You'll get expert advice on the basics, like deciding what kind of bass to buy and which accessories are necessary and which are just nice to have. Plus, you'll get step-by-step instructions for getting started, from how to hold and position your bass to reading notation and understanding chords, scales, and octaves to playing solos and fills.
Access to audio tracks and instructional videos on Dummies. While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product. The bestselling guide now updated with video demonstrations and audio tracks online The guitar is one of the most versatile instruments in the world, which is why it's so appealing to musicians.
Guitar For Dummies, 4th Edition gives you everything a beginning or intermediate acoustic or electric guitarist needs: from buying a guitar to tuning it, playing it, and caring for it. Fully revised and updated, with online video and audio clips that help you learn and play along, you'll explore everything from simple chords and melodies to more challenging exercises that are designed to satisfy players of all levels.
Additionally, new players can dive into the basics of guitar and accessory selection. Whether you prefer the cool sounds of the acoustic or the edgier tones of the electric, your guitar will get a lot of use as you play your way through the lessons presented in this integral book. But your journey doesn't stop at the last page! With an updated multimedia component, you have access to more than 80 online videos and 35 audio tracks that help build your talent.
Play along with online videos and audio tracks to develop and reinforce your new skills Tune your guitar, change strings, and make simple repairs to keep your instrument in working order Choose the right guitar and equipment for your needs Explore numerous musical styles, including rock, blues, jazz, and country Guitar For Dummies, 4th Edition guides you in the development of your strumming talent—and who knows where that can take you! Mandolin Exercises For Dummies focuses on the skills that players often find challenging and provides tips, tricks and plenty of cool exercises that will have you picking with the best of them—or at least much better than before!
Mandolin Exercises For Dummies is packed with instruction—from hundreds of exercises to drills and practice pieces.
And it gets better. You'll also have online access to downloadable audio files for each exercise, making this practice-based package a complete mandolin companion. Brush up on guitar notation, wake up your fingers, and develop strength, speed, and dexterity. With more than exercises in various keys, drills to perfect your playing, tips to maximize your practice time, and performance pieces to test your expanding skills, you'll be strumming the strings like a pro in no time.
A review of the fundamentals How to release tension and improve breathing Technique building exercises Scales, scale sequences, arpeggios, arpeggio sequences, and chords Ways to improve your musicianship. Refine your technique with bass guitar exercises Practice tempo, time signature, phrasing, and dynamics Apply bass fundamentals to playing a groove The fun and easy way to lay down a groove The bass guitar serves as the foundation for almost every popular style of music — from rock to country, jazz to funk.
Regardless of your preferred musical style, this hands-on guide provides tips and drills designed to help improve your playing ability. These exercises get you started with bass guitar fundamentals, like playing scales, chords, and arpeggios. Move on to sharpen your skills as you play grooves and melodies in different styles.
Whether you're just getting started or an experienced bassist looking to stretch your playing skills, this is the book for you! Inside… Tips for correct hand and body posture Methods for getting comfortable with scales Hints for developing a complete practice session Ways to apply the exercises to making great music Workouts for stronger playing.
This book is an easy how-to that every bass player can appreciate. Pick up your copy today. If you think this book seems familiar, you're probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Bass Guitar Exercises For Dummies The book you see here shouldn't be considered a new or updated product.
But if you're in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We're always writing about new topics! Want to become the coolest possible version of yourself? Time to jump into learning the blues guitar. Blues Guitar for Dummies covers the key aspects of blues guitar, showing you how to play scales, chords, progressions, riffs, solos, and more.
This hands-on guide is packed with musical examples, chords charts, and photos that let you explore the genre and play the songs of all the great blues musicians. This accessible how-to book will give you the skills you need to: Choose the right guitar, equipment, and strings Hold, tune, and get situated with your guitar Play barre chords and strum to the rhythm Recognize the structure of a blues song Tackle musical riffs Master melodies and solos Make your guitar sing, cry, and wail Jam to any type of blues Additionally, the book comes with a website that shares audio samples of all the examples covered in the lessons.
Go online to practice your riffs and chords and develop your style as a blues musician. Order your copy of Blues Guitar For Dummies today and get ready to start shredding! The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Blues Guitar For Dummies Make your music come alive with this indispensable guitar guide There's no denying that guitar players have cachet. The guitar is an ever-present part of our collective musical heritage, and the sound can be sensual, aggressive, or a million things in between.
