Start With Easy Guitar Songs

With all the musical instruments we hear every day, one seems to stand out for the majority of people, and that is the guitar. This is one of the reasons why there are more and more people willing to learn to play the guitar. Some may have other reasons why they want to study the craft; they probably want to join a rock band or something. But whatever the reason is, the goal remains the same, and that is learning and improving their guitar playing skills. To be able to improve, you will need to put time and effort in practicing and to be able to do this you will need good guitar material and easy guitar songs to work with.

Performing solo performances for a live audience can be quite nerve wracking especially if you are still a beginner. But this is something that you really need to build your confidence. Once you hear the audience liking your music, it is a big motivator for you to improve on your skills and learn to play easy guitar songs. It is very important that you master playing your guitar alone first before you try joining a band. A solo performance is very different as every string you are playing is clearly heard by your audience, and as mentioned, you will build your confidence through playing solo. Unlike in a band, if you make a mistake it's not going to be too obvious.

So what should you do to be able to improve your solo guitar skills? The first thing is to get your basic skills locked down. You always need to start with the basics by studying and mastering the chords, strumming pattern and basic playing techniques. Don't quickly jump to playing easy guitar songs if you have not memorized your basic chords yet. Give time practicing finger position drills and switching chords, this way, you can get to memorize the chords and your finger will get use to the positions as they can be very stiff at first.

The next way to improve on your skills is to start practicing on easy guitar songs. With the help of easy guitar songs, your guitar skills will improve faster especially with your solo playing. With easy guitar songs, you will be able to practice switching chords, chord recognition and smooth progressions. You can now put everything that you've previously learned in application.

You can find hundreds of easy guitar songs in the Internet and you can choose something that is very familiar to you like an old classic. There are many websites out there that aims to help beginners get better in their solo playing guitar skills.

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Why You Should Start Teaching Guitar Lessons

There are tons of good guitar players in the world today, but not very many good guitar teachers. Maybe that's because being a good teacher requires a different set of skills. It takes more than just expertise on the guitar... being a good teacher also requires patience, courage and a little knowledge about psychology to help someone truly learn to play well.

If you're like think most guitar players, maybe you would love to teach other people how to play, but you tried it once and it didn't go so well. Or maybe you're afraid of the pressure, afraid of disappointing people or afraid of failing. Please don't let your fear or past experiences stand in the way...you can be a great guitar teacher, make a good living and avoid all the trouble often associated with teaching music if you approach it the smart way.

One reason you should consider teaching the guitar is that you can spend your time doing something you love. Everyone else in the world works at a job all day so they can have the money to do what they really want to do... what they're passionate about. Wouldn't it be awesome to spend your time playing the guitar with people instead? This will also improve your playing skills, since you'll be explaining and demonstrating various music concepts on your guitar. Doing that will really reinforce them for you and help you better integrate them into your own guitar playing.

Another huge benefit to teaching guitar is that you can totally replace your day job. If you've ever wanted to be a full-time musician, teaching is the fastest way to do it. You can also make more money, set your own hours and be your own boss. You would be respected as an expert and a small business owner in your local community. If you're also a gigging musician, you can schedule your lessons around your performances and design the kind of life you want to live. You can even do tax write-offs for your music equipment.

Probably the biggest reason you should look into teaching guitar is the significance and fulfillment it would bring into your life. Believe it or not, the world needs you and what you have to give. There are a bunch of good people out there who would love to learn how to play the guitar, but many of them try to teach themselves and they give up. Many of them reach out for help and hire a teacher, but there are not many good teachers. One of the biggest things you can do to help music, and the guitar in general, is to become a teacher who knows how to help your students get results. You would be bringing joy and meaning into the lives of your students that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

So consider teaching guitar, even if you only do it part time an hour or two each week. It could be exactly what you've been looking for.

If you would like more information about becoming a guitar teacher, please check out Start Teaching Guitar at http://www.startteachingguitar.com/ for free resources, lesson plans and help to get you started on the right track.

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Want to Learn Guitar? Start With the Basics

When learning how to play the guitar, knowing the basics is the key. You must learn all the notes that make up the neck, then learn the chords, then finally use the combination of notes and chords to make music.

But before any of that fun stuff can happen, one must know the guitar, all the parts that make it up, what purpose they all serve, and finally how to use them in the proper manner. That is what this article is going to teach you. It is going to break down the main parts of the guitar itself. This is the first thing any aspiring guitar player should read before even picking up the instrument. The next would be finding a good acoustic guitar instructor.

