How to improvise on guitar – the ultimate guide
Introducing how to improvise on guitar How to improvise on guitar is seemingly a dark art that is hard to explain. In reality though, we are all successful improvisers already. Each of us improvises using language every day. We spontaneously reassemble words and phrases to express ourselves and communicate with others. Improvising on the guitar […]
Guitar technique – how important is it?
Guitar technique and its importance Guitar technique is important; unquestionably. But just how important it is depends very much on what we want to achieve as guitarists. For a singer-songwriter who just uses the guitar as a tool for composition, technique is fairly low down the list of priorities. But for someone who wants to […]
Are there any songs left to write?
We’ve probably all wondered this at some point or other. You turn on the radio and it’s yet another song that sounds much like one you’ve heard before. So, are there any songs left to write? Let’s get straight to the maths… A one-bar composition To figure out if there really are there any songs left […]
The 80-20 rule and guitar playing
How long would it take you to learn another language to a high standard? If you worked hard at it, maybe about 5 years. How long would it take you to speak that same language absolutely perfectly? Probably another 20 years. Meet the 80-20 rule This, in a nutshell, is the ’80-20 rule’. Often you […]
Why guitarists should read biographies
Musical heroes We all have our musical heroes. Usually we discover them early on in our guitar playing experience. Heroes can be a wonderful guiding light that give us something to aim for, and drive us on to take our guitar playing to greater heights. Sometimes it’s our heroes that motivate us to take up […]
How to make guitar practice as easy as possible
Life is busy. We all have slightly too many commitments and interests, and we all need some downtime too. As much as we may love the guitar, sometimes guitar practice can feel like hard work. Other times guitar practice seems easy and we wonder why we don’t always put in 8 hours a day. Most of […]
Guitar vibrato and its importance
Unless you play nothing but straight-ahead jazz guitar, vibrato is important. Good well-defined vibrato brings life to a guitar solo and is a significant part of what gives a guitarist their ‘voice’. Weak vibrato, or no vibrato at all, can leave a solo wanting. Listen to a guitar solo by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck […]
Are my hands too small to play guitar?
‘Are my hands too small to play guitar’ is one of the most common questions asked by people starting out learning guitar. In the beginning there is a lot to get to grips with. It can take quite a while to train your hands to get used to unintuitive positions and movements involved in guitar playing. During […]
Improve the quality of your guitar playing
So you’ve learned lots of chords and scales, you’ve developed a decent sense of time, and you have a nice armoury of phrases to use in improvisation. But how does all of this actually sound when you play? Fret-buzz and guitar playing Try recording yourself playing a familiar chord-based tune and listen back with a […]
A short essay on musical education
To learn or not to learn… Around the time when I first decided to study music, I was introduced to an aspiring guitarist by a friend. We started chatting about who inspired us, and who we were listening to at that time. We shared similar tastes in music and it was a nice conversation – […]
Can you sing what you play on guitar?
Can you sing what you play on guitar, as you play it? It’s not something that many people can do the first time they try it. But there are great benefits to be gained from developing this ability. Learning to sing what you improvise gets you inside the music and away from thinking only in terms […]
Which arpeggios should guitarists learn?
Arpeggios are the notes that make up a chord when played in succession, as oppose to at the same time. They are just as valuable a resource for creating music as scales are, and in a way arpeggios are mini-scales of just three or four notes. There are as many arpeggios as there are chords […]
What scales should guitarists learn?
What scale should guitarists learn, is a common question. And the answer is: depends on the style of music you want to perform. There is already a wealth of published material and guidance for classical guitarists, so in this article we’ll focus on popular music. The minor pentatonic scale The minor pentatonic scale is without doubt […]
How to get in a band
So you’ve been playing guitar for a while and you want to play music with other people. In this article we’ll look at some of the different approaches of how to get in a band. To start with, there are two fundamental decisions to make: Do you want to play original music or covers? Do […]
I can’t play guitar and sing at the same time
“I can’t play guitar and sing at the same time” is something I’ve heard many times. If you think that you can’t play guitar and sing at the same time, allow me to correct you: you can’t play guitar and sing at the same time YET. In this article I aim to show that really anybody […]
Academic versus intuitive approaches to music
In this article we’ll look at what I call an ‘academic’ approach to music versus an intuitive approach to music. By this I mean the difference between performing music with or without a lot of intellectual involvement as you play. Acquiring musical knowledge A basic level of musical education is essential to good improvising or composing. The […]
The gig that never happens
If you’ve been playing guitar for a while the chances are that you’re interested in doing gigs. It’s great to get up and perform music in front of people, both from an entertainment point of view and because it’s a landmark in your guitar playing ability. Whether it’s a solo performance of your own songs […]
How to make money as a guitarist – part 2
How to make money as a guitarist – part 1 was about the different ways to make money as a guitarist through teaching. In this second article we’ll look at how to make money as a guitarist through performing. Making money as a performing guitarist is just as viable for many guitarists as teaching is. And if you […]
How to make money as a guitarist – part 1
Making money as a guitarist is very achievable as long as you have taken your guitar playing to an adequate level. Teaching guitar, performing live and getting booked for ‘sessions’ are probably the most lucrative areas. Even within these fields though there are many options to consider. This first of two articles on how to make money […]
Do guitarists need to wear ear-plugs?
