I have already mentioned purchasing a guitar and the various aspects that you should look for . One thing I was asked about when I purchased my guitar was what sort of pick up did I want ?
I hadn’t really thought about it, but decided to find out more.
There are many different elements that contribute to a guitars tone, and one of the easiest things to change is the pickup if you don’t later like the tone of your guitar.
The type of pickup is quite a personal choice; we all want our own sound/tone. Dozens of manufactures are making countless designs. The sound that you can expect from these pickups are described in terms like Bright, Warm and round, seems strange to describe tone in shapes, but it makes sense if you think about it.
How pickup’s work Pickups are a very simple piece of kit, pickups are basically magnets and wires. A length of wire is coiled around a magnet, and when the guitar string vibrates within the magnet field it causes the coil to generate a voltage. This is the signal that your guitar or bass amp amplifies.
The variables and why certain pickups sound different, is mainly due to stronger magnets and the type of magnet. Both these will change the tone.

An original Gibson PAF’s are one of the most sought after sounds, and most people attribute their trademark tone to the Alnico magnets that were used. For this reason, Alnico II is often used in “vintage” replacement pickups, as they’re thought to produce a vintage sound. Also common is Alnico V, which is slightly stronger, and produces a brighter, “punchier” tone. Ceramic magnets are stronger yet, and are commonly used in more modern, rock-oriented pickups.

Increasing the number of windings in the coils increases the output as well, but it also tends to accentuate the midrange while attenuating the lows and highs. As the number of turns increases, the tone gets muddier. Using a heavier gauge wire produces similar results.

Another aspect of pick up construction is the coil, the number of coils can greatly affect the tone Fender strats and Teles sport single coil design and have a bright and twangy sound

So that is basically it, a big range of pick up’s can be found on the internet and in your local guitar shop. They can be expensive handmade individual designed or inexpensive of the shelf items. The choice is yours and what your ears tell you is right.

One aspect that I found key  to  being taught by teacher was how they teach.

 We have so far concentrated on one to one teaching, but you may be in class a environment. In a class environment  you are on your own to some degree and can easily get left behind, especially if you get some pupils who are more advanced than others, I have found that good a teacher will stick with  the program and not skip areas to move with the more accomplished pupils. But watch out bad ones will focus on the pupils who pick it up quickest and ignore those struggling. This can make the lesser accomplished player become very despondent.

I am not saying you should stay away from classes, they can be great fun when all of you are playing together, the feeling of  achievement with like minded people cannot be beaten. Just beware of some of the pitfalls.

With any teaching environment, key to you learning is understanding how the teacher teaches. This is probably one of the most important questions you can ask a teacher. This is a bit of trick question. An experienced teacher or poor teacher will answer that they teach for an hour, charge you so much , start with the basics and work up.

Some questions should be answered with question, and this is one of them.

The teacher cannot possibly know your level or aptitude until they have seen you play or what your musical tastes are or your goals.

Some will be able to answer you if you have already offered them information about yourself and it is certainly something they should have done.

You may be a beginner who hasn’t even bought a guitar, or a beginner who has 3 guitars tried them all and still can’t get a tune out of them. The teacher should formulate a lesson plan by learning the pupils music background, have heard them playing, and what the pupils goals are. They may only want to be able to play a couple of their favourite tunes or they may want to be the next Jimi Hendrix.

More tips next post.

Teach Me

While we can learn to play by teaching ourselves, and lets face it there are some really great tools out there to help us. We might wonder what it is to be taught face to face, with this in mind I have drafted a quick guide on what to look for in being taught by a teacher.

Good teachers are quite easy to find, great teachers a little more difficult but lets not that stop us.

Good teachers turn up when they should, will show you how to get all your materials together and get organized and manage your practice times.  They will encourage you and correct you when you go wrong. Teachers by their nature should be patient and help you through your doubting times. They should care about you progress and be enthusiastic.

Great teachers will continually push you to achieve more technically difficult pieces, they will take you totally out of your comfort zone. They emphasize creativity through song writing and as mentioned in the previous post improvising.

They want you to perform to enjoy what you are playing.

Music teachers are not licensed, and this could be a good thing, as soon as you regulate something you loose the flair, the creative ones do their own thing.

