Beginning Steps To Playing The Guitar

August 18th, 2009 by Mike Wong, under Music. No Comments

Learning to play the guitar can be an entertaining and satisfying experience. There’s nothing better than showing off to your friends and family by playing their favorite guitar songs. Unfortunately, it is not easy to learn guitar for beginners especially if you don’t know where to start. It takes time to master the guitar, and if you are impatient, you may quit before you are able to play anything worthwhile.

To learn the guitar requires you to master the basics. First off, you will need to figure out how to tune your guitar, otherwise every note you play will sound horrible. Without tuning your guitar on a regular basis, the strings will become stretched and sound distorted. E-A-D-G-B-E is the standard guitar tuning. While there are other tuning you can use, it is a good idea learn this one first.

Once your guitar is in tune, you can now use it to start playing some notes. To play a note, take one of the strings, and press down on it on one of the frets with one finger, and pluck at the string with your other hand. Play around and do the same thing with different frets on the same string. Congrats, you can now play different notes with your guitar.

With this new found ability to play notes on your guitar, the next step is to figure out how to play some basic chords. Using a guitar chord chart, try to find a few chords that you can play. It will take some time to train your fingers to play chords properly, but don’t get frustrated. You will get the hang of how to play them, and eventually you should be able to go back and forth between a few different chords at once.

After you have gotten your chords down, try to find some easy guitar songs to play. There is nothing that will inspire your guitar learning faster than being able to play your first song. To start, we are going to look for some guitar tabs to play. Guitar tabs are great because they allow you to start playing songs without having the ability to read sheet music and you can find guitar tabs for almost any song out there. The tabs are basically a picture that displays the 6 strings of the guitar along with numbers that represent the fret you should hold down for each note. Just pick a simple guitar tab to learn and practice it until it becomes natural for you to play. Don’t get frustrated, as it will take you some time to master it. Although there are still many skills to learn, you are now on your way to learning to play the guitar.

Beginning Guitar With The Squier Stratocaster

August 17th, 2009 by Mike Wong, under Music. No Comments

Finding the right guitar for a beginner can be hard but the most important factors to consider are cost, reliability and versatility. Based on my experience, the Squier Stratocaster meets these criteria and is easily the best guitar for beginners.

Developed by Fender, the Squier Stratocaster is great value for the money and it can be easily found at any music store or online for between $180 and $230. No beginner needs a more costly instrument and you can always look for a better guitar once your skills warrant it.

Even if you want to buy a better guitar a year or two after you start playing, you can always keep your Squier as a backup because it is famous for its reliability. The Fender brand means that that your guitar should last as long as you take care of it with few issues. For instance, some people have reported that the strap buttons can become loose after a few months but this is easily fixed and the fact that this is the biggest problem the guitar faces with wear is a testament to its durability.

Of course, price and reliability mean little if the guitar isn’t versatile enough. It is important that beginners have a capable guitar on which to practice everything from the blues to rock to heavy metal. The Squier Strat gives the beginner all of these capabilities and although it lacks the thrills of more expensive instruments, it gives beginners a solid foundation from which to improve their skills.

When shopping for this guitar, don’t confuse the Squier Stratocaster with the Fender Stratocaster or the Squier Affinity Strat. The Affinity is a much cheaper model and it shows whereas the Fender Stratocaster is costs a bit more. The Squier Stratocaster sits right in the middle and is the best buy for the a new guitarist.

In my opinion, the Squier Stratocaster is a great guitar for beginners. Its cost, dependability and flexibility make it the perfect choice for beginning guitar learners. Go to your local music store and see if you can pick one up. Pair it up with a good guitar course and you will definitely have fun with it.