Favourite Guitar Styles Results

The favourite guitar styles poll has closed with 113 voters. Thanks to all who participated, it's always enjoyable to learn more about you.

Here are the results of the poll.

As you can see, blues and rock are the most popular styles, closely followed by heavy rock and metal. Acoustic guitar also has a healthy number of fans amongst you and I'm happy to see plenty of interest for jazz guitar too.

What's rather nice about the result is that it matches my own favourite styles quite closely - apart from the heavy metal, which is not really my cup of tea (sorry metal fans). Well, maybe that's not much of a surprise, I mostly write about those styles which could easily explain their popularity with you.

On the blues guitar front, I'm pleased to announce that I'll shortly be launching a new site dedicated to blues guitar.

I have plenty of ideas and tips to share on learning and playing blues guitar, but there's just not enough room here to post it all. I don't want Not Playing Guitar to be one of those sites that fills up your feed reader with posts you don't get time to read. So instead of increasing posting frequency here I'm creating the new site dedicated to blues guitar. Then you can pick your content more easily with a separate feed and its own posting schedule.

There'll be more news here on the blues guitar site next week. Be sure to sign up to the RSS feed so you don't miss it. The feed is also available via email here.

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

5 Essential Guitar Learning Accessories

What are the essential accessories you wouldn't be without to learn to play guitar? Of course, you need your guitar, but there are many other useful accessories that can help make learning easier or more effective. Here are the five essential accessories I have found most useful to learn guitar.

1. Guitar Tuner

An electronic guitar tuner makes it easy to keep the guitar in tune at all times. A well tuned guitar not only sounds better as you play it is also important to teaching your ears to recognize music.

2. Metronome

Once in tune, the next most important tool for me is my metronome. I use it to keep the beat as I practice or play. Playing in time not only makes your guitar playing sound better, it's an essential skill to have if you want to play in a band with other musicians.

3. Recorder

Listening to the sound of the guitar as you play is a difficult task. I use a small digital recorder to record practice so I can listen back and check how well, or not, I'm doing. The recording makes it easy to check how well I kept time, the sound I get out of the guitar, and to hear how cleanly I play.

You don't have to spend a fortune on expensive equipment for this. For practice a small dictaphone will do the job, or I record myself on a computer with a microphone or by plugging my guitar jack into the line or mic entry.

4. Notebook and pen

Many things can happen from one practice session to the next and I don't always remember what I did or what I planned to work on next. A small notebook and a pen or pencil is an easy and effective solution to keep track of progress. They fit easily into the guitar case and are always ready whenever I take out my guitar. A couple of notes jotted in the notebook help to get started quickly and save wasted time wondering what to do next.

5. Guitar Pro

I've recently started to make more and more use of Guitar Pro, a software program that is a great personal guitar tutor and coach. I download music or create exercises and music in Guitar Pro tab format.

I then use Guitar Pro to play along with the music while it highlights the notes and neck positions on screen, like a karaoke machine for guitar music. Guitar Pro makes practice more fun and I don't know what I'd do without it's built in tools for working on speed and individual passages.

These are my essential guitar learning accessories, they make learning more effective and easier without much expense. What about you, what is your favourite guitar practice accessory?

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

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Learn Guitar From Another Instrument

I bought a ukulele for my son a little over a year ago. I figured rightly that its small neck and four strings would be easier for his seven year old hands to play. But I hadn't realized just how much I would come to like it myself.

The ukulele is a great portable practice tool for guitar players. Find out why in my article Learn Another Instrument over on the Jemsite blog.



Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.


Learn acoustic guitar with 153 step by step video lessons, acoustic jam tracks, ear training and music reading software. From beginner through to advanced player with Jamorama Acoustic complete learning system.

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Learn Guitar: What's Your Plan B?

Have you ever come up against a roadblock as you learn guitar? They happen to me all the time. Sometimes it's a technique or an exercise in a book that turns out to be way too difficult. Or maybe it's a busy period that stops me putting in the practice time I planned. Other times I simply don't find a book or tab to work on a style or artist I like.

These kinds of roadblocks occur frequently on my learning path, and on the path of every other guitar learner.

Roadblocks like these can get you stuck down and bring your progress to a halt if you let them. It's easy when you don't find a solution to think you are no good at guitar. You conclude that you can't get any better than you are now, or that a certain skill or kind of playing is not for you. You might even decide to give up altogether.

But every guitarist comes across these roadblocks, so why is it that some guitar players progress beyond them and move on to better playing? Maybe it's because they have a plan B.

Plan B

Plan B is your backup plan. It's what you do when you hit a roadblock and get stuck. Instead of getting frustrated and cursing the universe because you have small fingers, don't have enough finger strength, can't practice more hours, or don't have such and such a guitar, you simply switch to plan B and keep on moving.

Your plan B might not take you in exactly the direction you planned on, but as long as it keeps you moving forward it doesn't really matter. There are so many different ways to learn to play guitar that you don't need to get hung up simply because one particular path you chose doesn't work out.

Create Your Plan B

How do you create a plan B? Easily, just ask yourself the question "What else could I do instead?"

If you're the kind of guitar learner that has a detailed step by step plan all worked out in advance, set aside a few minutes to review the steps and answer the question for each of them. Write down your answers in your learning plan.

