Click here to Learn How To Pluck

Alternate picking is an important skill, because it gives you the opportunity to play faster than with just down picking. The fundamental idea is that if you are just doing down strokes, each time you bring the pick back up to stroke down again, you are missing an opportunity to hit the string again. In actual fact it is well-organized, because you have to move your hand less distance to hit the next note, and it can be an important differentiation between hitting the note on time and struggling to reach it.

As along with other guitar skills, it doesn’t sound even a little complicated until you actually try and do it. It will take some time to master it and get really fast. After doing it for a long time, you will start to notice that you are subconsciously deciding whether to alternate pick or not, depending on the underlying rhythm. In the end alternate picking allows you to play more efficiently and thus more rapidly.

Hold the pick in whichever method feels best for you. Only the top of your pick should be seen and touch the string, because when you pick you cover less distance and use less energy. Your movement should only come from your wrist, not from your whole arm, and it should be precise. There are lots of ways to practice alternate picking, but really it is something that you have to merge into your entire guitar playing. Being able to alternate pick at the right time is a very important step, and it is one of the barriers that separate good guitar players and people who just play guitar.

The technique has several advantages and some disadvantages, for the most part depending on the licks the guitarist is attempting to play. For example, during fast passages, alternate picking is essential in keeping the picking arm from tiring out. At very high tempos, alternate picking is virtually required, since techniques like down picking are made highly infeasible.

On the other hand, large arpeggios (especially those spanning more than one octave) are very tricky to play using pure alternate picking and almost not possible to play at great speeds, which is why many guitarists choose to employ sweep picking to play these arpeggios (e.g. K. K. Downing, Frank Gambale & Mario Parga). Similarly, some kinds of licks are easier when played using such specialized techniques as legato, economy picking (a hybrid of alternate and sweep picking) or tapping.

Regardless of some of the well-known disadvantages of the technique, some guitarists (such as Al Di Meola, Steve Morse) emphasize the near-exclusive use of alternate picking, even in situations where another technique would be easier, claiming that pure alternate picking leads to a more consistent sound and allows for greater control of tone.

Here is the catch that most beginners don’t realize when they start practicing this techniqe, in order to call the technique alternate picking you need to continuously alternate the picking direction regardless of string change or anything else. The cool thing it is that every note has a very clear definition, especially when playing fast runs, where in economy picking those sweep picked notes are “blended” thus creating a smoother sound which sometimes is not the best solution for a particular style of soloing.

Alternate Picking For Acoustic Guitar is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

First, you need to work on guitar positioning. You can either use the classical position if you’re playing seriously or the casual position. I prefer to use the classical position because it’s more comfortable and easier to play with rather than using the casual position.

Every finger on our right hand has designated strings to pluck. Each finger needs to accurately pluck the assigned string. The thumb is assigned to the bass notes or bass strings or simply the E, A, and D keys. The index finger or pointer finger is assigned to G string, the middle finger is assigned to the B string, and lastly, the ring finger is assigned to the e string. The pinky is occasionally used to play high notes but it is up to you if you want to use it and if you feel like you need to.

Now that you need the assigned strings for each finger, all you need to do is practice it with an easy song that has a slow tempo. Practicing on plucking with a song that has slow tempo will help you improve on your plucking skills. Once you master the plucking technique, you’ll just realize that you are plucking the song without any trouble. However, if you skip this step and practiced on fast songs, I am definitely sure that you will have a lot of trouble and it will be very time consuming.

While practicing, also try to be accurate and clean in doing chords with your left hand so that the sound that will be produced will be relaxing and nice to hear. Also, when playing the bass notes, always try or let them ring so that the song that you’re playing will be nicer to hear. Otherwise it will sound dry and lacking.

When you think you are good enough and can pluck fast songs, you should go for it but expect that it will be harder to learn, so, an extra effort and patience is needed to learn properly.

by: A.J. Dean

Acoustic Guitar Lessons – How to Pluck is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

There are five main things that you need to understand to learn in playing acoustic guitar.

Understand what acoustic guitar is and how it works.

