This method aims to teach blues guitar to beginners or to rock players wishing to acquire knowledge of the blues. It is part of the National Guitar Workshop series and comes complete with a quality CD where the author plays all the book's examples for you.
The book follows two main threads that cover both rhythm guitar and soloing techniques. Both are presented in a very complete and clear manner and are clearly illustrated with examples.
Rhythm Playing
After a short introduction to some blues music theory the book kicks off with some rhythm guitar basics. Building from these you'll learn all about different blues styles such as shuffle, boogie-woogie, Chicago blues, Texas swing, minor blues and slow blues. There are great example songs to get your rhythm chops up to scratch in all of these styles.
Going Solo
The soloing chapters of the book provide an equally complete presentation of electric blues guitar skills. This starts out with an introduction to the blues scales and a number of ways to use them to build licks and solos. The essential blues techniques of hammer-on and pull-off, slides, bends, and vibrato are all given a thorough treatment.
The soloing material is topped off with some signature licks from blues greats such as T-Bone Walker, BB King, Albert King, and Albert Collins as well as advice on improvisation to help you build your own solos.
A Touch Of Class
Not content with an already excellent coverage of blues rhythm and solo playing, the book adds the finishing touches with some great intros, turnarounds and endings that will give your blues playing a classy edge.
You'll also find a final chapter with advice on planning and organizing your guitar learning, as well as recommendations for some backing tracks to accompany your practice.
Conclusion
This is an excellent method for guitarists with a little experience wanting to learn electric blues guitar. The book's presentation is very clear and the writing style makes it easy to follow. The author's knowledge and enthusiasm for blues guitar comes across clearly.
Complete newcomers to the guitar might find it a little hard going, but if you're willing to work then it really does contain all you need to know for a long while.
If you're interested in playing acoustic blues guitar then this is not the best book for you. You might, however, still enjoy it if you're looking to understand playing blues in a band or jam with other musicians.
The very complete coverage will keep you busy learning for a long time making this method excellent value for your money. When you get through with it you'll have all the knowledge you need to play blues songs in a variety of styles with other musicians. If that's your goal then this book is highly recommended.
Copyright (c) 2008, Gary Fletcher
Gary Fletcher is a writer and guitar player. Visit http://garysguitarblog.blogspot.com where he offers guitar learning tips, discussion and encouragement for learners. If you like this article you can hire Gary to write for you at his writer site http://www.writescribe.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Fletcher
Showing posts with label Pickups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pickups. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Fix Yer Guitar Tutorials - Adjusting the Electric Guitar Pickups
What you'll need for this session:
Screwdriver for height adjustment
Does your guitar make tones that you really didn’t ask for? Dual “out of tune” tones? Mushy tones? Weak outputs? Hmmm… sounds like your pickups need to be at the right height. Not to worry, in most cases, we can fix that.
First off a quick “how duz it work” explanation. Most Electric guitar pickups are nothing more than a magnet with very thin lacquer coated copper wire wrapped thousands of times around it. The two ends of the coil go to a potentiometer with lets more or less voltage pass through. The magnet which has a field of electrons “floating around it in a field, they get “excited” when the steel string is plucked, going back and forth, and the electrons move through the coil of wire at a certain speed (frequency!). After they go past the potentiometer, and to the amplifier, the frequency of the electrons, the voltage, creates the sound. Your high school science teacher helped you to become a rock and roller! Depending on the location of the string to the pickup, is your sound.
Weak output or mushy sound. Most of the time this means the pickup is just plain too low. Using your screwdriver, tighten the screws located next to outside edge of your pickup. If you have two screws on one side, adjust each one accordingly so that the pickup is parallel to the strings. Rule of thumb is about ¼ “ from the strings.
Dual “out of tune” tones. Jimi Hendrix used this quite a bit. This was the sound on his strat with stock single coil pickups because the pickup was too high and created a false harmonic so to speak. Almost like having the string pressed down at the pickup. Again it has to do with the physics of how a pickup works. The magnetic field creates this false note. Instead it adds the extra tone… usually not in tune with the plucked note. Don’t get me wrong, Jimi did great no bones about it. However, that may not be the sound you are looking for. So, lower the pickup or pickups on your instrument until it doesn’t have that sound. One note to strat players, in order to get the right pickup height, you may need to adjust the neck angle using a thin shim under the end of the neck in the cavity. If you aren’t well versed in how this is done, talk to your repairman. We do talk about this in our classes that we teach.
