Best Guitar Lessons Online

Here’s a nice wee article about buying an Acoustic Guitar, enjoy!

Knowing how to choose the right guitar and how to identify a bad one will save you countless headaches, not to mention finger aches. Acoustic guitar bodies come in basically the same hourglass shape, with some variations, but they do vary in size, color, wood-type, style, and extra features. You can even buy an acoustic guitar so small that fits into a hiking backpack. Guitars come in a very wide range of prices, but when it comes to instruments, in general, you get what you pay for, especially when you buy new. There’s a real difference between getting a bargain and buying cheap. But whether you buy new or used may be determined by many personal factors including your budget, and each has their own pros and cons. Buying new, gives you a warranty and, hopefully, a return period, if for some reason you’re not totally satisfied with your purchase, or something goes wrong. Under ‘usual’ circumstances, a used guitar can usually be purchased cheaper and has already gone through its “break-in” period. Commercially built guitars are usually mass manufactured. “Custom-made” guitars are exactly that. They are custom built and tailored to your specifications by a highly skilled guitar maker. Prices for a custom-built guitar vary considerably, depending on the skill level of the craftsperson you contract the job to, but, as a rule, they are generally quite higher than a commercially built guitar of “similar” quality. Each custom built guitar is unique and therefore hard to compare in price to a commercially built guitar. FOR THE “TECHIES” Understanding some of the parts of a guitar will definitely help you when it comes to the Pre-Purchase Checklist. BODY: This is the part with the sound hole in the front. It is where the strumming is done, and it can vary in size. The actual size, shape, type of wood, coating, and general build of the body also affects how the guitar will “sound”, whether it’s a rich and warm sound, or a thin and ‘twangy’ sound. The body tends to be the part that also gets scratched, damaged, and generally banged-up the most. NECK: This is the long piece extending from the body and ends at the ‘head’ of the guitar where the ‘Tuning Heads’ are, also known as ‘machine heads’. The strings travel from the ‘Bridge’ on the body, across the sound hole, along the ‘Fret Board’, which is attached to the front-side of the neck, and finally arriving at the tuning heads where they are wrapped around tuning posts. The tuning heads are then turned by hand, which then turns the posts, making the strings tighter or looser, thus affecting their ‘tuning’. Necks tend to warp and twist if not looked after, or if the guitar is left propped against a heat source. BRIDGE: The Bridge is normally located on the front of the body, by the sound hole, and on the side of the hole opposite to the neck. The strings are usually fed through the bridge first before they cross the hole and travel up the neck to the tuning heads. The bridge is like an anchor-point for the strings. Metal bridges are best, but on most acoustics they are either hard plastic or wood. Bridges have a tendency to crack and split over a long period of time. FRET BOARD: The fret board is glued to the front of the neck. This is the part you press the strings onto to make chords or play individual notes. Because it’s glued on separately, a fret board can be made of a wood that’s different from the neck. The strings travel over the fret board and the distance they are above the fret board makes a difference to the playability of the guitar. If the strings are too far above the fret board, then they will be hard to press down, making the guitar hard to play. When a beginner plays a guitar, initially his or her fingertips are very soft and need to be hardened. A guitar with the strings too far above the fret board, also known as having a ‘high action’, will cause the player’s fingers to hurt so much that they are likely to put the guitar away in discouragement and possibly stop playing altogether. STRINGS: Acoustic guitar strings, come in a wide variety of ‘flavors’. They can be made out of nylon, brass, steel, or a combination. Nylon strings are usually only found on Classical guitars and Student guitars, because they’re easier on the fingertips. They have a rich, warm sound to them. Strings sets come in different ‘weights’, or sizes. Strings that come from a package marked ‘Heavy’ are usually quite thick in size and sound “beefy”. Strings that are light, or extra light, are very thin and usually have a brighter sound to them, but are also quieter sounding than heavy strings. String choices are purely personal taste. Light strings are easier to press than heavy strings but also sound quite different. The more often strings are played, the dirtier they get. If a cloth isn’t run over and under them, from time to time, the sound becomes very dull THE PRE-PURCHASE CHECKLIST – Before you buy a used guitar, cost-compare against the price of a new one, unless the guitar is quite old. You could also compare its used price to other used prices by going to an online auction and either searching for the same or a similar guitar. – Check the overall condition of the wood for cracks, scratches, splits, dents, chips, etc. – Also check the lacquer finish for cracks and splits. – Check the neck/fret board for warping and twisting. You can do this by holding the guitar flat on its back, with the sound hole facing upward. Bring the guitar up to eye-level, with the neck running away from you and the edge of the body almost touching your face. Let your eyesight skim across the front of the body and down the fret board. You should be able to see if the neck is twisted or bowing. – Tune the guitar, or have the seller tune it for you. – If you know how to play about five or six chords then play them. If you don’t know how to play, ask the seller to play them for you. This check ensures that the neck of the guitar is not warped, even though you couldn’t physically see it. If the neck is warped, and the guitar is properly tuned, then some of the chords will sound good, but others will sound as though the guitar is not tuned. If this happens, check the tuning again. If it persists, then don’t buy the guitar. – Check the bridge of the guitar. If it’s made out of wood or plastic, make sure it’s not cracked or splitting. The bridge needs to be rock-solid, as a lot of pressure is exerted on the bridge by the strings. – Check the tuning heads. Do they turn easily, or are they very stiff and hard to turn. Even with the high tension of the strings, a quality guitar will have tuning heads that are fairly easy to turn. – Check the ‘action’ of the guitar. Are the strings a fair distance from the fret board? Are they easy or hard to press down at various points on the fret board? – If you are buying the guitar for yourself, and you know how to play, even if you’re a beginner, then play the guitar. – How does it feel? – Is it easy or hard to play? – Can you fit your hand around the neck/fret board comfortably to play chords? – Is the guitar a comfortable size and shape for your body? Is it easy to hold? – If you plan to play standing up, ask for a guitar strap. – Do you like the sound, the color, etc? – If you don’t play, have someone else play it for you so that you can judge what it sounds like. WHERE TO BUY Buying a guitar from a physical retail music store allows you to ‘test drive’ the guitar and ask more questions up front. Buying online or from a catalog may bring you more cash savings. No matter where you buy your guitar, if you know what to look for, and spend a little extra effort in your search for that ‘perfect’ guitar, not only will your fingers thank you, but also your ears, and all those who will come to join you around the campfire, or even go to see you in concert. Who knows?