Yes they need to be competent and classical guitar teachers are perfect example of this, if you short cut on classical guitar techniques you will pay later when pieces become more technical.  

Electric guitar is different and you need a teacher with all creativeness still intact with a passion about what they do for a living.

But with all teachers there are a few basic questions you can ask before studying with them that will make you confident that you have chosen well.

a) How long have you been teaching. Less than a year not advisable.

b) How many people are you teaching at the moment and how many have you taught. This gives you a feel for the variation of people that they have probably taught since teaching and hopefully have learned their teaching mistakes on someone else.   

c) Cost  and duration, as with anything you get what you pay for, but you could  study with a good teacher on a bi-monthly basis instead of weekly. It would motivate you to work harder in between to ensure you get the best when you have your lesson.  

More tips next post.

My inspiration for wanting to play a guitar came from seeing a documentary about John Williams playing at the Seville concert, what got me really hooked was Joaquin Rodrigo.

From then on I wanted to make music but lacked the patience and dedication to play classical to any great degree. I remember telling my teacher that all though I knew where my fingers should be and my brain was telling them what to do, they would not obey me. I think this was the last lesson that I had with my teacher !.

I became motivated again when one day at a friend’s house I noticed that he had a guitar in his study, I hadn’t noticed before. And after some drinks I asked him to play it, and expecting not much more than the twangs I was able to get out of the guitar, suddenly there was music Dylan, some blues even a bit of classical.

A natural I thought, that was the answer, how can someone have all this in thier head and  be able to pull it out of thin air and play like that. How did he know where the chords were, at the drop of a hat.

This was the way forward for me, improvisation. The term ‘improvisation’ usually implies taking a solo. In fact, when you do arrive at the stage of being fluent with music and your instrument, the whole piece of music becomes improvised, except perhaps for a phrase that’s played together with others. Every part of the tune — rhythm in the verses or choruses, turnarounds, licks between vocal lines, solos, intros, outros — everything becomes an improvisation. When you learn how, you can play everything different every night, every performance. Indeed, you strive for this freedom. It’s what keeps it fun. You find that after experimentation, your part does settle into an almost set format, but the details are always changing. You’re always looking for that slightly better adaptation.

As a beginner I am always on the look out for help to improving, searching the internet I found Unlock the Guitar.

If you are like me impatient and want to get those strings singing, try Unlock the Guitar, it will have you playing in 3 days, ask my family. They can now recognise the songs I am playing, before they asked me to go into another room !

Unlock the guitar is aimed at beginners but I soon found I had moved onto the improver section and enjoyed the journey using the muscle memory techniques described and the press & listen sound files, there are 150 good quality pictures and step by step instructions .

There are bonuses to be had which all add up to great little package.

1. “The Perfect Chord Chart for Beginners”.
2. “Beginning Singing Techniques” (included in the weekend course).
3. “150 Popular Songs with 4 Chords or Less”.
4. “Beginner Chord Sound Files”. 

You also get a  100%  risk free 60 day money back  guarantee, so it’s a win you’re your family won’t ask you to leave the room  when you start playing and if they do, ask for your money back.   Check it out

I went into the store to buy an electric guitar and an amp and did not think of buying them separate! My mistake ?  Going in with no previous research was not a good idea as I settled for a guitar and amp package.

I guess I shied away from committing a lot of money to my purchase.The only thing I really knew was that a les Paul guitar was good, but what sort of amp I needed was non starter. Having come away I have now done some research and the right tone seems a good start to buying an amp.

Tone is a combination of your guitar, your amp and your fingers. The amp is key as it provides the means of self expression.An amp is like a guitar ie. What style of music do you play ? amps are more or less designed for specific groups of players and genres of music. Most amps will do most things Regarding tone, but some are better than others. The simple answer would be to have lots of money and buy what we want , but for most of us money is not unlimited. 

 As beginner a small practice amp should be sufficient, channel switching is nice to have and can be good fun, even with my little fender package I can go from dirty to clean at press of a button. The reverb sounds good  and all adds to the fun.  I have read that the entry level amps from major manufactures are good and start at around $100. Cheaper amps are not worth buying. As a beginner all that is needed is an amplifier that sounds  relatively decent and will keep you playing. 