Anyway, this should help on the tone of your guitar.
THINK IT!
BUILD IT!
PLAY IT!
To learn about the ROCK n' ROLL GUITAR BUILDING SCHOOL and what you'll learn, click on this link:
http://www.leefairstudio.com/Guitar_Building_Classes_Build_Custom_Guitar_Guitar_Making_Course.html
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=RobertMaxwell_Lee
Screwdriver for height adjustment
Does your guitar make tones that you really didn’t ask for? Dual “out of tune” tones? Mushy tones? Weak outputs? Hmmm… sounds like your pickups need to be at the right height. Not to worry, in most cases, we can fix that.
First off a quick “how duz it work” explanation. Most Electric guitar pickups are nothing more than a magnet with very thin lacquer coated copper wire wrapped thousands of times around it. The two ends of the coil go to a potentiometer with lets more or less voltage pass through. The magnet which has a field of electrons “floating around it in a field, they get “excited” when the steel string is plucked, going back and forth, and the electrons move through the coil of wire at a certain speed (frequency!). After they go past the potentiometer, and to the amplifier, the frequency of the electrons, the voltage, creates the sound. Your high school science teacher helped you to become a rock and roller! Depending on the location of the string to the pickup, is your sound.
Weak output or mushy sound. Most of the time this means the pickup is just plain too low. Using your screwdriver, tighten the screws located next to outside edge of your pickup. If you have two screws on one side, adjust each one accordingly so that the pickup is parallel to the strings. Rule of thumb is about ¼ “ from the strings.
Dual “out of tune” tones. Jimi Hendrix used this quite a bit. This was the sound on his strat with stock single coil pickups because the pickup was too high and created a false harmonic so to speak. Almost like having the string pressed down at the pickup. Again it has to do with the physics of how a pickup works. The magnetic field creates this false note. Instead it adds the extra tone… usually not in tune with the plucked note. Don’t get me wrong, Jimi did great no bones about it. However, that may not be the sound you are looking for. So, lower the pickup or pickups on your instrument until it doesn’t have that sound. One note to strat players, in order to get the right pickup height, you may need to adjust the neck angle using a thin shim under the end of the neck in the cavity. If you aren’t well versed in how this is done, talk to your repairman. We do talk about this in our classes that we teach.
Anyway, this should help on the tone of your guitar.
THINK IT!
BUILD IT!
PLAY IT!
To learn about the ROCK n' ROLL GUITAR BUILDING SCHOOL and what you'll learn, click on this link:
http://www.leefairstudio.com/Guitar_Building_Classes_Build_Custom_Guitar_Guitar_Making_Course.html
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=RobertMaxwell_Lee
Friday, 23 October 2009
Make Your Own Electric Guitar
The idea of this article on making your own electric guitar is to give you a real, practical idea of the magnitude of the job and the skills, tools and raw materials needed to make your own electric guitar. The original electric guitar was a railway sleeper with strings. The designer, Les Paul, finally marketed his invention with a guitar shape because he felt that was what people expected of an electric guitar, not because any particular shape was really necessary to make music. One thing you need to get straight on now is you will not save money by making your own guitar. If you want a cheap electric guitar, there's one with your name on it at your nearest music store.
So if you fancy yourself as a designer, you could try making an electric guitar to your own specifications but you will need certain materials to work with. The first thing you will need is a love of working with wood. The second is an arsenal of power tools like drills, routers, saws, and fiddly bits of hardware. Your environment is also crucial. You will need a workspace which is not too hot or cold or wet or dry!
When you design your home made electric guitar, you will need to know how long your neck is going to be and how far apart your frets will be. You will also have a choice of the basic shape of the head of your guitar - the part that holds the tuning pegs.
You probably already know that a pickup near the neck gives a deeper sound than a pickup close to the bridge. The placement and configuration of the pickups on an electric guitar is a science in itself.
Solid body electric guitars are usually made from maple, ash, mahogany, alder, basswood or nut because they possess proven sound qualities for guitar manufacturing. You will need to buy your wood from a sawmill in lengths rather larger than needed for guitar making, and you will need to cut the wood down to size before making your guitar. You will also need hardware like machine heads, pick guards, fret wire, bridge and whammy bar mechanism. You will also need hardware if you use a bolt-on neck.