The first Song ever written for new President Obama, I just love the big Acoustic Guitar Sound, another enigmatic treat from the Jellybottys!

Best Guitar Lessons Online

Hallo people, Here’s a little article about the practical way to speed up your Guitar playing,

When some people play guitar quick, we look at them in amazement and wonder whether it is practicable for us to do the same? Let us review the situation and see if we can also do something to hasten our speed of playing the guitar. The very first thing you are going to need is a metronome, which you can buy one from your local music shop, steal one from a maiden aunty or download one for free on the web. If you decide to steal one, then I am afraid you will not make much progress in your quest to play guitar fast because short cuts just do not work. Usually we look for different shortcuts to get a task done, and that is the reason why we find the quick way of playing the guitar nearly impossible.

All right, you now have acquired the metronome and you are ready to begin. The next thing you need is something to practice on and these can be a musical passage from a song that has a solo section, a full exercise like a chain of scales or even a picking exercise. You need to choose your material carefully because you will need to know exactly how quick you want to play in terms of the settings on your metronome. You may or may not want to spend time learning your passage from scratch as some familiarity with the piece is necessary to start increasing how fast you play it. By familiarity I mean the muscles in your fingers, hands and arms need to be able to play your piece without hesitation.

This is the next thing you require and to be able to play the guitar fast you need to practice playing slowly first. Make sure that the chosen exercise should neither be too simple or too difficult. That is why it makes sense to choose an exercise to practice rather than a song or a piece which has a prolonged solo segment.