Do guitarists need to wear ear-plugs? If you play in a band, YES you should wear earplugs; plain and simple. Why do guitarists need to wear ear-plugs? Because our ears are only built to tolerate a certain amount of noise before they start to become damaged. The damage is usually irreversible. Many musicians who play in bands become […]
Why learn music theory?
“Why learn music theory? I don’t want to be restricted…” To the uninitiated, music theory is often thought of as being a set of rules that must be obeyed. This is not what music theory is about Music theory is a well-organised system of naming and describing music and how it works. Learning music theory brings meaning to […]
10,000 hours of guitar practice
The 10,000 hours principle You may know about the 10,000 hours principle. This is a theory put forward by author and researcher Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. The theory goes that to achieve excellence or expert status in a given field takes more or less 10,000 hours of practice. Not everyone accepts […]
I can’t play guitar standing up
The ‘I can’t play guitar standing up’ problem “I can’t play guitar standing up” is something I’ve heard many aspiring guitarists say; and some fairly seasoned ones too. This article looks at what the causes of this problem are and how to fix them. Two solutions to playing the guitar standing up The only reason […]
Guitarist envy: “That should be me up there…”
Comparing can be a good thing Making comparisons between ourselves and other guitarists is very useful in order to progress as musicians. Just about all guitarists have learned from players that they admired. This could be people they knew personally or their rock and roll heroes on old crackly LPs. We need to identify characteristics, approaches or […]
Learning the guitar fretboard
How well do you really know the guitar fretboard? With the exception of classical guitarists, most guitarists start by learning open chords. These are learned as shapes with fairly meaningless names such as C, Am, G7, etc (see ‘Why learn music theory?‘ for more on this). There is no immediate reason to set about fully learning […]
Mistakes are your friends!
Why mistakes are you friends If you are not making any mistakes on the guitar, either you are amazing or, more likely, you are playing material that is well within your current level of ability. Playing well within our abilities is desirable when performing live or recording. These situations require good performances that are free from […]
A metronome is mandatory!
A scenario Young, keen guitarist gets a guitar. He spends time diligently figuring parts out, learning from recordings and magazines. He starts to feel quietly pleased with his progress and looks for ways to improve further. He hears that it’s a good idea to get a metronome so he keenly buys one and heads home to give it a […]
Do guitarists need to learn to read music?
A common quote about reading music “…and do you know, [insert name] can’t even read music? Isn’t that amazing?” We’ve all heard this line or something very similar to it. To someone that dabbled in learning classical piano or violin back when they were at school, it might seem that the ability to read music is […]
There is nothing natural about playing guitar!
My tennis years Why does an article called ‘There is nothing natural about playing guitar’ start with tennis? Bear with me… When I was in my teens, my friends and I joined the local tennis club. It was a small place with no coaching so none of us knew what good tennis technique was. We […]
Guitarist stuck in a rut?
From time to time it happens to just about everybody from writers to Olympic athletes. And guitarists are no different. For no apparent reason we can find ourselves feeling demoralised and unhappy with abilities that we used to be proud of. Practice can feel like an unwelcome chore instead of something that we look forward to. Worse […]
Guitar licks – why we should learn them
Why should we learn guitar licks? “Isn’t it better to just improvise?” The thing to recognise about improvising is that nobody does it in the purest sense of creating entirely original phrases spontaneously. In reality an improvised solo is a combination of phrases (aka ‘licks’) that the performer has already picked up in the past; […]
The ultimate guide to rhythm guitar playing
Chords are the backbone of popular music. Guitarists spend lots of time learning chord shapes so that they can strum through well-known songs they like, or their own compositions; aka ‘rhythm guitar playing’. What about making more of these chords though? How can we improve our rhythm guitar playing from an adequate performance to an excellent one? Approaches to […]
Is it ever too late to learn guitar?
“Is it ever too late to learn guitar?” is something that a lot of people ask themselves when they’re considering taking up the instrument. Many regret not having learned an instrument at school, or not having stuck it out. Some worry that they will now find it too difficult. The implication here is that learning to play an […]
Guitar practice and spreading yourself too thinly
Time, our most valuable resource Music is a vast subject with many different styles and areas of study. Time is a limited resource that very few of us feel we ever have enough of. How can we make the best use of the time we have with regard to guitar practice? Having a well-structured guitar […]