Guitars and More Music

Posts Tagged ‘Electric Guitar Lessons’

So you know that a guitar is a musical instrument that needs to be strummed to produce sound. But if you’ve been living under a rock for some time now, you must have missed the era when these instruments gave birth to tots named acoustic guitar and bass guitar, to name a few. To begin your enlightenment on the world of this awesome musical instrument, the electric guitar will be this article’s main focus.

So when did this variation of everybody’s favorite instrument appear? It was around the 1930s that this type of guitar came out, an era where the music was all about big bands. Since big bands are composed of brass sections and are usually very loud, there was a need for guitars that could compete and be heard under all that brass sections and thus became the primary reason as to why the electric guitar was created in the first place.

Now, how does this guitar exactly work? Electromagnetic induction is used to convert the vibrations of the strings into electric signals that is then amplified and again sent to a speaker. Unlike ordinary guitars which do not feature this kind of principle, this guitar shoots of electric signals that can also be altered and distorted that is commonly practiced by many of today’s rock musicians. With the sundry of guitars available today, you might ask who started it all. Paul Barth, George Beauchamp, and Adolph Rickenbacker of the Electro String Company created the first-ever electric guitar which was called Frying Pans. The second guitar of this type during the 1930s also earned a spot in music history and was built by the infamous Gibson guitar company, which they named the ES-150. That guitar is a legend among many guitar players and musicians today.

If you’re thinking that a guitar like this can’t possibly birth more versions, you’re wrong. there are even more types of this guitar. One of which is the solid body type which has no hollow internal cavity, the string-through body type where the strings are laced through the holes found at the bottom of the body, the semi-acoustic type which has better resonance, and others which vary in string numbers and more. It’s also interesting to know musicians such as Jack Miller, Les Paul, George Barnes, Floyd Smith, Arthur Cruddup, and Tampa Red who were some of the first people to use this kind of guitar on record.

This guitar is indeed one of the most exciting instruments out there. With a distortion pedal, one can explore the number of musical possibilities this guitar holds. Looking at the music industry today, it’s so difficult to imagine what it would be like without these long-necked wonders. The electric guitar truly changed the rock and roll genre as you know it today. With this guitar’s ability to deliver a variety of sounds and styles at the liking and choosing of whoever is playing, it’s no surprise that bands almost always have this in their lineup.

Image: Pixomar / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If it is your goal to play the guitar like Jimmy Hendrix or even Slash but has no time to take electric guitar lessons, then you will be ecstatic to know that electric guitar lessons can now be downloaded from the internet at an affordable price that is very far from what you are likely to pay an instructor.  The beauty about these online electric guitar lessons is that they can be learned in your own time without the need to attend classes and at a pace that will suit your lifestyle.  You can study them at home or do them before going to work.  It is all up to you.

In carrying out your electric guitar lessons, the first step you need to take is purchase a decent electric guitar to practice with.  It should not be a very expensive but a quality one to make sure that you will appreciate the correct notes, licks, etc.  Moreover, you should listen well to music and learn and memorize the songs you prefer to start learning with or practice with.  Learn as many as you can possibly get your hands on.  Doing this gives your guitar learning a bigger impact.  Since it is electric guitar that you want to play, it is best that you learn music played or can be played on electric guitar.

One of the best things to do to make sure you learn everything and learn them by heart is through constant practice.  This applies not only to guitar lessons but many other aspects in one’s life.  While it is quicker to learn online since it is you who will dictate your pace, there are nevertheless no shortcuts when it is expertise on the subject that you want to achieve.  You have to practice continuously all that you learned and start making your own modifications and style applied to the regular lessons you have.  Learning the electric guitar involves several stages and your constant practice will be your best means of advancing to the next stage faster.

To those who wanted to learn to play the electric guitar for purposes of looking good, then it is best that you know beforehand that the whole process involves the need to learn theory. This simply means that it is not all plucking of the strings and looking wild and cool.  You have to understand what notes, chords, scales, arpeggios, etc. are and apply them to your music.  If you are not willing to go through this, then guitar playing may not be for you.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net