Now you are beginning to see the way ahead, if you have your practice musical passage ready, check it with your metronome and make sure you know what your present speed is. Then take the metronome to a level, which is not very high, and aim to reach that level. There is something, which you should avoid at all costs: muscular tautness. To study playing guitar quick, the last thing you want is muscular tension. To avoid any stress and tautness, just forget the time you are taking to reach the metronome setting. The idea is not to actually play the guitar quicker at sometime in the future, but to work a little bit on playing quick every day.

Thus if you choose a specific musical passage to hasten your playing speed and practice it diligently every day, your playing speed is bound to increase. As soon as you find that you have developed the right kind of skills on a particular exercise, select another one, which is a higher level in terms of difficulty. The issue is to start by knowing where you stand now and then you’re ready to focus on a new goal which you’de like to reach in the near future.

Here’s a wee article I put together concerning my lifetime ambition, to become a great classical Guitar Player!Perhaps at this point in your life you have decided to learn to play classical guitar? Or perhaps a piece you want to match from one of your guitar heroes? Perhaps you want to emmulate the skills of one of your favorite guitar idols, or maybe instead you have a guitar that sits un-played in your home that you want to conquer. The music that we label classical has been around since the 15th century. To hear and see a master at work playing classical guitar music, it might be intimidating to a beginner, but that does not mean you cannot learn. Take a step, set your own steady pace, and don’t let fear hold you back from the craft you want to learn.

Many start their search on the World Wide Web, searching for internet pages that deal with guitar music. You should be able to find several websites which will give you background info, free tips, and guides to get you started. For a fee, you’ll find websites that will give courses online as well, through which you will pay for access to textbooks, and audio and video samples. Yet you may wish to stick to the free resources on the web until you are absolutely certain that you want to spend time and money on being skillful at playing classical guitar music. There’s also our own excellent Online Guitar Tutorial “Learn Guitar like a Pro“

Reading classical music can be a challenge, since unlike regular sheet music, you will probably see lots of special notations around the notes and staves that might confuse you at first. Typically, the better music books include a thorough explanation of those special symbols and what you need to do in order to play them. A major benefit of classical music being around for so long is that it makes the availability of sheet music very high. Because of the lack of copyright on many of these pieces, it is often part of public domain, which makes it inexpensive or free. As always, your best resource is frequently the internet.

Believe it or not, but your fingernails will play an essential role in your playing classical guitar music and it is suggested you grow out the fingernails on your strumming hand. The tone, volume, speed, and accuracy are some of the things that fingernails can affect. Since the nails can be viewed as an extension of the finger itself, it is only reasonable that the longer ones will make it easier to pick the strings. Learning classical guitar is the type of hobby that is made simpler through the wide availability of internet resources. Still, consider the fact that all musical instruments require your practice and dedication. That’t it for now folks, still very busy with the recording sessions, wish us luck, the Songs are sounding huge!

Dear Folks, our demented pals from the outrageous Jellybottys have, after about 20 years, decided to officially release their brilliant underground classic cult anthem about the legendery British Star wars and Hammer Horror Actor Peter Cushing. The song has just been featured on the top British comedy chat show Q.I. The hit TV show have put the song on their DVD series “C” release, which came out on monday, as a special feature. This has prompted the Jellybottys to get their ass in gear and make this excellent, stompy, sing a long anthem  available to the general public, that’s us! for the first time since they wrote the song in 1988, very young and living next door to the great Actor himself, in the little seaside town of Whitstable, England. The thing is with the Jellybottys, being creative geniuses, there is no sane way for them to do things, for example in the middle of the new re-recorded single 2008 version of the song, whilst carrying the giant, distinctive , almost traditional rock’n'roll guitar hook, they suddenly embark on a quick and really amazing classical Waltz, described by the band as “fitting for such a traditional old school master actor as Mr Cushing”. The guitar riffs are typical Deekstar, and if you download the 3 track EP, which has 3 completely different versions of the tune, you will hear anything from country to massive Glam Rock guitar playing going on, all at once, this guy doesn’t give a toss about tradition, he says he plays what pops up at the time, ceativity being born of the moment sort of thing. Typical too is their promotions of the song, here they have apparently employed the services of none other than the legend himself, Sean Connery, to sing the praises of the tune, hysterical, you should go and check this video and then the song out, you will hear how great fun and totally catchy an array of different, grand Guitar riffs can be. I personally like the original demo version, it’s huge and the middle eight sounds like the battle of the titans between 2 of deekstar’s different set guitars. amazing! I’ll leave you with the usual links to the tutorial and the Jellybottys Download Store and Video, until next time, thanks for visiting, boogie on! Best Guitar Lessons Online

