Guitar

As a guitarist, it’s beneficial to be able to play in a variety of different styles. And although note and chord choices sometimes do define a style, more often than not, the rhythmic patterns do more to evoke a particular genre or feel than the notes themselves. Syncopated rhythms are what define dance music. And…

The old guitarist joke is that singing is wasted time between guitar solos. This is because guitarists are always looking for opportunities to show off their skills, be flashy, and play parts that keep themselves entertained. Solos are where stylistic choices and creativity really have a way of shining through. And while the ability to…

The CAGED system is a concept every guitarist should take some time to understand. Not only does it provide a framework from which you can instantly create barre chords, it also teaches you what the most commonly used guitar keys are, and why they are so popular. The CAGED system is also a stepping stone…

Every guitarist – regardless of what their stylistic interest are – should learn how to play the 12 bar blues and understand how the form works. Many rock and roll and country songs share a similar format, since they are basically derivatives of the blues. So when you understand the 12 bar blues, your understanding…

You don’t have to put in 10,000 hours of practice to become good at guitar. If you want to master the guitar, then you will definitely need to embrace a longer-term journey, as there is simply too much to know and learn. But when it comes to improving, there are really just a few habits…

Guitar solos today are often little more than little “fills”, short segments of quick licks that lead right back into the bridge or chorus of a song. This type of solo requires little thought, and isn’t hard to construct. One of the reasons this happens is because a lot of guitar players today aren’t confident…

Palm muting is a technique you can use to dampen and deaden the strings on your guitar. From a more general perspective, muting is an important part of guitar playing, and oftentimes both the right and left hands are used to mute in different ways at different times. Palm muting, however, is essentially a picking…

Guitar solos often sound really impressive. But there’s no need to be intimidated. Playing single notes can actually be easier than playing chords and riffs. For example, Kurt Cobain isn’t considered the most skilled guitarist in the world. He was certainly able to express himself in the way he wanted to, but didn’t necessarily aspire…

In some ways, lead guitar is actually easier than rhythm guitar. With rhythm guitar, you often need to be able to switch difficult chord shapes on the fly and play complex rhythms. With lead guitar, you usually only need to play one note at a time, and it doesn’t even need to be fast! If…

Most guitarists, at some point, decide that they want to be able to play fast. I can definitely relate to this. In my formative years, I spent a lot of time working on my rhythm guitar chops, so while I was pretty creative and even adaptive in my approach to writing and playing riffs, my…

The ability to improvise is incredibly valuable. Not all pros can do it well or even do it at all, so you probably won’t hurt your chances at success if you can’t, but there is a certain confidence that can come from knowing that you can jump into any musical situation and add something complementary…

Let’s face it – the thought of having to memorize the position of every single note on your guitar is overwhelming. Even though there are only 12 notes in music, they are arranged differently on every single string on the guitar (except for the first and sixth strings, which are both E strings). But one…

A triad is a type of chord that only contains the essential notes necessary to make it a chord. In order to create a chord, you need to play at least three distinct notes together (i.e. C, E, and G for a C triad). But just so we’re clear, a double stop is not a…

When you really think about it, double stops are incredible tools on the guitar. You can write entire riffs and solos with double stops. You can supplement a single-note melody with a harmony. You can play through difficult passages of music by playing a couple of relevant notes in place of challenging chord shapes. So…

A lot of guitar teachers tend to teach their beginner students how to play three-finger open chords in their first lesson. Don’t get me wrong – sometimes this can work. If the student is astute and hardworking, they might be able to use this experience as a launching pad to learn other skills and techniques….