and the guitar didn't fit, you could send it back for the cost of shipping.

Buying situations to avoid

Here are some "don'ts". While you may buy a guitar at a very low price, it is easy to get stuck with an unplayable piece of wood.

• Don't buy from a pawn shop (possible undetectable damage, often no refunds)
• Don't buy from any department store (difficult to play, damage easily, don't last, poor sound)
• Be careful buying from eBay (undeclared damage, usually no refunds. Read the sellers ratings.)
• Preferably, don't buy from online shops, unless you can return it in 45 days. Even some very good makes may have some deviations, and even good quality guitars from well established manufacturers may not suit the player no matter how good they sound on paper. Some people prefer wider necks, while some prefer narrows necks, and the only way to know whether the guitar is actually good is to play it yourself.

What else will you need?

Once you've chosen the guitar there are accessories the dealer will want to sell you. You will probably need:

• Guitar strap to enable the player to play standing up (~$10USD). Make sure that it can be shortened and lengthened appropriately, as some models cannot be short enough for a short person to play, or long enough for a big guy to play.
  • Plastic strap lock (~$2 USD per piece). Washer made out of durable plastic that can be fit over the strap buttons and have the hole shrunken to a smaller diameter, creating enough friction to ensure the strap stays on.
• Some picks (Get at least 5, some thin ones for strumming and some thick ones for playing individual notes.) (~$1; a local store will throw in some for free).
  • Thumb and finger picks: while on a nylon it is not necessarily, on a steel string, finger picking will at best produce a duller sound, and at worst hurt your fingers. A thumbpick is good in that it also frees your hand for other stuff, such as holding the whammy bar or an elbow.
• A guitar stand to set the guitar on when its not being played, or a guitar hanger to hang the guitar on the wall (each $10-$30USD)
• A tuner of some kind - preferably an electronic one with a built-in microphone and guitar cable plug. (~$20USD) Especially important for people without good relative pitch.
• A case or a gig bag - These are protection for the guitar. A Gig Bag ($20-$50USD) is typically a thick padded (1-2" of padding) zipper bag in the shape of the guitar which provides good protection and is necessary to avoid large scrapes and dings, but a gig bag is not suitable for airline transportation. The case ($50-100USD and up) is a hardshell case suitable for greater protection, and one that is ATA-approved even allows you to carry in airplane's cargo hold (make sure it is ATA approved!) If you are fine with the scrapes and dings, and/or you do not plan on transporting the guitar often, a case might not be necessary. Keep in mind that the case helps protect your guitar from sudden temperature and humidity changes, which can harm the wood.
• A string winder — very useful for changing strings. It's cheap (about $1 - 3 USD), so may as well as get one now.
• Fine Polishing cloth; either the one made for polishing guitar, or those used to wipe glasses. Fabric from an old flannel shirt works well too. Be sure to use 100% cotton.

What you don't need:

• You will not immediately need an extra set of strings (~$5USD for acoustic, ~$10USD for electric) at the time of purchase, but strings should be changed about every 2 months or 30 to 40 hours of playing time, or even more often. Old strings will start to lose their tone and become brittle, and they will also show corrosion and discoloration. If you do not live that far away from the guitar shop, it's best to buy them only when needed. However, changing old strings is not an absolute necessity unless they break, so if your budget is tight, don't buy too many packs. Also, the difference between the cheaper and more expensive strings is subtle at best, so as long as it is the right gauge, you are good to go. Some people do not like the sound of new strings, which can be "tinny", but this is a matter of preference.
• You don't need guitar polish. While you should always polish your guitar from time to time, most of the time the polish is mostly water with traces of lemon oil. As long as you have a small spray of water or just a quick dab on the cloth, it's good enough. Besides, what kind of polish is good vary from a tech to another.

Virtually all guitar dealers (like mattress or car dealers) mark up the price of their products. However, their prices are negotiable (consider saying "I've been thinking about this item; what's your best price?"). Most of these accessories (including a gig bag) can be thrown in for free. Just tell a salesperson that you want to buy a guitar, and he will probably start suggesting things he can throw in for free, and if not, you can suggest some accessories yourself. The hardshell case is usually an exception. Don't forget to calculate the sales tax on top of all that. For example, Guitar Center will rarely, if ever, bring down the price for the cheaper goods, but are more than willing to throw in extra accessories with the purchase of a guitar. They will sometimes even offer to set it up for you. Also look for beginner-packs; these include most things a beginner would need to start off with, and you end up saving if you had planned on buying those things separately.

All guitars require some maintenance over time since wood changes with pressures and humidity. However, this does not mean you need a humidifier, unless your guitar is acoustic and quite valuable (and a valuable guitar is probably not best for a beginner anyway).

For an electric guitar, the player has many options when to practice; with a special plug, the player can even plug into a stereo, making amplifier slightly needless. However, it does not sound as good, and if you want to sound like your favorite electric guitarist, an amplifier will obviously be necessary. Buying an electric guitar with no amplifier can be a way to get a good guitar without spending too much at first.

Another good substitute for an amplifier can be playing the guitar through a mixer or computer's sound card (especially a good sound card, like those made by m-audio), and there is some decent guitar effect software available that allow amplifier modeling. Also, as mentioned in buying an amplifier article, you can use a direct box to make amplifier modeling even more accurate. Using these modelers/direct boxes have an additional benefit in that they can also be used with a standard amplifier as an effect unit.

External links

Buying an Amplifier

When playing an electric guitar, the kind of amplifier you use affects the sound of your guitar. There are several different kinds, and many different features, and it is important to make sure you pick the right kind of amp for the kind of sound you want. So how do know what you need? Before you begin, you first must understand that everything that comes out of an amp is all due to the chain of sound, which is common to all amplification system wither it's a guitar or something else. Only if all the links of the chain of sound are equally strong, will you achieve a good sound.

1. The first link of this chain is the player, for it is them that is decided how to coax the sound out of the guitar. A player that doesn't know what they're doing sounds worse, especially when amplified. Thus, accurate timing, clean intonation, balanced playing technique, and optimal handling of the instrument is what determines the overall sound of the instrument. Almost all of the tone of the guitar comes from the guitarist.
2. The second link is the instrument, which the player manipulates. If the guitar set up poorly or has old strings, no amplifier will improve the sound.
3. The next part is the pickup. Certain pickups affect if it will sound clean, muddy, fat, or even metallic. This is especially true if you run it through a good clean channel.
4. It's only after all these do we get to the amplifier. Within this amplifier, there are a few more stages itself: preamp, equalizer, effect loops, power amps, and speakers, all which contribute their parts to the sound. Not only that, they also have different internal parts (tubes, solid state, digital modeling, analog modeling), and even different speakers, different cabinets, and etc; then there's different configurations of the internal circuits. Add to the fact that there's always some deviations in electronic parts, then you will get a variety of sound.

This doesn't mean the amplifier doesn't matter, but there are other things, especially player, which can be way more important.

Selecting the Right Sound

Depends on what component used, the output tone also varies. Obviously, these are only guidelines, and ultimately depend upon the guitarist to make them sound good.

Tube

Tube amps are often considered "vintage amps", because their design defined the classic sound 50s, 60s, and 70s. In generally, when talking about the "warm, fat tone" that is of jazz, blues, rock and early metal, this is what they meant – the sound of Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and Deep Purple. Most analog device, have a slight compression that is dependent upon pick attack. As such, it smooths the notes, which is more suited for blues and jazz than hard rock. In general, these sounds can only be achieve by tubes. Old amps are still valuable, but there are many manufacturers that produce new tube amps. Example of these include Fender Bassman Reissue, Epiphone Valve Junior, Marshall JMP100.

Tubes amps have a very organic tone and are sensitive to their input signal. The harder you dig in with your pick, the more they tend to break up and distort. The softer you strum, the warmer and breathier they appear to sound. This is known as touch sensitivity. Multiple preamp gain stages can sometimes push an amp to the point where you do not hear the pick attack on the string. Finding a balance where pick attack and sustain are clearly articulated is the sign of a superior matched preamp and power section. With a great tube amp, the subtle changes you make with your pick and finger pressure can be heard so that you can create your own identifiable style.

Of course, tube amps are not without drawbacks. As tube is based on vacuum tube technology, it requires more energy given the same wattage as a solid state amp. However, if you can afford the greater cost of the amp, you'll likely be able to pay the slightly higher energy bills. Furthermore, vacuum tubes are expensive, and require replacement every one to four years, depending on use. Also, due to the need for a transformer on the power amp, amplifiers using tubes are generally heavier. In general, tube amps are also more expensive than a solid state amplifier. An Epiphone Valve Junior Combo, with only a volume knob and one input and one speaker, is even more expensive than a Traynor DynaGain 30D (A very good analog modeling amp) by $50 CDN. Lastly, tubes require a warmup period to play.

Within tube amplifiers, there are also three different types of operation: Class A, Class AB and Class B. However, Class B is virtually never used in guitar amplifiers and so will not be discussed.

• True Class A works by having the power tubes running at full power, reguardless of actual sound output. Class A is charecterized by a smoother, sweeter distortion. Most class A amplifiers use a single output tube. Thus, the wattage is generally low, as class A by itself is inefficient. Furthermore, the fact that current constantly flow into the tube will make the tube have a shorter lifespan. Due to the low efficency, mostly only low wattage amplifier, such as Epiphone valve junior or Fender champion 600 use true class A; the typically wattage, is no higher than 5-7watt RMS per power tube.
• Class A can also use a pair or a quad of tubes for more power. A good example of this is the VOX AC-30 or Orange Tiny Terror. These amps, while still Class A, have the tubes operating in opposing pairs, called Push-Pull. Typically, when the power tubes are cathode biased, they are labeled as class A.
• Class AB work by using a pair of tubes, with one always working for the "positive" voltage and another always for "negative" voltage. Due to the nature, class AB is thus more efficent, and has slightly longer tube life. It also have more headroom if needed. Class AB has a different sound than Class A. Class AB, by being push-pull, has less distortion and has a cleaner tone at lower volumes. When pushed into overdrive, it will have a more abrupt transition into distortion than class A. Marshall, as well as many other high power amplifiers, use class AB. In fact, most of the famous Fender amplifiers are class AB.

Both are respectable to even the most hardcore tube enthusiast. However, most will agree that tonally, class AB is less dynamic, and thus is less suited for blues and jazz, but good for high-gain musics, such as hard rock or metal.

Solid State

While it is debatable when solid state amps became most popular, typically it is associated with a hard rock sound. Some attribute this to Eddie Van Halen and his modified Marshall, which allow him to have more gain, and deliver a more in-your-face tone and volume when overdriven. Solid-state amps also have a fast attack time, where the note is immediately present when strumming. They also have the benefit of not needing to warm up, unlike tube amps, which requires 15-30 seconds minimum to play and 30 minutes to an hour to sound their best. This means you can just plug and play.

When played cleanly, solid-state circuitry provides a powerful sound, making it very suitable for jazz or acoustic music. Solid state provide a wide-frequency reproduction, especially with a large speakers that provide full bottom and smooth high end. Example would be Fender's Jazz-King and Steel-king, and the most famous jazz amplifier, Polytone Mini-Brute. Furthermore, this also shows that, given a good quality solid-state amplifier, a solid-state amp can still provide many richness, depth, warmth, color, and dynamics, especially those that use FET transistors on preamp stage. Due to its cleaness, if one want to use with a lot of effects, Solid-state could be better.

Solid state amps are effective because they can take very high gain, and this is used most effectively in heavy genres, especially metal; this is because that at a certain distortion level, solid state amplifier allow a lot of tight Bottom end.. Breaking from the traditional Marshall tube stacks, more and more metal musicians discover the benefits of pure solid-state amplifier, especially those with no build in modeling. Examples of such amps are the Randall Warhead and Fender MetalHead, which at high voltage provide much more gain than its tube equivalent. Basically, they emphasized upon the philosophy of "going to 11", with extreme distortion and extreme loudness. Playing this kind of ultra-high gain amps require a pair of earplug, especially at high volumes.

The most important benefit of Solid State is simple: it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper. Examples of these include Crate's CPB150, Fender's Ultralight Series, and ZT Lunchbox. All these are less than 10lb but output more than 150 clean RMS sound, and with proper pedals will sound well as a backup amp.

Modeling

A deviation of solid state that attempts to mimic the gain-compression on a Valve-based amp, it is basically a combination of a very clean power amplifier and a tone modeling unit producing most of the tone. Some may consider this as the swiss-army knife of amplifier. The best of these amps can roughly mimic the sound of many other units with acceptable accuracy, and quite often than not also have cool effects that make even bad guitarists sound acceptable - delay, chorus, flanger, reverb, etc. Again, there's no substitute for skill.

There are basically three kinds: Analog circuitry, Dedicate DSP, and modeling processor (typically also have many digital effects onboard). Analog circuitry and dedicated DSP are typically the best kind, while modeling processors seems to have a bit of a lag between your pick attack and the sound produced, and you should test one carefully before buying it.

Hybrid

Another attempt to provide a valve sound with a solid-state speed is to use a Hybrid approach, which have the following configurations:

• Tube preamp, solid state power amp
• Solid state preamp, tube power amp

"Solid state" here also include modeling, be it analog or DSP.

Typically, metal players prefer the tube preamp with solid state power amp, believing that it would provide the tube tone with a fast attack. However, in numerous blind test^[1][2], one cannot differentiate between a tube preamp and a solid state preamp, but it is easy to spot whether it is tube or solid state in the power amp. Thus, it was said that one that use tube preamp is no different from a normal solid state power amp, while a well made tube power amp is as good as a true tube amplifier. This is another reason why more and more metal player prefer complete a solid state amplifier with very high wattage.

When using a solid state preamp, particularly of modeling preamp, it provides the versatility of high gain sound while allowing power tube distortion that actually makes it warm and fat with compression of the sound. However, some believe without any tube preamp gain, it will be less warm compare to a true tube preamp.

In order to counteract the aforemention deficiency, a recent trend is to include both a tube preamp and a tube power amp, and couple this with solid-state circuitry. There are two approaches to this:

• all-in-one single-tube circuitry containing both tube preamp and tube power amp, between solid-state preamp and solid state power amp. this is employed in the Vox Valvetronix system. As it typically use a dual-triode tubes, usually designed only as a preamp and not power amp purpose, it is often questionable whether this provide the necessary tube gain.
• Provide some tube preamp gain before feeding into the tube power section, with at least one triode gain stage. Example includes Line 6's Spider Valve, and Fender's Champ XD series; as both are coupled with a modeller, such scheme provide traditional tube sound while having versatility of a modeler.

Physical size

Just because you can afford to have a very powerful amplifier (in both money and wattage) does not imply you should get said amplifier. A problem for the traveling musician is that you can be very limited by your amp size. For a high wattage, you will have to pick up a big amplifier that can be too cumbersome to carry, while a small enough amplifier may be bad for even a normal jamming section, let alone gigging.

Also, consider your practicing space as well. For example, if you live in a small apartment, you may have to get a smaller and weaker amplifier. Aside from obvious quieter sound, the smaller physical space available may also make storing even a full size 1x12 amplifier difficult.

In another example, Traynor's TRM30 (1 x 10" x 30w) and TRM40 (2 x 8" x 20w ) are both good audition amplifiers. However, the TRM30 is taller, while TRM40 is wider. Furthermore, TRM30 is at 21 pounds, while the TRM40 is at 34 pounds, about one and a half times as heavy. Considering that some people may have to carry their entire recording setup — a laptop, effect units, guitar— the slight difference in mass and dimension may make the difference in the ease of carry.

(Sidenote: If you do have to carry a guitar, amplifier, laptop, and school stuff, get a 5 watt amplifier, such as Vox DA5 or Epiphone Valve Junior. It's small enough to be carried, and as long as your jam buddy understand, it's still loud enough somewhat. Otherwise, just bear with the weight.)

Typical features of an amp

Essential

• Input - where you guitar cable goes in
• Power - turn it off and on
• Volume - adjusts the volume, and at higher levels, how much distortion
• Speaker or Speaker out - where the sound comes out. For speaker out, never plug in a speaker out port with a speaker that has different ohms than what's labeld on the jack (eg, 4 ohm or 16ohm into 8 ohm)

An amplifier that only has these is Epiphone's Valve Junior and Fender Champion 600, both are consider the cheapest new tube amps on the market.

Almost standard

• Gain — determines the amount of distortions. The higher it goes, the more overdrive it has.
• EQ / Tone - Used to control the tone of the sound. May have only 1 knob (simply general tone) or two (treble and bass), but some even have a 7 band EQ that not only control treble, midrange, and bass, but also other including prescene.
• Phone output — used to plug in headphone so you can practice in the middle of the night.
• Channel selection — most modern solid-state practice amp have two channels or more channels; one for clean signal, and one for an overdriven output. Many of the more expensive tube amps have multiple channels as well.

Other stuff

• Additional inputs: On higher end amplifiers, there could be more than one inputs. Some are merely doubling the inputs, while some may have a high and low input; low is for low impedance inputs (eg guitars with active pickup). One way to get a cleaner signal from tube amps is thus to plug into the "low" input; conversely, to get distortion earlier on, plug into the high input.
• Modeling - One way to solve the clipping problem in solid state amp is the use of DSP modeling, which allows one to play tube-like overdriven sound.
• Extra effects — some units have build in effects, such as reverb and chorus, which can be easily controlled right on the panel by one or more knobs
• Effect loop — can be a single plug (and need to be split), or separate plug as "effect send" and "effect return". Used for time-based effects (delay, chorus, looping, phase shift, and flanging), as using the effect loop will preserve the sound and effect of the amp.
• Line in, 1 or 2 — used to plug in external audio sources. they come out without passing through the preamp, and thus just louder.
• Line out - used to connect to another power amplifier or PA system.
• Speaker out - connect to another guitar speaker. Typically only found in head units, but some combo units have them too to provide flexibility in speaker choice.
• Footswitch plug — allow the use of footswitch to control internal effects, or may even select channel.
• Impedence switch (on tube amps only) - allows you to change the impedence of the speaker out jack so you can plug in speakers of different impedences.
• Standby switch (on tube amps only) - allows the tubes to warm up before turning on the high voltage required for operation. This greatly extends tube life. Also functions as a mute switch if needed.

What makes a good amp?

When you buy your amplifier, the shop owners (most who play guitar themselves) may say something along these lines:

• A tube amplifier is always better than solid state amplifier.
• Digital amp/effects are the poor man's substitute.
• A good amplifier makes all the difference in terms of artistic skill.

These are more or less true, depending on the style of music you wish to play.

A solid state amplifier can provide a good tone. In fact, many pedals that are designed to create a metallic tone is designed to use the hardclipping functions that the solid state amps provide, one thing that tube amps cannot do well. Solid state also makes for a great budget amp, as they are often many times less expensive than an otherwise equivelent tube amplifier. Also, for styles, such as heavy metal, a solid state amplifer is better suited for the edge that these players are looking for.

However, a solid state amplifier has not yet been able to recreate the dynamic feel of a tube amp. While a solid state amp can get fairly close in tone, it's many times harder to influence the tone simply by how the guitar is played. A good tube amp will distort on command when digging into the strings, while a lighter touch cleans everything up with seemingly infinite levels in between. Where as, a solid state amp usually requires adjustments to the controls in addition to playing style to have any effect on the tone.

The most important thing to remember is that many of the famous artist just make do with whatever equipment they have, which often is seen as "poor quality". Nirvana used PA amplifiers as this was all they could afford at first. Many artist started out and keep on using cheap Danelectro guitars, which use plywood for body. Hendrix is said to start out with a severely battered acoustic. Thus, in the end, the players makes the tone, and the player decide whether the tone is good or not.

Digital effects are used prominently by many big name artist running solid-state amplifiers, which provide clean tones. Some say that effects are best suited for solid state amplifiers. Ultimately, what sounds right depends on the player; after all, no matter how good a equipment, a poor player will still show his poor skill, while a good skillful player can turn even the "worst" stuff into something decent.