 Although I purchased a cheap guitar and amp package it did sound good when the storekeeper played it. 

SLIDE GUITAR SET-UP

To play slide, you must first have your guitar set up properly for the best tone and playability.  I play on my 1930 National steel-bodied Style O resonator guitar.  These are great sounding old guitars, especially for slide and delta blues.  Many blues, jazz, hillbilly, and Hawaiian guitarists played Nationals, and before the electric guitar caught on, were the loudest, shiniest, funkiest guitars available.

You can set up any steel-string acoustic guitar for slide.  The nut of the guitar must be slightly higher (around the thickness of a matchbook cover), so the strings are higher over the fretboard than for regular guitar playing.  You should still be able to fret the strings as well as slide comfortably without clonking the frets with the slide.  A qualified guitar repair person should be able to set you up right.

Note:  BE CAREFUL choosing a repair person.  Try to get a couple of (or lots of) recommendations from respected players before taking your dear guitar into the shop.

SLIDING STRINGS

For the best slide tone for your guitar, heavier gauged strings are generally better.  I use these gauges, in Phosphor Bronze:

Low to High:  .056    .045    .035    .026    .019(plain)    .017(plain)

CAUTION:  Many acoustic guitars are not made for heavy string tension.  Be careful not to put strings on your guitar that are heavier than the recommended gauges.

IMPORTANT:  Don’t tune your guitar too high!  It could pull your guitar apart!  Tune no higher than a D or G-tuning, and if you notice the bridge area raising, use lighter gauge strings.

OPEN TUNINGS FOR SLIDE PLAYING

Although there are dozens of variations, I use these two traditional open chord tunings for slide:
 

Open-D,  Vestapol or Louisiana Tuning.  Low to High:  DADF#AD

Open G,  Spanish or Hawaiian Tuning.    Low to High:  DGDGBD

FINGERPICKS OR NAKED FINGERS?I use a large plastic thumbpick on the right hand thumb, and two metal fingerpicks for the index and middle fingers, but for me, especially on the steel guitar, picks help make a sharper, louder tone and help save your fingers.

GET A GOOD SLIDE

There are many kinds of slides to choose from; everybody has a different preference.  Some use a metal tube or pipe (Son House used a piece of copper tubing), or a spark-plug socket.  These have a brasher, more metallic tone, but have the advantage of being shatterproof (and multi-purpose).

Some of the old-time slide guitarists used a knife.  Cedell Davis uses a better knife.  Legend has it that Blind Willie Johnson used a straight razor for a slide.  Makes for a sharper tone, but sounds mighty dangerous!

My preference is a glass slide, made from a wine bottle.  Glass has a weepier, richer sound than metal.  You can make your own or buy commercially made slides in the music stores, and remember the thicker the glass, the thicker your tone will be.  The glass in many wine bottles (the kind with corks, not screw-on tops) is nice, thick, and smooth, and makes for the best sound.

PUT IT ON YOUR PINKIE!

Putting your slide on your left hand pinkie finger leaves your other left hand fingers free to fret notes and make chords without the slide, and also to damp the strings behind the slide.  Some guitarists like Son House and Bonnie Raitt use the slide on the ring or middle finger, but generally, having the slide on your pinkie is the best bet.

SLIDE PLAYGROUND

Unlike fretting the strings, playing with the bottleneck involves setting the slide directly above a fret, with light pressure on the string with the slide when plucked.  Try it on the high D (first) string in Open-D tuning, with the slide angled slightly away from the neck, so you are only resting the slide on the high string.  Then, pluck the string with your right hand index finger, and slide up the neck slowly from the third fret to the fourth fret.  Ahhh!!  Vibrate the slide slightly (left & right) along the string at the end of the phrase to give it that vibrato like a gospel singer.  That’s it!

The difference between playing slide and regular guitar is like the difference between a violin and a ukulele.  Think of the slide as a woman’s voice.  Some of the notes will be bent or “blue” notes that are 1/4 to 1/2 way above the fret.  The ability to bend and vibrate these vocal-sounding notes is what makes slide guitar so haunting.

Recording guitar is one of the most challenging arts that any recording engineer would have to master — Well, that used to be…

There was a time when for you to record an acoustic guitar, you needed to get special mics called condenser mics (And at that, you needed specific types and models for best results). Then you needed to master the art of placing them at distances that will capture as much of the entire spectrum of sound produced as possible.

