An arpeggio is a type of broken chord. It means that the sounds of a chord are not played simultaneously but in a sequence. Arpeggios are played on many instruments. In fact, the name ‘arpeggio’ comes from Italian ‘arpeggiare’ which means ‘to play on a harp’. But arpeggio is also a way how one can [...]
Read more →Guitar is by far the most popular musical instrument in the Western world. Millions of people want to play it. And they do. There is no mystery – anyone can play it. However, the only way to get there is by learning. I have been talking about learning the guitar almost in every post. Recently [...]
Read more →Most of the music that people play on guitars needs to be very precise. A human is a pretty rhytmical creature – the heart is beating and fingers keep strumming on the table. If you take a longer run of walk then you will feel how you enter the rhytm. In music it is very [...]
Read more →It’s common that people spend a lot of time on learning different chord shapes and scales. But you should keep in mind that no matter what tricks you can do with your left hand, the right hand is still the one that produces the sound. No need to say that sound is the most important [...]
Read more →Often I talk to people who have everything that it takes to improve their guitar playing: they have time to practise, they have good guitars, the will and motivation. Not to mention tons of study materials, guitar method books, DVDs and online courses. Still they’re not happy with their progress and tend to blaim either [...]
Read more →Karlsson on the roof: “..I am clever, reasonably fat man in my best years” Little Brother: “Which are the best years?” Karlsson: “All of them!” You don’t need to be too smart or fat to start learning the guitar although it may help But the truth is that all the years are the best for [...]
Read more →If you play mostly chords on the guitar then probably you haven’t heard or thought about the legato technique on the guitar – hammer ons and pull offs. Once you need to play the melody then those techniques are essential. Legato means to join the notes smoothly and this term is used most often in [...]
Read more →A common aspect of the guitar playing technique that causes much trouble is playing the scales at fast tempos. Arpeggios and chords are more convenient so those problems seem more realistic to overcome. But what to do with the scales? Specially when plucking strings with fingers not a pick. About how fast tempos are we [...]
Read more →Let’s go on with the guitar playing technique and I was previously talking about an important part of the techique – the playing mechanics. So what is a good material for developing your mechanics? The term “playing mechanics” came prominently to my mind unfortunately when I already had done my BA degree in classical guitar [...]
Read more →One good opportunity to develop the skills of playing the guitar is learning the guitar from textbook. However there are many textbooks (in Estonian a dozen, but hundreds in English and Russian), and a lot of them are available our stores already. How to choose the right textbook and how many should one person have? [...]
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