Download Peter Cushing Lives in Whitstable Song Mp3 here!

The Jellybottys Sean Connery Video Promo for “The Peter Cushing Song”

Hiya all!, Sorry to not have updated for a while, we, the band, have been really busy recording loads of new material for an upcoming album and video release, stay tuned for that update when it’s hot off the press!. Just to keep things alive here in this Guitarist’s blogland, I’ve put together a wee article about one of our all time favourite axes, the Gibson. Hope you enjoy the history lesson, cheeers for now , speak soon, hopefully with some great new stories and insights;

Do you know that Gibson guitars have been around forever? It’s amusing, but although Gibson has produced some of the best guitars in history, perhaps the company’s biggest contribution to music has been through their advancements in coil pickup technology. Gibson’s first electrically charged guitar, the ES-150 was created in 1936, it is still considered to be one of the best sounding electric jazz guitars in the world.

A few years later, in 1946, Gibson introduced the P-90 single coil pickup, which was eventually used on the first ever Les Paul model in 1952. The Les Paul was Gibson’s first solid body electric guitar. Just after this, In 1957, Gibson introduced the legendary Humbucker pickup on the Les Paul model, and an instant legend was born thru much toil and tonal testing. The P-90 and the Humbucker quickly became the pickups of choice for Gibson’s expanding line of solid bodied electric guitars.

It was 1961 that marked the introduction of one of Gibson’s most successful models to date, the double cutaway SG. This was followed by the famous Firebird, and Flying V models, each of these Great Guitars a classic in itheir own right. In addition to electric instruments, Gibson produces some of the finest sounding acoustic guitars available.

The Gibson company has always had a commitment to excellence, and their support of top musicians the world over is demonstrated best through its well known Customisation Shop. This Custom Shop produces specialty instruments for some very popular artists, and discerning musicians alike. In addition to this, many better known historic classics have been skillfully reproduced by the Gibson Custom Shop, this has allowed a whole new generation of guitarists, like us lot of mad musical muppets, to experience Gibson’s brilliant guitar selections. Thanks for listening, TWANG!

As usual , here’s the link for the most popular downloadable Guitar tuition online at present;

Get Instant Guitar Lessons from a real professional now!

Why should we care about stringing our guitars properly you may ask. The reason is simple. It will make your sound better because if our guitar is properly strung, you will get a longer natural sustain. No effects pedal can reproduce this clean, natural sustain. Of course after we have this sustain we can play with it all we want with our effects pedals.
Many guitarist’s make the same mistake when stringing their guitars, they don’t wind enough of the string onto the tuning peg or they wind far too much causing a spaghetti junction scenario on the Tuning Peg.
Why would this seemingly simple thing so important? Basically the greater the angle between the nut (the top part of your guitar) and the tuning peg, the better the sustaining qualities of the string. Simply put, it makes you sound better.! and your strings will not go out of tune quite as fast. Of course you can always wind too much as well, and then the strings will tend to slip away out of tune easier. You want to have just the right amount of tension and angle.
I’ve put together these  7 tips in the hope it may help you string you geetar to the best possible sustain Here is how to How to string your guitar.

Step 1 – Take all the strings out of the package and lay them out from  thickest to thinnest string. When you buy your strings, always try and get the same gauge you’re guitar and yourself are used to, as changing the gauge could mean problems with intonation, and may require the truss rod to be adjusted back again.

Step 2 – Turn the tuning peg until the hole is straight in line with the neck.