Keep in mind that a the bigger the amp, the more the commission the saleman makes. Remember that bigger is not always better.

Size and Wattage

How big? How many watts? How many speakers? If you are just starting out, you should think carefully about where you want to go in the future with your music, and buy appropriately. As a general rule, doubling the wattage will only increase the volume by about 3db. 3db is not a large difference, however, don't forget that these 3db may make all the difference in a loud band. Multipying the wattage by 10 (ie, 10 watts --> 100 watts) increases the volume by 10db and is perceived as doubling the volume. Many other factors effect final volume including type and amount of speakers, as well as overall tone of the amplifier. For example, doubling the amount of speakers will result in a 3db increase. As well, a really bright sounding amplifier will cut through noise better than a dark sounding amplifier so not as much power will be needed if your amp is bright. 25 watts into a 4x12 cab will be as loud at 100 watts into a 1x12 cab. This is one reason full stacks are so loud, because 100 watts into 8 12in speakers is like 800 watts into 1 12in speaker.

Speaker configuration

Your two main options are single speaker units, and multispeaker (often 2 speaker) units. Most 2 speaker amplifiers, ranging from the smallest 50 watt combo amps to the MG15MSII "Microstack" offered by Marshall, have basically have the same amplification circuit of its single-speaker siblings. Sometimes, such 2 speakers configuration may use smaller diameter speakers than their single speaker cusin (eg: 2 x 10 inch instead of 1 x 12 inch).

The main benefit of having multiple speaker is that it increases volume as well as bass response without sacrificing the higher frequencies. By having more speaker cones, the speakers will move more air. For example, a 2x10 have the surface area of 157sqin, while a 1x12 only have 113sqin. A 4x10 cab is often used for large combo amplifiers as it provides most of the bass response you'd get from a 1x15, but retains the high frequency that the 1x15 can't produce. Also, it will have increase power-handling capability, or more precisely, they split the amp output. Thus, given same amplification head, a 2 speaker configuration will have louder volume, but only half the power to each speaker. This has yet another advantage.

All else being equal, generally a low power speaker is louder at the same power as a high power speaker. This is known as efficency or sensitivity. A 25 watt speaker with a 10 watt amplifier will generally be louder than a 100 watt speaker on the same 10 watt amplifier. Thus, a multi speaker cab will allow the use of low power speakers with a high power amplifier. The original Marshall full stack used a 100 watt amplifier with 8 25 watt speakers.

Lastly, in some styles of music, such as rock and blues, the speakers sound their best when being pushed close to their max power ratings. When buying cabs for your amp, the best power rating is about 150% of your amp's rated output. 150 watt for 100 watt amp, 75 for 50, etc. Any higher and you'll actually loose volume. For harder music, pushing the speakers that hard may cause an unwanted smoothness. If money permits, buy cabs rated for 2-4 times as much as the amp.

Wattage amount

While on the surface, higher wattage means better amplifiers, in reality this isn't true. For example, many 100 watt amplifiers can be too loud when turned up high, and thus the user automatically lowers the volume and try to compensate with more gain. However, it may sound better by having a 50 watt or even 20 watt amplifier, which allows less gain but higher volume, producing the same amount of final volume. Guitar amps are a lot louder than their wattage lets on to. Some guitarists have used 5-10 watt amplifiers successfully on stage. The norm is closer to 20-50 watts. However, each amplifier has a unique tone. If volume is the only issue, consider placing a Sure SM57 mic in front of the speaker and running that through the PA. Many artists use suprisingly small amplifiers (1-5 watt) in the studio because of their more managable sound levels.

Also, due to the way tube amplifiers and solid state amplifiers distort, there is a perceived difference in loudness, with tube sounding louder given the same wattage. The truth is that both are equally loud, but the sustain on solid state amps is not as good, which results in a perceived lose of volume. If you are gong to be in high overdrive all the time, solid state amps will actually sound louder, but often more piercing.

Another question is whether you need the louder wattage. On one head, doubling wattage only increase 3db, which is not a lot in that case. On the other hand, in order to push the lower frequencies of the sound, wattage is important. This is because the idea of a good distortion, in general, is to have an amp that push as much clean bottom end into your overdriven sound as possible without getting flabby or muddy, which is what creates the hugeness of the sound. The lower in wattage that you go, the quicker your bottom end will mud out. This is not always the case.

As a rule of thumb, the amount of wattage need for Solid State amp is of follow:

• 10-30W: practice on your own.
• 30-50W: practice with a band or recording; gigging (small club)
• 50 to 100W (or more): Large Gigs (as much wattage as you ever need). Even using that 500w MetalHead amp for your blues music could be necessary.

For valves, it's a bit more complicated:

• <10W clean:, Self Practice, Recording
• <10W overdriven: Self Practice, Recording, Gigging (small club)
• 10-20W clean: Self and Band practice, Recording, Gigging (small to medium club)
• 10-20W overdriven: Band practice, Recording, Gigging (small to medium club)
• 20-30W: Band practice, Gigging
• 30-50W: Gigging
• 50W-100: Freakin loud. Please use a pair of earplugs.
• 100W+: Earthquake and noise pollution. Prepare to deal with the police.

Power Ratings

When reading an amp's rated watts (this is more the case with solid state amps), not all manufacturers adhere to a universal standard in stating the wattage. For example, an amp manufacturer may say Amp A is rated at 400 Watts. But when you go to an oscilloscope the measure its true wattage, you may find that it is only a 100 watt amp. But at several points of the sound wave it may have spiked (transients) up to 400 watts. So, the manufacturer goes with the max reading. On the other hand, more than a few 100 watt Marshalls (and other brands, I'm sure) have tested at 150 watts clean. Distortion compounds this problem. Due to the nature of distortion, tube and solid state alike, the amp might be putting out 100 watts, but the speaker sees it as 140 watts (see short explanation below). This is why it's important to buy speakers rated for more than your amplifier is rated.

RMS is .707xPeak voltage. In distortion, the sine wave becomes a square wave, resulting in a power output that is closer to the full peak voltage. A 100w RMS sine wave has peak voltage of 141.4w

Types of Unit (smallest to largest)

The combo amps is an one piece unit containing both the preamp, power amp, and the speaker(s). Typically they do not exceed more than 100 watts, are they are designed to be "relatively" portable. Most combos have just a single speaker, ranging from 6" to 15" but some have two or even four speakers. The most common is a single 12" with a pair of 12" being the next most common.

Micro/Headphone amps

Usually 1 watt, and do not exceed 10 watts. This class of amplifiers are known for their small size (no larger than a computer speaker), designed for extreme portability (such as carrying them in your guitar bag). While some may have built-in speakers, they usually cannot be heard during Jam sessions. As they are solid states and generally low wattages, if they do not utilize FET circuitry they tend to go into an unpleasant distortion very quickly. Aside from homemade solutions (such as the famous Ruby amplifier), Danelectro Honeytone and Vox amPlugs are all good choices.

DI Unit (including amp modelers)

Many "amp modelers" or "micro-amps", like the Rockman, are actually DI Unit hybrid with effect units. A DI unit transforms the unbalanced, high impedance signal from the guitar into a balanced, low impedance signal for use with a mixer; however, some desiged for use with guitar have amp modelers within them, and may have multi-effect processors for additional effects. Most often these are used with headphones, but they also allow direct input of the guitar to the mixing desk in a recording studio, while retaining some of the tone and quality of an amp. There are two kinds: analog modelers, which is most common, and digital computer modeling, such as Line6's POD 2.0.

The main benefit of using a DI unit is that they are compact, and they can get "loud enough" and have a particular tone. This is particularly true for amp modelers and "headphone amplifiers", as their embedded electronics frequently have a somewhat decent approximation of a tube amp. You can also use these in recording, or use it like a pre-amp and plug it into a larger amp for volume. Also, if you are often going to hook up to a P.A. system with your amp, these may provide a cheap option and quicker setup than a larger amp. The Behringer V-Amp 2, is a good example at less than $100 USD.

The main downfall of DI units is that they cannot completely capture the tone of a guitar amplifier. The ultimate way to connect an electric guitar to a PA is to use a microphone in front of the speaker.

Practice/Studio amps

Their wattage may range from 5 to 50, though from 30 on it's hard to say whether it is purely practice alone or can also be used for small gig (see below). Generally, they are designed to be used in a small space, because the small size demands a small space for a suitable volume for practice or recording. While they come in various size, for a solid state amplifier, one should need at least a 10-inch, suitable for jam sessions. On the other hand, if you have a 5 watt tube amplifier, most people will accept your amp in a jam session.

Small gig amplifiers

From 30 watts upward, these combo amplifiers the smallest package which is considered suitable as a stand-alone amplifier for small gigs. The standard is usually 50 or more watts of power and one 12 inch speakers, though some manufactures may use less wattages of 30 and 40, while employing more than one speakers. For tube amplifiers, even a 30 watts is enough, though with better models, sound quality of solid state amplifiers begins to approach levels acceptable to professional musicians.

Quality is always important, but perhaps even more so in the case of the 1x12 inch combo - with a good one, you'll prove the doubters wrong, but with one of the many duds, you won't be taken seriously. The 1x12 is not a big amp, and if you want to bring it to a serious audition or gig without enduring a storm of eye-rolling and chuckling, it had better stand out from the crowd. These cost about 180 to 450 USD.

While a 2x12 combo may be seen as simply an amplifier with one more speaker, the volume of air moved essentially double, and thus make it louder. Benefit of using two speaker instead of one is that it allows stereo effects. Some consider these to be the absolute minimum serious amplifier.

Busking amps

In essence, these are practice/small or gig amps that have a battery attached. Naturally, that means they are more expensive. 15 watts on average, but Pignose Hog 30 can go to 30 watts, while Vox's DA20 have 20 watts and 2x 8" speakers, and Crate's Taxi Series have some that have 50 watts with 10 inch speakers.

They will usually provide 6 to 10 hours in one charge, but also, make sure they can take AC power too when needed. Do note that they are actually quite weak in terms of overdrive. On the other hand, rock and metal music is not exactly busking music, either — soft and light music that add to the atmosphere (usually a park or something) is usually preferred, and thus, the watt are usually enough. A good one is Vox's DA series, which uses modeling processors for an approximation of a tube amp while having a small package.

Heads, Cabinets, and Stacks

One of the greatest symbol in rock and metal is the stack combination basically, it was made up of the following:

• The head: Basically the amplifier without the speakers
• The cabinets: Contain the speakers in an enclosure

Due to the fact that they are always at least two pieces (even if they can be locked together), they are bulky and not really known for their mobility.

When purchasing the two, make sure of the ohmage of the cabinet, and the power rating for the head at that ohmage. Make sure the cabs RMS rating is about the same as the head's power output at the ohmage of the cab. A head can be solid-state or tube, the latter being less durable, but sounds better and is more expensive. A good solid-state head costs 200 to 600 dollars and a good tube head costs 500 to 1400 dollars. In general, a single cab would have a 4x12 for guitar, though other arrangements, such as 1x15, a 2x12, a 4x10 or a 6x10 had also appear. A cab typically range from 250 to 650 dollars.

Low wattage

Why would someone want to make an amplififer with low wattage, which is usually 5 to 15 watts – making them practice amplifiers, but in a stack format? Some of them, such as MG15MSII by Marshall, is a mere showpiece, for people who wants to own a stack but do not have space and room for one. While they may be in a stack configuration, these low wattage solid-state heads are still nothing more than a practice amp, and depend upon who you are talking to, they may even invoke an image of wannabe. Then again, Zakk Wylde use a modified Marshall MS15MSII microstack (now available as Microstack Zakk Wylde edition) for his practice, which when played by the demo person (see it in Marshall theater), is quite well for a metal sound.

However, for many <20w tube amplifiers, such as Epiphone Valve Junior's Stack configurations and its numerous clones, such as Crate Blackheart BH5H, or the Marshall 20w Lead and Bass Head, it provide much flexibility that cannot be provided in a combo. A hot rodded class-A tube amp– which can go up to 16 watt RMS with 2x 6v6 and proper output trnsformer, pumped out a 4x12 cabinet, can be as loud as a 50 watt solid-state amp, and thus it provide potentials to upgrade in the future. Furthermore, by seperating the speaker from the amplifier, customizing (hotrodding) the amp is actually easier than a combo. Since pumping through more speaker produce more volume but have a softer sound, it may be even better than a fully cranked 50 watt tub amp during a performance. By seperating amplifier into two piece, it could also be easier to carry, as in the case of Orange Tiny Terror (15 watt), which comes with a shoulder bag. This is due to how human bear a load: the same piece of equipment could be very heavily or "lightweight" depend on where (on the body) and how you carry it.

Serious gig

These are the types that most people talk about, with a head unit of wattage from 50 watts that's good for a small club, to the standard 100 for large auditorium. For a small auditorium, a half stack – connecting to one 4x12 speaker cabinet– is more than enough, and still can establish creditability of seriousness.

For larger avenue, or even arena, you may run a full stack – that is, you have two 4x12 cabinets, one stacked upon another vertically. The size, however, is tremendous; when fully deployed they are as tall as a grown man, and even when disassemble, you will still need a van to carry them. In case the volume is not enough, you can either hook up to even more speakers, or better yet, use another stack as a slave.

Obviously, these are not really good for practice, as not only are they hard to transport, but also too loud. My neighbor received a notice for turning his half stack a bit too high, and I start to get uncomfortable on volume above 2.

One that is good is the Crate's PowerBlock, which is as small as a DI unit, but is actually a 150watt RMS pure solid-state goodness. Plug in any FX you want, and you will have a perfect companion for your guitar.

Unless you need extreme loudness, you probably won't need these 200+ watts amplifiers. On the other hand, that 550watt Fender MetalHead is definitely tempting (it's $900 USD), and so is the Randall Warhead (300 watts). Oh well, if you want metal, you can always just go for the Warhead Combo configuration.

On a sidenote, ALWAYS WEAR EARPLUGS when playing a full stack. In fact, MetalHead have a nice container that is designed for holding earplugs.

Head and cabinet match up

As mentioned before, a speaker out will have a certain acceptable ohmage, and you should only plug in speaker that have the same ohmage, even though larger amount of ohmage is also somewhat acceptable (eg: a 8ohm plug can only accept 8ohm or 16 ohm) Pluggin a speaker with less acceptable ohmage will burn your amp.

Furthermore,having more speaker only increasing the volume somewhat; using a 5w to push a 4x12 cab will be slightly louder than 1x12, as you can push more watt thropugh such cab, and you'll have a broader tone, with the sound thicker and fuller. However, to actually increase the volume, you do need more wattage into the amp

No amp here!

One of the iconic image of heavy rock and metal is a "Wall of Marshall" standing behind the entertainer, even in Liveshow. However, chances are only 4 of these speakers (a double stack) are real, if at all; Some may even just use amp modelers in secret. Brian May, for example, use only 6 Vox AC30 even though he has "wall of Vox"

In fact, as howstuffworks pointed out, when you have a PA system, you are more likely to run amp modelers into it.

Rack-Mounted Products

The rack mount units is the ultimate setups for live arena playing, which offer maximum controls of the tone without sacrificing the tone. As named, these units are mounted on standard 19-inch racks, and as they are in separate components, the guitarist can select the tone they want, as well as decide how the things are wired up, in a nice organized package.

As mentioned, rack mounted products are made up of many individual components, such as a pre-amp unit, equalizer, speaker/cabinet simulators, power amplifiers, power unit, and even tuners, MIDI switchers, and etc. As these are individual components, they allow multiple distinct sound chains that may share some components and branch off for some other tones, as well as numerous routing options that can be more complex than those offered by a standard stack setup. This provide the benefits of providing the desired tones that can be stereo or mono.

Quite commonly, these are all controlled by a MIDI pedal, plugged into the MIDI switcher.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Rack Rigs

MIDI and USB

Tips

• Like Guitar, buy it with not what the others said, but by your own judgement. Sound easier said then done, though: for example, the review for the MS15MSII (you can see it on Marshall's website) is very different from those user reviews on Harmony Central. If you want a more honest opinion, get the user reviews.
• Different players will have different taste. Dimebag and Maximum the Hormone use solid state amplifiers, which is often seen as cheap junks for most blues and rock players. Then again, most people dislike Metal, so...
• Better to buy a good quality amplifier than to buy one that's cheap; there are actually better long term investment in this case.
• For most beginners, a 15 watt solid state amp, or a 1 watt true tube amp, will be more than enough for your bedroom and small gigs.

References

[1]

Setting up the Guitar

Advances in guitar manufacturing has solved many problems with guitar tuning, but guitars are still extremely sensitive to their environment. If you tune in a room with a set temperature and humidity, then take the guitar into another room that is hotter/colder and/or more/less humid, some guitars will go out of tune. When the guitar experiences a change in humidity or temperature, it causes the wood and strings to expand or contract. It is best to let the guitar acclimate itself in the room in which it will be played then make adjustments and re-tune it. Extreme changes in humidity or temperature can damage your guitar with warping, especially in the neck area, so you should treat it with proper care. If you have a guitar neck that is warped, some structural aspects of the guitar, like the neck, fretboard or truss rod, can be adjusted. See the Adjusting the Guitar appendix.

When fresh strings have been put on a guitar, they will often fall out of tune very easily. This is because after having been put on the guitar, the strings still have a lot of slack. It will take time to work all the slack out of the string, but the process can be sped up somewhat. After the strings have been put on, loosen them a fair bit and then bend the string gently. Turn the tuning peg up, and then bend the string again. After this, strum chords enthusiastically for a few minutes and tune again. Most of the slack should be gone from the strings, and the guitar should stay in tune.

Modern instruments use equal temperament tuning, and the guitar is no exception. Older methods of tuning have the problem of certain intervals sounding out of tune, while others did not. Equal temperament tuning is a compromise between older methods, and has the smoothest overall sound.

Tuning the Guitar

Sound is caused by the disturbance of particles in the air, usually by vibrations, that move the air in waves. When a string is attached to two points, like the strings on a guitar, striking it causes a sound at a certain frequency. The length, thickness and tightness of the string determine the pitch of the note it produces. When a string is plucked the string is stretched to set it in vibration, and since a shorter or tighter string is harder to stretch, it vibrates faster than a longer or looser string. A thicker string produces lower notes than a thinner string because the moves more air when in motion.

There are many different tunings for the guitar, but the most common is known as "standard tuning", or E tuning. In standard tuning the strings should be tuned to the notes EADGBe. This means that the thickest string should play the low E note, and then the next thickest should play an A and so on, finishing with the thinnest playing a high E.

Standard tuning is often represented in a method similar to the diagram below. Note that the upper case E represents the thickest string, and the lower case e represents the thinnest string, which means that the lowest string on the diagram is the highest string on the guitar. This is meant to represent how the guitar looks when a player looks down on it. For further information, please see the Tablature section.

e|-----------------------|
B|-----------------------|
G|-----------------------|
D|-----------------------|
A|-----------------------|
E|-----------------------|

To adjust the pitch of a string, you twist the tuning peg, and the tighter the string the higher the pitch. When doing this, it is important to make sure you are turning the correct peg for the string you are trying to tune. It is both confusing and embarrassing when you turn the wrong peg, often because you have to start all over again.

Until you have developed your musical ability, it may be difficult to know exactly what a particular note should sound like. Any guitar or music store will sell tuning aids, such as tuning forks, pitch pipes and electric tuners. When properly used, these allow you to precisely tune each string to the appropriate pitch. Almost every guitar player owns some sort of tuning aid, and new players are encouraged to purchase one. Tuning aids are important because they can give you reference notes. Unless you have perfect pitch, these methods will only tune the guitars strings relative to one another, and while this may be good for practicing, it is bad for the long term.

