Learning To Play Songs Using Guitar Tabs

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The main goal for writing this article is to give you some tips for making it easier when learning other peoples songs using guitar tabs. But first, a little background on what it is to be an emotional player…. As a teacher, I always have students asking me to teach them how to play songs by such artists as Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Slash and many other really famous guitarists. Many of these great guitar players are what I like to call “Emotional Players”. When they write and play music, they do so without much thinking or understanding of…

Blog, Guitar Tabs & Song Lessons 5

Understanding What Kind Of Guitar Player You Are

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Over the years working with people as a guitar and music teacher, I have found 4 main types of personalities that people have when it comes to how they react to learning and playing music. It’s important for you to figure out what type of personality you have so that you can maximize the time you spend when playing and practicing guitar. It’s also important to note that these are just the most common traits that I see and work with. There are certainly more and you don’t necessarily need to be just one. In no specific order: #1-The Emotional…

Blog, General Guitar Lessons 7

Beginner Guitar Lessons – String Bending

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Bending strings causes the pitch of the note fretted to change to a higher pitch. Most commonly strings are bent a whole step (to sound like the note 2 frets higher) But sometimes they can be bent just ½ step (sounds like 1 fret higher) or even higher: 1 ½ steps (sounds 3 frets higher) and the finger-numbing 2 step bend (sounds like 4 frets higher). How to bend a string: (I’m using the 12th fret region of the neck as an example here.) 1. On the 15th fret, 2nd string use your ring finger to fret the note. 2….

Blog, Guitar Technique 1

RGP player wins 2nd place in contest!

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It’s been a little while since I’ve posted so I wanted to give an update on some really cool news. Johnathan Dretto, a personal student of mine, recently won second place in a local guitar contest at The House Of Guitars.  The event was sponsored by Epiphone. As the runner up Johnathan won a really sweet Epiphone Acoustic! Here’s a picture of Johnathan with Epiphone clinician Stacy Mitchhart and the local Gibson Guitar Rep. Way To Go Johnathan! Everything else at Rock Guitar Power has been going great! We are now fully digital and able to stream all of our…

Blog, General Guitar Lessons 1

Using itunes As A Source For Backing Tracks

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One of the best things that you can do to further yourself as a guitar player is to play along with the recordings of the songs that you are working on as well as to use backing tracks to jam along to. Actual recordings are pretty self-explanatory, after you learn the song you just hit play on the cd player and play along to the tune. Backing tracks, also known as jam tracks, are a little different in that they will usually have one element of the song missing, usually the lead or rhythm guitar part. This makes it easier…

Blog, Guitar Practice Ideas 3