You might well ask. The age of the guitar hero seems to be well and truly over although there are still large numbers of people interested in listening to, rather than playing, the guitar. Real enthusiasm for the electric and acoustic guitar blossomed in the 1960's and 70's when everybody had a friend who sat in his bedroom all day and night practicing the guitar. Indeed this willingness to devote all of your time to a musical instrument is one of the principal ingredients of a guitar player.
During these long hours spent alone with your guitar you acquire musical knowledge. You learn esoteric terms like "pentatonic scales" and "CAGED" finger patterns. Not only do you learn these terms but they actually become part of you. You can live and breathe chords and scales. You also learn to read written music. Guitar tablature might be your first portal into the world of learning music from a sheet of paper, but you will probably also learn conventional sheet music. Why would you learn to read sheet music if tabs are quite easy to read and give you a quick way of learning songs? Because the theoretical side of music becomes interesting. It's a thing of beauty, and you discover it in your bedroomy world of the sound of guitar notes and the smell of old socks.
The other thing you discover through relentless practice is technique. Your fingers show that they can do things you don't even know about. The intelligence in your body has taken over and left your head brain for dead. You pick up your instrument and the hours of practice pay off in the way your body can translate dots on a page to music.
Improvisation also grows from learning scales and chords and putting them into practice. Your first clumsy efforts at using other people's riffs and licks to help you in letting go and experimenting with making music spontaneously gradually transform into a daily ritual you can't live without.
So here is a list of guitar players. Although you can probably name a hundred great players from rock or blues, I've put together a list from many different styles of guitar playing: Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton led their fans into the age of the guitar hero.
Jimmy Page was a legend from very early in his career when he played guitar on many iconic songs of the nineteen sixties as a session guitarist.
Paco De Lucia led a new age of flamenco playing in the seventies and still commands attention when he appears on stage.
Julian Bream battled many difficulties to share the limelight in the idiom of classical guitar with his more flamboyant friend, John Williams.
Improvising using only two fingers on his left hand, Django Reinhardt introduced jazz fans of the nineteen thirties and forties to the sound of acoustic instruments with his Hot Club Quintet.
Stevie Ray Vaughn mesmerized his followers with his inventiveness and depth of feeling in his electric guitar music.
And, finally two icons of the early sixties electric guitar scene - Hank B. Marvin whose warm overpowering sound made teenage boys wish to make guitar music, and Dick Dale who fired the imagination of young people with his frenetic surf guitar.
I hope this little essay on what it takes to be a guitar player has been enjoyable and has given you some insight into what a guitar player is made of.
Working on Your Knowledge
Learn how to read different style of guitar notes. To take advantage of various instructional guitar pieces, you should familiarize yourself with the many ways guitar playing is thought. For instance, you could come across with lessons made up of numbers and letters instead of letters and musical notes. In this case, numbers are used for finger reference while certain letters do not represent chords but positioning. O is for Open, X is for not playing strings, and T stands for your thumb.
Familiarize yourself with the history of guitar making and playing. Learning the evolution of guitars will help you appreciate more the features of your present guitar and maximize its uses. Being familiar with its history lets you know now what people in the past were missing and the potential of the guitar you are holding. It is easier to create magic when you know what your wand is capable of, do you think?
As for guitar playing, familiarizing yourself with the different styles of guitar players of old and new will help you develop your own unique style, recognize which features you wish to integrate in your brand of playing and learning from past mistakes.
Take advantage of technology. Instead of focusing exclusively on old paper based lessons, you can also purchase audio and video guitar lessons. You can also purchase guitar learning software programs that will automatically let you know what could be wrong with your playing and the proper solution to it.
Working on Your Skills
Teach your fingers to dance. In other words, work on keeping your fingers flexible. There be doing all the work so it is important that they are able to tread lightly or heavily as needed. Practice finger exercises daily to keep them quick and nimble.
Know how to relax. Beginners often experience tension, stress, and pressure when playing the guitar after a long period of time because there holding their bodies too stiffly. Another lesson in connection to this is positioning. Know the correct positions for your body and fingers when playing the guitar.
One common problem experienced by amateur guitarists is finger lockup. Sometimes, tension building from an elevated arm travels to your fingers and force them to lock up. When this happens, people usually just force their fingers to continue playing the song without pause. This is wrong.
Know how to play both acoustic and electric guitars. It never hurts to know both and being ambidextrous at least in terms of guitar type will let you appreciate what your preferred guitar type has and the other do not while helping you recognize what yours do not have and allowing you to compensate for it.
Working on Your Love
Listen to guitar intensive songs. Try identifying the chords there using to train your ears.
Hang out once in a while with people with similar interests. Talking about your favorite topic with people who are able to understand and share your love will make you a better player.
Rather, you should stop playing and concentrate on moving your fingers gradually back into its original position. Then, move to the next chord position ever so slowly. Work on getting sensation back to your fingers. Follow this tip and you will play better afterwards.
Both Ricky Sharples & Ronald W. Firquain are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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