And if you know a thing or two about how sound is produced by the acoustic guitar, you’ll agree with me that the entire length of the guitar’s neck, the sound hole and the vibrations from the guitar’s body have to be taken into account.

To say the least, only the very best engineers could get really great recordings of acoustic guitars.

There also used to be a time when no self respecting audio engineer would even consider recording an electric guitar without getting the best guitar amp he can lay hold of, crank up the volume and place a rugged dynamic mic (sometimes a padded condenser mic is also used) close to the speaker grille in order to get a great guitar cut.

But all that has changed now…

With electric acoustic guitars, you can get the best of acoustic guitar sound onto your recording without understanding even the most basic laws of sound waves. All you need to do would be to get specially designed electric acoustic guitars, plug in and hit “record” and you have a great acoustic sound for real. And the best part is: You won’t even need a sound proof space for sound capture. You can record beside a freight train and still get your great recording.

How about the electric guitar…

with the introduction of great tools from companies like Line 6 you can record a great guitar solo without freaking out the neighbors and without paying big bucks for a studio session.

For some of the really cool tools for electric guitar recording, all you need is just a usb-enabled computer. Just that and you’ll be churning out solos that will make Jimi Hendrix roll in his grave for envy.

And the coolest part of these new tools is that you don’t really need to take a second mortgage in order to get them

Among many guitar parts and accessories that you can buy and replace yourself easily, string trees play an important role in providing a good tone for your guitar by controlling the behind-the-nut angle of the strings.

Many novice guitar players think that the string trees are only for the looks, not for function. They don’t realize that the use of string trees not only provide tuning stability as well as tonal integrity, but in the case of roller string trees, they could actually help you stay in tune and save you some money by giving you longer life for your guitar strings.

Guitar Jones string trees and tension bars come in many different shapes and sizes to provide perfect “behind-the-nut” angle for your guitar. This is very helpful since if your angle is too shallow, you’ll constantly hear the buzz on the open strings. On the other hand you don’t want the angle to be too steep either.

There are even roller string trees which greatly reduce the friction to help you stay in tune and lengthen the life of your strings.

Some people go further to improve their guitars’ ability to stay in tune. They replace their stock tuners with lockable tuners. These tuners are available for $25.00 - $100.00 on the internet. Many players agree that that’s a small price to pay for being able to stay in tune while they play.

How to Tune a Guitar

Tuning the guitar is vital to sounding good. Here are some simple instructions that explain guitar tuning basics. The open strings of a guitar from the thickest to thinest are as follows:

• E - the thickest or lowest sounding string is known as the 6th string
• A - is the 5th
• D - is the 4th
• G - is the 3rd
• B - is the 2nd
• E - the thinest or highest is the 1st

The most common method for tuning both Electric and Acoustic guitars – and the one you can use when no other instrument or guitar tuner is at hand is:

Standard  Guitar  Tuning 

Method

Step 1: The E String

Tune the bottom E, as accurately as you can. Chances are it’s in tune anyways, being the thickest string it’s the least likely to detune itself than any of the others. If you have another instrument such as a Piano (which stays in tune for years), you can tune it to the 1st E below middle C. If you have no device or instrument handy just try to get it as accurate as possible, what really counts when you are playing is that the guitar is in tune with itself and any other instruments you might be playing with.

Step 2: The A String

Place the first finger of your left hand just behind the fifth fret on the bottom E string. That’s an A note. Keep your finger on that fret. Now pick the fifth and six strings in turn, gently adjusting the fifth string tuning peg until the two notes are the same.

Step 3: The D String

Place the first finger of your left hand just behind the fifth fret on the A string. That’s a D note. Tune the 4th string (the D note) to that.

Step 4: The G String

Place the first finger of your left hand just behind the fifth fret on the D string. That’s a G note. Tune your G string to that note.

Step 5: The B String

Place the first finger of your left hand just behind the forth fret (note the B string is the only one that comes from a different position the forth fret, the rest are from the 5th fret).

Step 6: Tuning the E String

Place the first finger of your left hand just behind the fifth fret on the B string. That’s a E note.