Guitar Today

When you are a beginner guitar player it may be wise not to invest too much money right off the bat. Not everybody can afford to buy a brand new guitar and what’s worse is sometimes it turns out to be nothing more than an expensive decoration. Buying a used guitar can end up saving you a lot of money in the long-run. Once you have gotten your feet wet (and your fingers callused) you may want to upgrade.

If you have the necessary skills, used guitars can also be an investment. There is also ample money making opportunity in ‘guitar flipping’. Just like ‘house-flipping’, flipping a guitar is the same idea. You buy a beat-up old guitar at a bargain price and restore it to increase its’ value.

Although buying a new or used guitar is a choice you have to make on your own, it always pays to talk to someone who knows about guitars and doesn’t work at the shop you are buying it from.

You can check online in guitar blogs and forums to ask about referrals to stores that sell used instruments. If you live in decent sized city you can use craig’s list to find people selling their instruments or post your own message that you are on the market for one. In any event, before we fork over our hard earned cash for a used guitar, there are a few things we need to know.

Why am I buying this guitar?

Firstly, you need to decide the purpose of the guitar you are buying. Where do you want to be able to play this guitar? Electric guitars obviously need electricity while acoustic guitars are good to go even when the power is out.

There are laminated and solid wood guitars. Laminated guitars last a long time and are good for outings. Solid wood have shorter life and are better suited for indoor use.

What should I be looking for when I test-drive a guitar?

Always check the neck of a guitar before buying. You always looking for any warps or bowing. Looking down the neck of guitar or holding the first string on the first and twelfth fret can help you check for issues. An experienced guitar player can help you to look for warps. You should also check to see if the neck is appropriately fastened to the body. Holding a guitar upright by the neck and slightly jiggling it will reveal if there is any looseness at the joint connecting the body to the neck.

For an electric guitar it is always important to play it before buying it so you can make sure the wiring is right. Play around with the volume and tone selectors while it is plugged in to make sure there is no scratching, popping or shorting out while in use.

An important thing to look for in an acoustic guitar is whether or not it is hand made. Factory made acoustic guitars do not last and they also lack quality due to the missing human factor. Machines just don’t have the music in them. An easy way to tell if an acoustic guitar is hand-made or not is by looking inside the sound hole at the wooden pieces that line the seams of the guitar’s interior.

The wood should have tiny slats cut into it giving it a resemblance to a train track. If the tracks are somewhat even, it is definitely a hand crafted guitar. If they are perfectly aligned it may be a factory job. If there are no tracks at all, this is likely a very cheap guitar.

The most important, and probably the most obvious thing is to choose a guitar that suits your unique style. Obviously a nylon string classical guitar is not going to be suited to heavy metal riffage. Just as a B.C. Rich wont sound very good if you try to play jazz or ska chords. God forbid what the blues would sound like on one.

Good luck shopping for a new-to-you guitar. If you enjoyed this post why not sign up for instant free updates in the reader of your choice Today! Thanks for reading!

Whether you want to use a harmonica stand and be a one man band or you want to jam along with a friend who plays the harmonica, it is good to know how the two instruments interact with one another. The harmonica is in a key. A C harmonica has a scale that can be harmonized to songs whose’ respective keys falls within the C scale.

Typically it is easiest to remember it this way; If you are playing a song in the key of G on a guitar, your harmonica accompaniment should be played on a harmonica in the key of C. From there it is all simple mathematics. Play along to an A note harmonica in the key of E and so on and so forth. To find what key you should be playing in for a harmonica, simply find the note of the harp on the guitar string, then find the note on the next string above, directly on top of it. (i.e. The E note appears directly over top of the A note, The G on top of C ect.)

Here is a simple chart you can refer to when you need to decide which key of harmonica is appropriate to play along to a song in a certain key.

Harmonica key: A - B - C - D - E - F - G

        Guitar Key:E - F - G - A - B - C - D

 Guitarists often use alternate tunings in order to have access to lower notes and new chord shapes. Dropped D is standard tuning with the 6th E string downtuned to a D note making an open fifth with the A string.

Where a guitar tuned to standard tuning is EADGBE a guitar tuned to dropped D will be DADGBE. This allows you access to lower pitched, heavier frequencies and allows you to play power chords using only one finger. For this lesson, you should first be familiar with power chords and be able to tune your guitar to standard tuning.

Dropped D tuning is commonly found in heavier music. It gives your guitar just a little more crunch when you are playing nice and loud and distorted. It also allows you to do certain things with more ease as you only need one finger to make a power chord. Single finger chords mean you have three other fingers to add whatever notes you want to the chord or just to have subtle nuances going along with what you are playing.

Tuning using the fifth - The easiest way to tune your guitar to dropped D tuning is to loosen the E string while strumming the E and A strings untill you can hear the harmonized fifth between the two. It is basically always going to be about a half turn of the tuning machine. With some practice, you should be able to recognize when the first two strings (e and A, which will later be D and A) have made a fifth.

Tuning using the seventh fret - Another simple way to find your D note is by tuning the seventh fret of the A string to the open A. Normally the fifth fret of the E string would be the open A, but by making it the seventh fret, you are lowering your guitar to the D note required.

Tuning using octaves - If you can recognize notes that are the same but in different octaves, tune your E string to the D note you already have two strings down. Pluck the open D note on your guitar then tune your top string to that.