For the electronic parts of your electric guitar, you will need pickups - single coil or humbucker, shielding to cut down hum and associated knobs, nuts and grommets.
The first job in making your own electric guitar is making a template of your instrument from plywood. The template is your exact pattern for your finished guitar, and needs to be crafted with care. If you find yourself cutting corners at this stage you may as well stop this project and continue with the home brewing you started two winters ago.
To finish off this short essay, I should mention that there exists another solution for people wanting to make their own electric guitar - the electric guitar kit. As an example, the Yamaha EG-112PF Electric Guitar Kit contains: EGP112 Electric Guitar 2 Single coil pickups 1 Humbucking pickup Vintage vibrato system 5 position pickup switch Tremolo bar Master Volume and Master Tone controls Maple neck Chrome closed tuning hardware Bolt-on neck construction Rosewood fingerboard Basswood body No coil split Scale length: 25-1/2" (648 mm) Nut width: 1-5/8" (41mm) Radius: 13-3/4 (350 mm) Frets: 22 Color: Black with white pick guard Guitar cable included GA10 Amplifier 7 watts of power 5" speaker Volume, Tone Bass, Distortion / Clean controls Headphone jack Dimensions: 10.4" (w) x 10.0" (h) x 6.4" (d) Complete Starter Kit Electronic tuner - YT120 Special Yamaha gig bag Extra set of strings Picks Strap with Yamaha logo String winder Capo Guitar method book. I found it on Amazon while looking through 1,320,000 results for a Google search on "electric guitar kits"! Best of luck!
So if you fancy yourself as a designer, you could try making an electric guitar to your own specifications but you will need certain materials to work with. The first thing you will need is a love of working with wood. The second is an arsenal of power tools like drills, routers, saws, and fiddly bits of hardware. Your environment is also crucial. You will need a workspace which is not too hot or cold or wet or dry!
When you design your home made electric guitar, you will need to know how long your neck is going to be and how far apart your frets will be. You will also have a choice of the basic shape of the head of your guitar - the part that holds the tuning pegs.
You probably already know that a pickup near the neck gives a deeper sound than a pickup close to the bridge. The placement and configuration of the pickups on an electric guitar is a science in itself.
Solid body electric guitars are usually made from maple, ash, mahogany, alder, basswood or nut because they possess proven sound qualities for guitar manufacturing. You will need to buy your wood from a sawmill in lengths rather larger than needed for guitar making, and you will need to cut the wood down to size before making your guitar. You will also need hardware like machine heads, pick guards, fret wire, bridge and whammy bar mechanism. You will also need hardware if you use a bolt-on neck.
For the electronic parts of your electric guitar, you will need pickups - single coil or humbucker, shielding to cut down hum and associated knobs, nuts and grommets.
The first job in making your own electric guitar is making a template of your instrument from plywood. The template is your exact pattern for your finished guitar, and needs to be crafted with care. If you find yourself cutting corners at this stage you may as well stop this project and continue with the home brewing you started two winters ago.
To finish off this short essay, I should mention that there exists another solution for people wanting to make their own electric guitar - the electric guitar kit. As an example, the Yamaha EG-112PF Electric Guitar Kit contains: EGP112 Electric Guitar 2 Single coil pickups 1 Humbucking pickup Vintage vibrato system 5 position pickup switch Tremolo bar Master Volume and Master Tone controls Maple neck Chrome closed tuning hardware Bolt-on neck construction Rosewood fingerboard Basswood body No coil split Scale length: 25-1/2" (648 mm) Nut width: 1-5/8" (41mm) Radius: 13-3/4 (350 mm) Frets: 22 Color: Black with white pick guard Guitar cable included GA10 Amplifier 7 watts of power 5" speaker Volume, Tone Bass, Distortion / Clean controls Headphone jack Dimensions: 10.4" (w) x 10.0" (h) x 6.4" (d) Complete Starter Kit Electronic tuner - YT120 Special Yamaha gig bag Extra set of strings Picks Strap with Yamaha logo String winder Capo Guitar method book. I found it on Amazon while looking through 1,320,000 results for a Google search on "electric guitar kits"! Best of luck!
Ricky Sharples has been playing guitar his whole life, and is presently engaged in building a blog called Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free.
Ricky's blog features free tools, lessons and resources for guitarists of all ages and stages. Ricky updates the blog regularly so if you are interested in learning to play guitar there will be an enormous variety of tip, tools and tutorials for you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)