Even once you can run, you need something to help you clear hurdles along the way. It's your complete compendium of guitar instruction, written in clear, concise For Dummies style. It covers everything from positioning and basic chords to guitar theory and playing styles, and even includes maintenance advice to keep your instrument sounding great. The list goes on. Playing acoustic guitar can make you the star of the vacation campfire singalong.
And playing any kind of guitar can bring out the music in your soul and become a valued lifetime hobby. About This Book Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition, delivers everything the beginning to intermediate guitarist needs: From buying a guitar to tuning the guitar, to playing the guitar, to caring for the guitar, this book has it all! Finding a guitar Believe it or not, many would-be guitarists never really get into playing because they have the wrong guitar. Or maybe the strings are too difficult to push down causing a great deal of pain.
Chant this mantra until you believe it, because this principle is central to the design of Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition. One of the coolest things about the guitar is that, even though you can devote your lifetime to perfecting your skills, you can start faking it rather quickly. So how does Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition, deliver? Glad you asked. Fingerings that you need to know appear in photos in the book. Just form your hands the way we show you in the photos.
You can listen to all the songs and exercises on the CD in the back of the book. Doing so is important for a couple of reasons: You can figure out the rhythm of the song as well as how long to hold notes by listening instead of reading. Pretty cool, huh? Caring for your guitar A serious guitar is a serious investment, and, as with any other serious investment, you need to maintain it. Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition, provides the information you need to correctly store, maintain, and care for your six-string, including how to change strings and what little extras to keep stashed away in your guitar case.
Gee, this is a pretty equal-opportunity book! Okay, we do assume some things. We assume that you want to play a guitar, not a banjo, Dobro, or mandolin, and we concentrate on the six-string variety. And we assume that you want to start playing the guitar quickly, without a lot of messing around with reading notes, clefs, and time signatures. Our main focus is helping you make cool, sweet music on your six-string. You also have our permission to skip over the gray-shaded sidebars you find in some chapters.
Conventions We Use in This Book This book has a number of conventions that we use to make things consistent and easy to understand. We apologize to those left-handed readers who are using this book, and we ask that you folks read right hand to mean left hand and vice versa. If we say to go down or lower on the neck, we mean toward the headstock, or lower in pitch.
If we ever mean anything else by these terms, we tell you. Those of you who hold your guitar with the headstock tilted upward may need to do a bit of mental adjustment whenever you see these terms. How This Book Is Organized We separate the book into two distinct kinds of chapters: information chapters and playing chapters. Information chapters tell you stuff about the nuts Introduction and bolts of the guitar, such as how to tune the guitar, select the right guitar, and care for the guitar.
The playing chapters provide you with the information you need to you guessed it play the guitar. Each playing chapter contains exercises that enable you to practice the skill we discuss in that particular section. And at or near the end of each playing chapter, you find a section of songs that you can play that use the techniques in that chapter.
We divide the chapters in Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition, into eight logical parts for easier access. The parts are organized as follows: Part I: So You Wanna Play Guitar Part I provides three information chapters on some guitar basics that you need to know before you can start playing.
Chapter 1 helps you understand what to call the various parts of the guitar, and what they do. Chapter 2 tells you how to tune the guitar, both in reference to itself and to a fixed source — such as a tuning fork, piano, or electronic tuner — so that you can be in tune with other instruments. Chapter 3 covers the basic skills you need to know to be successful in this book, such as how to read guitar tablature, how to pick and strum, and how to produce a clean, clear, buzz-free tone.
Chapter 4, the first playing chapter, shows you the easiest way to start playing real music — with major and minor chords. Chapter 5 goes over how to play simple melodies by using single notes, and Chapter 6 adds a little bit of oomph with some basic 7th chords.
Chapter 7 provides you with the techniques that you use in playing in position, which not only makes you sound cool, but makes you look cool, too. Chapter 8 tells you about playing barre chords, which refers to using one finger to lay across all the strings and then making chords in front of that finger. Chapter 9 goes into some special techniques for creating particular guitar effects, all with pretty cool-sounding names such as hammer-ons, bends, and slides.
