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Guitar Strumming Basics

First things first…

Strumming, for a guitarist, generally is used specifically to refer to when a guitarist loosely plays a series of basic guitar chords with the same rhythmic set of up and down strokes.

One common mistake among beginner guitarists is to use guitar strumming patterns in place of proper rhythmic control or to try to regulate any guitar into a strumming pattern.  This is usually only used for more background rhythm parts, and shouldn’t be confused with acoustic guitar lessons on techniques that are intentionally more precise.Read More »Guitar Strumming Basics

DAF: Chord Fragments And Families

This chart gives you three chord/family fretboard positions that help you play chords and chord-based licks all over the fretboard in any key. You can move automatically from I-IV-V in three different places on the guitar (per key) using the same three or four note chord fragments you played when we discussed the DAF formation lesson.Read More »DAF: Chord Fragments And Families

Travis Picking

This style is commonly played on steel string acoustic guitars. Pattern picking is the use of “preset right-hand pattern[s]” while fingerpicking, with the left hand fingering standard chords. This involves playing a steady bass pattern with the thumb and filling out some syncopated rhythms with the fingers of the right hand (assuming a right handed guitarist). It is a great accompaniment style for folk and ragtime music among other styles.

The essence of the Travis pattern is the steady bass against the syncopated figure played with the fingers. The use of the term “syncopated” is perhaps stretching it a bit. This term refers to a rhythm that is “off beat” with reference to the basic pulse. In this case the overall rhythm of the Travis pattern is not syncopated, however when you break the pattern down into its two elements, one part (played with the thumb) is on the beat, and the other part (played with the fingers) is sometimes in between the beat, hence the term syncopated. It is important to understand however, that when both thumb and finger are working together this should not produce a off beat jerky rhythm but instead a lively yet comfortable feeling groove with a steady pulse.Read More »Travis Picking

Fingerstyle Guitar: Low Melody And High Melody

In this tutorial we’ll explore low melody and high melody by studying  a rendition of the song “Danny Boy” in which we’ve applied fingerstyle. The song snippet itself isn’t hard to play or even finger, but you’ll see that there are a quite a few note-related points of interest. This is VERY common in fingerstyle guitar. You really have to understand note values and how they relate, so I decided to add that right here before everything gets too complex. Before we begin this second introduction to fingerstyle guitar, we have to learn something very important.Read More »Fingerstyle Guitar: Low Melody And High Melody

Changing Electric Guitar Strings (Fender)

Changing electric guitar strings is not that hard and something you should become comfortable doing on your own. You should change your strings on a regular basis. For example, if you start to see an oily, dirty build up on your strings then you should probably change your strings. The dirt from your hands and fingers is collected by the strings and will kill your tone.

Active players or professional players may change their strings one a week or more, especially if they are playing in public. Some players change strings just before each show.

A Word About String Gauges

Strings come in variety of gauges. The gauge of the string tells you the thickness of the strings. The lower the gauge the thinner the strings, higher gauges mean thicker strings. Most manufactures display the gauge size by the size (diameter) of the high E string (the smallest string). Typical gauges run from .008 to .012.

Read More »Changing Electric Guitar Strings (Fender)