Techniques for the Advanced Acoustic Guitar Player

Learning all the notes and all the chords on the guitar is one thing. But there are certain techniques and tricks many people desire to do on the acoustic guitar other than just the basics. Some are simple, and some are far more difficult. Here are a few of them to practice before your next lesson.

Most people who play the acoustic guitar are familiar with the standard seven chords and can work their way around the neck of the guitar okay. But there are certain techniques and styles that are really difficult and take the knowledge of a skilled acoustic guitar instructor to learn.

The first one is called finger picking. Finger picking is a lot different than the standard strumming most people are used to. To strum, most people either use a pick or only use their thumb turned sideways. But with finger picking you are not just strumming all the strings, you are selectively plucking the string with multiple fingers on the strumming hand. This can be very difficult because the placement on your plucking hand has to be perfect, otherwise you will be plucking muted notes. It is a skill that takes a long time to master. But is one that can be learned quicker with a good acoustic guitar teacher.

Another technique that is cool with the acoustic guitar is the palm mute. A palm mute is traditionally used on the electric guitar. It is when the strumming hand rests on the bridge that is on the body of the guitar and mutes the strings. But the left hand can still hold down notes and chords. So when the strumming hand strums it makes this almost chunk sound. It is used a lot in the metal genre of music. But on the acoustic guitar it sounds equally as cool. Most people are familiar with the sound, whether they realize it or not, but few people have heard it on the acoustic guitar. So when you get comfortable doing it, you can bust out metal songs on the acoustic guitar and people will be blown away. It is a technique that any guitar teacher should be familiar with and should have no problem showing you. However it will take some time to get comfortable with. Most times beginners just mute the strings and allow no sound to come out. It is difficult to learn at first.

These are just a few techniques that any good acoustic guitar instructor should be able to show you. However they are not techniques that you will learn over night. They take a lot of time to master, but will sound amazing when that time comes. 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 is also a guitar teacher in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

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Acoustic Guitars - Techniques To Quick And Simple Guitar Playing

So now that you have your brand new guitar, the next question is where to start learning? There are hundreds of acoustic guitar lessons for beginners available both online and in the classroom. If you've been searching for the ultimate learn guitar fast lessons then you've probably found that everyone seems to have their own particular method for speeding up the learning process.

So what's the secret? Besides lots of daily practice and repetition there are several key areas that a starter should focus on in order to build a strong foundation of skills. Once you know certain key techniques, then you'll find that learning new songs or creating catchy riffs on your guitar comes naturally.

To help get you from complete beginner to playing like 'Carlos Santana' or 'Jack Johnson' here are a few key areas to start studying as well as some tips to speed up and maximize your efforts.

Slow and consistent - It might seem pretty obvious, but most people taking acoustic guitar lessons for beginners quickly get impatient and skim through the basic techniques. The truth is the more time you spend on really mastering the basics, such as chords and scales the faster you will improve when it comes to learning the more complex acoustic guitar skills. Set aside at least 2-3 hours each day in which to practice playing, with one day off so that you don't over do it and get bored.

8 main chords - Learning to play guitar chords is probably the most important area for beginners. There are about 60 popularly used chords and even these can be used to create new ones; that's a lot of patterns to remember. Though if you look at some songs they only use a combination of 5-6 major and minor chords, which sound good together. So for those of you wanting to start creating catchy guitar rhythms learn these 8 chords to begin with: A Major, C Major, D Major, E Major, G Major, A Minor, D Minor and E Minor. Once you've memorized each of these eight chords, practice changing between each of them until you can do it smoothly.

Learn Songs - This is usually the reason most people start learning the guitar, so that they can play their favorite songs. Learning other artist's songs is an important part of practice, it helps you learn chord combinations, scale arrangements and many other areas of song construction that are unique to the artist.

Table or notes - In the past all guitarists had to spend a significant amount of time and effort learning to read classic sheet music, which is not an easy task. Luckily for us a group of guitarists created 'table', a form of written notation that uses an easy to understand method to show the notes in a song. Like sheet music there are 6 lines representing the strings of the guitar from top to bottom, but instead of notes and marks numbers are printed to show the fret that needs to be pressed down. Table is so simple that you can learn it and start playing your favorite songs in about an hour or two, it has helped beginners ease the pressure of having to learn to play guitar notes right away.

Visit us and get our effective tips on Learning To Play Guitar Chords. Don't let your dream of becoming a great guitarist go to waste! Use your talents and conquer the guitar world.

Carlo Jimenez is a great musician who has a deep passion for music. You can visit him and find more about Acoustic Guitars. Check out his site and start Learning To Play Guitar Chords today.

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