Chapter 10, about the rock style, tells you about playing lead by using the pentatonic minor scale, playing solos in a box, and other rock stylings. Chapter 11, on blues, provides more lead boxes and special blues articulations and tells you how to get your mojo working. Chapter 13, on classical guitar, introduces you to techniques necessary to play Bach and Beethoven.
Chapter 14, the jazz chapter, presents jazz chords, rhythm playing, and soloing. Chapter 15 covers finding not only your first practice guitar, but also finding the second and third guitars often more difficult decisions than your first. Chapter 16, on guitar accessories, gives you a primer on guitar amps, and goes over the little extras you need for a well-rounded assortment of equipment. Also included are two chapters on how to care for your guitar.
Chapter 18 covers the basic maintenance and repairs that can save you money at the guitar store and keep you playing well into the night. Chapter 19 should inspire you with ten great guitarists. And, Chapter 20, on ten classic guitars, may lure you to your local guitar store to acquire one of these babies for yourself.
Appendix A succinctly explains what all those strange symbols on the staff mean and tells you just enough about reading music to get you by.
Appendix B provides a handy table of 96 of the most commonly used chords. And Appendix C tells you about the CD that accompanies this book. Icons Used in This Book In the margins of this book, you find several helpful little icons that can make your journey a little easier: Skip to a real song for some instant guitar gratification.
Something to write down on a cocktail napkin and store in your guitar case. The whys and wherefores behind what you play. The theoretical and, at times, obscure stuff that you can skip if you so desire.
Expert advice that can hasten your journey to guitar excellence. Yet, at the same time, you can also follow along from front to back and practice the guitar in a way that builds step-by-step on your previous knowledge.
Then browse through Chapter 3 on developing the skills that you need to play and dive straight in to Chapter 4. Moreover, you should stick to Chapter 4 until you start to form calluses on your fingers, which really help you to make the chords sound right without buzzing. After you buy your ax, you can get on with playing, which is the real fun after all, right? Finally, consult Chapter 3 or the card located in the seat pocket in front of you to review important operator information prior to actually engaging the instrument.
Sit back. The following sections describe the differences among the various parts of the guitar and tell you what those parts do. We also tell you how to hold the instrument and why the guitar sounds the way it does. Anatomy of a Guitar Guitars come in two basic flavors: acoustic and electric. From a hardware standpoint, electric guitars have more components and doohickeys than do acoustic guitars.
Guitar makers generally agree, however, that making an acoustic guitar is harder than making an electric guitar. But both types follow the same basic approach to such principles as neck construction and string tension. Figures and show the various parts of an acoustic and electric guitar. Also called the tremolo bar, whammy bar, vibrato bar, and wang bar.
On an electric, it consists of the housing for the bridge assembly and electronics pickups as well as tone and volume controls. On acoustic-electrics acoustic guitars with built-in pickups and electronics , the pin often doubles as the output jack where you plug in.
The fingerboard is also known as the fretboard, because the frets are embedded in it. The strings pass through the grooves on their way to the tuners in the headstock. The nut is one of the two points at which the vibrating area of the string ends.
The other is the bridge. Not all acoustics have a strap pin. If the guitar is missing one, tie the top of the strap around the headstock.
See Chapter 17 for more information on changing strings. On an electric, the top is merely a cosmetic or decorative cap that overlays the rest of the body material. The string wraps tightly around a post that sticks out through the top, or face, of the headstock. The post passes through to the back of the headstock, where gears connect it to a tuning key. Also known as tuners, tuning pegs, tuning keys, and tuning gears. How Guitars Work After you can recognize the basic parts of the guitar, you may also want to understand how those parts work together to make sound in case you happen to choose the parts of a guitar category in Jeopardy!
We present this information just so that you know why your guitar sounds the way it does, instead of like a kazoo or an accordion. The important thing to remember is that a guitar makes the sound, but you make the music. Chapter 1: Guitar String vibration and string length Any instrument must have some part of it moving in a regular, repeated motion to produce musical sound a sustained tone, or pitch.
In a guitar, this part is the vibrating string. A string that you bring to a certain tension and then set in motion by a plucking action produces a predictable sound — for example, the note A. If you tune a string of your guitar to different tensions, you get different tones.
The greater the tension of a string, the higher the pitch. They do so by fretting — pacing back and forth and mumbling to themselves. In guitar-speak, fretting refers to pushing the string against the fretboard so that it vibrates only between the fingered fret metal wire and the bridge.
