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How
to Play Guitar
©2009
Sandra Hudson
Although
there are many different types of music, many different guitar
playing styles, and many different ways of teaching it, there's
actually only one way to play it. Understanding
this makes it easier to learn how to play the guitar. What do we
mean?
In
addition to proper posture and hold, playing guitar requires that
you master some basic right-hand and left-hand skills. The
fingers in both hands use motions similar to those required for
typing. Thus, if you can type, you can play! Once you
master these specific skills, you must learn to coordinate both
hands to work together, while at the same time keeping your
tempo. Then you may also add your voice to complete the song.
Your
left hand selects the musical notes by pressing the strings in
specific frets. Selecting individual notes results in playing the
melody, as done in lead guitar and solos. Selecting a group of
notes results in playing chords for accompaniment. Although
the notes making up chords follow specific musical formulas, you
simply need to learn the fingers' positioning from a chord chart and
be able to switch between chords with fluency and ease.
Your
right hand produces the musical sounds for the notes or chords you
press with your left hand. You can do this by picking or
strumming the strings over the sound hole. Picking requires
that you "pluck" the strings with your thumb, index,
middle and ring fingers in a specific finger-sequence. This is
also known as arpeggios, and is commonly used when playing
classical-style guitar and slow songs. Strumming, however,
requires a pendulum-like motion of the arm that produces a different
sound depending on whether or not the fingers (or pick) strike the
strings as the arm moves up or down, as done when playing folk,
country, rock and other types of music. Whether picking or
strumming, the pattern you follow repeats itself throughout the
whole song and, along with the speed in which you play it, becomes
the rhythm.
The
coordination of both hands is the most challenging part of learning
to play guitar. To
accomplish it, you must first individually master each hand's skills
to the point where it becomes second nature. Once you are
able to play the notes or chords following the rhythm the song calls
for, whether you sing or not, you are playing guitar.
Playing
guitar is actually easier than it sounds. Although it does
require practice, just a couple of minutes a day, or as often as you
can, will be enough to accomplish your goal. The trick is to
concentrate your efforts on one skill at a time, in a progressive
way, building the next skill after the previous one is
mastered.
And
here is where our program can help!
Our
classes are designed to progressively guide you and assist you in
building the necessary skills in a proven, effective way. You
will master rhythm, learn chord fingering, clear sound and proper switching
by the third class. If you invest just a few minutes a day and
practice some simple exercises, you will, like most of our students,
be able to play strummed songs of your choice by the fourth
class! After that, we help you master picking techniques,
polish your strumming techniques, develop your ear, and teach you
other essential techniques, including transposing and tablature,
that will allow you to continue expanding your playing capabilities
on your own... in only twelve classes.
Learning
to play does not need to be hard or take forever. We can help!
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