Guitar Tuning Basics

Before you learn how to do that fancy guitar stuff that you have been yapping about these past few weeks. You should first learn a basic, a fundamental skill that is not that difficult but as important as anything else. What I am talking about right now is no other than “Tuning”. You heard it right. Tuning the guitar is as important as anything else. How can you suppose to produce a quality tone when your guitar is out of tune? See the weight of importance there? Common sense would tell you in the head that to learn guitar, must learn tuning.

Guitar Tuning Basics – How to do it

Basically, there are two major ways to do it. One is to base the notes on an electric piano (it never goes out of tune) or you could also use an electric tuner.  We will not fuzz about the tuning pipes and stuff because this is the digital age baby. So how to do it?

Using an Electronic Piano – all you have to do is to base the 6 strings to the following notes: 6^th – Low E, 5^th – A, 4^th – D, 3^rd – G, 2^nd – B, and 1^st – high E. notice the numbers; these are the strings and the letters are the notes.

Guitar Tuning Basics – how to do it on an electronic tuner?

All you have to do is to plug it directly to the tuner if you are using an electric guitar and wind the tuning pegs until the indicator tells you that it is tuned. You will know it when the dial is on the middle or sometimes other tuners have different methods of telling you so. But usually, it’s a dial that points to the middle which indicates that your string is already tuned. That’s guitar tuning basics.

They say, “Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.”  If you have a musical instrument like a guitar for example in your place, don’t just let it rot in the corner.  If you love music, take a chance in learning the guitar. The great thing about guitars is that it is portable you can easily just bring it with you unlike the piano. It is much more affordable, and the most number of great musicians are also a guitarist at the same time. It’s never too late to learn new thing right? If you have nothing to do with your life, just wasting your time in nonsensical things, then why don’t you help yourself improve? I know there are a lot of struggling musicians out there. In poor places, kids who have real talent, it’s just sad knowing they can’t even buy their own guitar while you have one there letting it dust in your attic.  It doesn’t matter what age you are right now. Learning never stops in life. You will never know how music will change your life; how it will affect your relationships you have right now.

How to change your guitar strings is easy enough to understand if you know how to follow directions carefully. For most people, changing their strings could be a difficult task, although it isn’t. So if you are one of these people who think that changing strings is a tedious job, here’s something that would make you reconsider that thought. Changing it could be a breeze if you know how to. So sit back and enjoy this instructional post that I compiled specially for you.  Learn how to change the strings in your guitar so that you would not be called as an ignorant fool.

First, you need to loosen up the strings. Loosen it until you could easily remove it. Use a pliers to do it. After removing the strings, which should be done one at a time, you should clean the fret board and other parts of the guitar that you couldn’t reach before because of the installed strings. Now after you done cleaning, place a brand new set of string son it, one by one. Use a string winder to wind it up much more quickly. Pull the strings and tune the strings repeatedly until you hear no detuning anymore. That’s it.

Today, we will tell you something about how to play like your idol guitar player. Hmmm, let’s pick one. Okay, how about B.B. King? Is that good for you? Alright. Here’s how to play like B.B. King.

First, the equipment:

B.B. King uses a Gibson, matter of fact, he had been using it for 40 years before Gibson and King officially came up with a signature guitar model in 1982. The signature model was an ES – 335 with a fine – tuner tailpiece, thin semi – hollow body with no sound holes and of course the most popular guitar name, “Lucille”.

He uses signature guitar strings as well, with gauges: .010 .013 .017p .032w .045w .054w

To imitate the tone, do not use any distortion. Juts a clean and warm overdriven tone from your amp will do. B.B. King uses a lot of variation of pentatonic / blues scale or mixolydian scale on his songs. He doesn’t use any fast – switching licks, he’s no SRV but he is very popular with his phrasing and vibratos. The feel of his guitar solos are intense, like he’s feeling every note of it and you can’t just copy that. The way he does the vibrato is also unique as well.

