Friday, June 10, 2011

Playing Guitar Requires Particular Skills

By Jack Wogan


Is guitar the most fashionable instrument? Beginner musicians looking to learn to play something would choose guitar over piano or drums, most of the times. After all, the majority of popular songs are written on the guitar, not to mention that it is much easier to carry a guitar around, as opposed to drums or a piano. Guitar is also quite inexpensive and not difficult to play - at least in the early stages; it is a resourceful instrument (easily adaptable to many types of music genres), suitable to all ages, and its music potential is virtually unlimited.

Learning how to play guitar is not as easy as it sounds; playing guitar always requires patience and perseverance, as well as knowledge and skills, in other words learning and practicing. Natural abilities, passion and the willingness to upgrade the acquired skills are also extremely important, as they can make the difference between a good player and an exceptional player. Natural ability means almost nothing without knowledge, skills and the constant desire to improve these skills. This is where good music comes from.

Learning to play guitar may often seem like a never-ending stream of exercises, techniques and skills. Fundamentals of guitar can take a lot of time, but once you completely mastered them it's very simple to pick up the additional skills that lead to advanced guitar playing. There are many different guitar instruction schools, musical styles and guitar disciplines, but all these share a number of common features than any experienced guitar player should be able to perform comfortably. In the first learning stages, the key objective is to gain the technical abilities and build a foundation of useful musical skills. You need to learn to name all notes on the guitar, become familiar with common alternate tunings, alternate picking with the pick and fingers in the right hand, play notes simultaneously, play power chords, etc. When you can do this effortlessly and confidently, it means you can play guitar.

I know that many guitar players feel the need, at some point in time, to refine the way their guitar sounds, improve the harmony and the quality of their music. Here is when effects pedals step in. Guitar effects are used typically by electric guitar players in order to modify the tone of their musical sound. But all guitarists, irrespective of the music they play, will often use effects pedals to alter their instrument's sound in a particular manner. In essence there are effects to cover every conceivable tone you've ever heard a guitar produce.

The effects pedals can be used to create distortion on the sound, add energy, brightness and grittiness to the sound. The effects pedals can also be used to transform the electric guitar from its usual sounds to musical acoustic sounds and even traditional musical instruments. A guitar pedal will add to a natural guitar sound. When choosing effects pedals, you need to consider a number of basic rules: know your style, know your budget, listen and watch the professionals using effects pedals and, most of all, experiment when you are not sure. You can go out to a store and try guitar effects pedals, to make sure you buy the ones that suit your purpose perfectly.




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