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.

In every amplifier, there is a series that the guitar signal passes through, before it gets to the speaker and you are able to hear it. In most amps, it will go through a series similar to the following:

From the guitar…

• preamp (with or without distortion)
• tone controls and eq
  
• master volume (or channel volume, on multi-channel amps)
• reverb
• power amp

..to the speaker

That is a lot of phases to go through before getting to your ears. The effects loop breaks this chain and allows you to insert the effect after the preamp before going to the power amp.

How to use the effects loop on a guitar amp

When you introduce an effects pedal into the mix before the amplifier you run a cable from your guitar into the pedal, then from the pedal into the amp.

When you put the effects pedal inside the effects loop, you run a cable from the amplifier’s fx send into the pedal’s input then run a cable from the effect pedal’s output to the amp’s fx receive. Some amplifiers have a volume control for the effects send and receive.

When to use the effects loop on your amplifier

Usage of the effects loop is largely up to personal taste, and a little bit up to what is guaranteed to sound bad. One of the major separators is distortion. If you are using the distortion channel ( the distortion that is built right in to your guitar amp) any effects you plug your guitar into will get distorted when they go into the amp. When you patch the effects in the effects loop they are applied on top of the already distorted guitar signal.

Here are some guidelines  to get you going. Wah-wah pedals and modulation effects like a chorus, tremolo, phaser or flanger pedal produce extremely different sounds when they are placed before or after a distortion pedal. Which one you choose is up to you.Effects that rely on volume like delay or reverb would loose some of their effect if they were placed before the amplifier because once you distort the signal going in the effect loses control of the volume.

Anything you want before the distortion you plug into before you plug into the guitar amp, anything you want after the distortion goes through the effects loop.

If you are using a distortion pedal or tone boosting pedal of any kind, it would be best applied before the amplifier so it can effect the preamp gain.

Other resources on guitar effects loops

How to use the effects loop - eHow

 All about Guitar Effects Loops -eBay Article

Guitar effects tone and placement - Mondo resource on effects and guitar amplifiers.

 There are a lot of new USB powered devices for connecting electric instruments such as guitars, bass guitars or pianos to your computer. But these devices are often quite pricey. If you don’t want to spend too much on connecting your guitar to your PC you can use unbalanced inputs the same way you connect to your guitar amplifyer.

Direct connection: For this you will need a mini to 1/4 inch cable. It is a cable with a large jack(guitar patchcord) on one end and a small jack(headphone cable) on the other. If you don’t have a cable like this, get an adaptor. You can find a 1/4 inch to mini or vise versa at most electronic stores for about $3.

For a direct guitar to computer connection, you will want the 1/4 inch end plugged in to your guitar, and the mini end plugged into the line-in on your soundcard or onboard audio device. Usually the line-in in a blue outlet next to the pink for microphone and green for speakers. If your soundcard or audio device is not colour coded consult the manual that came with the hardware to identify which connection to use.

Once your guitar is connected, open your volume control/sound mixer and ensure that the line-in is not muted. You should now be able to hear yourself playing through your computer speakers. This is a live input, but when line-in is selected as your ’source’ you will be able to record what you are playing for playback.

Tip: You can optionally use pedals and effects units to enhance your signal by connecting a normal 1/4 guitar patchcord from your guitar to your effects box, then using the 1/4 to mini cable to go from your box to your PC. You can even throw your guitar amp into the mix using the amps’ line-out, headphone or recording-out jacks

Not everybody can read music. Not even all musicians can read music. That is why simpler methods have been invented for several of the main instruments in a standard rock band. The most common written adaptation for guitar music is guitar tablature. And to a beginner, it can look like chinese at first. This instructional is designed to get someone who has never read music or guitar tablature off and running in a few minutes time.

The Basics

Guitar tabs typically go from bottom to top. Although the lightest e string may seem like the last (because you strum from the heaviest e string to the lightest), it is actually considered the first string and, therefor, is the first line of tab on a guitar tab. This always seemed strange to me and took a little getting used to. Maybe it is because I am a left-handed guitarist playing on right-handed guitars. Its a crazy mixed up world. The basic structure of a guitar tab is as follows.