On the guitar neck, fingering each fret raises the pitch of the note a half-tone. In an octave, there are twelve half-tones, which means that if you play any note, the note 12 frets above that is twice as high in pitch. Any two notes are related by a certain number of half tones, which is called an interval. The guitar is tuned in fourths, meaning that the string above is tuned to the note on the fifth fret of the string below it. For example, the note on the fifth fret of the A string is a D, which is the note of the string above it. This relationship of a fourth is the same for any string and the one below it, except for the G and B strings. The note G is separated by only four half-tones or frets, which makes this interval a major third. Scales are explained in much greater depth in the scales chapter. Information on general music theory, including scales and intervals can be read in the Music wikibook.

Regular Tuning

Tuning by ear (also known as the fifth fret method) involves getting a single string at the correct pitch, and then using that as a reference point to tune the other strings. Because of this, a tuning aid is useful to ensure that the first string is properly tuned. It is best to use the A as the reference string, because it lies in the middle of the root notes of the most commonly played chords. A perfectly tuned A string resonates at a frequency of 440 Hz.

To tune by ear, begin by hitting the A string, and then the low E string. Pick the notes hard, and let the sound ring out, since the louder it is, the easier it is to hear the difference between notes. Turn the tuning peg up or down to bring the notes into unison. When the notes are close together, you should be able to hear a very fine oscillation between them. This should get slower when the notes are closer together, and should disappear entirely when they are in tune. Your ability to hear this oscillation is a skill that develops over time, and you should not become discouraged if it is really hard at first. You should always hit the string that is in tune first, so you have that sound in your mind when you hit the out of tune string. Once the two notes have been brought into unison continue onto the next string.

On the diagram below, each string has a number indicates the fret you play to tune the string above it.

e|-------------------0---|
B|---------------0---5---|
G|-----------0---4-------|
D|-------0---5-----------|
A|---0---5---------------|
E|---5-------------------|

Also, when tuning it is always a good idea to tune the string upwards to its proper pitch. By just tuning down to a pitch, you introduce slack into the string and it goes out of tune much faster. So if the string is too high, it is best to tune it very low, and then back up to the correct pitch.

A good way to tell whether the string is perfectly in tune is to see if the other string resonates to it. For example, if you wanted to make sure the A string is in tune with the E, pluck the fifth fret of the E string (hard) and mute it. If the strings are tuned perfectly, the A string should be ringing even after the E string is muted, with little appreciable change in volume.

Harmonic tuning

Another more advanced method of tuning is called harmonic tuning. In this method of tuning, you use the harmonic tones of the strings to produce high pitch sounds, and then use these to tune. Because the notes are of a higher pitch, they are easier to tune because even minor changes in pitch are more easily noticeable. Rather than actually touching the string to a fret, simply touch the string directly above the fret. Then, pluck the string and quickly remove your finger. This should produce a high pitched ringing tone, known as a harmonic.

The easiest places on the string to produce a harmonic are on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th fret. Because of the interval between the G and B strings is a third, to tune the string harmonically you must use the low E string. For more information, please see the Harmonics chapter of this book.

The diagram below shows the frets one must his to create the necessary harmonics for standard tuning.

e|----------------------7*---|
B|------------------0---5*---|
G|-------------7*------------|  * = Play a harmonic at this fret
D|--------7*---5*------------|
A|---7*---5*-----------------|
E|---5*-------------7*-------|

It is also be noted that this method will not provide perfect equal temperament tuning. It is extremely similar, but a picky guitar player may prefer the previous technique.

If there is a substantial difference in pitch when tuning via regular or harmonic, the intonation on your guitar is off. The easiest way to tell, is to perfectly tune your 12th fret harmonic with a tuner, and then fret at the twelfth. If the 12th fret is not in tune, while the harmonic is, your intonation needs adjustment.

Problems with Tuning

If you try and you try and your guitar absolutely will not go in tune, be patient and remember that even the best guitarists sometimes have trouble tuning. If the guitar has trouble staying in tune, take it to a repair shop. There may be something wrong with the neck or frets, and an experienced luthier can discover the problem. Guitar intonation tuning method.

Amplifier setup

Unless your amplifier only has the preamp control, you have many other knobs you can play with to make your guitar sound great. Before you begin setting up your amp, you should always make sure that you:

1. Set all the volume knobs and gains to its lowest setting.
2. Set the guitar volume to the lowest setting, and plug it into the amplifier. Always plug in before you turn the amp on, so you do not make it "pop".
3. Turn on the amplifier. If it is a tube-based model and has the standby switch, throw it to standby mode too, to warm up the tubes.
   1. If it's a tube base model, Wait at least 15 seconds; optimally you should give it 5 minutes, especially for the large amplifiers. Otherwise skip to next part.
   2. If you have a passive pickup, plug into "high" plug. If you have an active pickup, plug into "low". If you have only one plug, just plug it in.

After this, there are three main ways that have been used.

Method 1:

1. Bring the guitar's volume knob somewhere between low volume and medium. Play a chord
2. Begin to bring amplifier master volume up (if you have one), then channel volume, then gain up, to 5. This should be your basis for setting up. If it's too loud, bring down the volume, and if not enough distortion, bring up the gain.

Method 2:

1. Bring the amplifier's gain and volume to 11
2. Tweak the volume with the guitar volume knob. If there are too much distortion bring down the gain.

Method 3:

1. Bring the guitar volume knob to its max.
2. Gradually bring up the volume on the amplifier. You should not need to bring it above 2.
3. Bring up the gain; bring down the volume when needed.

Aside from the gain and volume setting, you may want to tweak the EQ settings. Here's a few samples:

• Clean: Clean channel; Gain 1-5; bass 5, mid 5, treble 5
• Blues: Overdrive channel; Gain 5; bass 7, mid 3, treble 5
• Metal: Overdrive channel; Gain 11; bass 11; mid 2; treble 7

When you have finish playing, turn all the knobs to the lowest settings first. If it's a tube amplifier, you may even need to let it cool down (either on standby or just on) for another 5 minutes.

Tremolo Bar torque

One of the first things you will have to set up on electric guitar, especially if you find the tremolo bar keeps falling toward the ground. There are a few different methods.

• On a low end models like Squier stratocaster, you just need to screw in the tremelo bar, by rotating the bar clockwise, Until it tightens up. The problem with model is that you do not have much control on the bar's position during playing.
• On other models, that you merely plug in the whammy bar, you may have a capscrew, which you insert the bar through it into the bridge. Afterward, screw it in until tighten.
• Another approach for the plug-in whammy is to tighten with an allen key hole, nearby the bar's hole on the bridge. The instruction booklet will usually explain where it is, and how to tighten it.

Ideally you want the bar at a 45 degree angle toward the ground, allowing it to be easily grabbed.

Tablature

It is very important for a guitarist to learn both tablature and standard musical notation. Each has its advantages, and each conveys information the other does not. For this reason, many guitar songbooks feature both standard notation and tablature; some even feature a "tab-staff" variant, where rhythm notation is combined with tablature.

Book Tabs

Book tabs are expensive, but they are usually extensive and accurate. With this kind of tab, knowing how to read sheet music is incredibly helpful, because it gives you two ways to figure out a complicated riff. And if you can't read sheet music, now is an excellent time to learn.

In addition to showing you the different notes as they are being played, tablature describes how the notes are played on the guitar by indicating the correct strings and frets. Below is an example of a simple melody done in the style you find in store bought tab books.

Upper Section

The set of lines and spaces that run horizontally across the page is called the staff, and notes can be written on both the lines and the spaces. Notes are named in a repeating series from A to G, they can also be sharp or flat. Each step up the staff is the next letter, so it goes A, B, C, etc. The staff is divided by vertical lines called bars, which divide the music into even sections.

The first symbol on the first staff of a piece of music is always the clef, which in this case is the treble clef. The clef determines which notes are on what lines and what spaces, and in this case, the note in the lowest space (between the bottom line and the next line) is the note F. It is easy to remember the notes on all the spaces, because they are F A C and E, or face.

The next symbol on this example is the time signature, which indicated how many beats there are in each bar. In this case, the time signature is four-four time, which means that there are four quarter notes in each bar. Often it also indicated how many beats there are in each bar, however this is not always the case, especially for jazz pieces. Time signature represents more of the division of e written notation rather than the music itself. The tempo or style, which would be indicated at the top of a piece of sheet music would be a better indicator of how the song sounds.

Not shown in this example, is the key signature. Certain keys have a certain number of sharps and flats, represented by #'s and b's, and and each sharp or flat is shown on the respective lines and spaces after the time signature.

In this example, the first bar has 8 eighth notes, which is a dot (which indicates the note played), and a line (which indicates the notes duration). Because there are more than one eighth note played beside one another, and they span across multiple beats in the piece, they are connected by a horizontal line.

At the end of the last eighth note, there is the vertical bar line, indicating that the bar has been filled up. If some of the notes were hanging over the bar line, they would be split and the duration of the note is notated on both sides of the bar line. Bars never have more notes in them than as is indicated by the time signature. In the next bar there is a whole note, which is an oval that is not shaded in the middle.

The bar line and the thicker vertical black line mean that the piece of music has ended.

Lower Section

In the example below in the lower section, the top line represents the thinnest string of the guitar (high E), and the lowest line represents the thickest string of the guitar (low E). Each number on a line represents a fretted note on that string. The number zero is an open string, the number one is the first fret, and so on.

The tab is still divided into bar lines, but the duration of the notes is not indicated. This means you can only figure out the notes if you understand the music notation indicated in the upper section. The tabs in books are usually pretty sparse compared to the written music, and if (for whatever reason) you can not or will not learn to read sheet music, then you still have other easy options.

Online Tabs

In terms of quality, plain text will never be better than sheet music. Even when images can be used, they are often inconvenient: they take up more space and are difficult to edit. For this reason, there is a very informal and loose standard of "Internet tablature", using only ASCII characters. For example, the above tune would be written like this.

   e---0-1-3-5-3-1-0----|-----------------||
   B------------------3-|-1---------------||
   G--------------------|-----------------||
   D--------------------|-----------------||
   A--------------------|-----------------||
   E--------------------|-----------------||

As with the lower section of the book tab style, this version contains much less information than the music notation in the upper section. Without the standard notation (staff), rhythm can only be suggested by spacing, or less commonly by adding symbols above each note, such as Q for quarter note. Much Internet tablature does not even contain bar lines; timing must be discerned by listening to the original piece. This is the major flaw of online tabs, and this style of tab in general.

However, online tabs are often much more convenient than standard notation for precisely conveying a specific finger positioning. Especially with alternate tunings, this is a clear advantage. The easy access also allows for spur of the moment learning, which for printed books is limited by your local guitar shop's inventory and your wallet.

Some common symbols to appear in online tabs (and this is by far an incomplete list):

Symbol	Meaning
h or ^	hammer on
p or ^	pull off
b	bend string up
r	release bend
/	slide up
\	slide down
v or ~	vibrato
t	right hand tap
x	play 'note' with heavy damping

Chords are often written in the form:

   EADGBE  EADGBE  EADGBE
   xx0232  x32010  320003

---

There are hundreds of tabs for popular music freely available at the On-Line Guitar Archive (OLGA). These can serve as an excellent starting point for beginning guitarists.

TabWiki also has hundreds of free tabs and allows you to add and edit them as well for continual improvement.

Lead Guitar and Rhythm Guitar

The terms lead guitar and rhythm guitar are mildly confusing, especially to the beginner. Of course, a guitar should almost always follow some sort of rhythm, whether loose or tight. And many times guitars are very prominent in a song, where it drives the music, but is not quite lead. And sometimes the lead guitarist doesn't even play a lead part! How to untangle this mess?

The distinction is somewhat arbitrary. Many bands in contemporary music have two guitarists, where usually one would specialize in "lead" and the other in "rhythm". The Beatles are a particularly famous example. Generally leads are characterized partly by guitar solos, so any guitar playing a solo is a lead. A more accurate description is that a lead part contributes more to melody than to accompaniment, which is carried by the rhythm guitar. Lead guitar uses few or no chords, but most of the time it is following a chord structure.

It is important to realize that lead guitar and rhythm guitar fit into two different parts of a band, but it just happens that they are played on the same instrument. Lead guitar provides a solo voice, and is grouped with the lead vocals, lead piano, etc. Rhythm guitar is part of the underlying rhythm section, along with instruments like bass, drums, sometimes piano, backup vocals, etc. Generally speaking, the rhythm provides the groove of the song, while lead provides the melody.

However, these distinctions get fuzzy, especially when lead guitarists begin to add in chords and double-stops into their riffs. In some cases, a single guitar part provides both the melody and accompaniment (especially power chord riffs, commonly found in rock and metal, and finger picking, found in folk guitar).

Some bands (often three pieces bands) feature a single guitarist who can act as either, by either assuming one role at a time or, in a recording studio, recording a lead track over their own rhythm track. For example, the band Dire Straits has been in both situations: in the early days, David Knopfler played rhythm while Mark Knopfler played lead. When David left, Mark usually played both parts on studio albums, and hired another guitarist to play rhythm for live shows. Some guitarists reached such technical proficiency that they were able to play both parts "simultaneously". A famous example of this techinique is Jimi Hendrix, particularly on songs such like Little Wing or Voodoo Child (Slight Return).

Playing Lead Guitar

Very often, a lead guitar part is played on an electric guitar, using moderate to heavy distortion. For this reason, many amplifier manufacturers refer to their distortion channel as a lead channel. Distortion provides a more powerful sustain than a clean channel, and this is often best represented in extreme techniques like shredding and tapping, which some guitarists feel can only properly be done with distortion. Of course, lead guitar can be played on an acoustic guitar, but some techniques may not be as pronounced as on an electric.

The most common techniques for creating lead parts are bending, vibrato and slides. These provide the basic means of emphasizing notes, and allow for greater expression in the melody. Often the lead guitar may employ arpeggios or sweep picking to add depth, and the progression of the solo often mirrors the underlying rhythm guitar part.

Playing Rhythm Guitar

Rhythm guitar is characterized mostly by playing chords in patterns. Some players criticize rhythm guitar as sounding "chordy", or not being as interesting as the lead part. Although rhythm guitar does not "express" as much as the lead guitar, there is so much to be learned about chords, chord progressions and rhythm patterns, and a player is limited only by their imagination.

Rhythm guitar is just as easily played on electric or acoustic, clean or distorted. The technique is less about expressing individual notes, and more about choosing chords or chord voicings that enrich the overall sound, which may add its own expressive tone to the music.

Playing the Guitar

For Beginners

The Basics

The guitar is, and has always been, a social instrument. In all its forms, it has always been a portable, multi-stringed instrument made for public hearing. Even today, there's nothing better than hanging out with some friends and being able to strum a few songs on the guitar. And if you've just bought your first guitar, then you're in luck: you can play literally thousands of popular songs by learning just a handful of chords. But playing the guitar is more than just struggling through a half-recognizable version of some song, it also requires good technique. In this section, you will learn the basics of how to hold the guitar, use a pick, and other important fundamental techniques.

Never forget that instruction books are not a replacement for playing with other guitarists, or learning from a teacher, who are excellent sources of information and inspiration. Unfortunately, we cannot provide commercial music material for display in this book, so all lessons will either have to be original creations, or must be donated by the author. There are a great number of copyright free songs on the German wikibook project, so please feel free to translate lessons on any of those.

Also, this section, as with most guitar manuals, is written with right handed players in mind. Left handed players are encouraged to warm up their creative powers, and imagine that this wikibook has actually been written with them in mind.

Holding The Guitar

The guitar can be played in many positions, but some positions are clearly more efficient than others. The choice of position is personal, but clear guidelines exist. Some basic considerations in determining a chosen playing position include:

• the physical stability of the instrument
• ensuring the freedom of both hands such that they have thorough access to the instrument and can meet all technical demands without having to support the instrument
• elimination of general muscular tension in the assumed body position. While it is natural for a beginner to experience fatigue in the muscles of his hands and arms, you must be careful to sit straight and not cause damage to your spine and waist. If you do experience pain in those regions it is possible that the position is harmful and must be changed to prevent damage.

Many beginners try and turn the guitar towards themselves, so they can look down at the frets and soundhole. Curling the guitar towards yourself in such a way actually makes it more difficult to fret the strings efficiently, because you have to curl your wrist more. This tension can be harmful. Beginners are also often inclined to put their elbow too high or low, which leads to cramping. Ideally your arm and shoulder should be relaxed.

It may take a beginner several weeks until holding the guitar feels comfortable and natural. By using efficient hand positions and not straining, the muscles in the arm and hands will get stronger. If you ever feel pain you should immediately stop and ascertain the cause of pain before continuing. Sometimes discomfort is due merely to fatigue and a period of rest will be all that is required.

Sitting

Classical Style

Sit up straight on a chair or stool, with your left foot on a footrest approximately 10-20 cm in height. Place the waist of your guitar on your left thigh. Rest your right forearm on the top front edge of the guitar's lower bout so that it is comfortable and allows you to easily strum the strings over the soundhole. The guitar headstock should approximately be at head level, which corresponds to an inclination of the guitar neck of about 45 degrees. Your left hand should be presented to the guitar neck and fretboard such that the thumb is behind the neck and all three segments of the fingers are forward of the edge of the fingerboard. Shoulders should be level and relaxed, and it helps to be leaning forward slightly. Most people should feel comfortable and able to stay in this position with little effort. If you cannot, something may not be right. As an alternative to using a footstool, you can use some sort of guitar support between your left leg and guitar. This also allows for good alignment of the spine and an efficient playing posture.

With your left hand, put your thumb so that it is behind the second fret. This is the most comfortable area for playing open chords. Your thumb should not extend over the edge of the fretboard and touch the E string.

Electric Guitar

For aesthetic reasons many rock performers hold the electric guitar lower than an acoustic. The neck is held very horizontally, rather than at a 45 degree angle. Such a posture severely compromises left hand function and has no technical advantages over using a higher position.

Lapsteel or Hawaiian guitar

With these styles, the guitar is played horizontally, so the frets and strings point upwards. Some skilled players can fret notes and play chords by pressing down on the strings, but more often these guitars are played with a slide.

Standing

If you have a guitar strap, available from any guitar store for a few dollars, then you can also learn to play standing. This is useful if you plan on playing in a band. If you have a heavy guitar a broad guitar strap is often more comfortable than a thin strap. To attach a strap, there should be a hole in each end that you can put over two pins, usually fitted on the endblock of the guitar and where the neck meets the body. Many acoustic guitars only have one pin on the end block, and straps must be attached under the strings above the nut on the headstock. However, this sometimes makes it difficult for keep the guitar at an optimum height and can cause shoulder strain. You can usually install a second pin where the neck meets the body, but you should be careful or you might damage (and devalue) your guitar.

With the strap attached to the guitar, sling it so that it hangs around your neck on your left shoulder. You can usually adjust the height of the guitar, but the exact method depends on each strap. The length of the strap depends on your preferences, but you can use the same guidelines in found in the previous section. Some professionals that have their guitar hanging down at their knees, and others that have keep it under their shoulders. Neither of these extremes are recommended for a beginner.

Using the Picking Hand

Please see the Picking and Plucking section for more information.

Much of the "feel" of a guitar style comes from the way the strings are hit. Since there are many different techniques, and often they defy explanation, it is difficult to explain all but the most basic techniques. How a player hits the strings is something they must discover for themselves.

In order to advance with the guitar, it is very important to properly use your picking, or impact hand. This should almost always be your dominant hand, so if you are right handed, you would use your right hand for your picking hand, and vice versa for left handed people. This hand should always be loose, because if it is not, the strings can sound clunky.

Your hand should "float" at a comfortable height above the sound hole, and you should be keeping your wrist straight or slightly bent. You should always be ready for movement in either direction, and your wrist should not touch the strings as you are strumming (unless you are doing some sort of muting technique). You can use your fourth finger to brace against your guitar, but this is considered bad in the long term; this is like a crutch, and you are limiting the potential you can get from practicing with your whole arm. For example, even though the brace will let you pick notes faster, it sometimes limit your ability to play complex rhythms using chords. While it might be good to practice using your fourth finger for a brace sometimes, you will become a better guitar player if you don't brace yourself like that.

