Guitar Tablature: “Danny Boy”
The lovely Irish ballad “Danny Boy” is actually based on an old traditional melody called “Londonderry Air.” And if you’ve ever checked out the derrieres [more…]
Ten Classic Guitars
Whether it’s the quietly elegant Ramirez, the smoothly debonair D’Angelico, or the raucously funky Telecaster, each guitar has a unique feel. In fact, no musical instrument offers a greater variety of [more…]
Major Seventh Arpeggio Patterns #3, #4, and #5 for Guitar
A guitar arpeggio is a chord whose notes are played one at a time instead of simultaneously. It’s sort of the exploded view of a chord. Seventh chords sound richer and more complex than basic major and [more…]
How to Play Chords in the A Family on the Guitar
The A family is a popular family for playing songs on the guitar becaus, its chords are so easy to play. A-family chords are open chords, which means they contain [more…]
How to Play Chords in the D Family on Guitar
The D family of chords is usually the second chord family that guitar players learn. This is primarily because it builds off the A family of chords. It builds on the A family of chords in that the D chord [more…]
How to Play Chords in the G Family on Guitar
The G family of chords is related to the A and D families, so if you can already strum the basic chords in the A and D family, you're already halfway to understanding the G family. The basic chords that [more…]
How to Play Chords in the C Family on Guitar
Some people say that C is the easiest key to play guitar in. That’s because C it sort of the music-theory square one — the point at which everything (and, usually, everyone) begins in music. Because it's [more…]
How to Play Dominant 7th Chords on the Guitar
Learning how to play dominant 7th chords will allow your guitar playing to have a fully, richer sound. Seventh chords are no more difficult to play than are simple major or minor chords. The sound of the [more…]
How to Play Open-Position Minor 7th Chords on the Guitar
If you know how to play minor 7th chords, you will be able to play music that is a little softer and jazzier. Minor 7th chords are the chords you hear in “Moondance” by Van Morrison and in the verses of [more…]
How to Play Open-Position Major 7th Chords on the Guitar
When you play major 7th chords on the guitar, you'll notice that they have a different character than dominant 7th chords and minor 7th chords. Major 7th chords have a bright and jazzy sound. You can hear [more…]
How to Play Guitar in Position
Playing in position means that your left hand remains in a fixed location on the neck of the guitar, with each finger more or less on permanent assignment to a specific fret, and that you fret every note [more…]
Practice Exercises for Playing Guitar in Position
One of the giveaways of beginning players is that they can play only down the neck, in open position, and that they play only single-string melodies. As you improve your skills at playing guitar in position [more…]
How to Smoothly Shift Guitar Positions
Guitar music isn’t so simple that you can play it all in one position, and life would be pretty static if you could. In real-world situations, you must often play an uninterrupted passage that takes you [more…]
Guitar Practice Exercise for Playing Barre Chords Based on E Major
When playing a barre chord based on E, you'll use your barre finger as a sort of movable nut or capo and your remaining fingers as playing certain open-position chord forms directly above it. This position [more…]
How to Properly Hold a Guitar
Whether you sit or stand while playing the guitar won't affect your tone or technique. What can make a difference is if you're not holding the guitar properly. Most people prefer to practice while sitting [more…]
How to Position Your Left Hand for Acoustic Guitar
Your left hand should fall in place very naturally on the neck of the acoustic guitar. When you play the guitar, your hands should be comfortable and relaxed. If you don't use correct left-hand positioning [more…]
How to Position Your Left Hand for Electric Guitar
Proper electric guitar technique will help you more quickly get to the point where you can rock all night without your hands cramping or hurting. Paying attention to how you position your left hand [more…]
How to Position Your Right Hand for Pick-style Guitar Playing
It's important to learn how to position your right hand for pick-style guitar playing. If you use an electric guitar, it's almost exclusively played with a pick, whether you’re belting out rock ’n’ roll [more…]
How to Position Your Right Hand for Fingerpicking Your Guitar
If you eschew such paraphernalia as picks and want to go au naturel with your right hand, you should try finger-style playing, or fingerpicking. Fingerpicking [more…]
How to Read a Guitar Chord Diagram
Although you don’t need to read music to play the guitar, you will want to learn how to read chord diagrams. Musicians have developed a few simple tricks, such as chord diagrams, to enable them to communicate [more…]
How to Read Rhythm Slashes in Guitar Notation
Although you don’t need to read music to play the guitar, you need to learn how to read rhythm slashes. Rhythm slashesare slash marks (/) that tell you [more…]
How to Understand Left-Hand Fingering in Guitar Tablature
Understanding left-hand fingering in guitar tablature (or just tab) is not as hard as you might think. Most of the time, there won't be any notation in the tab to alert you to which fingers to use because [more…]
How to Play the Guitar Using Alternate Picking
Alternate picking is the right-hand picking technique that uses both downstrokes (toward the floor) and upstrokes (toward the ceiling). When you learn how to play the guitar using alternate picking, you [more…]
How to Play Barre Chords Based on E Minor on the Guitar
After you’re familiar with the basic feel and movement of playing the major barre chords on a guitar, you want to learn how to play the minor barre chords. By learning to play the minor barre chords based [more…]
How to Play Dominant 7th Barre Chords Based on E on the Guitar
Once you've got a handle on forming major and minor barre chords on the guitar, it's time to add some more depth and variety to your playing. Dominant 7th chords have a sharper, more complex sound than [more…]