This way, by moving the left hand up and down the neck toward the bridge and the nut, respectively , you can change pitches comfortably and easily. The fact that smaller instruments such as mandolins and violins are higher in pitch than are cellos and basses and guitars, for that matter is no accident. Their pitch is higher because their strings are shorter. The string tension of all these instruments may be closely related, making them feel somewhat consistent in response to the hands and fingers, but the drastic difference in string lengths is what results in the wide differences of pitch among them.
This principle holds true in animals, too. A Chihuahua has a higher-pitched bark than a St. Bernard because its strings — er, vocal cords — are much shorter. Using both hands to make a sound The guitar normally requires two hands working together to create music. A preschooler can sound just like Horowitz if playing only middle C, because just one finger of one hand, pressing one key, makes the sound.
The guitar is somewhat different. To play middle C on the guitar, you must take your left-hand index finger and fret the 2nd string that is, press it down 15 16 Part I: So You Wanna Play Guitar to the fingerboard at the first fret. You must then strike or pluck that 2nd string with your right hand to actually produce the note middle C audibly.
Music readers take note: The guitar sounds an octave lower than its written notes. For example, playing a written, third-space C on the guitar actually produces a middle C. Frets and half steps The smallest interval unit of musical distance in pitch of the musical scale is the half step. On the piano, the alternating white and black keys represent this interval except for the places where you find two adjacent white keys with no black key in between.
To proceed by half steps on a keyboard instrument, you move your finger up or down to the next available key, white or black. On the guitar, frets — the horizontal metal wires or bars that you see embedded in the fretboard, running perpendicular to the strings — represent these half steps. To go up or down by half steps on a guitar means to move your left hand one fret at a time, higher or lower on the neck. Pickups Vibrating strings produce the different tones on a guitar.
But you must be able to hear those tones, or you face one of those if-a-tree-falls-in-a-forest questions. But an electric guitar makes virtually no acoustic sound at all. Well, a tiny bit, like a buzzing mosquito, but nowhere near enough to fill a stadium or anger your next-door neighbors. An electric instrument creates its tones entirely through electronic means. Instead, the vibrations disturb, or modulate, the magnetic field that the pickups — wire-wrapped magnets positioned underneath the strings — produce.
If you remember from eighth-grade science, wrapping wire around a magnet creates a small current in the wire. If you then take any magnetic substance and disturb the magnetic field around that wire, you create fluctuations in the current itself. A taut steel string vibrating at the rate of times per second creates a current that fluctuates times per second.
For more on tuning, see Chapter 2. Guitars, therefore, make sound either by amplifying string vibrations acoustically by passing the sound waves through a hollow chamber , or electronically by amplifying and outputting a current through a speaker. How a guitar produces different sounds — and the ones that you want it to make — is up to you and how you control the pitches that those strings produce. Left-hand fretting is what changes these pitches.
Your right-hand motions not only help produce the sound by setting the string in motion, but they also determine the rhythm the beat or pulse , tempo the speed of the music , and feel interpretation, style, spin, magic, mojo, je ne sais quoi, whatever of those pitches. Put both hand motions together, and they spell music — make that guitar music.
And the task is never fun. Unlike the piano, which a professional tunes and you never need to adjust until the next time the professional tuner comes to visit, the guitar is normally tuned by its owner — and it needs constant adjusting.
One of the great injustices of life is that, before you can even play music on the guitar, you must endure the painstaking process of getting your instrument in tune. Fortunately for guitarists, you have only six strings as opposed to the couple hundred of a piano. Also encouraging is the fact that you can use several different methods to get your guitar in tune, as this chapter describes. Before you can tune your guitar, you need to know how to refer to the two main players — strings and frets.
The 1st string is the skinniest, located closest to the floor when you hold the guitar in playing position. Working your way up, the 6th string is the fattest, closest to the ceiling. Whenever you deal with guitar fingering, fret means the space in between the metal bars — where you can comfortably fit a left-hand finger.
The first fret is the region between the nut the thin, grooved strip that separates the headstock from the neck and the first metal bar. The fifth fret, then, is the fifth square up from the nut — technically, the region between the fourth and fifth metal fret bars. Most guitars have a marker on the fifth fret, either a decorative design embedded in the fingerboard or a dot on the side of the neck, or both.