It doesn't matter if you are using a pick or just your fingernails, whenever your impact hand hits the strings, the type of hit can be changed based on the tension of your upper finger joints. This is the area to pay attention, because slight variations in pressure and speed can make distinctly different sounds.

Fingers

The fingers can be used in two main ways, through finger picking or strumming through chords like using a pick. There are several styles of finger picking, such as Travis picking, where you only use the thumb and first finger, and other styles where you use three, four or all five fingers.

Using a Pick

Hold the pick in between your first finger and your thumb. Don't pinch it, hold it firm but loose, with the pick flat in between the side of your first finger and the bottom of your thumb. Your thumb should be in line with the first segment of the first finger, with the pick firmly (but not tightly) between. When you pick, your wrist should be loose, and the main motion comes from your wrist for picking on one string, and you should use the Elbow for crossing strings. Similarly, when you strum, make sure to use your forearm and not your wrist for strength. Your wrist should be loose enough, but controlled, and the power should come from your forearm.

It is helpful to imagine the pick like a small bird between your thumb and finger; you do not want it to fly away, and you do not want to crush it.

Using the Fretboard

The most important things to remember when playing are to keep your hand loose, avoid unnecessary movements and finger spreading, and not to smother the strings. Having good flexibility in your hand is one thing, but trying to reach too far can be exhausting. Keep your fingers tight together, but not cramped. In general, when playing acoustic instruments you should always use the tips of your left hand fingers and not the pads to press the strings. If you use the pads, you risk muffling the sound coming from adjacent strings, which may be required to be heard. The greater sustaining properties of electric guitars often requires that such strings be damped so this rule does not always apply. Ideally your left elbow should be extended from your body, and your left hand should curl in towards your body. Your fingers should be like little hammers hitting down on the strings, and this way you will use the tips to push the strings down into the frets.

Regardless of where you are playing on the fretboard, you always have to make sure that you're pressing down in the best spot to get the best sound. You should always be fretting down the string slightly behind the fret of the note you want to play. Press the string down firmly to the fretboard, close to the metal fret. If the finger is too far away from the fret, then the pressure is not sufficient to press the string down completely on the frets, and the note will buzz. If you are pressing too close to the fret you will sometimes accidentally play a note too high. You'll have to practice to get the right amount of pressure to use and the right distance at which to hold your arm.

Chords

Please see the Chords section for more information

A chord is defined as three or more different notes sounded at the same time. Ability to play chords is a basic requirement of most guitar music. There are many different types of chords, and each type has it's own sound. Other things about the guitar affect how a chord sounds.

Generally, playing chords involve pressing several (and sometimes all) the strings down on the frets. Sometimes this can be very tough for beginners until their muscles develop. Often a beginner will find that when playing a chord, not all the strings are being pressed down properly, and some strings sound dead. It is important to make sure that all the strings ring out, which can be tested by picking up and down a chord, and adjust your fingers when needed. It doesn't matter how fast or loud you can play, if your chords are not fretted properly you will sound terrible.

Some players use their thumbs to play the low E string. They do this by turning their fretting hand slightly out and squeezing the thumb down on the string. Players with long thumbs can play on the low E and A strings. This technique compromises efficient left hand function as the wrist and hand have to undertake significant re-adjustment in order present the thumb to the string in such a manner and then to return the hand to its standard presentation. Additionally the tips of the fingers can no longer be presented vertically to the strings. The technique is not recommended for beginners who wish to maximise their technical abilities.

Your hand is in a different position depending on whether you are playing an open chord or a barre chord.

Melody

When a player is first starting out, it is not their ability to make melodies causing problems, it is a lack of skill in their hands. Many people can whistle or hum a melody, but have difficulty translating that to the fretboard. Learning the sound of different intervals between notes takes time and patience.

The best way to learn how to carry a melody on the guitar is simply to keep practicing. Unfortunately there is no secret to being a good player, you simply have to practice and learn for yourself. This is good though, because even if there was some secret, if everyone did the same thing, then all the music would sound the same. For general advice about learning about melody, see the Lead Guitar and Rhythm Guitar page

Coordinating Your Hands

Truly great guitar playing comes from the unison of the left and right hand. Unless both hands are connecting with the strings at the proper time, your playing will sound sloppy.

What's Next?

Now that you have some basic control over the guitar, you're ready to start playing. A good place to begin is by exploring some of the other styles and techniques listed on the main page. The most important thing to remember is that you become a good player by practising properly, and accurately. It is always better to learn and practice a piece slowly, and then increase your speed as your increase your skill and comfort, rather than struggling through it a few times and just considering it "learned".

Double-stops and Power Chords

For the beginning guitarist, double-stops are the next step up from playing single notes. A double-stop is two notes played at the same time. Although this term is generally reserved for bowed instruments (such as the violin and cello) and is not heard often outside of classical/formal music studies, we will use it here for convenience.

Double-stops are used in all kinds of music. The type we will describe here is primarily seen in rock/metal music. The distance between the two notes being played is known as the interval. We will describe perfect intervals here. Do not worry about why they are called "perfect" at the moment, just understand that when two notes are played at certain intervals which are perfect we call the result a power chord.

Power chords are good, because when played in the most common way, it helps you quickly learn to see where the different octave notes are on the fretboard. This improves your overall understanding of how to play notes, and builds the groundwork for understanding scales

A chord is named after its root note, which is typically the lowest note. E.g. a C chord consists of the notes C E G, with C most likely to be the lowest note. Chords may be modified by "inverting" them, which means to reorder the pitch of the notes by raising or lowering them an octave, e.g. playing a C chord as E G C, which would be named C\E. However, the general rule of thumb among guitarists is to refer to a chord by its lowest note. For details on variations, please see the chords section.

A basic understanding of tablature is essential for understanding this, and most other sections of this book.

Power Chords

Perfect fourths (e.g., C-F) and perfect fifths (e.g., C-G) and are the most consonant interval on the guitar (and in all of music for that matter), not counting unison and octaves. For this reason, playing a perfect fourth or fifth is often called a power chord.

It is difficult to play the octave for a root note on the D string, because the B string is tuned differently than the other strings, and you will need to stretch further to reach the octave. Power chords are most commonly played on the thicker strings, and many songs exclusively use perfect fifth power chords.

Perfect Fifths

The simplest perfect fifth power chord uses the same fingering as an E minor chord, except only the thickest three strings are played. Here is the fretting for the E5 power chord:

   EADGBE
  (022xxx)

When you play a power chord in the open position (or any power chord), you have to be careful to mute the other strings so they do not ring out. In this case, if you also played the G string, you would be playing a full chord, not a power chord. Use your extra fingers to lightly touch the other strings, use your fretting fingers to smother the unnecessary strings, or just avoid hitting the unnecessary strings with your impact hand.

Power chords, and really any chord types, are useful because they can be moved anywhere on the neck, as long as the relationship between the notes is the same. For example, in the E5, the thickest string plays an E, the next string plays a B (which is the fifth note of any E scale), and the next string plays another E, but an octave above it.

If you take the same chord pattern, and move it up the neck to make a different power chord. For example, take the two fretted notes, then use your first finger and fret the thick E string two frets behind the others. For example, if you were fretting the E string at the third fret, you would be playing a G5 which looks like this:

   EADGBE
  (355xxx)

There are several different fingerings you can use to play a power chord, but it is best to choose one that lets you easily move the power chord up and down the neck.

Here are three most common fingerings for a power chord, in this case, a G5. In the second and third fingering, the two strings are barred at the fifth fret. The numbers indicate the number of finger to use. Finger #1 is the index finger, #2 the middle finger, #3 the ring finger, and finger #4 is the little finger.

   EADGBE        EADGBE        EADGBE
   ---xxx        ---xxx        ---xxx
 1 ......      1 ......      1 ......
 2 ......      2 ......      2 ......
 3 1.....      3 1.....      3 1.....
 4 ......      4 ......      4 ......
 5 .34...      5 .33...      5 .44...

Alternate Fingerings

One common variation on the power chord involved omitting the second, higher octave note. For example, a G5 without the second G would look like this:

   EADGBE
  (35xxxx)

These tend to sound "rawer", because there is no upper octave to "round out" and thicken the power chord. They are also easier to play, because you only need two fingers. Experimenting with both types is fun and can help you learn the basic tune of a tricky song. When played with overdrive, all three of these chords sound remarkably alike, though not identical. Without overdrive they become more distinct.

Since a power chord is just playing multiple strings that produce only two tones, it is possible to play all six strings and still be playing a power chord. Some open tunings set the guitar up so that when you strum it open, it plays a power chord. Here is an example of a full G5 chord, where all strings are either playing a G or a D.

   EADGBE
   --00--
 1 ......
 2 ......
 3 1...22
 4 ......
 5 .4....

This chord can be considered a non-traditional power chord, since in popular music, power chords usually use only two or three strings. This is also a hard fingering for the beginner, but it emphasizes an important fact about double-stops: as long as you keep adding octave or unison notes, you will always be playing the same interval. Playing a non-octave or unison note will instead produce a chord.

Adding unison notes may sound different even though they are supposed to produce the same pitch. This may be because the strings have different tension or thickness. In general, the guitar's thinner strings will have a brighter, more ringing sound.

Perfect Fourths

Perfect fourths have a slightly more suspended sound than perfect fifth chords. These are exceptionally easy to play, because most of the strings on the guitar are tuned in fourths. This means that playing any two of the thickest four strings, when they are beside one another and played at the same fret. For example, a D4 is played like this:

   EADGBE
   xx00xx

These can easily be moved up the neck. For example, a G4 or a B4 would be played like this:

   EADGBE     EADGBE
  (33xxxx)   (x22xxx)

Perfect fourths are most often played without adding a top octave. This can easily be done, by adding the octave. For example:

   EADGBE     EADGBE
  (335xxx)   (x224xx)

Other Double-stops

You can play a huge variety of different intervals by playing chords, and just plucking two notes at the same time. Often you can add variety to chord strumming by playing a quick fill by playing different sections of a chord, and achieving different intervals.

Open Chords

Open chords, or open position chords, are chords that are played using only the first three frets of the guitar. This means that often many strings are being hit open, or without being fretted.

Open chords are the most common chords played on guitar, and many songs are composed using just these. They are the easiest chords for a beginner to learn, and some guitarists decide they don't need any other kind of chord. There are a wide variety of different chord types in open position, and learning about them is an important step towards mastering barre chords.

When you strum any chord, all of the correct strings should ring clearly. The sound of the fretted notes may have a slightly different tone to those of the open strings, this is normal. If any of the strings cannot be heard, check to make sure that none of your fingers are touching any of these strings. If you are accidentally muting any strings, arch your hand more and curl your fingers to ensure it is the tip of the finger pressing the string close to, but not touching, the fret. You should think of your fingers as pressing the string down into the fret, and not pushing the string back against the fretboard. If some strings are not required to be heard, they can be muted by left-hand fingers or thumb.

Major Chords

Major chords are defined by the major triad. The major triad consists of three notes which are spaced at specific intervals. In ascending order: the root, major third and perfect fifth. These intervals are also found between the first note of a major scale and the third note (major 3rd), and the first note and the fifth note (fifth). When combined they have a bright happy tone, and are often used in upbeat music.

There are 6 major chords commonly used in the open position; A, C, D, E, F and G. The standard tuning of a guitar is designed so that chords can be easily played. Beginners often find G major challenging to play and F major impossible, but this changes with practice and it is good to challenge oneself.

E Major

Many early blues songs are written with E major as the root chord. The chord contains the notes E, G#, and B, and can be played with three fingers.

Fingering 1: (o231oo)

First, place your second finger on the second fret of the fifth string. The string now plays a B note. Then, place your third finger on the second fret of the fourth string. This note is an E, which is an octave higher than the open sixth string. Finally, place your first finger on the first fret of the third string.

Fingering 2: (o321oo)

You can alternatively switch the second and third fingers.

When you strum this chord, all of the strings should ring out clearly. If any string sounds dull or muffled, check to see that you are not accidentally touching strings, and that all the strings are pressed firmly against their frets. It is important to build good technique early, as bad habits tend to linger. Make sure that your fingers are arched on your left hand, and that your thumb is positioned to give you a strong grip.

A Major

There are several ways to play A major. You should learn how to play all of them, then use the most suitable to each musical context. In an A major, the notes are A, C# and E. When playing an A, it is considered good form not to let the low E string ring out. While an E is one of the notes in the A major chord, playing an E below the other notes puts this A major in second inversion. This changes the tone of the chord, and may not achieve the desired effect.

Fingering: (xo123o)

Put your first, second, and third finger on the second fret of the fourth, third and second strings respectively. When you strum, ensure that all strings sound clear, except for the sixth string which should be muted. This is probably the most popular fingering, but is tough for people with thick fingers. (xo132o) is a variation by switching the third and fourth finger, with the first on the third string, third for fourth string and second for fifth string.

Alternatively you can finger this cord (xo112o), this requires that the first finger fret two strings (using the finger's pad rather than the tip). This leaves two fingers free and is often favoured by classical and flamenco performers, depending on musical context.

(xo234o) fingering allows for easy transition into higher position barre chords,

Finally, (xo111o) by using one of your fingers, most commonly the first or third finger, and barre the aforementioned frets. This one is tough for beginners, but easier for players with large hands. For more information on barring, see the section on [Guitar/Chord_Reference#Barre_Chords|barre chords]].

D Major

Fingering: (xxo132)

Use your first finger on the third string, third finger on the second string, and your second finger on the first string. Be careful not to play the fifth and sixth strings, since they are not required for this chord. At first this may feel awkward, but it will be comfortable to play. Watch that you keep your thumb low when you play this chord. You can also finger this (xxo243), which will help you to later use this as a barred, movable chord shape.

G Major

There are two common ways to play a G major, a three finger method (Frets: 320003) and a four finger method (Frets: 320033), both with a slight difference in sonority. In either way, the notes are a combination of G, B and D. From this point forward, the fingerings will be shown in parentheses for the sake of simplicity.

Fingering 1: (32ooo4)

Put your third finger on the sixth string, second finger on the fifth string, and fourth finger on the first string. This is a favorite among beginners, and it allows for easy change to the open C major chord. Alternatively you can finger it (21ooo3), which may be easier for players with small hands or guitars with small necks and is recommended when changing to or from a open D7 chord.

Fingering 2: (21oo34)

This uses all four fingers, and it makes for an easy G to D major chord change. This also has a more "open" sound than the first fingering, because the B string plays a D rather than a B, leaving the chord less well defined as being a major chord.

C Major

Fingering: (x32o1o)

This is the most common fingering. Alternatively, you can use (x42o1o). (x32o14) or (x32o13) provide C chords with different voicings.

F Major

Fingering: (xx3211)

To play this, use the pad of your first finger, and press the first and second strings down at the first fret. You need to press firmly, or the strings will not ring out properly. Then take your second finger and put it on the third string, and put your third finger on the fourth string. The fifth and sixth strings should not be played with this chord.

Minor Chords

Minor chords use the first, third and fifth of the minor scale. They have a dark, melancholic tone and are most often used in darker music.

E Minor

Fingering: (o22ooo)

Alternatively you can finger this chord (o23ooo). For variation you can also add a G on the high E string, and play the cord using these frets: (022003).

A Minor

Fingering 1: (xo231o)

You can also finger this like (xo342o).

D Minor

Fingering 1: (xxo231)

Also often fingered using the fourth finger in the place of the third. Make sure your first finger does not "fold". If you are doing it, you will know what I mean because your first finger will hurt around the joints. The proper technique should apply to this chord just as much as any other. Keep your thumb back.

Other kinds of chords

There are a variety of other chords that can be played in open position, and often it involved taking a chord you are already familiar with and adding or removing a finger. Experimentation can yield a lot of interesting sounds, and you are only limited by you imagination when it comes to using them.

Dominant-type seventh chords

Dominant-type seventh chords are notated as A7, C7 etc. They add an extra note to a major chord. The extra note is found at an interval of a minor seventh above the root note of the chord. For example, a D chord major would contain a D, an F#, and an A making the intervals 1,3,5. A D7 adds a C to these notes resulting in 1,3,5,minor7. The minor seventh interval can be easily found by an alternative method. Take any chord, and lower one of the root notes downwards in pitch by two frets (a whole step) to locate the minor 7th. The chord will usually sound more settled if the root remains as the bass note of the chord, so a root note higher than the bass is the better choice to alter. The chords already shown above all allow you to do this. Below are some chord shapes you should know. These are only the open sevenths, which are easier than others covered in the barre chords section.

D7

(xx0212) Notice how we moved the octave D from the D major chord (third fret second string) down two frets. making it the minor 7th. That's pretty much what we are going to do with all the other 7th chords. You can take any chord and by moving one of the root notes down two frets find the minor 7th.

E7

Easy, and again, we moved the octave E down two frets.

A7

Same again.

G7

(320001) A bit unfriendly. Remember, it is not much different from a C chord shape, except you stretch more.

B7

(x21202) This one looks funny, but you will use it a lot in songs where you use a B7. Obviously.

Note: This image is taken from the German guitar wikibook, and in German music theory, B is referred to as H.

Muting and Raking

Muting

Muting a string is simple: with the fretting hand, touch the string with a finger, but do not press it down, and strike the string. It is usually best to do this where a harmonic will not result, but strings can be muted at harmonics for special effect. In tablature, muted notes are marked with an "x" instead of a fret number. It is also common practice to mute a string with the picking hand after striking a note to create a shortened "staccato" effect. Again touching a string to mute away from harmonic nodes is advised, but sometimes pulling off into harmonics creates interesting effects.

Palm muting

Palm muting may or may not make the pitch of the string discernable. Very lightly rest the palm of the hand on or near the bridge, then fret and strike strings normally. Palm-muted notes are sometimes notated the same way as muted notes when the pitch is not discernable; otherwise fret numbers are given normally and the muted notes are marked "P.M." in tablature.

The Palm Muting Technique

The idea is not to mute the strings, but to dampen them, so that the notes are still clear, but with less sustain. To start, hold your guitar like you normally would, but let your palm brush against the strings, near the bridge. Remember to "let" the strings brush against your palm, not putting any force on the strings. The closer to the bridge, the more forgiving it is. As you get better, try adjusting the amount of muting by keeping your palm at different distances from the bridge. Very heavy palm muting can raise the pitch of the note(s), especially on guitars with a floating tremolo bar system equipped. Using or not using this effect is at the reader's discretion.

Finger Muting

You can also mute strings just by pressing your fingers against the strings, but not so hard that they are fretted and play notes.

Raking

Raking is not a kind of muting, but a technique for applying it. It is vaguely related to sweep picking, but instead of an arpeggio, the result is usually a single percussive-sounding note. (However, sweep picking is sometimes incorrectly notated as a rake in tabature, and sloppy sweep picking may accidentally become a rake.) Between two and four strings are struck, only one containing the desired note and the rest muted. Rakes may be notated in various ways; the most common way is to add muted grace notes, possibly adding the word "rake" to the tablature for clarification.

Learning Songs

Now that you've got a few chords under your belt, you're ready to start learning some songs. Great! There are several ways to learn songs, and some are more accessible than others. If you are looking for software to help you learn, please see the main page.

General Tips

Practice the song slowly (especially if it's a fast song) until you can play it flawlessly. Then, when you are confident with the notes you are supposed to play, increase the speed until you can play along with the song.

Regardless of the method you use to learn a song, you should always use a drum-machine or metronome in order to keep a steady tempo

Methods of Learning

Sheet Music

The best way is to find sheet music for the song you are trying to learn, like a tab book, available from any guitar shop. Tab books are good, because they are almost always accurate, and they not only show the notes you're supposed to play, but they give good sense of how to play the notes. Generally they include both the rhythm and lead part, even written on the same page if they are played at the same time.

However tab books are notorious for being both expensive and hard to read, especially if you have no prior knowledge of music notation. Understanding music theory, even just enough to properly (and easily) read a tab book is difficult. Being able to read music is a huge, immense help in understanding why some things sound good and others sound bad, but learning is a massive undertaking.

