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Learn how to read guitar tabs - the key things you must know

admin — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:31:45 +0000

So you wanna learn how to read guitar tabs? For me, reading guitar tabs is far easier than reading standard musical notation, but there are a few tricks to it…

What are guitar tabs anyway?
Guitar tabs are a way to read notes that are easier to understand for people playing the guitar, the positions on the guitar are noted rather than standard musical notation, so your brain has less translation to do between the notes on the page and playing it with your fingers. For instance, a “3″ means the third fret.

What is a Fret
The frets are the metal bars that go across the neck of the guitar. To play the first fret means to put your finger in the middle of the first space you can press down on with the string.

Because there are six strings on a guitar, in a tab you will usually see a line for each string. The line on top is the highest pitched string and the line on the bottom is the lowest pitched string - This actually threw me off at first, because on the guitar, the top string is the lowest pitched one, so it is kind of the reverse in a tab, but you quickly get used to it.

for Example you might see something like this:

||—0—1—3— <– this is the highest pitch string closest to your feet
||—0—1—3—
||—1—0—0—
||—2—0—0—
||—2—0—2—
||—0—X—3— <– this is the low pitch string closest to your chin

Or, they might display the standard notes on the left;

E|—0—1—3—
B|—0—1—3—
G|—1—0—0—
D|—2—0—0—
A|—2—0—2—
E|—0—X—3—

So to play the first chord, you would put your fingers on the strings in the middle of the guitar and skip the two highest pitched strings and the lowest pitched string.

So string and position is covered by the lines top to bottom, and time is left to right. So first you would play the line 0,0,1,2,2,0 and then the 1,1,0,0,0,X

Notice the “X” in the line? this means to ‘mute’ or not play that particular string - in this case you would avoid playing the lowest pitched string. You can do this by avoiding it altogether, or resting one of your fingers on it.

So there you have it, the basics of reading guitar tabs. Now if you start seeing other things like “h” or “p” or “b” on your guitar tabs you might want to check out the legend below;

Basic Legend:
h -Hammer On
p -Pull Off
/ -Slide Up
\ -Slide Down
~ -Vibrato
x -Mute String
T -Thumb/Tap

More advanced stuff:
—————-
b - bend
pb - pre-bend
r - bend release (if no number after the r, then release immediately)
s - legato slide
S - shift slide
- natural harmonic
[n] - artificial harmonic
n(n) - tapped harmonic
tr - trill
TP - trem. picking
PM - palm muting
\n/ - tremolo bar dip; n = amount to dip
\n - tremolo bar down
n/ - tremolo bar up
/n\ - tremolo bar inverted dip
= - hold bend; also acts as connecting device for hammers/pulls
<> - volume swell (louder/softer)
x - on rhythm slash represents muted slash
o - on rhythm slash represents single note slash

Misc Legend
———–
| - bar
|| - double bar
||o - repeat start
o|| - repeat end
*| - double bar (ending)
: - bar (freetime)
$ - Segno
& - Coda

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Learn from Joe Satriani, George Benson and more..

admin — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:07:32 +0000

Recently I heard that Joe Satriani had some sort of online guitar training school, so I looked him up and found this site called “Workshop Live” which has lessons from him.

When I was at the site, I also noticed that they had George Benson as a guest guitarist on there, he is one of my favorite jazz guitarists.

It seems that on the site they have a few choices:

The main area, which is taught by a number of different teachers, which has over 2,200 lessons and costs around $20usd per month

The Joe Satriani and other guest artist areas which cost about $10usd per month per artist - so if you want Satriani and Benson it would be another $20 per month.

I think a good idea would be to start with the main area and build your skills, then switch across to the guest artist guitar teacher area when you are a bit more confident.

I looked at the course catalog for the main area and I was quite impressed as it includes all of this:

Guitar

Absolute Beginner Guitar Lessons | pdf
Rock

Blues

Acoustic

Jazz

You can check it all out at
http://www.workshoplive.com

The Donkey Kong concept for mastering the guitar

admin — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:58:26 +0000

Donkey Kong had more to teach us than we realised when we were kids, here you will learn how Donkey Kong can help you master the guitar.

Many people that buy a guitar have plans to become a good or great guitarist, but most fail and end up giving it up before they really get anywhere. No-one really wants to buy a guitar and then have it sit on the shelf collecting dust, but many do. Even if you have some guitar experience already and you are getting stuck, by the end of this article, you’ll have an understanding of what it takes to get you to the next level and how Donkey Kong can help you get there!

Donkey Kong, a simple game where you play as mario, with an aim to rescue the princess, to do so you need to run up ramps and climb ladders while avoiding barrels and other objects being thrown at you. How on earth can this help you with your guitar skills? lets see..

Ramps = Practice
Ladders = Learning
Barrels & other dangerous objects = Difficulties + Setbacks
Getting to princess = Mastering the guitar

The two main elements to mastering the guitar are “Practice” and “Learning” and you need to apply both, but along your journey to master the guitar you are going to come across difficulties and setbacks eg: not enough time to practice, you just don’t get something, or something is too hard.

Most people start out with great intentions, but when a barrel comes their way (a setback or difficulty) it throws them off course and after a few set-backs they give up. In order to master the guitar, you really need to accept the fact that there will be barrels and obstacles to overcome any time when you really want to get to the next level, you just have to be determined to push through and persevere.

In fact if you expect barrels to come your way before you start, you are going to be much better prepared to go the distance in mastering the guitar.

So get on those overalls and go run up those ramps (practice) and climb those ladders (learn new things) but while you are at it be ready for the barrels that are going to come your way (difficulties and setbacks) and you’ll be able to rescue princess after all (master the guitar)
Technorati Tags: mastering the guitar, learning guitar, improving guitar skill, how to play guitar

Technorati Tags: How to play guitar, improving guitar skill, learning guitar, mastering the guitar

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admin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:53:51 +0000

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