Well, at first, changing the guitar strings is a bit uncomfortable when you haven’t tried it yet but actually it is not that difficult if you know what to do and you know what to use. You should consider this as part of your daily routine as a guitarist, something as natural as cleaning your guitar. So today, if you want to learn how to change the strings of your guitar, I have just the right thing right here that would keep you going and help you start learning this skill. It is a much needed skill if you really want to learn guitar, I mean, who would change the strings for you? Guitar tech? You are still not on that level… so if you want to learn read this. This would save you from trouble.

First, you need to have the following:

-          Pliers

-          String winder

-          Strings (obviously)

-          Cloth

Unwind the string until it is loose. Do it one at a time. This is important so that you wouldn’t break the neck of your guitar.

Next, cut off the string. And then clean the guitar, fretboard and everything using the cloth.

Replace string, use the string winder to wind it up and tune.

Guitar tuning is an essential thing learn of you want to learn how to play the guitar. it is no good playing on a guitar that is out of tune, that is why, before you learn anything else, learn how to tune first, it’s a protocol. So if you want to learn how to tune, I have some juicy bits of information that you might want to learn, these are all reliable information about how to tune your guitar. This would definitely save you from the trouble of searching for information elsewhere. And by the time that you finish reading this article, you will be enlightened about how to tune your guitar.

So how do you tune your guitar? The easiest method is to buy an electronic tuner. Then plug in your guitar there. Play first the 6^th string, and turn the tuning pegs until the dial on the tuner is in the middle. Do the same with the rest of the strings. You could also try relative tuning as long as your low E string is in tune. Play the A on the 6^th string and based the open A of the 5^th string on it. Do the same with the rest of the strings.

People would exchange anything for money these days…

Well, here we are gain spotting both the usual and the unusual. The Legendary Guitarist and Singer Songwriter, John Lennon had a recently found toilet and is now on auction at Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts together with some of his rarest albums to date.  The rare stuff from Lennon includes the lavatory from tittenhurst park, where he lived between 1969 and 1972, plus a mono copy of two virgins. This stuff would go on sale this Saturday.  The toilet might reach 1000 pounds or maybe it won’t.

My thoughts: well, that’s John Lennon ain’t it? You can possibly sell a toothpick that Lennon used, he’s on of the most popular symbol and personality in the world of all time. You can’t possibly diss people selling his artifacts for it would definitely be a collector’s item. For me, if I had the chance to choose one from his stuff, I’ll get the Rickenbacker that he uses on the Beatles early years. The black and white one. I don’t care if it sounds not so good, as long as it comes from him, that’s good enough for me.

The tendency is we put too much emphasis on our fingering hand, practicing it most of the time. Yes, we could do some amazing speed riffs with our finger hand by hammer ons and pull offs but when it’s picking time, we suck.

If you couldn’t pick each note you play with your fingering hand as fast as how you do it with hammer – ons and pull offs, then that is not good indeed. Knowing how to pick the precise strings and picking it note for note is also essential.

We could apply alternate picking or economic picking with that. At first, if you are not used to it then it would be a bit difficult at first. But the idea is to pick each and envy note that you are going to play without hammering and pulling off. That’s what’s up. Now, if you could perfect doing that then you would actually double your fingering speed while using hammer – ons and pull offs as well as alternate picking and economic picking techniques. It might take some time to whip out a perfect one but with constant practice and the sufficient amount of dedication and determination, you would come out clean.

In performing, the number one negative force that is preventing you from performing well on stage is stage fright.  Conquering it and completely removing it from your system is the number one thing that we should first take care of.  It prevents you from becoming your best on the stage, leading to poor performance and tons of mistakes.  We don’t want that especially on our first gig; because we want to leave a good impression to the people would show up on our shows.  That is why we should learn how to conquer stage fright.

First, the number one contributor on stage fright is stress and anxieties.  If you are so stressed before a performance, your brain is so worked out and you could not think properly.  And then negative thoughts would enter your head resulting to poor stage performance.  The best method to conquer this is to be mentally and physically prepared before a scheduled performance.  Do a run through on all of your routines, and your guitar parts on your songs before your set.  This would give you confidence that you know you what you are doing and you know what you will do on stage.  As simple as this you would conquer stage fright.

I know that you should be dealing with guitars, but face it, what you’re playing your guitar you might be also singing too.  So it’s better to improve both of your skills at once.  It’s not asking too much, you could have any skill that you want and that you could acquire as long as you could do it.  So here are some tips.