Before you start learning the tabs and chords, you will have to understand first what are the basic parts of the guitar and its functions.  But let us discuss only the most important parts.

Tuning keys – These are located at the headstock and is used for tuning the guitar. This is the most sensitive part of the guitar and you should avoid touching it unless you are tuning the strings.

Bridge – This is located at the top portion of the guitar. This is where the head of the strings are fastened to be connected to the tuning keys.

Body -  The upper portion of the guitar body where the guitar rossette and sound hole is located.

Frets – These are spaces between the vertical “metallic lines” found at neck of the guitar. It is where you place your fingers and hand for the chords.

Strings – These are the flexible metallic wires which are fastened at the Bridge and the Tuning Keys. They are the one that produces the sound when strummed or plucked.

Understanding guitar tab

Guitar tabs are used in learning the guitar chords and reading guitar notes. They are very helpful to guitar players when they are are learning songs. Therefore, in order to effectively learn and read notes, you must first understand what guitar tab is.

To start with, guitar tabs consists of six lines, each representing a string of the guitar. Normally, the lines are laid out as if you are a right handed and you are playing the guitar. The vertical lines are the bars in the actual guitar and each bar is one measure.

There are still many lessons about guitar tabs. We will cover them later in our future articles. But at least you know what it is and how it is represented in the actual acoustic guitar.

Changing from one chord to another.

It is a common struggle for guitar students how to change one chord to another by quickly transferring their hand and finger position.

Smooth chord changes can be achieved by practice. Just know that it is not something that cannot be overcome. You can start by mastering the hand and finger position in each chord. If you get use to each positions, it will not be too difficult to quickly switch to another chord.

Secondly, practice your strumming. Strumming the guitar and getting the right beat for each song is quite difficult to do, especially that each song has different beat and different styles. But this again can be accomplished by consistent practice.

Even the professional guitarists try to learn the beat and styles of each song that they are playing. Once you get the beat and the style, all you have to do is to combine your skill of quick chord transition with the beat and style of strumming. Add a little grace in hand changes, and you'll have a smooth chord transition.

Basic strumming

As I mentioned earlier, learning how to strum is quite difficult to learn. But again, it is not something that can't be overcome. To enhance your skill on this, you can start by  learning the beat and style of each song. For beginners, a simple up and down strumming will do. After a week when you are used to up and down hand movement, add a little beat variation until you have mastered how to add some styles.

But the main secret of strumming better is listening to the music carefully. Putting yourself on the beat itself while slowly following it. One of the best ways to do this is with a friend teaching you how to play guitar.

Learning to play songs and putting it all together. 

You can now follow the beat and you can now change from one kind of strumming to another. You also have learned how to do chord transition smoothly. Now is the time to put it all together.

Choose simple songs first (slower ones). Those songs will be the first few songs that you will master. Try to add one song each week until you are used to slower tempo. Then as time goes by, add some faster tempo to your collection and so on and so forth.

Final thoughts

Playing acoustic guitar is a great hobby and skill to develop. It is something that is very useful and is a great way to  express yourself. Learning how to play guitar is not an easy task, but it is doable through practice.

Practice makes perfect. As you continue to practice, your skill level will continue to rise and will be refined. This may take a while to achieve, but you'll find out that you get better and better everytime you put your hands on the guitar and play.

How To Play Acoustic Guitar is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

D# or Eb Major
Put your first finger on the first fret of the D string. Carefully put your second finger on the third fret of the G string then put your middle finger on the third fret of the e string and lastly put your ring finger on the fourth fret of the B string.

E Major
You need to put your first finger or your pointer on the first fret of the G string, and then put your middle finger on the second fret of A string, and lastly, put your ring finger on the second fret of D string.

F Major
The first finger is barred over the first fret, then put second finger or middle finger on the second fret of the G string, then put the ring finger at the third fret of the A string, and lastly, put your pinky on the third fret of the D string.

F# or Gb Major
You need to bar the second fret with your first finger covering all the strings from E to e. After that, simply put your middle finger on the third fret of the G string. Next one is to put your remaining fingers on the fourth frets of both A and D string.