The standard guitar is made up of three main parts, the body, the neck and the head. For the sake of this article we will be talking about the acoustic guitar because it is better for beginners to get comfortable with this type of guitar as oppose to an electric guitar.

The Body - The body of the guitar is the heart of the instrument. It is where the sound is generated and where the strumming hand actually plays. The body consists of a hollow shell with a hole in it. The six standard strings run across the hole. Here is where the strumming hand does its work. When the strings are strummed, the sound echoes around in the body and leaves through the hole, thus generating sound. This use of echoes is known as acoustics, thus the name the acoustic guitar.

The Neck - Leading off of the body is the neck of the guitar. The neck is where the individual notes and chords are created. Running the length of the neck is what is known as the fret board. This board contains metal bars that run perpendicular to the strings. When the guitar player holds down a string between two frets and strums, a note is created. Most guitars have between 18-21 frets. The closer the frets are to the body, the higher the pitch.

The Head - The head is the last part of the guitar. This where the tuning knobs are. The standard six string guitar will have six tuning knobs, one for each string. It is here where the guitar play will adjust and set up their guitar for whatever tuning they wish to play in.

Though this is just a basic outline of what a guitar actually is, it is very crucial to the learning process. It is more important to lean guitar properly that quickly. Happy strumming.

Benjamin J. Cloyd is a guitar instructor and has a website called best acoustic songs where you can find and print great songs for beginners to intermediate to advanced. He also has a humorous clothing line for musicians at Music Tshirts ETC.

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Where to Start If You Are a Beginner and Want to Learn Guitar Chords

Have you ever been wishful to learn to play guitar just after watching a great concert by a famous rock band? Have you ever felt like just grabbing a guitar and playing beautiful music straight from the heart? Well, certainly many people do feel that way because music has great impact on their lives. The guitar is one very common musical instrument found widely in every country and it even comes in many kinds. However, if you want to master it you need to put a lot of work and dedication, and the first step is to learn guitar chords.

First and foremost, you should have the desire to learn how to play the guitar before being able to learn guitar chords. Mindset is everything. Not only when it comes to guitar playing, but in many areas of life. The desire connotes to being patient and persevering in taking the lessons. You can get some lessons online through videos and audios that offer tutorials for free or with a small fee. So basically, the intense of your interest in learning to play guitar and its chords really does matter. Purchasing the guitar is, of course, the first step, but after doing that you are right away all set up to learn guitar chords.

The very first basic chord patterns you have to learn are the C, A, G, E and D major guitar chords (also known as "CAGED"). Once again, these are the most basic easy chords that you will encounter. These chords can help you in building the strength and endurance in your fingers especially when moving your hand up and down the fretboard as you play along. Interestingly, once you're comfortable with playing these chords, you can already perform a couple of pretty good songs that you will surely enjoy. Therefore, I suggest that you first practice these five basic guitar chords and memorize them until you are able to play them in a smooth sequence.

If you want to be able to play guitar chords there's basically one crucial thing for you to master. You have to get familiar with chord diagrams and their construction. To describe this to you, the guitar chord diagram has six vertical lines that represent the six strings. And the horizontal lines indicate frets except for the top line which is the head of the guitar. You can actually find these diagrams in any song book or handbook usually located at the back portion.

Sometimes you can stumble upon reversed chord diagrams. Ones where vertical lines represent frets, and horizontal lines represent strings. Fortunately, chord diagrams are usually well described to prevent any kind of confusion.

The black dots (or full dots, depending on the design) that are found in the diagram instruct you on what fret and string to place your fingertips on. The white dots (or empty dots) tell you to play the open string which means the string is strummed without being fingered on the fretboard. There are also diagrams that show numbers on the black dots to indicate what finger to use in pressing a string.

Finally, you should always keep in mind that guitar chord diagrams are all the resources you need to help you to learn new chords, chord progression and the rhythm parts of the song. The capacity to understand and read the guitar chord diagrams does not require the ability to interpret musical notes. So be positive in knowing that you can learn to play guitar, at least the basics of it, in a short span of time.

Now the best part. If you want to learn guitar chords in a friendly environment then feel free to visit my blog (the link earlier in the sentence) and receive some handy charts of 101 Basic Guitar Chords - it's free.

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