Online Tab

A much quicker, cheaper and often faster way to learn is to search for an online tab of the song you're looking for. Simply type "ArtistName SongName tab" into your favourite search engine, and voila, you have dozens to choose from. The online tab community is thriving, and there are many popular sites where you can find tabs for most popular songs. Some sites even feature a MIDI of the song, to make learning even easier.

There are several downside to online tab, some of which are outlined in the Tablature section. The biggest problem is lack of accuracy. Always remember that online tabs are not made by professionals like tab books, and that somewhere down the line someone was sitting at home with a CD and figured it out by trial and error. Thus, the more complicated the song, the less likely the tab you are reading is 100% accurate. But since most people don't play a song exactly as it sounds on the album (even the recording artists!), this isn't such a big deal.

Another down side is that there is a huge amount of stealing in the community, and if you are looking for an obscure tab, you might only find one actual tab, with copies of it on every site you visit. Some sites allow for multiple versions, and some use voting or comments to give you a sense of how accurate the tab is. However, don't let voting alone determine which tab you read, because if the people who vote don't know how to play the song either, then they might vote a terrible tab really high. In general, you should read two or three tabs for a song, and then from that determine how you intend to play the song. Comments on a song can contain slight revisions or alternate fingerings for chords, so it is good to check those out.

By Ear

Songs can also be learned "by ear", with no sheet music. Essentially you just listen to the song and try to figure it out, with nothing for reference. Knowledge of music theory is particularly helpful for this method. It probably sounds a lot harder to learn this way than it is, but it is a really good way to practice whatever music knowledge you have. And it is especially rewarding being able to figure out a famous musicians piece and saying "I could have made that up!"

First, you should always try and figure out the key (or scale) the song is in. Knowing the key essentially tells you two important things; what the root notes are of the chords they are playing, and the scale that is used for soloing. When you know the scale, you can also probably figure out which scale degree is supposed to be major or minor.

To figure out the key, try playing random notes on the fretboard, and when one "works", play a major or minor pentatonic scale beginning with that note. Once you have figure out a few more notes, you will probably have a good idea of what scale is being used. If that doesn't work, try humming the chords being used, and then match those tones on the guitar. Be careful you don't accidentally start humming the lead vocals, because although that will help determine the key, the chords are likely different.

Once you know what key the song is in, the rest generally follows pretty quickly. Some of the tricky bits can be one-note riffs, arpeggios, of specific voicing of the chords they are using.

If you don't want to figure out the key of the song, the figuring out something by ear is more difficult. Essentially you need to just find the same notes and play them at the same time. Generally this involves a lot of trial and error, but simple songs can easily be figured out.

Other Guitarists

This is perhaps the best way to learn. Playing with another guitarist gives you the opportunity to ask questions about chords and rhythms, and it gives you a chance to see and hear what the song is supposed to be like when it's performed live. However, the down side is that often a guitarist learn to play a song "their way", and they don't care about how it's "really" supposed to be played. Thus, you might not be learning the song exactly, but rather a slightly different version.

Concert Videos

Another place to learn is by watching concert videos, especially on DVDs where they allow you to pick camera angles. Often they will have a camera never breaks away from lead guitarist. By following along, you can learn exactly how a particular guitarist plays a particular song live.

The downside of this is that not every artist (especially new ones) have a concert DVD. Also, the guitarist may be playing the song differently live than on the album, so depending on how accurate you intend to be with your learning and playing, watching a video may not be the best way.

Song Library

Almost as soon as you start playing guitar, you will learn a handful of songs or riffs. But often after a while, you can't think anything new or interesting to play. Learning songs can be tough, but thinking of songs to learn can be even tougher. This page aims to simplify things, by providing a list of songs, and perhaps a tip or two for learning.

• Easy songs are songs that are played mostly with open chords, or involve uncomplicated riffs higher up on the neck. Easy song, difficult solos are those that have very challenging solos.
• Intermediate songs are songs that a beginner would find challenging, but an experienced guitarist should be able to pick up quickly. Generally the songs involve faster chord changes or difficult riffs.
• Difficult songs are songs that experienced players have a little trouble with. Beginners would likely be unable to play these songs because they have not yet developed their skill and coordination with their hands, but they do make excellent goals.
• Impossible songs are songs that make expert players scratch their head. They are extremely complicated, take lots of practice to play and require a high level of playing ability. These are the songs that make people say "Maybe one day I'll be able to play that."

Songs are organized alphabetically by band name or artist last name, then song title. Include non-standard tunings and any other important information. Please only list popular musicians (but not necessarily popular songs!), and please only list specific songs. Do not be tempted to include "Everything by Band X/Artist Y", because certainly not every single song they have recorded requires the same level of skill.

Extremely Simple Songs

• Phoebe Buffay – Smelly Cat
• Bob Dylan – Knocking on Heaven’s Door
• Baby one More Time (Tavis’ version)
• Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
• Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe

Easy Songs

• AC/DC - Hells Bells Guitar Tab
• Armor For Sleep - The Truth About Heaven Guitar Tab
• Aerosmith - The Devil's Got A New Disguise Guitar Tab
• Aerosmith - Dream On Guitar Tab
• Aerosmith - Livin On The Edge Guitar Tab
• Aerosmith - Same Old Song and Dance Guitar Tab
• Against Me! - Don't Lose Touch Guitar Tab
• Against Me! - New Wave
• Against Me! - Thrash Unreal Guitar Tab
• AFI - Miss Murder Guitar Tab
• Audioslave - Doesn't Remind Me Guitar Tab
• Audioslave - Like A Stone Guitar Tab
• The Beatles - Come Together
• The Beatles - Helter Skelter
• The Beatles - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
• Black Sabbath - Fairies Wear Boots
• Black Sabbath - Iron Man
• Black Sabbath - Paranoid
• Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
• Black Sabbath - War Pigs
• Blink 182 - Adam's Song
• Blink 182 - All the Small Things
• Blink 182 - Dammit
• Blue Oyster Cult - Astronomy
• Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper
• Blue Oyster Cult - Godzilla
• Bob Dylan - All Along the Watchtower
• Buckethead - Electric Tears
• Buckethead - Padmasana
• Bullet for my Valentine - Hearts Burst into Fire
• Cannibal Corpse - Gallery of Suicide
• Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face
• Eric Clapton - Cocaine
• Eric Clapton - Layla
• Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight
• Coheed and Cambria - Faint of Heart
• Coheed and Cambria - A Favor House Atlantic
• Cream - Sunshine of Your Love
• Cream - White Room
• Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus: As there was a lack of solo, and just a few riffs on power chord, the only challenging part is keeping in time and singing while playing it. With some modification and heavy distortion, it becomes Marilyn Manson's edition. Seeing their difference is still easy to do.
• Devin Townsend Band - Vampira
• Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms
• Drop Dead, Gorgeous - I Want To Master Life And Death : The only difficult part is figuring out how to strum at the end and at the chorus. it is drop c too.
• Europe - Hero
• Extreme - Hole Hearted
• Foghat - Slow Ride
• Foo Fighters - Let It Die
• Godsmack - Awake
• Godsmack - Keep Away
• Godsmack - Serenity
• Godsmack - Vampires
• Godsmack - Voodoo
• Grand Funk Railroad - Heartbreaker
• Green Day - American Idiot
• Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
• Green Day - Holiday
• Green Day - Jesus Of Suburbia
• Green Day - Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance) - Only four open chords for the entire song. Very easy. Some funny plucking at points though.
• Green Day - When September Ends
• Guns N Roses - Knockin' on Heaven's Door
• Guns N Roses - Welcome to the Jungle: Eb Tuning
• Ben Harper - Burn One Down: On the album version, the guitar is tuned down a whole tone, but in live shows he usually plays it in standard tuning. This is based in G, and it has a good intro, especially if you know someone who plays bongos.
• Jimi Hendrix - Fire
• Jimi Hendrix - Foxey Lady
• Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe: This song uses open chords, and it has a very recognizable intro. Good for playing for friends, easy to sing and play.
• Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
• Incubus - Pardon Me
• Incubus - Wish You Were Here
• Hillsong United - What The World Will Never Take
• Iron Maiden - Run to the Hills
• Jet - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
• Judas Priest - Breaking the Law
• Stan Jones - Ghost Riders in the Sky
• Lacuna Coil - Falling Again
• Lenny Kravitz - Always On The Run
• Lenny Kravitz - Are You Gonna Go My Way
• Linkin Park - No More Sorrow - Good Ebow practice song; if it's too easy with just pick, try to see if you can able to pick as fast while holding the Ebow (and that means the Ebow should not be flying in the air!). Watch the transition.
• Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People
• Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams
• Bob Marley - Redemption Song: This is based around G and C. The rhythm for the intro and chord changes can be difficult at first.
• Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde
• Megadeth - Gears of War
• Metallica - For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Metallica - Fuel
• Metallica - Jump in the Fire
• Metallica - Nothing Else Matters
• Metallica - The Unforgiven
• Muse - Unintended
• Nevermore - The Heart Collector
• Nirvana - Come As You Are
• Nirvana - In Bloom
• Nirvana - Lithium
• Nirvana - Polly
• Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Kumiko Noma - Lilium (OP from Elfen lied) - It's an easy piece to practice fingerpicking, and also very suited for the use of E-Bow when playing just the melody.
• Oasis - Champagne Supernova
• Oasis - Wonderwall
• Pantera - F*cking Hostile
• Pearl Jam - Indifference
• Pearl Jam - Last Kiss
• Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
• Radiohead - Creep
• Radiohead - Karma Police
• Radiohead - Lucky
• Radiohead - Exit Music (For a Film)
• The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
• Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Apache Rose Peacock
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Mellowship Slinky
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Funky Monks
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Otherside
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Readymade
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Zephyr Song
• Rise Against- Ready to fall. A little faster but the chords are all pretty simple.
• Slipknot - Pyschosocial
• Slipknot - Wait and Bleed
• Stone Sour - Bother
• Stone Sour - Inhale
• Spinal Tap - Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight
• The Strokes - 12:51
• The Strokes - You Only Live Once
• Sum 41 - Still Waiting
• Tenacious D - Kielbasa
• Tenacious D - Tribute
• Tenacious D - Wonderboy
• Velvet Revolver - Fall to Pieces
• Velvet Revolver - Superhuman
• White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
• Wolfmother - White Unicorn
• Wolfmother - Woman
• Neil Young - Rockin' in the Free World
• Young Rascals - Good Lovin'

Easy song, difficult solos

• AC/DC - Back in Black
• Bullet for my Valentine - Tears Don't Fall
• Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water: Except for the solo section, this song is very easy, and could be considered "overplayed". Based on G Blues Pentatonic, with G, B-flat, and D-flat as main power chords. Given enough skill, you should be able to sing it and play it.
• Dio - Holy Diver
• Cream - Badge
• Michael Jackson - Beat It: Like many R&B songs, its riff composed of simple power chords and melody line... except the fact that its solo is a chromatic run played by Eddie Van Halen with lots of hammer-on and pull-offs.
• Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
• Megadeth - A Secret Place
• Metallica - Enter Sandman
• Metallica - Fade to Black
• Metallica - Sanitarium
• Metallica - Seek and Destroy
• Pantera - Domination
• Quiet Riot - Mental Health

Intermediate Songs

• All That Remains - Six
• Armor For Sleep - Very Invisible Guitar Tab
• Jeff Beck - Cause We've Ended As Lovers
• Bloodbath - Brave New Hell
• Buckethead - Jordan (Not the GH2 version)
• Buckethead - Welcome to Bucketheadland
• Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face
• Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven
• Coheed and Cambria - Welcome Home
• Coheed and Cambria - Junesong Provision
• Cream - Crossroads
• Death - Crystal Mountain
• Death - Pull the Plug
• Deep Purple - Highway Star
• Dethklok - Thunderhorse
• Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing
• Dragonland - Calm Before the Storm
• Eagles - Hotel California
• Ensiferum - Wanderer
• Firewind - Kill to Live
• Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
• Guns N Roses - Nightrain
• Guns N Roses - Paradise City
• Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
• In Flames - Zombie Inc.
• Incubus - Drive: This uses some complicated, jazzy chords that could be unfamiliar and take some practice. Difficult to sing and play.
• Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark
• Iron Maiden - Flight of Icarus
• Iron Maiden - Hallowed Be Thy Name
• Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast
• Iron Maiden - The Prisoner
• Iron Maiden - Revelations
• Iron Maiden - The Trooper
• Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
• Luca Turilli - Black Dragon
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
• Megadeth - Peace Sells (But Who's Buying?)
• Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction
• Metallica - The Call of Ktulu
• Metallica - The God That Failed
• Metallica - Harvester of Sorrow
• Metallica - Orion
• Metallica - To Live is to Die
• Muse - New Born
• Gary Moore - Parissiene Walkways
• Gary Moore - Still Got The Blues
• Nevermore - Final Product
• Nile - The Blessed Dead
• Opeth - Blackwater Park
• Ozzy Osbourne - I Don't Wanna Stop
• Pantera - Cemetery Gates
• Pantera - This Love
• Pantera - Walk
• The Police - Message in a Bottle
• Pearl Jam - Alive
• Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall
• Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
• Rage Against the Machine - Settle for Nothing
• Rage Against the Machine - Freedom
• Refused - New Noise
• Rhapsody - Rain of A Thousand Flames
• Joe Satriani - Cryin'
• Joe Satriani - Love Thing
• Joe Satriani - Starry Night
• Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien
• Joe Satriani - Ten Words
• Slayer - Raining Blood - contrary to how it appears in Guitar Hero 3, the real guitar is easy to play; most of the time it's on the open E note, and just sliding up and down the fretboard on the fifth and sixth string. Just play fast and you will get it.
• The Scorpions - Rock You Like a Hurricane
• Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings
• Sonata Arctica - The Cage
• Tears For Fears - Mad World
• Tool - Lateralus
• Tool - Vicarious
• Trivium - Dying in Your Arms
• Trivium - Entrance of the Conflagration
• Trivium - Light Light to the FLies
• Trivium - Rain
• Trivium - Requiem
• Trivium - The Deceived
• Trivium - Ascendancy
• Steve Vai - Frank
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Lenny
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Love Struck Baby
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Riviera Paradise
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Testify
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Tin Pan Alley
• Van Halen - Humans Being
• Van Halen - Running With The Devil
• Van Halen - Somebody Get Me A Doctor
• Neil Zaza - I'm Alright

Difficult Songs

• Avenged Sevenfold - Afterlife
• Avenged Sevenfold - Scream
• Avenged Sevenfold - The Wicked End
• Bullets for my Valentine - Scream Aim Fire
• Buckethead - Binge and Grab
• Children of Bodom - Follow the Reaper
• Children of Bodom - Needled 24/7
• Children of Bodom - Angels Dont Kill
• Charles Daniel Band - The Devil Went Down to Georgia. This is one of the more versatile songs that is good for a show: some have changed the solos into the riff from "Smell like teen spirit", while Steve Ouimette's version (as heard in Guitar Hero 3) is extremely metal based (and place it under Impossible difficulty). If you want to put your own favor into it, just change the solos. However, always start with similar sections during the solos, and then try to mix the original notes into your own solo.
• Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover
• Extreme - Mutha
• Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing: This is extremely complicated, so good luck.
• Joe Satriani - Always with me, Always with you
• Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death
• Led Zeppelin - Over The Hills and Far Away: This riff has a difficult hammer-on-to-pull-off section that can challenge, and an irregular part when it switches to the E, but the rest of the song is easier.
• Slipknot- Pulse of the Maggots
• Slipknot - Liberate
• Yngwie Malmsteen - Black Star
• Yngwie Malmsteen - Far Beyond the Sun
• Megadeth - Holy Wars
• Megadeth - Mechanix
• Megadeth - Tornado of Souls
• Metallica - Blackened
• Metallica - That was Just Your Life
• Metallica - My Apocalypse
• Metallica - Master of Puppets Guitar Tab
• Metallica - The Day That Never Comes
• Pantera - Cowboys from Hell
• Pantera - Floods
• Protest the Hero - Blindfolds Aside
• Slayer - Angel of Death
• Slayer - Season in the Abyss
• Sum 41 - The Bitter End
• Andy Timmons - A Night To Remember
• Trivium - Anthem (We Are The Fire)
• Trivium - A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation
• Steve Vai - Die to Live
• Van Halen - DOA
• Van Halen - On Fire
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Couldn't Stand The Weather
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - Rude Mood

Impossible Songs

• Avenged Sevenfold - I Won't See You Tonight Part 2 : The Solo
• Michael Angelo Batio - No Boundaries
• Jason Becker - Altitudes
• Jason Becker - Perpetual Burn
• Jason Becker - Serrana: Becker uses complex melodies and sweep picking in many of his songs, and this is a stellar example. You have immense talent if you can play some of Becker's songs.
• Buckethead - Nottingham Lace
• Buckethead - Soothsayer
• Cacophony - Speed Metal Symphony
• Cacophony - X-Ray Eyes
• Children of Bodom - Downfall
• Children of Bodom - Lake Bodom
• Dragonforce - Revolution Deathsquad
• Dragonforce - Through the Fire and Flames
• Dragonforce - Operation ground and pound: same reason as above
• Dragonforce - Heroes of Our Time
• Dream Theater - As I Am
• Dream Theater - The Dance of Eternity
• Dream Theater - The Glass Prison
• Dream Theater - In The Name Of God
• Dream Theater - Metropolis pt.1 (The Miracle and the Sleeper)
• Dream Theater - Octavarium
• JerryC - Canon Rock: A difficult take on the classical piece, involving hammer-on, pull off, and numerous tapping.
• Koshkin - Usher Waltz: (If Classical Gas is an "impossible" song, then I don't know what describes this piece)
• Frank Zappa - Inca Roads
• Eric Johnson - Zap
• Andy McKee - Drifting: Mckee plays an astounding style of neo-classical guitar, and in this song he combines an open tuning, slapping, an open handed fretting style, and creates self accompanying melody, all on an acoustic guitar. McKee has posted videos of himself doing one take performances of his songs, and they are all amazing.
• Yngwie Malmsteen - Arpeggios From Hell: As quoted from the video, it used lots of modes and counter points, and is comprised of classically influenced, arpeggio-based runs.
• Yngwie Malmsteen - Blitzkrieg
• Megadeth - Hangar 18
• Pat Metheny - Above the Treetops
• Protest the hero - Sequoia Throne
• Necrophagist - Fermented Offal Discharge
• Necrophagist - Only Ash Remains
• Necrophagist - Stabwound
• Nevermore - The Psalm of Lydia
• Tim Reynolds - Stream
• Tool - Schism: This song changes time signature 47 times, uses odd and complex time and contains difficult phrasing.
• Rhapsody - Unholy Warcry
• Joe Satriani - The Extremist
• Joe Satriani - Satch Boogie
• Sonata Arctica - Wolf and Raven
• Anish Nadh - Lie baby lie
• Slipknot - Left Behind
• Steve Vai - Blue Powder
• Steve Vai - Building the Church
• Steve Vai - For The Love of God: The main concern is that most songs start of slow, but gradually grows more complicated. Furthermore, in the official tab, he used a 7-string guitar; However, in live performance, he used his 6 string JEM; be warned.
• System of a Down - Question!:The song uses five different time signatures (5/4, 9/8, 6/4, 3/4, and 4/4). The acoustic guitar intro and part of the verse is in 9/8 (3+2+2+2, essentially 4/4 with an extra eighth note on beat 1). The verse briefly switches to 3/4 (when Serj sings "Are you dreaming?"), which allegedly makes the song difficult for even the band to play.[2]
• Andy Timmons - Groove Or Die
• Wintersun - Beyond the Dark Sun
• Wintersun - Winter Madness
• Mason Williams - Classical Gas: Tempo changes, key changes and difficult picking patterns make this a challenge for almost any guitarist. An excellent "wow" piece.
• Between the Buried and Me - Colors: album written as one continuous musical piece, various select riffs from this cd are considerably difficult and require a large amount of technical skill and accuracy.

reference

• http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=636381
• http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=199337
• Frank Zappa: Stevie's spanking, Steve Vai and Frank Zappa duel it out in a great version from Rome, Italy 1982

Lead Guitar

Picking and Plucking

There two major methods of right hand (for right handed players) techniques namely, either by using a pick (also called a plectrum) or fingers. The plectrum is very common in Rock, country and pop music, where it is considered convenient for strumming and louder guitar sound. Use of fingers is most common among classical guitarists and flamenco players, as combination of strings better executed using the right hand fingers, and generally have softer sound than the pick. Other than classical guitarists and flamenco players, use of a pick or fingers is a matter of personal preference.