You can always check out the diagram on the Cheat Sheet at the front of the book while you get comfortable with these naming conventions. One more point of business to square away. As long as the strings are in tune in a certain relationship with each other, you can create sonorous and harmonious tones. Those same tones may turn into sounds resembling those of a catfight if you try to play along with another instrument, however; but as long as you tune the strings relative to one another, the guitar is in tune with itself.
To tune a guitar using the relative method, choose one string as the starting point — say, the 6th string. Leave the pitch of that string as is; then tune all the other strings relative to that 6th string.
The fifth-fret method The fifth-fret method derives its name from the fact that you almost always play a string at the fifth fret and then compare the sound of that note to that of the next open string. Play the fifth fret of the 6th low E string the fattest one, closest to the ceiling and then play the open 5th A string the one next to it.
Let both notes ring together. Their pitches should match exactly. If the 5th string seems lower, or flat, turn its tuning key with your left hand to raise the pitch. If the 5th string seems sharp, or higher sounding, use its tuning key to lower the pitch.
Play the fifth fret of the 5th A string and then play the open 4th D string. Let both of these notes ring together. If the 4th string seems flat or sharp relative to the fretted 5th string, use the tuning key of the 4th string to adjust its pitch accordingly.
Play the fifth fret of the 4th D string and then play the open 3rd G string. Let both notes ring together again. If the 3rd string seems flat or sharp relative to the fretted 4th string, use the tuning key of the 3rd string to adjust the pitch accordingly. Play the fourth not the fifth! Let both strings ring together. If the 2nd string seems flat or sharp, use its tuning key to adjust the pitch accordingly. Play the fifth yes, back to the fifth for this one fret of the 2nd B string and then play the open 1st high E string.
If the 1st string seems flat or sharp, use its tuning key to adjust the pitch accordingly. You may want to go back and repeat the process, because some strings may have slipped out of tune. Simply use your right hand! After you strike the two strings in succession the fretted string and the open string , take your right hand and reach over your left hand which remains stationary as you fret the string and turn the tuning peg of the appropriate string until both strings sound exactly the same.
If you want to bring your guitar into the world of other people, you need to know how to tune to a fixed source, such as a piano, pitch pipe, tuning fork, or electronic tuner. Using such a source ensures that everyone is playing by the same tuning rules. Besides, your guitar and strings are built for optimal tone production if you tune to standard pitch.
The following sections describe some typical ways to tune your guitar by using fixed references. These methods not only enable you to get in tune, but also to make nice with all the other instruments in the neighborhood.
Chapter 2: Turn On, Tune In Taking a turn at the piano Because it holds its pitch so well needing only biannual or annual tunings, depending on the conditions , a piano is a great tool that you can use for tuning a guitar.
Assuming that you have an electronic keyboard or a well-tuned piano around, all you need to do is match the open strings of the guitar to the appropriate keys on the piano. Figure shows a piano keyboard and the corresponding open guitar strings. Middle C E Figure A view of the piano keyboard, highlighting the keys that correspond to the open strings of the guitar.
So you need a smaller and more practical device that supplies standardtuning reference pitches. Enter the pitch pipe. The pitch pipe evokes images of stern, matronly chorus leaders who purse their prunelike lips around a circular harmonica to deliver an anemic squeak that instantly marshals together the reluctant voices of the choir.
Yet pitch pipes serve their purpose. For guitarists, special pitch pipes exist consisting of pipes that play only the notes of the open strings of the guitar but sounding in a higher range and none of the in-between notes. The advantage of a pitch pipe is that you can hold it firmly in your mouth while blowing, keeping your hands free for tuning.
The disadvantage to a pitch pipe is that you sometimes take a while getting used to hearing a wind-produced pitch against a struck-string pitch. But with practice, you can tune with a pitch pipe as easily as you can with a piano.
And a pitch pipe fits much more easily into your shirt pocket than a piano does! Check out Chapter 16 for a picture of a pitch pipe. Sinking your teeth into the tuning fork After you get good enough at discerning pitches, you need only one singlepitched tuning reference to get your whole guitar in tune. The tuning fork offers only one pitch, and it usually comes in only one flavor: A the one above middle C, which vibrates at cycles per second, commonly known as A Using a tuning fork requires a little finesse.
