Guitarists Learning Material

Learn Playing Guitar

Getting the right guitar lessons for you for learning to perform

If you are someone looking to perform and learn to play guitar, then check out Guitar Tuition East London. They put on concerts and shows for their students. There are some things you might want to think about when you put on a show. Here are a few tips:


Gigs in the beginning

You may have difficulty getting into bars or nightclubs if you do not have an established band. Shows in your town will allow you to gain experience. You might be able to play at someone’s birthday party. There are many events where you can play, including graduation parties, weddings, and other occasions. Experience can be gained at these locations.

If you don’t have any friends, you can just get together with some and play music. Your band will become known and become talked about if you do this.  Garage bands are often formed in garages and develop from there. 

Concerts & Jams

It is a good idea to find out if there is a jam tonight in bars and clubs. Playing a couple of songs might be possible for you. Your band’s members might not all be able to do this. The guitarist or the singer of the house band could jam with the house band for a few songs. You can gain experience in this way and become more confident. 

Having a band of your own may be your dream if you’re able to establish yourself as a professional. Most likely, an arrangement will have to be made with the bar or club owner.

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Getting pain when you are practising guitar? What to do?

Guitar playing can cause pain. A lot of times this happens when you’re learning the game for the first time. Find out what you can do to eliminate pain completely and how you can manage it….

Sore muscles should be rested

It is important to rest after playing the guitar if you are sore. Any pain in your hands, wrists, or neck should not be ignored. If you don’t rest your body, you will make things worse. Take pain medication or apply ice if the pain is severe. Consult your doctor if you are still experiencing pain. When playing guitar, you should not experience serious pain. You may be doing something wrong, so talk with your guitar teacher.

Don’t overdo it when practicing

It’s possible that you’ve been playing guitar too often and for too long at one time if you’re experiencing pain. You often see this among young players who feel they have to learn everything instantly. Continuing to play so much can lead to serious injuries down the road. Practice sessions of 30 minutes to an hour should not go over the limit. Putting your body through endless hours of playing guitar is not healthy. Initial strain may not feel like much, but can build up and create problems such as pulled muscles, tendonitis, or other conditions caused by repetitive stress.

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How to avoid imposter syndrome as a musician

When you’re a musician and you put yourself in a situation where you’re playing with other people, you put yourself out there, you go to play gigs. It’s very common for musicians to fill what is called imposter syndrome. This is where you feel like you’re not good enough you feel like you pretending, you feel like you’re just getting away with it. And I can really knock someone’s confidence especially if someone gives be less than good comment. Or it can knock your confidence in a way where you don’t want to form again for a long time. The different reasons why someone might suffer from imposter syndrome. It might be because you are a Perfectionist.

Being a Perfectionist

When you’re a perfectionist you’re expecting a level of execution which is near impossible. And you always feel like you’re not going to be good enough. This often comes from childhood where you might have been overly criticised by parents, or compare to peers. And it can create a perfectionist mindset in you. This kind of mindset it makes it very difficult to get rid of impostor syndrome. One advice I house if you do you have this it’s just to go out there and accept 80% of your level perfection. If you think 80% is good enough than that will make you feel a lot Proud of you accomplishments rather than  feeling like you’re not good enough. 

Understanding music

Another reason why people get imposter syndrome is because they don’t actually understand what they’re playing. This is very common in musicianship especially when people are classically trained or learnt from YouTube. You feel like a copycat because what you know how to play this copied rather than understanding the composition and the musical meaning mind the songs. For example if you learn from YouTube you often learn chords like the E shape or the A shape on the guitar rather than learning their actual chord names. So when you go to play with other people and they asked you to play son chords you might get lost and therefore you might get confuse and that’s what’s going To make you feel like a fraud. 

To combat this basic things you can do is learn music theory for your instrument and also learn how to communicate with other musicians.

Once you’ve worked on these things it will help you to feel a lot more confident on your instrument and hope you get rid of what is called imposter syndrome. And don’t worry a lot of people go through this and it might happen at different times for you in different occasions. But once you identify what it is then you can come past it and feel more confident with your musicianship. …

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What to think about when buying a guitar for beginners

What are the sort of things we need to think about when it comes to buying our first guitar

If this is your first time buying a guitar. It may seem like a daunting experience. Especially if you’ve set yourself a reasonable budget to do so. 

The good news is that if you buy something of reasonable quality. The chances are you can resell your guitar. But hopefully guitar will be something you will want to play got a long time. 

And buying a guitar that you love and treasure as your first guitar. Will help you get there. 

So why buy a nice guitar?

Why not just buy the cheapest thing around the block. 

Having a decent guitar will help make your playing journey for enjoyable. 

If you get a cheap guitar, the strings are often difficult to play and will hurt your fingers, and also the action (the gap between the strings and the fretboard) May be larger which makes it harder for you to play as a beginner as well.