Striking

Using a pick

The primary advantages of the pick are its speed, its ease of striking large chords and, because the fingernails and fingertips are not involved, its preservation of player's picking hand. Furthermore, use of a pick makes a louder and brighter sound. Its primary disadvantage is its imprecision, making muting strings necessary. Also, if the player wishes to switch to the tapping style, he or she can tap with or with out the pick: to tap with the pick just put it on its side and tap it on the desired fret. However, tapping with a pick makes it harder to tap on multiple strings.

Finger Strumming

Players wishing not to use a pick may try finger strumming. This is accomplished by holding the picking hand's first finger to the thumb, much as one might hold a pick, and striking the strings with the first fingernail. Anything in this book written for a pick can just as easily be played by finger strumming.

Apoyando Strikes

Apoyando, or splinter rested, involves the finger picking through a string such that the finger stops when resting on the next string. This technique produces a strong, loud tone, and is considered the opposite of Tirando.

Tirando Strikes

When performing a tirando, or shooting splinter strike, the finger does not affect the next string at all. this is the opposite of apoyando.

Fingerpicking

Fingerpicking is a method of playing the guitar where you use your thumb and at least one other finger to pick or pluck notes, using your fingernails, fingerpicks or fingertips. Talented players can use all five fingers on their picking hand, but many players only use four fingers and use their pinky finger as a brace on the guitar. Most classical guitarists alter the shape of their picking hand fingernails for the purpose of producing a desired sound, however this is not necessary in non-classical music; one can purchase fingerpicks to fit on the hand.

Generally fingerpicking involves picking through chords organized in a melody. Fingerpicking is used extensively in folk guitar and classical guitar, but it is also common in other genres.

Fingerpicking is surprisingly easy on an electric guitar, which is strange because fingerpicking is often regarded as an acoustic style. The player may hold his or her picking hand's fourth finger against the right edge (left edge on a left-handed guitar), and if it is held straight and steady, this technique may be used to brace the hand. This technique is called anchoring, and is frowned upon by some players. It is possible on acoustic guitars by using the bridge similarly, but this is not as effective as it will deaden the sound. Classical guitarists never anchor while playing.

When strumming with individual fingers, general rule is move the wrist only if the thumb is used, while if any other finger is used, only said finger will be used.

When you start trying to learn, your finger coordination will be terrible and it is easy to be discouraged. It takes several weeks to let your muscles develop, but if you practice using all your fingers at once your overall dexterity will increase much faster.

Classical picking

In classical guitar repertoire, there will be a "PIMA" marking for the picking hand fingers (right hand for right handed players), which indicate which finger to use:

• Pulgar, or thumb.
• Indice, or index finger.
• Medio, or middle finger.
• Anular, or ring finger.

This four are the ones that are used most frequently. Sometimes, the fourth finger are used, in which it is marked either C, X or E.

Typically, thumb has a down-picking motion and fingers has an up-picking motion.

Guitar J.S.Bach Musette for Anna.mid (help·info)

Guitar J.S.Bach Musette for Anna.pdf

Clawhammer and frailing

Clawhammer is sometimes known as frailing. It is primarily a down-picking style, and the hand assumes a claw-like shape and the strumming finger is kept fairly stiff, striking the strings by the motion of the hand at the wrist and elbow, rather than a flicking motion by the finger. Typically, only the thumb and second or first finger are used and the finger always downpicks, flicking the string with the back of the fingernail.

A common characteristic of clawhammer patterns is the thumb does not pick on the downbeat, as one might in typical fingerpicking patterns for guitar. For example, this is a common, basic time signature|2/4 pattern:

1. Pick a melody note on the downbeat (quarter note)
2. On the second beat (music)|beat, strum a few strings with your strumming finger (roughly an eighth note)
3. Immediately following (on the second half of this beat), pick a note with the thumb, usually the shorter fifth string. (roughly an eighth note)

Here, the thumb plays the high drone on the second "and" of "one and two and". This combined with the second finger strumming provides a characteristic "bum-ditty bum-ditty" sound.

Some people, however, make a distinction between frailing and clawhammer:

• In frailing, the first fingertip is used for up-picking melody, and the second fingernail is used for rhythmic downward brushing.
• In clawhammer, only downstrokes are used, and they are typically played with one fingernail as is the usual technique on the banjo.

Travis Picking

Another well known style of finger picking is called Travis picking, named after Merle Travis who was a country singer known for his legendary picking skills. When picking, you use your thumb and first finger to hit notes at the same time, creating a double stop or interval, and then continue picking with the first finger. Usually the thumb is responsible for picking the bass line, while the first/second finger is for melody. Skilled players can carry two separate melodies with the upper and lower strings.

You can create impressive rhythms playing with just your thumb and first finger, but to really become talented you must practice using more fingers. For example, Chet Atkins expanded to use all three fingers, with thumb for bass line.

Guitar - Oh My Darling Clementine - Folkpicking.mid (help·info)

Guitar - Oh My Darling Clementine - Folkpicking.pdf

Rasgueado

The rasgueado or splinter striking technique originating from the Spanish flamenco music, and usually refers to three or four fingers and sometimes the thumb striking the strings in quick succession. The notes quickly follow one another and produce a "rattling" or cascasing effect.

Scruggs style

Scruggs-style fingerpicking is played with thumb, first and second fingers; the fourth and/or third fingers are typically braced against the head of the instrument. The strings are picked rapidly in repetitive sequences or rolls; the same string is not typically picked twice in succession. Melody notes are interspersed among arpeggios, and musical phrases typically contain long series of staccato notes, often played at very rapid tempos. The music is generally syncopated, and may have a subtle swing or shuffle feel, especially on mid-tempo numbers. The result is lively, rapid music, which lends itself both as an accompaniment to other instruments and as a solo.

Tapping

Tapping is a style of playing where notes are created by quickly pressing, or tapping, the string down on the fret that you want to play. Usually tapping involves both hands, and most often it is on an electric guitar. It is possible to tap on an acoustic, but you cannot hear the notes as clearly as on an electric.

Pickings on Wikimedia

commons: Category:Guitar_picking

Scales

Most Western music divides the musical octave (when one note is twice as high as another) into 12 sections, called semitones. On the guitar, each semitone is represented by a fret. Scales start and stop on the octave, and many use 7 different notes, although some scales use more or less.

It is important to remember that on the guitar, if you know the pattern of a particular scale, you can move that pattern anywhere else on the fret board and be playing in a different key. By this, I mean if you are playing a major scale, beginning on the fifth fret, which is an A, and then you played the same pattern of notes, but you started on the note G, you will be playing a G major scale. If this sounds confusing to you, read the entire article, and if it is still unclear, see the musical scale article on Wikipedia or the Music Theory wikibook.

There are many different scales: 7 modes of the major scale, three different forms of the minor scale, the blues scale, the pentatonic scale, the whole tone scale, the diminished scale and some scales that originated in Spain and India. There are also very interesting scales from eastern music. It is possible to create your own scales by altering another as you wish, or completely coming up with your own. Remember, most of the scales were built musically, not randomly, using ideas such as a cycle of perfect fifths for the major scale.

All scales in this section are tabbed out for the key of A, meaning that the root note of the scale if on the 5th fret of the low E string. Starting the scale here provides lots of room up and down the neck to play, and helps you learn to make connections between different scale shapes.

Pentatonic Scales

Pentatonic scales are the least complicated, because they only use five notes rather than the seven notes used in the major scale and the other scale modes (see below). Learning the major and minor pentatonic scale patterns is very important, because they make up an important part of all the modes.

A Minor Pentatonic

Most guitarists feel comfortable beginning with the A minor pentatonic, which is the single most popular scale for solos in western music. Most guitarists know this shape of the Am pentatonic scale by heart, mainly because it is so frequently used in solos. It can also be used for pretty much anything, especially if you want to give it a slightly melancholy sound.

Remember that this scale pattern (and any other scale pattern) can be moved up and down the fretboard to play in any key.

In this diagram, the notes are ordered sequentially up the scale. The different octaves of the root note of the scale (In this case, the A note) are highlighted with a yellow dot.

Learning the Scale

When you are learning any scale, it is helpful to break it down into smaller chunks, which can be practiced and memorized much more easily. With the A minor pentatonic scale, it is most commonly broken down into these sections. Note that these sections are diagrammed using the online tablature method.

Section 1:

e |--0--------3--
B |-----1-----3--
G |--0-----2-----
D |--0-----2-----
A |--0--------3--
E |--0--------3--

Section 2:

e |-----3-----5--
B |-----3-----5--
G |--2--------5--
D |--2--------5--
A |-----3-----5--
E |-----3-----5--

Section 3:

e |--5--------8--
B |--5--------8--
G |--5-----7-----
D |--5-----7-----
A |--5-----7-----
E |--5--------8--

Section 4:

e |-----8-----10-
B |-----8-----10-
G |--7-----9-----
D |--7--------10-
A |--7--------10-
E |-----8-----10-

Section 5:

e |----10----12--
B |----10------13
G |--9-------12--
D |----10----12--
A |----10----12--
E |----10----12--

Practice these basic shapes, one note at a time, because if you learn them well, you will discover that they constantly reappear. Play the shape up and down, and practice things like alternate picking or tremolo picking. It will take a while to learn the shapes by heart, but once you do, practice playing the scale at different places on the fretboard. This is essential - and start early on, or instead of focusing on learning the pattern of frets, you will focus on the individual frets you are playing, and familiar patterns will seem unfamiliar at different places on the fretboard.

The Blues scale

Please see the Blues section for more lessons.

You can easily modify the minor pentatonic scale by adding a single note and turning it into the blues scale. In the below digram, A blues scale is shown at the fifth fret. The number represent the frets played, and the numbers in parentheses represent the Blue Note which, as the name suggests, is the major source of the blues vibe in the scale. The blue note is not actually part of the Minor Pentatonic scale, although it is often added in for extra colour.

e |--5--------8--
B |--5--------8--
G |--5-----7-(8)-
D |--5-----7-----
A |--5-(6)-7-----
E |--5--------8--

Major Pentatonic

The major pentatonic is a little more complicated than the minor pentatonic, but if you look carefully you will notice some similarities to the minor pentatonic scale.

It may be difficult to notice immediately, but if you compare the A major pentatonic and the A minor pentatonic, you will notice that patterns are almost exactly the same. Once difference is that the minor pentatonic scale pattern is shifted to the left three frets to make the major scale pattern. Look carefully, and you will see that this is true for every single note.

The other major difference between the two scales is they use different starting notes, which is the main reason why one has a different sound than the other. Understanding this is important for understanding the Church Modes, and other aspects of how scales are related to one another.

e |-----5---------
B |-----5-----7---
G |--4-----6------
D |--4--------7---
A |--4--------7---
E |-----5-----7---

Practice this the same way you practice the minor pentatonic scale. When you feel completely comfortable with both pentatonic scales, begin to explore the other different scales.

Major Scale

The pattern for any major scale is 2-2-1-2-2-2-1, meaning that the difference from the first note to the second is 2 frets, from the second to the third is 1 fret, etc. The difference in notes can also be called steps, 2 notes being a whole step, and 1 note being a half step. This pattern in steps can be shown as W-W-H-W-W-W-H.

Major scale in the key of A

A - B - C# - D - E - F# - G# - A

 W   W    H   W   W    W    H

e:---------------------------4-5-
B:-----------------------5-7-----
G:-----------------4-6-7---------
D:-----------4-6-7---------------
A:-----4-5-7---------------------
E:-5-7---------------------------

Minor Scale

The pattern for any minor scale is 2-1-2-2-1-2-2, shown in steps as W-H-W-W-H-W-W

Minor Scale in the key of A

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A

 e |------------------------------5--
 B |------------------------5-6-8----
 G |------------------4-5-7----------
 D |--------------5-7----------------
 A |--------5-7-8--------------------
 E |--5-7-8--------------------------

The first position movable shape for this scale is shown:

e:-------|---x---|-------|-------|-------|
B:-------|---x---|---x---|-------|---x---|
G:---x---|---x---|-------|---x---|-------|
D:-------|---x---|-------|---x---|-------|
A:-------|---x---|-------|---x---|---x---|
E:-------|---x---|-------|---x---|---x---|

Harmonic Minor

The harmonic minor scale is much harder than the pentatonic scales, but definitely satisfying over some minor chords. It gives you a rather "middle-eastern" kind of sound.

But the shape works in any key, just move the shape up or down the neck:

e |--4--5-----7--8--
B |-----5--6--------
G |--4--5-----7-----
D |--------6--7-----
A |-----5-----7--8--
E |-----5-----7--8--

This looks a little more complicated, and is certainly more difficult to get to sound nice, but when you have mastered it it will sound great!

Melodic Minor

This scale is actually two scales. Thus when one speaks of a "melodic minor" pattern, one refers to two patterns - one ascending and one descending.

e |-----4--5-----7--8--
B |--------5-----7-----
G |-----4--5-----7-----
D |-----4-----6--7-----
A |--3-----5-----7-----
E |--------5-----7-----

The ascending pattern is constructed by raising the 6th and 7th steps of the natural minor scale. So, if you take the major scale, the 3rd will be flatted, while the normally flatted 6th and 7th are raised and become natural. Basically it is the major scale with a flatted 3rd.

The descending pattern is similar to the descending pattern except the 6th and 7th aren't raised. So it is basically a natural minor scale.

Hungarian Minor

The Hungarian minor scale is a type of combined musical scale. It is akin to the harmonic minor scale, except that it bears a raised fourth. Its tonal center is slightly ambiguous, due to the large number of half steps. Also known as Double Harmonic Minor, or Harmonic Minor #4, it figures prominently in Eastern European music, particularly in gypsy music. Melodies based on this scale have an exotic, romantic flavor.

e |--7--8-----10--11--
B |--7--8--9----------
G |--7--8-------------
D |--------9--10------
A |--------9--10--11--
E |-----8-----10--11--

A Hungarian minor scale in the key of C would proceed as follows: C D Eb F# G Ab B. Its scale degrees are 1 2 b3 #4 5 b6 7, and its step pattern is w - h - + - h - h - + - h, where w indicates a whole step, h indicates a half step, and + indicates an augmented second, which looks like a minor third on a keyboard but is notationally distinct.

Derived chords

Chords that may be derived from the scale are:

Cm

e |-----3-------
B |-----4-------
G |-----5-------
D |-----5-------
A |-----3-------
E |-------------

D7b5

e |-------------
B |-----7-------
G |-----5-------
D |-----6-------
A |-----5-------
E |-------------

Eb+

e |-------------
B |-----8-------
G |-----9-------
D |-----10------
A |-----7-------
E |-------------

G

e |-----3-------
B |-----3-------
G |-----0-------
D |-----0-------
A |-----2-------
E |-----3-------

Ab7

e |-----4-------
B |-----4-------
G |-----5-------
D |-----4-------
A |-----6-------
E |-----4-------

Bm6

e |-------------
B |-----7-------
G |-----7-------
D |-----6-------
A |-----x-------
E |-----7-------

This scale is obtainable from the *Arabic scale by starting from the fourth of that scale. Said another way, the C Hungarian minor scale is equivalent to the G Arabic scale.

In Enix's video game The Illusion of Gaia, the flute melody found in the Inca Ruins uses the C Hungarian minor scale (a #4 is used in the second phrase); this music is also quoted in the music of the Larai Cliff stage, transposed to D.

Joe Satriani has composed several songs using the Hungarian minor scale.

Church Modes

Back when music was originally being standardized, music was divided into 8 sections, rather than 12, and all compositions were written in that scale. However, the problem with this is that eventually everything begins to sound the same. So in order to combat this problem, they developed different modes of the scale, which essentially just means playing the same notes, but choosing a different starting note.

For example, in the key of C, the notes are C D E F G A B C. If you wanted to play in the 2nd mode, called the Dorian mode, then you would just play the same notes, but start on the second note. So instead you would play D E F G A B C D.

The different modes are called:

• Ionian
• Dorian
• Phrygian
• Lydian
• Mixolydian
• Aeolian
• Locrian

Arpeggios and Sweep Picking

The word arpeggio (ar-peh-jee-oh) is Italian for, roughly, "like a harp", as it is a common technique for playing chords on the harp. To play an arpeggiated chord on the guitar, simply strum or pick the chord slowly, one string at a time, such that the ringing of each string is distinct. Arpeggios occur in all kinds of music, from classical to metal.

Sweep picking is a more specialized technique, occurring most often in metal. It involves playing a fast arpeggio with a special technique: when switching from one string to the next, mute the note currently ringing by lifting the fretting finger. A sweep can become a rake if notes are muted incorrectly. Rakes can sound nice, but they are not sweeps. Remember only 1 note can ring out at a time or it won't sound good. It takes practice and it helps to start slow and build up speed.

Below is example tablature of sweep picking:

This is not the only way to notate sweeps. Small sweeps can be indicated with grace notes or even the arpeggio notation with the word "sweep" (or, less correctly, "rake") written above.

---

In a more classical approach, arpeggios must follow a distinct pattern of notes depending on the chord/scale we're playing. This is similar to playing chords note-by-note on a piano (not on a guitar).

The basic chords (the major and minor triads) are composed of three tones: the first, the third and the fifth note of the scale (major or minor, depending on the chord type).

For instance, the C major scale is: C D E F G A B. So, according to the 1-3-5 principle, the C major triad consists of C, E and G. Note that the C major chord on a guitar also consists only of these three notes but they are not always in the 1-3-5 order. Now, while playing "classical arpeggios", you would not just pick around the chord randomly but you would play C, E, G, then C, E, G an octave higher, etc. This is what is called an arpeggio scale. You can play around it, up and down with complete freedom or just use the 1-3-5 pattern as a bass line. This method can also be used with more complex chords (sus4, maj7, etc.) but then it follows a pattern different from 1-3-5 structure, depending on the chord type. In all, this is a very simple but effective method for composing.

While playing guitar, this might not appear as interesting as picking "full" six-string chords but it can be used to give your music a classical edge. It also has a more lead quality to it than using full chords and requires more skill. Playing fast arpeggios like these is sometimes used in metal music with very satisfactory results. The "classical arpeggios" are in no way better than the "harp like chords" and it is ultimately up to the player/composer to choose what is best for the song in question.

Slides

The slide is one of the simplest guitar techniques. There are two kinds of slides: shift slides and legato slides. In a shift slide, a note is fretted, then the fretting finger slides up or down to a different fret, and the string is struck again. A legato slide differs in that the string is struck only for the first note.

The first slide pictured is a shift slide; the second is a legato slide. A few tablature writers do not distinguish between the two slides, using only shift slide notation. The abbreviation "sl." for slide may be omitted. When sliding from a higher fret to a lower fret, the slanted lines are usually changed to have a downward slope instead of an upward slope, to emphasize the sliding "down". It is possible to slide up from an open string, but this often does not sound as clean because this requires a hammer-on at the first fret (or for really fast slides, a higher fret) before sliding up. Likewise, it is possible to slide down to an open string but it requires a pull-off at the first (or some other) fret.

In Internet tablature, a slide from the third fret to the fifth might be written like any of these:

   3/5
   3>5
   3>s>5
   3s5

Internet tablature rarely distinguishes between the two kinds of slides.

Less commonly, tablature can instruct the guitarist to "slide into" or "slide out of" a note. In printed tablature, they are notated identically except, in the case of slide-into, the first note is omitted, and in the case of slide-out-of, the second note is omitted. In other words, the note slides in from nowhere, or out to nowhere. It simply tells the guitarist to quickly slide from or to an arbitrary point, usually only a few frets away.

