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Thursday 27 December 2012

Guitar Playing Position Basics

Sitting Positions

There are two sitting positions for holding the guitar - the classical and casual positions.

1. Pick up the guitar and make sure that the guitar body is supported by your leg.

2. Position yourself on the front half of your chair.

3. Ensure that your back isn’t arched, ensure that it is straight but not so that it is tight.

4. Lean the guitar back towards you slightly.


Standing Position
1. Pick up the guitar and place the strap over your shoulder. Adjust the strap so 

 that the guitar is positioned mid-body.

2. Use your fingering hand to support the neck of the guitar.

3. Rest your strumming hand over the bridge of the guitar.


 

Hand Positions
It is important that you relax your wrists and hands when you are first learning about finger
placement because straining them can cause injury.



Fretting
        When you play the guitar, you use the fingers of your fingering hand to press down the strings
on the fret board of the guitar and use your strumming hand to pluck or strum the strings at
the bridge end of the guitar. Which hand you use will depend on whether you are left-handed
or right-handed. Using your fingering hand to press the strings on the fret board is called
fretting. Here are some tips to help you with fretting:
1. Keep your fingernails short as you will need the tips of your fingers to press the 
    strings.
2. When making a chord, be sure that each fingertip is placed as close as possible to 
    the fret, the closer they are they less chance there is for buzzing strings.
3. Check to make sure that each string rings clearly and is not muted or buzzing.
4. It’s important to make sure that your fingers approach the strings on the neck at a 
    perpendicular angle. If they are at right angles to the neck there will be 
    less fret buzz.

As a beginner guitarist, it may hurt your fingers to play. This is normal. Every guitarist starts
this way for the first couple of weeks. With practise, you will develop guitar fingers (hard skin
on your fingertips).
Holding the Pick
1. Position the pick between thumb and index fingers as shown in the diagram below.


 




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Tunning Tips Book Free Download



 You can Download the Tips Book From Here
 


Before we start on the methods for tuning your guitar, we will go through some
handy tips that could save you from making any major mistakes the first time you
tune up. It is a good idea to ask an experienced guitar player to help you work
through the following tips on tuning.

New strings
When you are dealing with new strings, it can be a little nerve racking at first.
They can make some pretty frightening sounds. When your strings are new, they
are at their most vulnerable. They will break if you pull them too tight, too quickly.
The key is to tune them slowly. You really have to take your time. You will find
that they will reach a certain pitch and then drop back down very quickly. This is
because they are stretching and it is quite normal. You just need to keep tuning
them up slowly until they hold their pitch.

Work the string in
After a string is put on the guitar, it needs to be worked in. This is done by pulling
the string away from the fret board with the thumb and first finger of your right
hand. You only need to pull the string a little or else it could break. You are really
just stretching the string so that it will hold its pitch.

A quiet room
It is important that you can hear each string clearly as you tune it. Find a room
somewhere that is very quiet with good acoustics. A room with good acoustics is
one where the string sound can be heard crisply and clearly. The bathroom is often
a good place as it doesn’t absorb sound like a room with furniture does.

Temperature
The temperature of a room affects the way your strings behave. Moving between a
warm room and a cold room can change the pitch of your strings. Try to stay in
one room at the same temperature while you tune.

Pay attention
You really have to be patient and pay attention when you are learning to tune your
guitar. Make sure that you are always tuning the correct tuning key on the guitar
head or you may end up quite confused as to which strings need tuning.

Strumming - A Major chord


In a strum there are two types of guitar stroke. They are the up stroke and the down stroke.


             When you play a stroke, you strum across the strings just in front of the bridge of the guitar
with the pick in your strumming hand. When strumming a chord, make sure that you play all
the necessary strings in the chord. The stroke direction will depend on which stroke is
indicated; up or down as shown above. 



 


Position each finger with care,according to the chorddiagram (right). Make sure that each fingertip is placed as close as possible behind thefret. Firstly, pluck across the strings one by one with your pick, checking that each string rings clearly and is not muted or buzzing. Once you are sure that you are holding the A major chord correctly, practise strumming the chord in single downward strokes as
indicated below:
 

 

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