Step 3 – Start with the thickest string – The low “E”,  and thread the string through the bridge (bottom part of the guitar where strings will fix themselves). Each guitar has a different way of doing this, but it is usually pretty easy to see where the strings go.

Step 4 – Next thread the string through the hole in the tuning peg and pull it tight. Now release the strings tension from your grip up about 3 inches so that it loosens, but still holding your string firmly

Step 5 – Grab the loose part of the string with one hand and with the other start to turn the tuning peg. As you’re  turning the peg, hold the string tightly away from the guitar body to insure that it’s wrapping itself tightly, allow no slack. This will stop the strings from going out of tune as you’re playing the guitar. When the string is getting tight against the fretboard, You can let go and continue to slowly wind the peg a little bit at a time  and then stop when you feel it is well and truly wound on nicely.

Step 6 – Make sure as you turn the peg sthat the strings are winding downward, try not to let it flip over itself. Your goal is tog at about 2 1/2 to 3 full winds on each string.

Step 7 – Repeat these steps with all your other strings, but decrease the amount of slack a little bit each time for each smaller sized string.
Happy Guitar stringing, Smithy, her’e the tutorial, Better Guitar Playing tactics

As mentioned by the nice guy who commented on the last post about practise time devotion, quote “some  14 year old players are putting us all to shame”,  with that in mind and I’ll now go and take up Flower arranging, check this young Brazillian Guitar nut out! enjoy!

Many guitarists ask me, after their first Guitar lesson, how long it will take them to become great at playing the guitar. I’ve never been able to answer this question exactly, it’s a mixture of many things. Your success or progress in playing the guitar depends totally on the effort and determination that you put into it. One of my favourite stories is about Steve Vie: he would get home after school, pick up his guitar and start to play. On the edge of the bed he would play until he fell asleep. Not just once in a while, almost every day. Of course, most of us wouldn’t have the luxury of so much time to practice our Guitar, but this little story illustrates that your playing ability and success is not completely dependant on your magical talent or burning desire, but on a lot of hard work. There isn’t an easy way into it, just commitment. Therefore, whatever you do, please don’t take up the guitar if you are only going to, or can only practice for an hour before your Guitar lessons! You’ll just annoy yourself, get frustrated and you might never get any better! Sorry to be blunt, but there you go, “heads down, no nonsense mindful boogie“, as a wise Guitar playing Monkey once said! Just to chear you up , here’s  Jimi Hendrix’s  song “Hey Joe” solo note for note along to the record and slowed down, without the backing track ,so you see exactly what’s going on, enjoy this wee, epic classic, until next time! Play on! As usual, here’s the Tuition course link “Learn to Play Amazing Guitar quickly“

I recently had the good fortune of visiting  my friends in Los Angeles. They are all Actors, Musicians, creative types ect. One evening we were sitting in a great little Italian or European Restaurant having some excellent food. The restaurant had allowed a Flamenco Guitarist into the restaurant to walk around and unobtrusively serenade the gathered munchers. At first I thought , brilliant some live Guitaring the old , classical , professional way, but as the evening progressed this Spanish Guitar player, who called himself Alberto, turned out to be a complete Virtuoso Flamenco Player. I will say now in all honesty, I have seen alot of the great rock guitarists that there are out there, but this guy was in another dimension. His playing sounded like 4 guys on a guitar at once! Further proof, if you learn to play your Guitar now , who knows where it may lead you in terms of Musical styles and genres. In conclusion, I would eat at this restaurant every night just to hear how it is done the right way, this Guitar guy Alberto was a true genius! By the bye, here’s another cool Music and Media site I stumbled upon recently, www.freemoviemp3.info

We were browsing thru the net and stumbled upon this little gem of a Guitar Auctions Site.It is basically ebay Musical Instruments, but obviously some webmaster has made it into a convenient little Website that is focused on just the Musical Instruments category. We spotted some excellent Guitar bargains on this site, maybe you will find some awesome Axe to inspire your playing, along with our Guitar Lessons programme, happy hunting, Smithy

visit;  Discount US Guitar Auctions