If you are the kind of guitar learner that just picks the next thing as you go along, then ask yourself the question any time you get really stuck. Pick a new direction and keep going.

In either case, the question "What else could I do instead?" will help you to keep moving forward and avoid the only roadblock that can really halt your guitar learning progress - giving up practicing and playing.

Just like skinning cats there are as many ways to learn guitar, so you don't need to get hung up on any particular one true path. If the path you planned on taking turns out to be too steep and difficult for you, well then just pick another and keep on walking.

Without a backup plan you might get all worked up and frustrated because you can't progress the way you expected. Set aside a few minutes this week to prepare your guitar learning back up plan.

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

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Photo by Bruce Berrien.

What Are Your Favourite Guitar Styles

It's poll season here on Not Playing Guitar. After the recent Practice Time Survey here's another chance to express your guitar playing preferences with the favourite guitar styles poll.

Choose one or more of your favourite guitar styles from the poll widget in the left sidebar (You'll have to visit the blog to see it if you're viewing this in a feed reader). The poll is running for a week and you can sign up for the RSS feed by email or in your RSS reader to be notified of the results.

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

Funk R&B Partial Chords Lesson

It's been a busy busy week so not much blogging and not much guitar practice :-( I just got back to some guitar and had fun with this lesson on funk and R&B guitar using partial chords. It's full of great info, be sure to check out the other two parts of the series.

Thanks to Guitar World Blips for pointing out the lesson.

Do you like funk guitar? Check out my list of free funk guitar video lessons.

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

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Guitar Practice Time Poll Result

After a week of voting the practice time poll has now closed. It's time to share the results with you all.

As the graphic below shows 30 to 60 minutes a day is the most popular amount of practice time. That's pretty respectable so congratulations to all of you.


A surprising (for me) number of voters spend over an hour, and even over two hours on practice each day. But that's the great thing about polls, I get to discover surprises like this and learn more about you, reader.

A few of us (I put my hand up here) admit to 20 minutes or less a day. Of course more time would probably benefit our playing, but for most of us playing is not the only thing in our lives. Still, I'm happy knowing that even only this much practice each day brings improvement.

I still have one question, though. Whatever our daily practice time is, how many of us are satisfied with the amount of time we spend? Maybe you can answer in a comment...

Gary

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

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Guitar Lessons From Picasso

"Good artists copy, great artists steal." - Picasso

As you follow your guitar lessons this advice from Picasso can help you to become a better guitar player.

From the outset you learn to play guitar by copying. Copying exercises and songs from a teacher, scales, melodies, licks and solos from music books... you copy all of these to progressively learn and master new skills.

But if all you do is copy you miss out on a vital part of the learning process. You skip understanding, and understanding is what you need to grow as a guitar player and musician.

Understanding deals with the why's of the material you copy. Why does it work? Why is it the way it is? Ask yourself these questions every time you copy a new piece of music. Dig beneath the surface to discover the hidden layers that support the end result. Steal each piece of music and make it your own.

There's always a reason why something is the way it is. Discover these reasons and you will develop a fuller understanding that will make you a better guitar player.

Gary

Guitar article writing: Gary Fletcher writes quality, original guitar content for your web sites. Discover guitar writing services for guitar web sites, blogs and newsletters. Visit http://www.writescribe.com/guitar to learn more.

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Guitar Practice Pitfalls: Staring at the Neck

Do you stare at your guitar neck when you practice? It's easy to fall into this bad habit as you learn to play guitar. Why is it a problem? Well, if you spend all your time staring at the neck as you play you'll have a hard time communicating with an audience or with other band members. And if you can't communicate then you'll limit your performance skills and ultimately end up playing less well.

But how do you break this habit? How can you learn to play guitar without staring at the neck to see where you put your fingers all the time? Simple, you practice.

If you want to play guitar without staring at the neck then you have to practice that way. Here are three exercises that will help you break the habit of staring at the guitar neck while you practice.

Switch on the TV

Practice some chord progressions or scales while watching a favourite program on the TV. Not only does it help stop you staring at the neck it can also earn you extra practice time.

If the guitar's noise bothers you then you can simply practice moving your fretting hand around without picking. You won't hear problems this way though, so remember to check your fingers are going in the right place from time to time.

Practice in the Dark

Have you ever tried to practice in the dark? It will surely be a revealing experience if you're a neck watcher. In the dark you can't rely on your eyes to guide you to the right places on the neck. Your only option is to develop your feel for finger, hand and arm position.

Read Music

If you sight read music as you play you'll have a hard time looking at the neck much. If you don't sight read it will also help you learn this useful skill. Of course, you can substitute other notations if you prefer - follow a chord chart or the song lyrics as you sing them.

If you are a neck watcher then these three practice techniques will help you to break your bad habit.

1. Switch on the TV, gain practice time as you watch your favourite shows.
2. Practice in the dark, gain guitar skill and save on lighting at the same time.
3. Read music and occupy your eyes as you develop useful musical skills.

The secret to all the techniques is to find a practice environment that gives you something else to watch or think about. This forces you to develop your sense of position and teach your fingers, hand and arm to feel when they are in the right place. Set up your practice so that you spend at least a portion of your time to practice without looking at the guitar neck.

Gary

Learn acoustic guitar with 153 step by step video lessons, acoustic jam tracks, ear training and music reading software. From beginner through to advanced player with Jamorama Acoustic complete learning system.

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