Learn Acoustic Guitar Lessons

Bending and vibrato are two related guitar techniques that you could use to improve your guitar soloing skills. But most people can’t do it correctly. Some overdo it; some are not able to even bend the string properly to the desired note. So if you want to learn more about this, I have just the right information for you that you can use to make things easier. Of course it would need a lot of practice but this would certainly save you from the headache of not being able to these techniques the right way. By the moment you finish reading this article, you will have a clear idea how to do these following techniques which would be essential to your growth as a guitar player.

Bending is the process of bending the string up to get to a certain note, to play that note instead of monotonously plucking is picking all the notes. The best way to do this is to use your ring finger and then support it with the middle finger and the index finger. Vibrato on the other hand is the bending the strings in rapid succession to create a wobbling sound that bring like to your solos.

The recently united legendary group, Soundgarden will be releasing the first ever collection of the music they made since 1996, all of these packed in the album Telephantasm. That would be on September 28 thru A&M and Universal Music. This is an epic journey through the colorful career of these rockers, this includes all the beloved Soundgarden hits plus tracks that you never heard before, unreleased track entitled “Black Rain” that was allegedly taken from the Badmotorfinger recording sessions. This was the first time in their history to compile such collection of hits in one solid reunion album. Of course, they would be touring this year.

My thoughts: well, Soundgarden has been an influential band of the nineties. With their own brand of alternative rock, they have captured the minds of youth back then. I heard about them in 1999, I was grade 6 that time, and the experience was awesome indeed. Chris Cornell, for the benefit of those who doesn’t know, has been the front man of the super group, Audioslave, together with the rhythm section of rage against the machine, Tom Morello and the rest of the guys. I don’t know if they broke up, but it is pretty obvious since RATM is rocking again.

Strings won’t last forever. Some strings lasts for a week depending on the acidity of your sweat or the intensity of usage. Anyway, the point here is sooner or later you would be changing those strings. So just in case you don’t know how to change the strings, I would tell you how to. First you should have the following stuff:

-          Needle nose pliers

-          String winder

-          Soft cotton cloth

-          Guitar cleaning polish

Here are the steps:

1. Loosen the strings of your guitar using the string winder. Do this one by one to avoid damage to the neck of your guitar.
2. Use the pliers to carefully grab the string from the capstan, the part where the strings wind around. Pull it until it all comes out.
3. Do this repeatedly until all the strings are removed.
4. Clean guitar with the guitar cleaning polish. Clean it well specially the body and the fretboard. Don’t use furniture polish on your guitar, use the real guitar polish.
5. Replace the strings one by one. Insert the string through the hole in the back if your electric guitar is a Fender.
6. Wind it using the string winder.

It’s not actually a totally customized telecaster, it’s just a signature Squire Telecaster that I had mutilated in the shop to make it look cooler. The tone is okay already, I don’t have to kill it. Anyway, the guitar is a Squire Telecaster Avril Lavigne Signature Model. It originally has a black finish and a race – car checkered pick guard. It also has a single Humbucker on the bridge and a volume control. I’m not really into the simple stuff like but it just happens that I’m attracted to single volume controls and single humbuckers on guitars. I definitely envy Tom Delonge’s signature ES 355, the one with the racing stripe and the Dirty Finger Humbucker. Damn, I want to get my hands on them, but the thing is, it’s a bit expensive, though.

Anyway, what I did is have the black glossy finish scraped off the top and replace it with a natural looking finish. No gloss, just wood. And I also replaced the tuning pegs with a Fender one. Squire’s tuning pegs are generic so I had it replace with a Fender original. Plus, the single Humbucker was replaced with an Atomic Humbucker. Now it looks natural and sounds evil.

Do you ever wonder why it is important to have a band manager?  Having a Band manager is very much important so that we could focus efficiently or whenever you need to do as a band.  A musician’s focus is on making music and focusing on business may not be the most efficient use of time labor and it will also mix you up so you should divide the tasks with your band and your band manager.  Leave the music making to you and the business to the manager.

The role of the band manager is that he’s the one was making business decision for the group.  It can be more effective because he would only be focusing on it.  Compared to not having a manager were your focus is divided between business and your music.  And that is a hard thing to do.  The band manager also helps in planning the group’s creative direction guiding them to what you believe these right and fruitful.  He is also the one responsible for landing the band a record deal and he’s also the one responsible for the promotion of the band.  That is why if you have a manager all you have to do is focus when the music’s sit down and perform.  And let the manager do the rest.

When I was a beginner on playing the guitar, I find it very difficult to play it, and then I and up asking myself why is it very hard to learn the guitar?  At first, it seems as if it was very impossible to master the guitar.  I was caught up in looking at my initial mediocre skills on guitar playing.  I never realized that beginning something is very difficult because you’re not used to it.  Just like any other thing you might do, it is very difficult when you’re not used to it so therefore I conclude that it is all about getting used to it.  So the beginning is very much difficult and mastery would definitely take lots of time, truck loads of patience and definitely a lot of practice.  Most beginner guitar players create on the beginning because they can’t accept the fact that it is really hard to do it when you are only beginning.  This should make a lot of sense because this is a common fact, the thing that is experience by everyone.  Additionally, learning guitar is indeed a difficult thing to learn compared to other instruments, in fact, the guitar is one of the most difficult instruments to learn, next to the bagpipe.