In this lesson, we will learn how to develop your guitar sound. When it comes to playing guitar, one of the most important things to learn is how to develop your guitar tone. This depends highly on what style of music you like, what draws you to want to play that kind of music, and whether you like strumming rhythm or playing solos. All these things can contribute to you discovering how to develop your sound.
Learning Tips For Playing Rhythm Guitar
If you’re drawn to the rhythm aspect of playing guitar, you want to learn how to form chords and how to pick and strum them. You want to learn how to develop good timing and create a practice schedule designed to accomplish this.
First, you start by learning a few basic beginner chord shapes like G C & D. These chords are played within the first few frets and once learned can aid you in learning many cool songs.
Second, you learn to strum and arpeggiate these chords up and down with the picking hand to establish rhythm and timing. This is what brings the guitar chords to life. The fretboard hand forms the chords, and the picking hand creates the rhythm. Working together in harmony.
Third, you learn to move between chords in certain time intervals to create rhythm. This can take some time to accomplish, but if you give it a try you will be amazed at how bits and pieces of songs you recognize start coming out of your guitar. And that’s when the magic starts to happen.
Learning Tips For Playing Lead Guitar
If you’re drawn to the lead guitar aspect of playing, then you want to focus on learning scales and practicing finger exercises to develop strength. Later on, more advanced techniques will allow you to master speed and agility. Timing is also very crucial in this aspect of playing and designing a practice schedule for this type of playing is needed as well.
One thing about playing lead guitar you want to remember is that it takes much more discipline to accomplish than just playing rhythm. And like playing rhythm, there are certain things you want to learn. First, some basic scale forms. Start with the major scale (Do Ra Me…) second, move to the minor pentatonic scale patterns and the infamous blues scale. Third, work on finger exercises to develop dexterity, speed, and timing.
Learning Tips For Setting Goals
Setting Goals is another aspect of guitar playing that is very important to keep you on track. This allows you to choose what it is you want to accomplish, and check to see how you are doing at accomplishing it and what more you need to do to accomplish it. This is where most people who try to learn guitar on their own, fail. They have no destination. No top of the mountain they’re trying to reach. They just grab the guitar and start learning.
At first, they start all enthusiastic but then after a while, they lose steam and sometimes just give up. Which is never a good thing. So don’t do this. Get focused, decide where it is you want to go with your playing, make a plan to get there, get to work, stick with it, and eventually feel great when you reach it.
Insights To Your Favorite Players
Now if there is someone in particular who inspires you to play, then look into his style of playing. What kind of chords does he play? Type of scales? Kinds of rhythm patterns? What kind of equipment? An answer to all these questions will contribute to you learning how to develop your sound. You could even light your guitar on fire, but I wouldn’t recommend that until you start making bank as a guitar singing Rockstar!!
Every artist has their uniqueness they bring to the table because they took the time to develop the sound they wanted. Most even went a step further by developing their unique image as well. Kiss is the master in this area. When it comes to the artistic development of sound, image, and stage persona you can’t get more unique than KISS. They studied and put into practice the development of their unique brand of guitar playing as did AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and so on and so on. You will have to do the same.
Get serious about your playing
Get serious about your playing. What do you want to accomplish, who most inspires you to play, and start working at developing your sound? Write these things down and look at them. Write out a plan of steps needed for their accomplishment and set forth at once to put this plan of yours into action! One little step at a time is all that is needed and before you know it, you will start seeing some progress.
Stay excited, stay committed, and when it’s all said and done you will learn how to develop your sound and become an inspiration to others as these people mentioned above have done for millions around the world. Even if your inspiration is to family and friends, you will find that the guitar can be a guiding light to a much brighter future.
Additional Help
If you’d like more on the topic of learning guitar for beginners check out the book I authored and published. Learn Guitar: Simple Guitar Method For Beginners available on Amazon
This book will teach you in a step-by-step format everything you need to get started having fun playing guitar. And if you need any accessories to help you get started you can visit my store. Here you will find guitar gear I use and recommend to my aspiring students to help in their quest to be better guitar players. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and as always, if you need any assistance feel free to contact me.
Until our next lesson, take care.
Sincerely, Dwayne