A guitar isn’t just down to the quality of the strings and how it set up though there are many things that makes her playing a guitar more enjoyable.

It could be the tone and the sound that your guitar is making.

All in all it’s better to get a guitar that you like and love and this will motivate you to practice and get excited to come back from your lesson and try out new things on your new guitar!

Acoustic or Electric Guitar?

First thing so think of is whether you want to get an acoustic or an electric guitar!

Electric guitars can be slightly easier to play for beginners because I have seen a strings and a sinner body. Which means it’s easier for you to look over and see your fingers playing on the fretboard. 

Acoustic guitars are good as well if you are into playing acoustic covers of songs that you love.

Electric guitars can have a bit more set up for example you need an amp and lead where is an acoustic guitar you can just pick up and play and it will sound gorgeous as it is. 

This is a good start to trying to make sure you get a quality guitar that is the right sort to help you to get started with buying your first guitar.

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My experience learning the guitar

Learning a completely new instrument

Someone who’s never played any instruments before the idea of learning the guitar was quite daunting for me.

But it’s something that I’ve wanted to do ever since I was about 16 when I saw my first concert. It wasn’t a live concert it was a record concert of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen on television, Brian May had both surprised and Intrigued me. 

Brian May

I found out everything I could about him realise he was an astrophysicist tongue guitarist! I was so excited as I was a bit of a physics nerd myself.

They had the crowd was roaring for them, In a way that I never seen before. And I wanted that same feeling for myself. Alas reality hit, I became a humble science teacher.

I thought music wasn’t in my bones and I just enjoyed listening to it and now that I’m retired I decided to finally give playing guitar go.

I didn’t know where to get started back in the day people use DVDs and CDs to learn how to play guitar. Or maybe they just copied from other people, or they got their friends teach them.

Getting started with Guitar Lessons

I decided I would learn best with physical guitar lessons that way I can get feedback and it was the way I talk best. I can see how my students were so much more interactive when I talk to them in person versus if I gave him homework and got them to work on and problem themselves. I thought that that would work best for me as well. 

So off I went to find a guitar school that would suit my needs I need someone who had experience in teaching complete beginners would never played before. 

And finally I managed to find this guitar school Seem to offer everything I wanted. I’m a pretty sociable guy and it would’ve been nice to meet some other musicians who around my age you also learning as well. Like in a classroom I see students learn best when they can bounce ideas off one another in a group. And I wanted that for myself as well. But it’s pretty hard to find lessons that isn’t just one-to-one.

And since having lessons and having that interaction and teachers who really know what they’re doing I’ve been able to achieve more than I ever thought I could on the guitar. From plain simple cause to now actually performing fun of other people. I’m not quite queen! But I have had lots of claps and Whoops! from the audience when I’ve played. And that’s more rewarding than a man my age deserves. 

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Why it’s important not to get disheartened when you get stuck at the guitar

Guitar is one the most popular instruments in the wild. Apparently one in four people claim they can play the guitar in the UK. I’d like to challenge the statement but I think it’s very likely that one and four of us does own a guitar in the UK. You go to peoples houses new see you guitar lying around. You asked them if they can play and many times still say no are used to play.

So what happened? why do these people give up?

One of the reasons that they lack the support system around them for them to keep going when things get tough.

Another reason is that maybe they could put an instrument because I don’t know where else to go with it. The lease direction and I have any guidance for which to do. 

Having Realistic Expectations

Realistic expectations is another. A lot of people think the guitar is easier than it is. And in some ways it is and in many ways it’s not. I know when I first looked at the guitar I thought it was something that you tomato in a year or two. Having come from a background in piano, I saw the guitar as an inferior instrument. Ha ha how wrong was I. There are so many things you can do with a guitar on Waze that you can’t do a piano. However people do you have unrealistic expectations when it comes to learn any guitar I think that they can learn it much sooner and when it gets tough they give up.

It’s Not You… It’s the Guitar

The thing that I’m trying to say who is that is very very common for people to give up playing guitar. So what does that mean for you? Are you going to be one of those people? 

Or are you going to avoid it by knowing these things in advance, so that when things get tough you know where to go and get guidance so that you don’t give up. And end up having a guitar next to you for the next 20 years and look at it and feel bad that you can’t play it. 

How to go about getting motivated about Guitar again

So get yourself some friends to play guitar with.

Find yourself some musicians to sing along to you playing the guitar.

Get a guitar teacher who can help you learn the guitar. There are so many things you can do to motivate yourself and invigorate your guitar playing when things get hard. There are ways to overcome any challenges that you have on the guitar. And if you do wanna take a break too well you can come back to it don’t put so much pressure on yourself to meet a deadline of learning the guitar. You have a lifetime to do it.

I like they say the best time to plant the tree 20 years ago and the next best time is now so just stop pursuing playing the guitar the way that you want to.