You must strike the fork against something firm, such as a tabletop or kneecap, and then hold it close to your ear or place the stem or handle — and not the tines or fork prongs — against something that resonates. This resonator can be the tabletop again or even the top of the guitar. You can even hold it between your teeth, which leaves your hands free! It really works, too!
The task may not be easy, but if you do it enough, you eventually become an expert. Chapter 2: Turn On, Tune In Experiencing the electronic tuner The quickest and most accurate way to get in tune is to employ an electronic tuner. This handy device seems to possess witchcraftlike powers. Some older, graph-type tuners feature a switch that selects which string you want to tune. Figure shows a typical electronic tuner. Figure An electronic tuner makes tuning a snap.
Electronic tuners are usually powered by 9-volt batteries or two AAs that can last for a year with regular usage up to two or even three years with only occasional usage.
For more on tuners, see Chapter For your tuning convenience, we play the open strings on Track 1 of the audio CD that comes with this book. Unlike a cassette tape — or any analog tape system, for that matter — a CD always plays back the exact pitch that it records and never goes sharp or flat, not even a little bit. Chapter 3 Ready, Set. They fit comfortably into the arms of most humans, and the way your two hands fall on the strings naturally is pretty much the position from which you should play.
In this chapter, we tell you all about good posture techniques and how to hold your hands — just as if you were a young socialite at a finishing school. We jest because we care. But you really do need to remember that good posture and position, at the very least, prevent strain and fatigue and, at best, help develop good concentration habits and tone.
After we get you positioned correctly with the guitar, we go over some basic music-deciphering skills and show you how to play a chord. Hand Position and Posture You can either sit or stand while playing the guitar, and the position you choose makes virtually no difference whatsoever to your tone or technique.
Most people prefer to practice while sitting but perform publicly while standing. The one exception to the sit or stand option is the classical guitar, which you normally play in a sitting position.
The orthodox practice is to play in a seated position only. Place your feet slightly apart. Balance the guitar by lightly resting your right forearm on the bass bout, as shown in Figure You should be able to take your left hand completely off the fretboard without the guitar dipping toward the floor. Figure Typical sitting position. Classical guitar technique, on the other hand, requires you to hold the instrument on your left leg, not on your right.
This position puts the center of the guitar closer to the center of your body, making the instrument easier to play, especially with the left hand, because you can better execute the difficult fingerings of the classical-guitar music in that position. Chapter 13 shows the classical-guitar sitting position. This device enables your left foot to remain on the floor and instead pushes the guitar up in the air.
Chapter 3: Ready, Set. Not Yet: Developing the Tools and Skills to Play Standing position To stand and play the guitar, you need a strap that is securely fastened to both strap pins on the guitar or otherwise tied to the guitar. Then you can stand in a normal way and check out how cool you look in the mirror with that guitar slung over your shoulders. You may need to adjust the strap to get the guitar at a comfortable playing height. Your body makes a natural adjustment in going from a sitting to a standing position.
Just stay relaxed and, above all, look cool. Looking cool is just as important as knowing how to play. Figure shows a typical standing position. Figure Typical standing position. All your knuckles should be bent. Your hand should look about like that after you stick a guitar neck in there. The thumb glides along the back of the neck, straighter than if you were making a fist but not rigid. To fret a note, press the tip of your finger down on a string, keeping your knuckles bent.
Try to get the fingertip to come down vertically on the string rather than at an angle. This position exerts the greatest pressure on the string and also prevents the sides of the finger from touching adjacent strings — which may cause either buzzing or muting deadening the string, or preventing it from ringing.
This technique will give you the clearest sound and prevent buzzing. Building up the strength in your left hand takes time. You may see advertisements for hand-strengthening devices and believe that these products may expedite your left-hand endurance. Because of the strength your left hand exerts while fretting, other parts of your body may tense up to compensate. At periodic intervals, make sure that you relax your left shoulder, which has a tendency to rise up as you work on your fretting.
You want to keep your upper arm and forearm parallel to the side of your body. Relax your elbow so that it stays at your side. Not Yet: Developing the Tools and Skills to Play The important thing to remember in maintaining a good left-hand position is that you need to keep it comfortable and natural.
