Here are some of the more common ways to learn to play the guitar. Try each method to see what works best for you.

Group Lessons: Learning guitar in a group setting can be less intimidating for the beginning musician. You not only get the benefit of having a teacher to help you along you can often judge your progress by where the other students are in the class. The worst part about taking guitar lessons in a group setting is the teachers time is divided so you may not get as much attention as you might need.

Private Lessons: This is the best way to learn to play the guitar if you can find the right teacher. The instructor can gauge your progress each week and custom design your lessons for you. You have your teachers’ undivided attention and you can ask anything you feel is not clear. (more…)

Protecting the investment you have made in your acoustic guitar is very important. Here are a few tips and ideas for making your instrument last more than a lifetime.

Let’s consider some potential threats to your acoustic guitar. Some of these threats may be glaringly obvious while others may be a bit more obscure. While it would be impossible to include every scenario or potential threat element in one article, perhaps the items mentioned in this article will prevent a new guitar owner from experiencing the certain regret associated with a damaged instrument. (more…)

Regardless of whether you are a guitar novice or already have some training in playing the guitar, the following guidelines will prove useful. You shall be told how to properly hold a pick (plectrum). “That’s ridiculous!” you may say. “It’s so very basic, what’s there to know?” But following my instructions could help you improve your guitar play quickly and easily.

Picks used to be earlier made from animal bone or tortoise shell, but nowadays they are mostly made of plastic. They come in various sizes and shapes. I recommend beginners to use medium size picks because these are the easiest to play with. This is of course only a suggestion, a general rule of thumb and not an absolute. You might experiment with picks of different shapes, sizes and materials to find out the one most suitable for yourself. Also because picks get easily frayed and perhaps, as easily lost, it is a good idea to keep quite a few picks with you at home. Having a few picks in reserve is not difficult as they are fairly cheap. (more…)

Knowing how to tune your guitar yourself is one of the most basic as also one of the most integral constituents of learning to play the guitar. Even the most skillful guitarist’s performances can go awry if the guitar is not in tune, and tuning the guitar is consonant with the ear of the guitarist becoming one with the sound of the guitar. Thus though many novices to baulk at the idea of tuning their instrument, especially because they find the activity difficult, there are certain easy rules which, when followed, make the matter simple and effective. There are in fact several different ways to tune your guitar depending on the desired sound, and this article shall provide you with some easy to follow instructions for tuning your guitar without you having to invest in any extra equipment. (more…)

In all types of guitars the sound is produced by the vibration of the strings. However, because the strings can only displace a small amount of air, the volume of the sound needs to be increased in order to be heard. In an acoustic guitar, this is accomplished by using a soundboard and a resonant cavity, the sound box. The body of the guitar is hollow. The vibrating strings drive the soundboard through the bridge, making it vibrate. The soundboard has a larger surface area and thus displaces a larger volume of air, producing a much louder sound than the strings alone.

As the soundboard vibrates, sound waves are produced from both the front and back faces. The sound box provides both a support for the sound board and a resonant cavity and reflector for the sound waves produced on the back face of the soundboard. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string (see Helmholtz resonance), increasing the volume of the sound again. The back of the guitar will also vibrate to a lesser extent, driven by the air in the cavity. Some sound is ultimately projected through the sound hole (some variants of the acoustic guitar omit this hole, or have f holes, like a violin family instrument). This sound mixes with the sound produced by the front face of the soundboard. The resultant sound is a complex mixture of harmonics that give the guitar its distinctive sound.

No amplification actually occurs in this process, in the sense that no energy is externally added to increase the loudness of the sound (as would be the case with an electronic amplifier). All the energy is provided by the plucking of the string. The function of the entire acoustic system is to maximize intensity of sound, but since total energy remains constant, this comes at the expense of decay time. An unamplified guitar (one with no soundboard at all) would have a low volume, but the strings would vibrate much longer, like a tuning fork. This is because a damped harmonic oscillator decays exponentially, with a mean life inversely proportional to the damping. When the strings are driving the larger soundboard and sound box, the damping is much higher.