Saturday, July 15, 2006

Learn How To Play Guitar - 4 Tips To Improve Your Guitar Playing

Here's another good article by Tim Lee. There's some good tips
that will improve your playing a lot. Enjoy.

By: Tim Lee

Playing guitar as a hobby or professionally can be very
fulfilling. It is a great outlet for one's creativity and
passion, and is the perfect expression of one's self. Whether
you are a beginner guitar player or not, you could use the
following tips and instructions to improve your guitar playing.

1) Good posture is Truly Underrated

While you can play guitar in almost any position, good position
is integral to getting the most out of your guitar. Without good
posture you could put yourself in greater risk for straining
muscles - not to mention that wrong posture is truly awkward and
uncomfortable to the player. You could even acquire or
exacerbate back pain playing in the wrong position.

In a sitting position, sit up straight and cradle the guitar
with your legs. Armless chairs are better for this sort of
playing. If you are a classical player you might want to
purchase a foot rest to elevate your left leg (if you are
right-handed).

While standing, make sure you have good footing, with feet
properly spaced. Keep the guitar high on your chest. If you have
a guitar strap then you could avoid getting fatigued while
playing your guitar.

2) Hold Your Pick the Right Way

If you are a pick player, one common mistake you can avoid is to
hold your pick the right way. The proper way to hold a pick is
to grip is firmly but not too tightly.

If you hold your pick to firmly, you could get your arm tired
real easily. If you hold it too loose you could easily lose your
pick during a very vigorous strumming session. The best place to
hold your pick is somewhere in its middle.

Choosing the right pick is also another important choice you
will have to make. If you are a beginner, you may want to use
soft picks for strumming. They are also easier on the arms and
do not need to be gripped too tightly. However, most flabby
picks do not perform well when used to pluck individual strings,
bass strings, or when flat picking.

3) Practice your arpeggios

After giving strumming a thorough work out, try working on
arpeggios as they could seriously improve you playing style and
will open you up to new guitar skills. Some players start with
arpeggios before jumping into serious lead playing or
complicated playing.

It also gives your playing much more variety than would be
available if you stuck to simpler chord playing. And as
mentioned, arpeggios are the gateway to higher level playing
skills.

4) D Chord Secrets Revealed

The D-sus chord is a beautiful flourish when used to lead back
to the D-chord. It is easily done by adding your pinkie finger
to the chord at the third fret. Practice how this chord is used
and you will find that it easily integrates into most
contemporary songs.

You could also use this with other chords. You may refer to most
chord charts to find out how these chords are done.

Conclusion

In the end practice is still the best way to get better at
guitar playing. However, you can avoid wasting your time during
practice by learning to practice smarter instead of just more.
The tips mentioned above will help you get started on this road.

About the author:
To learn how to play guitar using the easiest to follow method,
please visit http://www.Guitar-
Playing-Tips.info/

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