G Major
Put your pointer finger on the second fret of the A string then put your middle finger on the third fret of the E string and then put either your ring finger or pinky on the third fret of the e string.

A Major
First you need to put your second finger or the middle finger on the second fret of the D string then carefully put your ring finger on the second fret of G string, and lastly, put your pinky on the second fret of the B string.

A# or Bb Major
Bar the first fret of A string to e string using your pointer finger. Then, put your second finger or the middle finger on the third fret of the D string then carefully put your ring finger on the third fret of G string, and lastly, put your pinky on the third fret of the B string.

B Major
Your first finger should be barred over the second fret starting from the A string down to e string. Then, put your need to put your second finger or the middle finger on the fourth fret of the D string then put your ring finger on the fourth fret of G string, and lastly, put your pinky on the fourth fret of the B string.

Below is a chord chart from www.io.com

Acoustic Guitar Chords is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

CD & Guitar Tabs available at www.candyrat.com Also available on itunes and amazon Visit Ewan Dobson at http and www.myspace.com

Ewan Dobson – Time 2 – Guitar is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic or Electric Guitar Chucking Rhythm Strum Lesson is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

FULL COURSE: truefire.at More free guitar lessons: bit.ly TrueFire on Facebook: www.facebook.com Virtuoso acoustic wizard and fingerstyle master, Tim Sparks presents Fingerstyle Roots, Rags & Blues, an insightful exploration of Early Americana Roots music and intensive fingerstyle study program for intermediate and advanced students. Fingerstyle Roots, Rags & Blues covers Delta Blues, Country Gospel, New Orleans, Ragtime, Early Jazz and the most amazing version of “The Mississippi Blues” that we’ve ever seen performed or heard here at TrueFire. The tunes in this collection evoke a time when American Roots music crystallized and was transformed by the effects of recordings and radio. Some of these selections were written for guitar, others are adaptations from piano and jazz band arrangements. A long list of Roots Music fingerstyle guitarists particularly influenced the material covered in Fingerstyle Roots, Rags & Blues; Duck Baker, Pat Donohue, Woody Mann, Steve James, Eric Lugosch, Eric Schonberg, Ernie Hawkins, Dakota Dave Hull, Phil Heywood, Guy van Duser, Lasse Johansson, Andy Ellis and Teja Gerken. Tim Sparks has been redefining the acoustic guitar repertoire since he won the US National Fingerstyle Championship in 1993 with a ground-breaking arrangement of Tchaikovskys Nutcracker Suite. Since then, Sparks has continued to surprise, challenge, and thrill audiences with his diverse repertoire and stunning technique. Equally at home within the Country Blues, Ragtime …

Acoustic Guitar Lessons – Fingerstyle Roots, Rags, & Blues – Mississippi Blues 6 is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

www.guitar-in-a-nutshell.com – What to learn acoustic guitar with the best BREAKTHROUGH method on the web? Check out Guitar in a Nutshell

Guitar Lessons For Beginners – Spanish Guitar Lesson – Learn Guitar – Acoustic Guitar Lessons is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

TABS ARE ON THE WEBSITE FOR THE MELODY PARTS www.guitar-in-a-nutshell.com – What to learn acoustic guitar with the best BREAKTHROUGH method on the web? Check out Guitar in a Nutshell

How To Play SWEET CHILD O MINE On Acoustic Guitar – Learn Guitar Lessons For Beginners Songs is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar

www.nextlevelguitar.com Click thelink above to receive free exclusive videos, newsletters, and lots more free guitar and music goodies from Next Level Guitar. In this intermediate video guitar lesson we teach how to embellish your rhythm playing by hammering on chord shapes. All chords written out in text and can be viewed with up close shots of the neck to make learning easy and fun Many more full on video lessons as well as a FREE 3-day all access site pass at the full on video instructional website at: www.nextlevelguitar.com

Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Lesson Hammer on Chord Shapes Create Melody is a post from: Learn Acoustic Guitar