Good sliding keeps the new note audible, while keeping the note in tune. If you don't press the string hard enough, you mute the string or buzz it on the frets. Too hard and the string bends out of tune. The latter does not happen often, but sounds awful and should be avoided.

Hammer-ons, Pull-off, and Trills

Hammer-ons and pull-offs are two closely related techniques. They are used to play legato, that is, in a smooth manner, and are also used to help the guitarist to play faster. They are most commonly used in electric guitar work, but can be used in acoustic tunes as embellishments.

The hammer-on

Hammer-ons can be done anywhere on the fretboard, but for the beginner it is easiest using an open string. To quickly learn, strike an open E on the first string. While the note is still ringing, quickly and firmly press a finger on the third fret. If done properly, a G note should be sounding.

Quickly pressing your finger down and raising the note without hitting the string again is called "hammering on". Without electric amplification, the hammer-on tends to be quieter than regularly struck notes, especially if you haven't practiced it! Because the strings are closer to the fretboard, hammer-ons are easier to execute on an electric guitar. However, this doesn't make them less common on an acoustic guitar, where they are used frequently to embellish open chords

The hammer-on can just as easily be played with fretted notes: just play the note normally and hammer onto another (higher-numbered) fret on the same string. If you practice hammer-ons, eventually you will be able to move each finger smoothly and independently.

The pull-off

The pull-off is the opposite of the hammer-on. Again, using the E string, hold it at the third fret. Strike the string and while the note is still ringing, release the fretting finger. If done properly, the G should be followed by an open E. If the note doesn't ring out properly, try hitting the G harder and releasing faster.

Like the hammer-on, the second note tends to be less loud than the first. To help alleviate this, a slight sideways motion of the fretting finger while pulling off will add extra vibration to the string, and give you some extra volume. Often it is hard for a beginner to accomplish, and the sideways movement helps greatly.

A pull-off looks like this:

D|---7p5--5p4--4p2--2p0--|

The trill

A trill is two alternating notes, such as an A and A#. Only the first note is struck; the rest are rapidly hammered-on and pulled off

Bending and Vibrato

Bending and vibrato are two related effects which help give extra "life" to notes, especially sustained notes, by changing their pitch. The techniques are not commonly used on the acoustic guitar or general rhythm playing. However, they are extremely important to many styles involving distorted guitar, e.g., rock or metal, even when playing rhythm (though, in that case, bends and vibratos are usually embellishments). Bending or an equivalent effect is not possible on all instruments; the piano, for example, cannot have notes that change in pitch. This is one reason why it is important to know how to bend: because you can!

This section deals with bending and vibrato using your fingers, not the different technique of using the vibrato bar. The two techniques do the same basic thing, but using the vibrato bar as a substitute for fretting-hand bending is not good practice; it is best used for very heavy bends or heavy vibratos, not slight embellishments like finger bending. It is more difficult to be subtle with a vibrato bar, and it is usually a bit out of the way for the picking hand to reach, making it harder to use. In short, while in some cases which style of bending or vibrato is used is a matter of taste, the two techniques are not interchangeable and are used for different effects.

Bending

Bending is exactly as it sounds: bending the string to the side by pushing it (towards the sixth string) or pulling it (towards the first string), often while a fretted note is ringing. The first three strings are normally pushed, and the others are normally pulled. This is particularly important on the first and sixth strings, as you do not want the string to fall off the fretboard. Whether the string is pushed or pulled, the note will be raised in pitch.

Many aspiring guitarists cannot bend properly. The sound of a bend is more important than how it is actually executed or how it looks, but a bad bending technique usually leads to a bad sound. Your favorite guitarist might bend using just his or her fingertips and you might be inclined to copy this — don't! Your hands can sound every bit as good as your hero's without copying his or her technique. There are two keys to bending properly: proper thumb positioning, and bending with the proper muscles. Do not keep your thumb behind the neck, where it usually is, but bring it up perpendicular to the neck (a position that is normally incorrect, but not in the case of bending). Keep the fingers firm. Do not bend your fingers, but push or pull with your forearm. You will hardly see your forearm move, possibly just see a couple of muscles flex. It will feel awkward at first, but if you can bend with the thumb in the proper position and without bending the fingers, you are probably doing it correctly.

Many guitarists will have trouble bending more than 1/4 step (half a semitone) or perhaps 1/2 step (one semitone) with only one finger, especially on frets close to the nut and on the thinner strings. It is much easier to bend with more than one finger, for instance, with the index finger on the first or second fret and the ring finger on the third, and pushing or pulling with both fingers in order to bend at the third fret. More fingers may be used if this is not enough. It should be possible to bend at least a full step (the pitch difference of two frets) this way.

Pre-bending

Bending, whether by pushing or pulling the string, raises the tension in the vibrating portion of the string, and thus always raises the pitch of the note. This means it is easier to slide up rather than down in pitch. To create the impression of bending down, the guitarist uses a technique called pre-bending, that is, bending before the string is struck, then releasing the bend (either gradually or quickly, depending on the intended effect).

Bend and Release

The ideas of bending and pre-bending can be combined for a "bend and release", that is, striking a note, bending it up, then releasing it as you would with a pre-bend. This will often be perceived as a "bounce" in pitch, especially if played quickly. The reverse is also possible: pre-bend, release, and bend. Repeatedly and steadily bending and releasing is called vibrato.

Vibrato

Players of many instruments, including the human voice, use vibrato to help add expression to sustained notes. Vibrato is performed in two major ways, the first by rapidly bending the string back and forth, causing a modulation in pitch; therefore, all of the information above about bending applies here, except it is performed faster or more prolonged. Or it can be performed in a 'classical' style where one applies pressure parallel to the string towards the neck then towards the bridge repeatedly, which allows one to achieve vibrato upward and downward in pitch, albeit with a smaller change. A small, subtle vibrato might not require the assistance of other fingers; the fretting finger should be sufficient. However, for sustained vibrato or vibrato on the first or second frets, using multiple fingers for bending is a good idea.

Harmonics

< Guitar

Harmonics are fun sounds to produce. They can be quiet and bell-like, as on an acoustic guitar, or they can be loud and squealy, as on an overdriven electric guitar.

List of natural harmonics

These will be explained shortly.

• 12th fret: octave above open string
• 7th or 19th fret: Octave plus a perfect fifth above open string
• 5th or 24th fret: Two octaves above open string
• 4th, 9th, or 16th fret: two octaves plus four semitones above open string

There are more harmonics than these, but these are the easiest to produce and the most audible. They are ordered from lowest to highest in pitch.

Natural harmonics

Natural harmonics are the easiest to produce. A good place to begin is the 12th fret of the first string. With your fretting hand, lightly touch the finger against the string directly above the 12th fret. Do not hold it down, just touch it. Then strike it with your picking hand, and immediately release the string with your fretting hand. If executed properly, the result should be a high-pitched, ringing E (on a standard tuned guitar). It will be the same note as pressing against the fret will produce. Try it again at the 7th, 5th, and 4th frets, as in the list of natural harmonics: each will produce even higher sounds, much higher than can be produced on the guitar without using harmonics! However, each will also be quieter, so the higher harmonics may be nearly inaudible without overdrive.

A good example of natural harmonics is in the song Imperium by Machine Head, clear 5th fret harmonics can be heard enforcing the low drop B tuning.

Pinch harmonics

A.K.A. Artificial Harmonics (though there is really nothing artificial about them). This is an advanced technique and was popularized by Billy Gibbons and many others as early as the 1970s including many Heavy Metal artists. These harmonics follow the same principles of physics as a natural harmonic, the difference being how the harmonic is produced. In this case a note is struck in a downwards motion with the pick and in the same motion the string is touched (one might really say brushed) with the edge of the thumb that is holding the pick. Or one can do it with the edge of the index fingernail, followed by the pick.

Pinch harmonics are most effective and audible using an electric guitar with overdrive or distortion and in some cases these harmonics are virtually inaudible using a clean (not distorted or overdriven) electric guitar or an acoustic. It can sound good when used properly even without much overdrive (Billy Gibbons is the master of low overdrive Pinch Harmonics) but it's not always clear or detectible. Use overdrive or distortion for best results especially while learning and practicing this technique.

With regards to difficulty: this technique, although rewarding, is mostly rewarding only in advanced situations (soloing and intense expressive riffing). It is difficult enough to easily frustrate a beginner and some intermediate players and since there are so many more rewarding and useful techniques worth spending time on as a beginner (scales, soloing, blues, riffing, strumming patterns), this technique is only recommended for intermediate or advanced players.

As mentioned above, these harmonics are produced by striking a note with the pick and touching the string with the picking thumb. Grip the pick so that the tip barely peeks out between your fingertips (this is why they are called "pinch" harmonics). It's easier when you are fretting a note with the left hand so try fretting a note (perhaps the 5th fret on the 4th(D) string), and plucking the string just below the neck pickup pole pieces (maybe 1/8" toward the bridge from the pole pieces). With luck the artificial harmonic will ring, but if not don't despair.

The position of the plucking along the length of the string is one of the most important parts of this technique. While with regular picking the position of the picking along the string can make slight variations in the sound of the note, when executing pinch harmonics the right position is vital and tiny positional differences can make entirely different harmonics. So try adjusting the picking hand just millimeters up and down the string around the area of the pickups.

Try imagining the pick and your picking thumb plucking the string at the same time although the thumb is really just brushing past it. Consider it to be really one motion. Try thinking of your thumb and the pick as one entity and instead of picking straight down, pick down and a little bit (millimeters) out away from the face of the guitar so your picking motion is a sort of 'letter J' out from the face of the guitar and so the thumb brushes past the string and remember that the thumb should only touch the string for an instant just like the pick does.

This technique requires practice. Try executing pinch harmonics while fretting different notes and by striking the string in slightly different places all around the pickup area of the guitar. Many kinds of harmonic ringing sounds may be produced.

Without a pick, this technique may be simulated by plucking the string with the fingertip and lightly touching it with the fingernail, but this is even trickier and not very useful in practice.

These harmonics, as opposed to natural harmonics, end up being much more practical to use while playing and when mastered can be used boldly like Zakk Wylde making the harmonic part of the riff, or subtly and possibly unintentionally to add color and character to the notes or chords while playing almost anything.

Pinch harmonics can easily and effectively be combined with other techniques, such as bending or vibrato.

To hear pinch harmonics in action check out the following:

• Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzmosis(and several other albums) features many different examples of pinched harmonics in various solos.
• In the movie Rock Star at the beginning, the lead guitarist(Nick Catanese of Black Label Society/SPEED X) in Blood Pollution (the Steel Dragon cover band) is "not hitting the squeal". The squeal they're speaking of is a pinch harmonic.
• One of the best examples of a bend and a pinch harmonic is Judas Priest's Lochness off the album Angel of Retribution at about 1:10.
• In System of a Down's hit song BYOB it is the first bend in the chorus (Every bodys going to the party) part. It is the only PH in the song, so listen carefully

Don't despair if you can't get harmonics as clear as Judas Priest or Zakk Wylde, they've got equipment made just for making sounds like that. They both have expensive high gain amplifiers and their guitars are equipped with pickups that are naturally very good at pinch harmonics. Some pickups amplify pinch harmonics better than others (some pickups hardly amplify them at all). Judas Priest and Zakk Wylde both play guitars with EMG humbuckers, which are some of the hottest pickups and some of the best at amplifying pinch harmonics. Hot pickups(EMG, Duncan JB, Duncan Live Wire, Bill Lawrence 500XL, etc.) do an excellent job of picking up pinch harmonics. Once you've practiced at home, ask to try out a guitar with "hot pickups" and a "high gain" amplifier at the local guitar shop if you want a taste(warning: it's easy to get spoiled/hooked!).

Tapped harmonics

This technique, like tapping itself, was popularized by Eddie van Halen. Tapped harmonics are an extension of the tapping technique. The note is fretted as usual, but instead of striking the string, the string is tapped at one of the frets listed in the natural harmonic list. Do not hold the string down with the tapping hand, just bounce the finger lightly on and off the fret. This technique can be extended by fretting a note, then tapping relative to the fretted note. For instance, hold the third fret, and tap the fifteenth fret, for the twelfth fret harmonic, because 12+3=15.

Other techniques

A final technique (known as the harp harmonic) is a sort of combination between the natural and tapped harmonic techniques. Fret the note normally, and place the picking hand index finger on a natural harmonic relative to the fretted note (just as in tapped harmonics). Pluck the string with another finger and release the index finger, just as if producing a natural harmonic.

• Ditch the Guitar Pick

Tremolo Bar Techniques

The tremolo bar was originally only found on Fender guitars, but now they are on many types of electric guitar. Unfortunately, it has an inappropriate name, because "tremolo" means a fast succession of two different tones. A more accurate but less common name is the vibrato bar, and they are also known as whammy bars.

There are several different types of tremolo bars, details of which can be found in the Anatomy of the Guitar section, but certain types can only perform certain techniques. Thus, you should make sure the tremolo bar you have can do what you want it to do, before you buy it.

In general, it is good to learn to hold the tremolo bar between your third and fourth fingers, so you can use the bar and hold a pick at the same time.

This section will provide a description of how to accomplish various techniques, but it will be up to the guitarist to discover how to perform them.

Dive Bomb

A Dive Bomb may be achieved by striking a natural harmonic then lowering the tone. An "explosion" may added by keeping the bar pressed down and flicking the low E string repeatedly.

Also, there is an alternative way to do a dive bomb, by flicking a string, dipping the bar down, tapping a harmonic, then manipulating the resulting note however you want. This technique is also known as a "Squeal", or "Dime Squeal" named after Pantera guitarist, Dimebag Darrel.

Dipping

Dipping is a technique that allows you to make note changes a little more interesting. Before you change to a higher note, use the bar to quickly lower and then raise the pitch.

Cat Purr

With this technique, a pitch is held for a beat, and then raised up a tone. The lever is moved slowly, and once you reach the upper or lower tone, you immediately hold, and then reverse direction. This results in a sound that can sounds remarkably like a cat.

Ruler Sound

If you press the tremolo bar down, and then suddenly release it upwards and quickly alternate between high ups and down, it makes a snap-away sounds, like a ruler vibrating off the edge of a table. The principle behind this is similar to the cat purr.

Windmill

The "windmill" develops if you just keep turning the tremolo bar in a circle. Naturally, the tone moves up and down at a regular pace. However, this can sound very "outer space" and can easily be over done, and you should use this sparingly.

String Choke

If the strings are really slack, you can quickly whip the tremolo bar back up until it clicks, making a string choke. Sometimes overtones will remain, and you can get some interesting sounds and harmonies. However, these tend to disappear quickly as it is drowned out by the harmonics of the new string pitch.

Tapping

Tapping is the short name of fretboard tapping or finger tapping: the act of tapping the fingers against the strings in order to produce sounds, rather than striking or plucking the strings. Specifically, it usually refers to two-handed tapping, that is, tapping involving both the left and right hand. It is not clear who discovered tapping, but it was certainly popularized, but not discovered, by Eddie van Halen. Van Halen was listening to "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin, and he was quite inspired by the solo, which contained a variation of tapping. This is arguably the song that pushed Van Halen to popularize and use "tapping" frequently. A rather different kind of independent two-handed tapping, which is a whole playing method rather than a technique, was discovered by Harry DeArmond and named "The Touch System" by his student Jimmie Webster. Another method of independent tapping was discovered by Emmett Chapman, where the right hand comes over the fretboard and lines up with the frets like the left. Therefore this book dubs the three kinds of tapping Interdependent tapping and The Touch System", and the "Free Hands Method."

Interdependent tapping

Interdependent tapping is by far the most common type of tapping. It is generally used as a lead guitar technique, most commonly during solos; however, a small number of songs are entirely tapped. The player's picking hand leaps out to the fretboard and begins to tap the strings with the fingers. However, one must get the pick out of the way in order to tap. Some players do this by sticking the pick between their fingers; others simply use the middle finger to tap. The Van Halen technique of getting rid of the pick is done by moving the pick into the space between the first and second joints of his middle finger.

Eruption by Eddie Van Halen is a good example of this technique.

The Touch System

As mentioned before, this is a whole playing style and a whole book could be written about it. The first musician to play this way was pickup designer Harry DeArmond in the 1940's, who used tapping as a way to demonstrate the sensitivity of his pickups. While each hand could play its own part, DeArmond held his right hand in the same orientation as conventional guitar technique. This meant the ability of that hand to tap scale-based melody ines was limited. He taught his approach to Gretch Guitars employee Jimmie Webster, who wrote an instruction book called "The Touch System for Amplified Spanish guitar." Webster made a record and travelled around demonstrating the method. Even though it inspired a few builders (Dave bunker, for example), the Touch System was limited by the lack of equal movements for the right hand and never caught on.

The Free Hands Method

In 1969 Emmett Chapman, who had no previous knowledge of DeArmond, Webster or any other tapping guitarists, discovered that he could tap on the strings with both hands, and that by raising the neck up could align the right hand's fingers with the frets as on the left, but from above the fretboard. This made scale-based melody lines just as easy to tap in the right hand as the left, and a new way of playing a stringed instrument was born. Chapman redesigned his home-made 9-string guitar to support his new playing method, and began selling his new instrument (The Chapman Stick) to others in 1974. In 1976 Chapman published his volume of collected lessons he used for teaching guitarists and Stick players as "Free Hands: A New Discipline of Fingers on Strings."

It has been popularised by players such as Tony Levin, Nick Beggs, John Myung and Greg Howard, and is currently experiencing a surge in popularity due to the internet.

Stanley Jordan became famous in the 1980s for using the same method on the guitar. Jordan discovered the method independently after Chapman did, was signed to Blue Note Records, and released several successful albums.

The method that Chapman invented and Jordan also used allows complete self-accompaniment and counterpoint, as on piano.

Rhythm Guitar

Chords

A chord is three or more different notes played simultaneously. The name of a chord is determined by its root note, and the relationship between the root note and the chord's other notes. A root note is usually the lowest note in a chord, but this is not always the case. Chords may be strummed or picked through. Beginners will find strumming much easier, and picking is examined in more depth in the Picking and Plucking chapter. By definition double-stops and power chords are not chords, but intervals.

While chords are primarily used for rhythm guitar, basic chord knowledge is important for lead playing as well. The lead parts of many songs often require the use of chords, and in certain styles of playing, chords can make up the lead part entirely. Additionally, many lead patterns revolve around arpeggios, which are chords with their notes played in sequence, rather than together. For more information on arpeggios, see the Arpeggio and Sweep Picking chapter.

Chords are easy to play, but to understand why they sound how they do and why certain chords work better together than others, it is important to understand scales. While it is not necessary to have prior knowledge of scales to find this section useful, prior understanding of scales will definitely improve one's understanding of chords. It is recommended that before reading this section, one should familiarise themselves with general music theory first.

There are two main ways of playing chords, using open chords, which are the fundamental and often easiest chords for the guitar. Learning these chords is important, because it sets the stage for learning all other chords. Barre Chords are chords you make while pressing all (or most) of the strings down with your first finger. Barre chords are special, because they can be moved up and down the neck of the guitar, and the type of chord remains the same, although all the notes change. Barring is an important technique and greatly opens up the depth of the instrument.

Different Kinds of Chords

Major chords are defined by the major triad. The major triad comprises of three notes which are spaced at specific intervals. In ascending order: the root, major third and perfect fifth. These intervals are also found between the first note of a major scale and the third note (major 3rd), and the first note and the fifth note (fifth). Take for example, a C chord. If we play the C major scale on the guitar, we will notice it's relationship to the chord. In the C major scale, the first, third and fifth notes are C, E, and G. If we were to play a C major chord and pick through it, the notes are from lowest to highest, C, E, G. We can add more notes of the same letter names in different registers without altering the chord's designation, for example C major played in first position on a guitar comprises C, E, G, C, E. Major chords have a characteristically bright and happy sound.