If your hand starts to hurt or ache, stop playing and take a rest. As with any other activity that requires muscular development, resting enables your body to catch up. Electric endeavours Electric necks are both narrower from the 1st string to the 6th and shallower from the fingerboard to the back of the neck than acoustics. But even if you were a butt-kicking international person of mystery, playing rock guitar would still be cooler because it involves art, passion, power, poetry, and the ability to move an audience of listeners.
Whether "moving your listeners" means mowing down crowd surfers with your power chords or making the audience cry with your sensitive melodies, no other musical instrument allows you so much versatility. Whatever rocks your world, Rock Guitar For Dummies can help you bring that message out through your fingers and onto that electric guitar that's slung over your shoulder. If you're a beginner, you'll discover what you need to know to start playing immediately, without drowning in complicated music theory.
If you've been playing for a while, you can pick up some tips to help improve your playing and move to the next level. Here's a sampling of the topics covered in Rock Guitar For Dummies: How electric guitars and amplifiers work Choosing the right guitar and amp for you, and how to care for them Left-hand and right-hand guitar techniques The different styles of rock guitar playing Creating great riffs The history of rock guitar Buying accessories for your new toy Top Ten lists of the guitarists you should listen to, the rock albums you must have, and the classic guitars you should know about Rock Guitar For Dummies also comes with a CD that includes audio of every example shown in the book, plus play-along tracks with a band.
So, if you consider yourself an air guitar virtuoso and would like to try the real thing, Rock Guitar For Dummies can help you on your way to becoming an accomplished guitarist. Want to become the coolest possible version of yourself? Time to jump into learning the blues guitar. Blues Guitar for Dummies covers the key aspects of blues guitar, showing you how to play scales, chords, progressions, riffs, solos, and more.
This hands-on guide is packed with musical examples, chords charts, and photos that let you explore the genre and play the songs of all the great blues musicians. This accessible how-to book will give you the skills you need to: Choose the right guitar, equipment, and strings Hold, tune, and get situated with your guitar Play barre chords and strum to the rhythm Recognize the structure of a blues song Tackle musical riffs Master melodies and solos Make your guitar sing, cry, and wail Jam to any type of blues Additionally, the book comes with a website that shares audio samples of all the examples covered in the lessons.
Go online to practice your riffs and chords and develop your style as a blues musician. Order your copy of Blues Guitar For Dummies today and get ready to start shredding! The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Blues Guitar For Dummies With the help of this friendly guide, you'll learn to playexamples of eighth and sixteenth note rhythms—includingcommon strum patterns heard in popular music—to improve yourguitar rhythm, feel, and timing.
Plus, access to audio downloadsand online video lessons complement the coverage presented in thebook, giving you the option of supplementing your reading withadditional visual and audio learning. There's no denying that guitar is one of the coolest musicalinstruments on the planet.
Okay, perhaps undeniably thecoolest. Whether you bow at the feet of Chuck Berry, KeithRichards, the Edge, or Eddie Van Halen, they all have one thing incommon: they make it look incredibly, naturally easy! However,anyone who's actually picked up a guitar knows that masteringrhythm and technique is something that takes a lot ofpractice—not to mention good coaching. Want to be a classical guitarist, but never had a lesson?
No problem — this hands-on guide teaches you all the fundamental techniques you need to play scales, melodies, and full-length pieces in the classical style. You get plenty of practice exercises to stretch your skills, selections from the classical repertoire, and a bonus audio CD that helps you play along with the music pieces from the book! Updated with the latest bass guitar technology, accessories, and more The bass is the heart of music.
So leave center stage to the other musicians-you have more important work to do. You'll get expert advice on the basics, like deciding what kind of bass to pick up and which accessories are necessary and which are just nice to have. Plus, you'll get step-by-step instructions for getting started, from how to hold and position your bass to reading notation and understanding chords, scales, and octaves to playing solos and fills.
New coverage of slaps, double stops, de-tuning, and fretless techniques New musical exercises as well as updates to charts, illustrations, photos, and resources Whether you're a beginner picking up a bass for the first time or an experienced player looking to improve your skills, Bass Guitar For Dummies, 2nd Edition is an easy-to-follow reference that gives you just enough music theory to get you going on your way fast!
Your complete guide to playing the keys Making beautiful music on a keyboard or piano requires some know-how and practice.
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