1e ———-|

2B ———|

3G ———|

4D ———|

5A ———|

6E ———|

Even if the guitar tablature that you are reading doesn’t include the string names and numbers, it is safe to assume that this is the order they are in. The basics of reading guitar tabs are the string order and then the number of the fret starting from the left hand side. The fret number will appear along the line of the string that is supposed to be plucked.

1e ———-|

2B ———|

3G ———|

4D —–5—|

5A ———|

6E ———|

In the above diagram, you should pluck the fifth fret of the fourth or D string. Here it is again without the string name or number.

———|

———|

———|

—5—-|

———|

———|

Easy enough right? Now lets move on to strumming chords.

Strumming Chords

A chord is any two or more notes that are in harmony, strummed at the same time. In basic guitar tablature, chords that are meant to be strummed will appear as a series of notes lined up directly on top of each other.

1e —-0—–|

2B —0—–|

3G —1—–|

4D —2—–|

5A —2—–|

6E —0—–|This is an E major chord that is meant to be strummed

Plucking or sweeping

Chords that are meant to be plucked individually or sweep picked will appear in the order they are meant to be plucked, from left to right on a single bar of tabs.

1e ————————-0-|

2B ——————–0—–|

3G —————-1———|

4D ———–2————–|

5A ——2——————-|

6E –0———————–|Here is an E Major chord plucked individually from last (E) to first (e) string.

OR

1e —0———————–|

2B ——–0——————|

3G ————1————–|

4D ——————2——–|
5A ———————2—–|

6E ————————0–|Here is an E Major chord plucked individually from first to last string.

Timing in Guitar Tablature

Timing can present a problem with tabbing, as there is no standard for time signatures. The fundamental flaw with guitar tabs is that is you haven`t heard a particular part of a song before, there is no way to tell how long to hold each note. In most cases, guitar tabs are meant for helping you to learn a song as you are listening to it. The end of a bar will often be indicated by the vertical lines in between to tabbed out riffs.

Bar 1                                                                       Bar 2

—————————————-|——————————————-|

—————————————-|——————————————-|

—————————————-|——————————————-|

—————————————-|——————————————-|

-0-4-0-5-4-0-4-0-5-4-0-4-5-4-0-|-0–4-0-5-4–0-4-0-5-4-0-4-0-5-4-0-0-|

—————————————-|——————————————-|

By the way, that was a derivative of `Blister in the Sun` by the Violent Femmes.

 Other symbols in tablature

There is a lot more to guitar than just strumming and plucking strings. So there has to be more to tablature as well. Some of these signs and notations are up for debate as not all guitar tablature uses the same characters but oftentimes it is just common sense.

Hammer ons and pull offs

Hammer ons are usually indicated by first tabbing the note that you start on, and following with the note that you should be hammering on or pulling off. They are usually tabbed with either an H or a P i.e. —7-h-9– would be a hammer on starting on the 7th fret and ending on the 9th.

Bends 

Bends are usually indicated by telling you the note to bend and on which string, and what note it should sound like once fully bent.

i.e.  –7-b-9– would mean for you to bend the 7th fret until it sounds like the ninth fret of the given string.

Slides

Slides are usually indicated by telling you which fret to start on and which fret to slide to using only one finger.  It is usually tabbed as a single letter S, but can sometimes be substituted with a slash symbol. i.e. 7-s-9–  or 7é9 would mean to pluck the string with your finger on the seventh fret and then quickly slide over to the 9th fret of the given string.

So hopefully we`ve gotten ourselves started on reading guitar tablature and should be able to read simple tablature with ease. From there it will simply be a matter of practice. It takes time to be able to read tabs quickly enough to play and read on-the-fly as you are learning a song, but you have gotten off to a good start. Here are some great sites that I use for guitar tabs.

ultimate-guitar.com - Probably the biggest and best place to find guitar tabs online. Ranging from popular songs of all time to the latest song on the radio. Bookmark this website. You will use it often.

Guitar World - A major publication with interviews and lessons from well known guitarists from your favorite bands. They will teach you to play like a pro. Guitar World magazine features tablature and standard musical notation.

punkhardcore.com The best place to find, punk rock, hardcore, ska and other alternative guitar tabs.