Enjoy the journey and it will come much easier.

planting tree for guitar playing
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Learning to play different types of guitars

Electric guitar is a very popular for beginners because the strings are thin and they’re easy for your fingers to press on. And also many popular pop songs are also played on electric guitar and you can use lots of different effects, synths, pedals to create the sound that you want to achieve from your guitar to sound like your favourite guitarists. 

Electric guitar

On top of that electric it has come in a lot of different shapes which is really exciting for beginners to choose from. You can choose guitar shame is based on Your favourite guitarists, or maybe you have a preference on the shape of them. You can also choose from a range of different colours as well. From bright pink holographic to black or silver there are so many different guitar colours that you can choose from. You can even custom across colours as well and even build your own electric guitar so you can have whatever colour you need.

I still remember watching this YouTube video which is got billions of views I will embed it below where the sky have made an electric guitar used from coloured pencils and it looked like the most amazing thing in the world. That’s probably why he has so many views on his video. 

Acoustic Guitar

I didn’t start out an electric guitar though, I actually started with an acoustic guitar. Which is what a lot of beginners end up starting on because it seems to be easier. That’s because there is less buttons and knobs to play with, however, the acoustic guitars have much thicker strings. The sticker strings mean that I can be much harder for beginner to press down and get a good sound and then the finger start to hurt you and many of them give up soon after because they think that they can’t play the guitar.

Really fun acoustic guitar it just takes longer because you have to build up a higher level of callouses on your fingers to make them nice and  tough so you can press down on the strings easier.

The nice thing about acoustic guitar

The nice thing about acoustic guitar is that you don’t have to plug them in and they sound great as they are once you’ve got a handle for good sound. And many popular songs also use Acoustic for tours to play and one where you can make an acoustic guitar easier to play is choose a classical acoustic which means that the strings some of the strings are made out of plastic which makes it easier for you fingers to press down. 

Choosing a guitar to start off with might seem really overwhelming but there are easier ways of doing it if you have a guitar teacher then you can ask them to help you recommend one and it can be especially useful if they have different types of guitars that you can try out because of coronavirus we haven’t been able to go to guitar store. Normally go into a guitar store is a great way of of Trying out different guitars to you know which ones you like. A lot of time is it at home may seem small or big online but actually once you’ve got it on you in person it can feel very different and you wanna make sure you find one that is comfortable for you to sit with so that you can practice and play for long hours and not overwhelmed.

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Different Types Of Guitars That You Can Train And Learn

When you think about learning guitar, you need to decide the kind of guitar you want to play. This is because you can’t play all guitars at the same time. However, you can learn to play all types of guitars, but it will only be impossible to master all of them. 

Before you could begin with the training, first think about the kind of music, you want to play. Then factor in the type of guitar you wish to play once you learn. 

If you’re not sure which type of guitars we are talking about, then this article is for you. The following are different types of guitars that you can choose to learn and specialize in. 

  • Acoustic Guitar 

An acoustic guitar is the most played by most players. This is because it gives the simple music rhythm that you’ll find in every song you can ever think of. Once you learn acoustic guitar, you can then play any kind of music. There won’t be a limit to what you can do. 

Acoustic guitar combines the power of all the other two types of guitar to give the rhythm. Most beginners prefer to start learning acoustic guitar and then advance their skills to the other guitar types. 

When learning acoustic guitar, you will be required to learn how to play chords and play them well. You master chords, timing, strumming, fingerpicking, and playing techniques. At first, it seems like a lot of things to learn, but once you dive into it, you realize how easy it is to play acoustic guitar. 

  • Bass Guitar 

Everyone loves the bass vibe in every piece of music. It gives a great and deep feeling to every music you choose to play. The good thing with Bass guitar is that it’s easy to learn and play as compared to the other types of guitars. 

As a player, you’ll need to learn different musical notes, progression, timing, and picking techniques. With this, you can easily play the bass of almost any song that’s accompanied by bass. 

If you’re advancing from the acoustic guitar, it becomes very easy for you to learn and play bass guitar. 

  • Lead Guitar 

This is the guitar played by the few who take the time to master the skills. It’s what almost everyone gets excited to listen to a piece of music. The lead guitar is also known as solo guitar, gives the melody feel of the music. When played, you can easily hum through to your favorite song. 

It takes great skills, mastery, and practice to play lead guitar. And if you’re transitioning from acoustic guitar, learning becomes easy as compared to when you’re learning from the start. 

To learn acoustic guitar, you majorly learn how to play scales and their applications, picking, timing, and progression. And with these, you can easily play any music. 

Parting Shot 

When you think of learning and playing guitar, the first thing you must do is be sure of the kind of guitar you want to play. Choosing between an acoustic, bass, and lead guitar will give you clarity in your learning. 

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