Let’s Talk Amplifiers

Electric guitars are really something cool to have. A lot of people look for the best sound, designs, brand and other factors. The poor amplifier is often ignored and taken for granted. Beginner guitarists do not often see the importance of getting a good amplifier. And this is one of the biggest mistakes that guitar players who are looking for a great sound commit. Most guitarists do not realize that a guitar that is of lower quality paired with a really great amplifier can give off a fairly decent sound. And what they don’t realize is that really awesome guitars paired with crappy amps will definitely make them sound really terrible.

Getting your first amplifier would entail you to primarily look at the price tag before you consider buying the guitar amp. You can expect guitar amps to cost about less than a hundred to some thousands of dollars.

Cheaper amps are usually at about 15 watts. They are small and really easy on the pocket. However, you can’t expect these small amplifiers to give you loud volume or to produce quality sound. It can be really frustrating especially for beginner guitar players when they use small amps. It may seem to you that you are not playing anything right or that you sound awful with a guitar. What you don’t realize is it’s the equipment making the awful noise. Another problem that you will have to deal with is when you start playing with other musicians. Since the tiny amp can’t give you much volume, you can’t expect to be heard over the sound of the drums. This then creates a disconnection between what you are playing and what the drummer is playing.

Of course, you don’t have to spend a thousand dollars on your first ever guitar amp. The smaller amps are just “in the meantime” solutions for your guitar playing ambitions. If you plan to get a cheap and small amp, make a resolve to get something better in the future.

There are a few things that you should look for in amplifiers. First is a three-band equalizer; one each for the low, mid and high. Next is the option that lets you go on clean or on overdrive and reverb. These are the basic things that you would want to have on your amp for you to be able to try a variety of sounds and help you learn licks and riffs that may require a certain sound to it.

It is also important that you personally and physically visit a music shop to try out different amplifiers before you decide on purchasing one. You need to make sure that you know how you sound on a certain amp and if you and the amp will sound good together. Try the amp at low and high volume levels. Try it out with and without the overdrive. Check out how versatile you can go with the amp before actually considering buying the amp.

You may also want to get into subtle bargaining with the music store employees. You never know when you will be able to get a really good deal with a guitar amp, right?

How to Play and Read Guitar Tabs

Learning how to play guitar tabs is one of the first steps as a beginner guitar player.

Guitar Tabs are the fastest way to learn to play a familiar song, solo and particular guitar lick. Since most of us learn guitar so that we can play our favorite songs it makes sense that beginners are often eager to pick up this skill.

In this article I am going to share with you how to play guitar tabs in three steps: One, understanding what a guitar tab is, two, how to read the tab and three the fastest way to use tablature to learn a full song.

Understanding Tab

Compared to reading music, which might feel like learning a second language to some, understanding guitar tabs is simple.

Here is how basic guitar tablature looks:

e--------
B--------
G--------
D--------
A--------
E--------

Each line of guitar tab corresponds directly to a string on your guitar. The top line corresponds to the bottom for first string on your guitar (the high e), while the bottom line of tab corresponds to the top or 6th string on your guitar (low E).

Reading Tab

Guitar tabs are simply a mix of numbers and symbols placed on different lines. Here's a simple example of a guitar tab for the E major chord.


e---0----
B---0----
G---1----
D---2----
A---2----
E---0----

The number correspond to the fret you press down on that particular string. So for the above example tab you would be playing the 2nd fret of the A string, the 2nd fret of the D string, the first fret of the G string and you'd strum the low E, B and high e strings open (hence the 0 on those lines).

You would know this is a chord because the numbers are all on top of each other in a line. If you say something like this:

e-----------
B---------7-
G-----------
D-----------
A-----5-----
E-3---------

You would be picking individual strings. In this case it would be the 3rd fret of the low E, followed by the 5th fret of the A string and finally the 7th fret on the B string.

While there are other symbols you can run into this is the basics of how to read guitar tab.

Fastest way to Learn a Song from Tab

This might seem straight forward but I have met many beginner guitar players who don't think of this basic technique.

When learning a new song it's important to break the song down into parts.

For example if the guitar tab has the verse, chorus and bridge parts all separated out then first practice the verse chords or what ever it may be. Learning a song in parts, first slowly, then adding speed next and finally piecing all the parts together makes it far more manageable then trying to just play through the entire song first time.

Beginning Blues Guitar

I've decided to make a list of grooves or feels you should learn when starting to learn the blues guitar, I have also included some songs that will help you learn and get the feel of the blues. Mainly you need to keep it simple, generally if you stick to the traditional format you'll be all good. You really can't go wrong with a 12 bar blues at a jam and there are thousands of variations. Players don't really need to know a song as long as they know the structure for example are playing a shuffle in the key of A and somebody calls out IV you should be right there, if you can't keep up with that you should definitely review some basic guitar theory, as I call it, and guitar scales to get a better understanding.

But here is a quick list of songs and grooves a blues guitarist or any blues musician for that matter should learn.

Songs: Sweet Home Chicago, Hoochie Coochie Man, Mojo, Dust My Broom, Stormy Monday, Snatch it Back and Hold It, Johnny B Good

Grooves: Chicago Shuffel, West Coast shuffel, Jimmy Reed Shuffel, The Mojo beat, Slow 12 bar, 8 Bar blues, 12bar blues

If you are interested in learning more about the guitar especially the blues guitar, scales, and music theory be sure to check out the below website. It is a work in progress but you will be able to get a basic understanding of music theory and how it is applied on guitar.


Guitar Scales