Acoustic Guitar Lessons

These mini guitar lessons have been put together for the beginner acoustic guitar student who feels a need to play music but is a bit short on direction.

Lesson One- What kind of guitar are you going to buy? 

If you have a rough idea of what kind of music you want to play, the next step is to find yourself a guitar. Let's start with the basics - nylon string or steel string. A nylon string guitar was made to play classical and folk music. Acoustic guitars make their music by sending the vibration of the strings to the soundboard. The vibrations are then amplified in the body of the guitar. Nylon string guitars make a mellow tone; steel string guitars make a brighter, more metallic sound. One of the main things that will influence you in deciding what kind of sound you want is the guitar your favorite performer plays. If you are just starting out you will not need a top of the range guitar but it is best to get the nicest one in your price range. A cheap, poorly made guitar will be an uphill battle to play. A good instrument will make your practice sessions something to look forward to. Try different guitars. See how the neck feels. Check out if one neckfeels more comfortable to play than others. Another consideration is the distance of the strings from the fret board which is called the "action". Low action is easier to play but if you are planning on strumming enthusiastically or picking loudly the guitar may have a tendency to buzz.

Lesson Two - Go ahead and learn.

The very first step toward learning to play acoustic guitar is to develop confidence and to overcome your natural reluctance try new things. Lack of money, lack of time, or lack of a good teacher are three big obstacles to your guitar learning progress. The other three big obstacles are all you. You may be your worst enemy. How do you react to a challenge? Challenges are your friends. If you find yourself getting frustrated, and not wanting to continue your practice, it might be time to downsize your goal, at least for a while. If you have two chords that you have trouble with, work on the first one alone for a while. Once you have improved a little, go to the next one.

Lesson Three - Daily Practice
As far as your daily practice goes look at starting with half an hour a day. If you can do more, great, you'll become a guitarist faster. The way you carry out your practice is crucial. Putting in the time isn't the only requirement. If you rush or try to fit too much in, then you're working against yourself. Err on the side of too little material at first. If you really are accomplishing what you set out to do in less than thirty minutes, then add a little more.

Lesson Four - Tuning Your Guitar

You can find online guitar tuners to help you get your acoustic guitar in tune. Take a day or two of your practice time to get the knack of tuning. When you start to develop an ear for tuning, try tuning the guitar without the tuner.

Lesson Five - Holding Your Acoustic Guitar
Long hours of practice can take their toll. Learning how to sit and play your acoustic guitar is an art in itself. There are places on the internet that have illustrations showing you how to sit when you're playing, but it would be good to find somebody with a little experience to show you. But don't just go with the way one person plays. If he's self-taught, then you don't want to pick up his bad habits!

Learn To Play Guitar Using Free Software

If you want to learn to play guitar for free there's plenty of software available to help you. This article will enable you to define for yourself how to approach learning the guitar and guide you in setting up the time and space necessary to make solid musical progress.

Imagine yourself sitting down to play the guitar. You want to play to your own musical standards and to make music that impresses your audience. You will play from beginning to end without a hitch. Your attention will be on the music, not nervously anticipating the bits that you can "scrape through" when you are alone in your room but could be your undoing in front of an audience.

To learn to play guitar with a high degree of fluency, the first free resource you will need is time. Even if you have a busy daily schedule you can find say, half an hour to set aside to learning guitar. Think about what you do during the day. After dinner for instance, do you sit staring mindlessly at the television? Could you get up a little earlier in the morning to play guitar? Failing to seriously think about when you are going to practice the guitar will make the other elements of your guitar education more difficult.
Once you have worked when you will practice the guitar each day, you can contemplate the basic needs behind learning music. You can see in your imagination how you want to play guitar, so how do you go about getting the music into your head and your fingers?

An essential piece of equipment you need by your side is your guitar tuner. With free guitar tuners available to download, there's no excuse not to be in tune. I recommend the AP Guitar Tuner. It has a great visual guide to make sure you get your guitar in tune with a minimum of fuss.
Whether you already read standard musical notation or you will be using guitar tablature, you need to go to your friendly neighborhood search engine and look for a free music notation program called TablEdit. Guitarists record arrangements of songs using this program and share it with other guitar players on the internet. You download the software in a zip file and install it on your computer.

Now go to your search engine again and type in the name of the song you want to learn followed by "tabledit". If your request is not too obscure, you will get a number of web pages where you can download your song. As an example, type "classical gas tabledit" into a search engine and you will be rewarded with over one-hundred-and-fifty results. The only drawback with the free version of the program is you can't edit and save the music you are learning.

Another free guitar notation program is called Powertab, so if you can't find a Tabledit file for the piece you want, try your search using "power tab".

Now sit down with yourself and let the notation program play the song. Get a good grip on how the song sounds. Then start to learn the notes in whatever size chunks you need. Break it into licks, bars, half bars, whatever, but don't ride over any bits that are difficult for you. The ultimate aim is to perform a series of small movements, each one leading to the next without unnecessary muscular tension.
If you have difficulty with any part of the song, play it slowly several times on your notation program until you can hear it in your head. Then try it slowly on the guitar.

Finally, if you can't find a TablEdit or Powertab arrangement of your song, the latest version or Apple's Quicktime has the ability to slow down any music without altering the pitch. All you need then is a sound file and a tab or sheet music of your piece and you're ready to rock!

Archlute

Archlute adalah alat musik moyang gitar yang biasanya berdawai 14 pasang(atau bahkan lebih) :), banyak senarnya ya?, hehe.., lute biasa disebut sebagai kecapi dalam Bahasa Indonesia, asal-usul kecapi barat seperti ini akan saya bahas terpisah dalam artikel-artikel mendatang.
Archlute dikembangkan sekitar tahun 1600 M di Eropa, jaman-jaman musik renaisans. Sebenarnya ada berbagai macam model kecapi/lute seperti theorbo, juga tenor lute, juga lute arab/persia. Archlute ini lebih merupakan perpaduan antara theorbo dan tenor lute jaman barok. Bedanya kalau Archlute memiliki dawai 14 pasang, sementara lute jaman barok memiliki 11 atau 13 pasang. Ini  lagu "Bach Prelude for Lute in D Minor BWV 1008", dimainkan oleh David Tayler.

 Sumber tambahan/additional references: http://en.wikipedia.org, http://www.youtube.com