Vocal warm up exercises

There are basically three things they could do to warm up your voice.  You can do this every day and even before your performance.  First you can do a breathing vocal warm up exercises.  Just exercise your lung and your diaphragm.  You could also do lip rolls and other multiple vocal exercises.

If you want to improve your singing voice you should learn how to monitor your breath to improve your singing voice.  Do not expand your chest as it is a process of incorrect breathing.  Instead, while inhaling you should expand your stomach.  To do this, you should use your diaphragm muscle.  To strengthen your diaphragm muscle as well as your stomach muscle, try doing crunches.  It’s nice to have a good posture because it plays a key role in improving your singing voice.

There are rumors of a big plans for john Lennon 70^th birthday this October.  There are plans to make notations very much memorable in Liverpool.  They are planning to honor john Lennon on a 70^th birthday on Saturday, October 9, 2010.  It was said that they will be creating three authorize time capsules and they would bury it until October 9, 2040.  They will store it on the rock hall and two other locations on different parts of the world which they believe has significance to John’s legacy.

They said that the purpose of making a capsule is to preserve john Lennon’s legacy and for the children of today and tomorrow to know they want to share it with them.  But I think this is not necessary and because his legacy is already attached amongst the hearts of those who knew the Beatles and the things that he had done and contributed in favor of world peace.  Even though he lived a short life, he still manages to contribute a big deal in terms of peace and love.  The messages of his songs are all significant and meaningful.  Because of this, we don’t need no time capsule to remember john Lennon’s legacy.

Why should you practice?  Why should you spend the rest of your time just to practice guitar?  Well the answer to this is very simple if you really want to be good in playing the guitar there is no other way but to practice and practice religiously and practice hard and practice as much as you can.  Most beginner guitar players questioned me a lot about how often should they practice.  I said, should practice as often as possible.  Even the greatest guitar players are still dedicating hours of their time just to practice.  They always thing there is always room for improvement even if they are already there on that level of guitar playing which we call legendary.  If you can see their attitude towards practice, you would see that they treat practice, like something very important, something like a religious ritual.  Something that is a very important part of their lives.  And not suggesting they should practice the whole day, because as ordinary people, we have things that we should do in our everyday lives that doesn’t include playing the guitar.  On that case, you can spend two hours of your time for practice, or you could set any vacant time that you have for practice.  But if you doing this as a profession, you should definitely spend more time practicing.

Picture this situation: you surpassed the beginner stage and now you could be able to perform songs without difficulties.  You join a band and you made songs together.  Now you’re all set to perform on a certain evening.  Now, the evening came.  You are about to perform in front of several people.  Now I know this is common with all guitar players were about to play their first gig, and they want to tell you that it is very much normal to feel very nervous.  It’s very much OK.  Some people actually piss in their pants out of nerves.  But you don’t have to piss in your pants.  Here’s something that would help you call her that stage fright.  This is also what I did.  But for your information, and did not pissed in my pants.

First, make sure that you have rehearsed everything thoroughly because making a mistake on stage could screw up your nerves very bad and you might lose it.  Do not drink coffee.  If you’re 18 and above, you could down a bottle of beer just to heat you up.  And speaking of heating you up, don’t forget to warm up.  The best thing that you could do and don’t think about it.  Pretend that this is all part of the show and it is a normal thing.  And you will be alright.

being in a band is the best job in the world if you are really, really famous. Look at it this way: you are playing, performing and singing your songs, doing the things that you want and getting paid for it. Now, who wouldn’t want that? That is why many aspiring guitar players practice hard and do their best to get into a band and when they do, the next problem arises, how to popularize your band. You don’t get there easily, you need to work hard for it. And it might cost you a bit before you get there. You can’t get it all by pure talent. You must have charisma.

Have you noticed some bands that have lots of followers? It is not only because they are good, it is also because they have charisma and they draw people to them with their presence. That is the most important thing you should have, stage presence. You should not only be good with your instruments, but you should also be good in performing it and projecting an image. You should not look lame on stage. People should be amazed by your performance. If the crowd loves you then you will simply become popular and get the job of your dreams.