Minor chords use the minor triad which is defined as root, minor third and perfect fifth. These intervals are also found between the first to third and first to fifth notes of the minor scale. Minor chords are slightly dissonant and so sound dark and melancholy. Minor chords are best understood in relation to major chords, and we will use the examples of E major and E minor. In the E major scale, the the third and fifth notes are G and B. If we play the E minor scale, the fifth note is unchanged, but the third note is a semitone lower than the third note in the major scale. When we play an E major chord, we can flatten the third of the chord by lifting the finger that is holding down the third string at the first fret, making it an open string.

Switching between major and minor chords can be relatively easy, as it involves the change of only one note. But since any particular note can be played in different places on the guitar, it might be difficult to change between certain major and minor chord fingerings. For example changing between an open F major to an F minor can be difficult. This can be solved by playing chords in different ways, such as by using bar chords.

Diminished chords consist of a minor third with another minor third on top. To make a diminished seventh chord you add another minor third onto the existing triad. This chord is considered fully-diminished and can be noted as such Co7 (a diminished triad with a diminished 7th). A half-diminished chord consists of a diminished triad with a major third on top. In other words, a half-diminished chord is a diminished triad with a minor seventh. Diminished chords are full of tension. Because fully-diminished chords are built entirely of minor thirds you can move the chord shape up the neck in intervals of a minor third and the same chord will sound except in a different inversion.

Seventh chords adds a seventh note to the given chord. The seventh interval is defined as that made between the first note and the seventh notes on a major or minor scale. Seventh intervals can be major, minor or in special cases, diminished. The chord that adds a minor seventh to a major triad is written as A7, G7, etc. Seventh chords sound dissonant, and can strongly direct the music toward the harmony that follows it.

Sixth chords adds a sixth to the chord. It does not sound dissonant as a seventh chord can, because the major sixth note is a minor third below the root of the octave.

Suspended chords removes the third from the chord, replacing the note with a second or a fourth. The guitar part in John Lennon's "Happy Christmas" uses suspended chords.

Slash chords are chords that are not in root position. For example, a C/G is a C chord with a bass note of G.

Appendix

Full list of fingering positions for standard tuning

Barre Chords

Barre chords are chords that involve using one finger, usually your first finger, to press all the strings down at once, all on a single fret. Barring turns your first finger into a movable capo. You can then use your remaining three fingers to play open chords, but in any position on the fretboard. Not all chord types are as easy to play with a barre as they are in the open position, but once you have learned barring techniques, the possibilities on the fretboard really open up.

Initially, barre chords are much more difficult to play than open chords, because they use muscles that aren't generally used for any purpose other than to play barre chords. Before being able to play a barre chord, you first must train your hand be able to barre the fretboard. To do this, you take your first finger and press the whole thing against the strings so they all fretted in the same place. Your thumb should be directly behind your first finger on the neck, and you should squeeze with as much of your thumb as possible. To illustrate the concept of a barre, compare the difference between a G barre and an open E chord.

  Open E        G Barre
e|---0---|    e|---3---|
B|---0---|    B|---3---|
G|---0---|    G|---3---|
D|---0---|    D|---3---|
A|---0---|    A|---3---|
E|---0---|    E|---3---|

Six String Barre Chord

A six string barre chord is a chord in which all the strings are being played. It can be compared to E chords, because, since the guitar is tuned to E, it effectively is an open barre chord. (you can view all open chords as a form of barre chords, which does not require you to press all the 6 strings somewhere [ because you use the open strings - 0 - hence their name ]. Let us examine the form of a major six string barre chord, in this case G, along with the major E chord:

  E Major       G Major
e|---0---|    e|---3---|
B|---0---|    B|---3---|
G|---1---|    G|---4---|
D|---2---|    D|---5---|
A|---2---|    A|---5---|
E|---0---|    E|---3---|

In both of these chords, the relationship between the individual notes is identical, which is why the G chord is still a major chord. The difference is the root note, which determines the keys of the respective chords. By looking at the root note, we can see that the difference between all the notes of the E major and G major are three frets. But so long as the relationship remains the same, the major barre chord form can be played on any fret neck. For example, it could be played as an A major or a B major by putting it in these two positions:

 A Major        B Major
e|---5---|    e|---7---|
B|---5---|    B|---7---|
G|---6---|    G|---8---|
D|---7---|    D|---9---|
A|---7---|    A|---9---|
E|---5---|    E|---7---|

The utility of barre chords comes from this ability to be played anywhere on the neck. Sliding the chord shape up and down the neck allows you to play many different chords relatively easily, and you can use this technique to pick out simple melodies.

As we saw earlier, the difference between a major and a minor chord is a flattened third. Using a barre chord, the transition between a major and a minor chord is relatively simple. The difference between an E major chord and E minor chord is the lifting of a finger, thereby lowering the note by a semitone. With any barre chord, you can lift a finger and be playing the minor barre chord. The minor barre chord form, shown beside the major barre chord form:

  E Major      E Minor        G Major       G Minor
e|---0---|    e|---0---|    e|---3---|    e|---3---|   
B|---0---|    B|---0---|    B|---3---|    B|---3---|   
G|---1---|    G|---0---|    G|---4---|    G|---3---|   
D|---2---|    D|---2---|    D|---5---|    D|---5---|   
A|---2---|    A|---2---|    A|---5---|    A|---5---|   
E|---0---|    E|---0---|    E|---3---|    E|---3---|

The same idea can be applied to seventh chords, or any other chord you can think of.

     E7           G7
e|---0---|    e|---3---|
B|---3---|    B|---6---|
G|---1---|    G|---4---|
D|---2---|    D|---5---|
A|---2---|    A|---5---|
E|---0---|    E|---3---|

Five String Barre Chords

The same principles hold for five string barre chords, except instead of using the E chord as the root example, the A chord is used. Additionally, it should be emphasised that only five strings are played, which means that the low E string should be muffled.

  A Major       C Major  
e|---0---|    e|---3---|  
B|---2---|    B|---5---|
G|---2---|    G|---5---|
D|---2---|    D|---5---|
A|---0---|    A|---3---|
E|-------|    E|-------|

Chord Progressions

It can be argued that trying to impose a "structure" on music is impossible, because music is organic. This is true, and many composers do not consider chord structures much when composing, perhaps trying various things out and just going with what works, or maybe having an intuitive understanding of the structures involved. Knowledge of chord structures will help you communicate with other musicians, and is a must for participating in any kind of jam session. With a few exceptions, all the musicians need to know the "changes" (the chord structure) and form in order for group improvisation to succeed.

Most songs use three or more chords, some songs have two or even one chord structures. However, they are harder to work with because it is more difficult to write an interesting piece with fewer chords. Often the musicians will try to get as much as they can out of the chords by adding fills and interesting rhythm patterns. One chord "structures" are uncommon, but they do exist. For instance, Frere Jacques is a one-chord song because it can be played against a single major chord. One chord songs are rare on guitar.

Since many famous songs often use only three or four chords, it is sometimes difficult to post a simple chord progression without infringing on the copyright on several hundred songs. If you are adding a chord progression, please do not list specific copyrighted songs that use that progression. Instead, allow players the opportunity to discover these musical connections for themselves. However, please give suggestions about rhythm and playing style.

The I-IV-V

By far the most common chord structures revolve around, or at least contain, the I, IV, and V chords. Lots of resources refer to chords in this way, and it is important to know the Latin terms. Many songs use only these three chords (and possibly variations of them), because the progression "rounds out" and sounds complete.

Many chord progressions start at the tonic (I), move away to somewhere else, only to come back to the tonic. You can play this with all major chords, or minor chords (although you may want to use a major chord on the IV or V).

Applying the I-IV-V

This progression is pretty much the backbone of popular western music.

The I-vi-IV-V

When picked with triplets, this progression is most commonly recognized from rock ballads in the 80s, but it is widely used in many other styles of music. You can play the song starting on the tonic at the top of the octave, and then going down to the neck to the other chords. This progression is commonly referred to as the 50's progression, because it was common to many of the popular songs of the 1950's, notably "Stand by Me"

The I-vi-V-I

The I-V-I-I

This is a popular progression at the beginning of a much larger line, and can be combined with many other scale degrees.

The ii-V-I

As it's name indicates, the progression is: ii-min7, V7 and Imaj7

Alternatively you can change the chord type on the II, and alter the voicing of the V. Some examples are:

• ii-m7b5(9) V7alt Imaj7

Applying the II-V-I

ii-V-Is can be chained together, creating complex progressions. Here's an example:

 C      Bm7b5 E7   (I     ii  V)
 Am7    Dm7   G7   (I     ii  V)
 C      (etc...)   (I     etc..)

An example of complicated progression that can be created this way is the "Coltrane Changes", where the "I" chords move by Major 3rd intervals. Here's a simple example:

 Dm7  G7  Cmaj7    (ii V I  )
 F#m7 B7  Emaj7    (ii V I  )
 Bbm7 Eb7 Abmaj7   (ii V I  )
 Dm7  etc...       (I etc...)

The way the ii-V-I progression works is first that it moves by 4ths upwards, which very often produces interesting results, and the 7th goes down a half tone below and becomes the following chord's 3rd.

The Minor ii-V-I

Another commonly used chord progression is the minor ii-V-i. One can derive this from the melodic minor scales shown above, while substituting a IminMaj7 for the IMaj7 chord, or by using three modes from one harmonic minor scale , which produces the following chord progression:

Alternate Picking

Alternate picking is an important skill, because it allows you to play more than twice as fast than with just down picking. The basic idea is that if you are picking just on down strokes, every time you bring the pick back up to stroke down again, you are missing an opportunity to hit the string again. Essentially alternate picking is more efficient, because you have to move you hand less distance to hit the next note, and it can be an important difference between hitting the note on time or struggling to reach it.

As with other guitar skills, it doesn't sound even a little difficult until you actually try and do it. It will take some time to master it and get really fast. After doing it for a long time, you will begin to notice that you are subconciously deciding whether to alternate pick or not, depending on the underlying rhythm. Ultimately alternate picking allows you to play more efficiently, and thus faster.

Hold the pick in whichever method feels best for you. Only the top of your pick should be seen and touch the string, because when you pick you cover less distance and use less energy. Your movement should only come from your wrist, not from your whole arm, and it should be precise. There are lots of ways to practice alternate picking, but really it is something that you have to merge into all of your guitar playing. Being able to alternate pick at the right time is a very important step, and it is one of the barriers that separate good guitar players and people who just play guitar.

Lesson 1

To introduce yourself to alternate picking, start with a simple exercise beginning on the low E string.

e|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------1--2--3--4---------------|
B|--------------------------------------------------------------1--2--3--4------------------------------| 
G|-----------------------------------------------1--2--3--4---------------------------------------------| 
D|--------------------------------1--2--3--4------------------------------------------------------------| 
A|--------------1--2--3--4------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
E|-1--2--3--4-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|


e|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|-4--3--2--1-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|----------------4--3--2--1----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
D|--------------------------------4--3--2--1------------------------------------------------------------|
A|-----------------------------------------------4--3--2--1---------------------------------------------|
E|--------------------------------------------------------------4--3--2--1--2--3--4--5------------------|

Play this pattern up and down the strings, and then up and down the whole neck. When you hit each note, you should make sure that you are always picking in the opposite direction of the previous note. Try playing faster, but always make sure you are fretting and picking each note clean to develop good habits. A metronome is a good item to help you with these sorts of exercises, because it helps you keep a steady pace. Always spend time practicing at your maximum speed, but not for the whole time; playing at an even pace is more important and builds your internal sense of rhythm.

Once you are comfortable alternate picking, try fingering some chords and pick through them, using alternate picking where appropriate. You can stumble onto some famous songs completely by accident like this.

Lesson 2

This pattern is a little more complicated, as it is a walk, where you play a repeating pattern that always starts on the next highest note.

e|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
B|------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
G|------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
D|-----------------------------------------1-------1-2-----1-2-3---1-2-3-4------| 
A|---------1-------1-2-----1-2-3---1-2-3-4---2-3-4-----3-4-------4--------------| 
E|-1-2-3-4---2-3-4-----3-4-------4----------------------------------------------|

Continue the pattern up the strings, and make sure you are always alternate picking. You will start to notice when sometimes it is better to pick up or down twice in order to make the picking more efficient overall.

Lesson 3

This riff combines palm muting and alternate picking.

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------| 
B|--------------------------------------------------------------------|
G|-------------2---------------2---------------2---------------2--3---| 
D|-------------2---------------2---------------2---------------2--3---| 
A|-0-0-0-0-0-0-----0-0-0-0-0-0-----0-0-0-0-0-0-----0-0-0-0-0-0--------|
E|--------------------------------------------------------------------|

The open notes should be muted, and you should be using alternate picking. This riff is very similar to a riff from Metallica's One.

Lesson 4

Additional Lessons

If you want more exercises, please see other sections of this book, and perform the exercises there, except add in the alternate picking. Alternatively, you could take a song you already know, and then pick the chords using alternate picking. You will soon see how you can apply alternate picking into every part of your guitar playing.

Tremolo Picking

What is Tremolo Picking?

Tremolo means a modulation in volume; in the context of stringed instruments, usually refers to repeatedly striking or bowing a single string in a steady rhythm, especially the fastest rhythm the player can maintain. (This technique is particularly common on the acoustic mandolin.) In guitar literature, this is called tremolo picking, and one of the few places the term "tremolo" is consistently used "correctly" in guitar literature (whose convention usually reverses tremolo and vibrato). This technique has nothing to do with a "tremolo bar" (really a vibrato bar) or a "tremolo" effects box.

How to hold the Pick

Tremolo picking, though appearing hard at first, is actually quite easy. It is merely alternate picking at a faster speed. To start off, a pick makes tremolo picking much easier and is highly recommended when attempting it, but even though most people find tremolo picking much easier with a pick, it is possible without a pick. The best way to hold your pick is between your thumb and the side of the first knuckle of your pointing finger, but if you feel more comfortable holding it another way, such as with your thumb and middle finger then go ahead.

How to Pick

The movement should come mostly from the wrist. A little bit of arm movement is okay, but shouldn't be done intentionally. It is possible to tremelo with the elbow, but the wrist is actually easier and faster for most people with practice.

The motion done with the wrist should be like drawing quick zig zags, or Vs. Picking shiould feel just like writing. Imagine drawing as many connected V's as possible.

Do not play with your hand parallel to the strings. Pick like you write, with your wrist at an angle.

Grip

An important aspect of tremolo picking that many beginners fail to realise is that you must have a relaxed grip on the pick, as when you try to pick when holding the pick tensely, you will find that the pick hits the string harder therefore making it harder to pass through the string, causing it to sound sloppy. Maintaining a relaxed grip becomes harder when playing faster, but you will get used to it.

Things to Remember

When tremolo picking make sure you use just your wrist, as this will make it much easier to pass through the string. Also, when you pick the string, make sure your hand doesn't go to far away from it, as this will slow you down. The impact from hitting the string usually forces your hand to leave the string, but after practice, avoiding this will become easier.

Rhythm

Good rhythm is almost essential to good guitar, and probably the simplest to understand. Let's start with some terms:

Beat

Measure

Time signature

All measures consist of a number of beats. You see the beats with the time signature, for example, 4/4. However, 4/4 is known as common time, and has special notation.

4/4 means that there are four beats in the measure, and that a whole note consists of four beats. Here are the other notes:

whole note

half note

quarter note

eigth note

sixteenth note

and so on.

A whole note consists of the number of beats in the bottom half of the time signature, in this case 4. So, each whole note consists of four beats. Each half note is two, quarter note is one beat, etc. There are other possible signatures, 3/4, 2/4, 6/8, 7/4 are the common ones.

To apply what we have read, let's pull out the most basic of progressions, where we will play G and D in alternate measures, with a 4/4 time signature.

It will look like this(each measure separated by a pipe and each beat denoted with a dash):

G         D
|- - - - |- - - -|
 v v v v  v v v v 

The "v" from now on denotes a downstroke and a "^" denotes an upstroke. Here. you are playing a downstroke on each beat (each tick of the metronome) and nothing in between. Some people find it easier to practice this without playing any chord, and muting all the strings. Try that too.

Let's do some upstrokes now.

G         D
|- - - - |- - - - |
 v^v^v^v^ v^v^v^v^

Here, you are downstroking on the tick (intuitively called the 'downbeat') and upstroking in between the ticks ( the upbeat. A good way to do this is to count your beats, "one-and two and three and four" going down on the numbers and up on the ands. Most strumming patterns you can here this going on, but slightly more complicated. Make sure you are going down on downbeats and up on upbeats. A lot of people who start playing tend to not follow this, and it mixes up your rhythm badly. If you keep to this pattern, even with more complicated patterns, you will not lose track of the beat.

If you listen to the above pattern, it will start to sound boring. But it is the basis of all other patterns. When you hear a more complicated pattern, most likely the player is missing some strums. Like this:

G         D
|- - - - |- - - - |
 v^v^v^v^ v^v^v^v^

Playing Styles

Folk Guitar

Folk music is considered to be music that exists within the people. The songs are participatory and communal. You don't have to be talented to sing a folk song, either. Everyone can sing Happy Birthday, which could be considered a folk song of the modern day, and many people know the words or melody to Frère Jacques.

In popular music, folk guitar gained popularity in the US the 1950, during the American folk music revival. This style most often uses an acoustic guitar, open chords, simple chord progressions and often unaccompanied vocals. You can play folk guitar with a pick, or by finger picking. This style is simple, yet diverse enough to let you play a variety of tunes.

Folk guitar has developed during the years, and many bands (often the heaviest) will have one acoustic guitar song at the end of their album. These songs would not be "folk music", but they are a modern adaption on an much older style, and is now generally referred to as "acoustic music". Often they use the same progressions as classic songs, but incorporate a catchy strumming pattern, rhythm or singing style.

There are some songs that became hugely popular in recent years, such that everyone can sing them communally. However, although these songs can often be performed on an acoustic guitar, they are not quite "folk". You are encouraged to learn these songs and sing them with your friends, but this section is not aimed at that.

This section will provide the basics of folk guitar. By taking open chords and learning some common (and important!) chord changes, you will learn the principles of folk guitar.

E to A

This is an E major changing to an A major. This is one of the easiest progressions to play since the chord forms are so similar.

C to G

This is a C major changing to a G major.

D to G

This is a D major changing to a G major.

F to C

This is an F major changing to a C major.

A to C

This is an A minor changing to a C major.

E to G

This is an E minor changing to a G major

D to A

This is a D minor changing to an A minor

Blues

The blues is a genre of music originating out of the African-American communities in the south in the early 1900. Notable areas have developed distinct styles, such as the Mississippi Delta blues, and later the Chicago electric blues as it grew popular in the 50s. The blues is the starting point for a lot of popular western music, and many guitarists will feel a sense of familiarity when they play the blues scale for the first time.

These lessons are designed to teach a player with basic guitar knowledge how to master the blues.

Lesson 1: The Twelve Bar Blues

The 12-bar blues is the basis for the large majority of classic blues songs along with many other popular rock and pop songs. It's a simple chord progression that can easily be transfered between different keys.

I	I	I	I
IV	IV	I	I
V	IV	I	I

Each box represents one bar or measure with four beats. The roman numerals refer to the different chords that can be put substituted into the chart. The "I" is the first step, or tonic, of the key. So if we take a C major scale:

I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	I
C	D	E	F	G	A	B	C

It would means that "I" is a C major chord, "IV" would be F major and "V" would be G. If we apply this chart to the key of C it would look like this:

C	C	C	C
F	F	C	C
G	F	C	C

If this is confusing to you, you may want to review some basic Music Theory.

However, a 12-bar blues does not necessarily follow this pattern strictly. Many flourishes and variations are often added. Here's an example of how a 12-bar blues in E major might be played.

    E                     E                     E                     E
  e---------------------|---------------------|---------------------|---------------------|
  B---------------------|---------------------|------------------