Sophia MUNOZ posted:


There is something deliciously special about playing acoustic guitar songs. If you try you will see. Just try to hold one and you will experience something special. Have you ever dreamed of being the one holding the guitar around the campfire and playing that song everyone is singing? You can be that person too. Just give it a go and you will see how magic and powerful it is to play the acoustic guitar. Having a dozen people around you at the beach on a full moon being mesmerized by the lyrical power of the musical notes you are playing on the acoustic guitar, is something you cannot put into words if you have not experienced it.

Most people who are drawn to acoustic guitars, but who have never played guitar, are a little star-struck by them. They sometimes believe that the guitar is much more than what it is. Being able to produce music seems like magic in a way. Music is such a powerful, universal language that it can be overwhelming to think that you could make that happen. Feeling this way can make people feel skittish with an acoustic guitar and treat it too gingerly.

If you have never tried playing acoustic guitar before, you can be somewhat impressed by its majesty. However, keep something simple in mind: learning how to play acoustic guitar is like learning a new language: it is definitely hard at the beginning, each step requiring time and dedication, but it is definitely achievable. Little by little you are gaining more confidence and the acoustic guitar will quite naturally become an extension of your hands, musical notes flowing right through it like words flowing through a poet.

Acoustic guitars were created to be played. There are a lot of easy songs you can start playing on your acoustic guitar even though you are beginner. Some people think that the best acoustic guitar songs are the ones that are easy to remember, others think that they are the ones that are easy to play. I personally think that you need a combination of both. Here are some of my favorite acoustic guitar songs for beginners:

Riders on the Storm by the Doors

Happy Christmas by John Lennon

Tangled Up in Blue by Bob Dylan

Sitting on the dock of the bay by Otis Redding

There are a myriad of other songs you can play from John Taylor, The Eagles Joni Mitchell or Jewell. Playing the acoustic guitar is magic: give in to your temptation and take the step today!

You will never regret it.



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Gyorgy Huba posted:


Many people dream of playing the acoustic guitar and the good news is that it\’s not that difficult. The reason a lot of people don\’t succeed at playing acoustic guitar is they give up too soon. Some people say they don\’t have time to practice, others say they can\’t handle the sore fingers. So here is some tips on learning how to play acoustic guitar for beginners who want to go beyond the first few days.

Many people complain of sore fingertips when they begin to play acoustic guitar one way around this is to simply let nature take its course. After a few weeks of regular practice your fingers will develop calluses and the soreness will stop. It might help during the first few weeks of guitar practice to press as hard as you can on the strings. To build up the muscles in your fretting hand, keep a tennis ball handy and squeeze it for a few minutes several times a day.

If you do a little searching on the internet it might be hard to find some basic instruction for acoustic guitar. There are hundreds of websites specializing in free acoustic guitar lessons. Another good idea is to join acoustic guitar forums. Most forum members are experienced guitarists who are only too willing to help beginners.

Once you\’ve been playing acoustic guitar for a few months it will be quite embarrassing if somebody says, \”what are those knob things at the top of the neck?\” and you can\’t answer them. So get to know the parts of the guitar. There\’s not much to understand, half an hour\’s reading will give you a basic idea of the names of the parts of the guitar and their functions.

One of your first jobs as an acoustic guitarist will be to learn to play chords. You will be starting with open chords in the first position on the guitar. Don\’t stop there, every chord you learn in the first position can be played in other places on the guitar\’s neck. Learn a couple of these other positions every time you learn a new open chord. This entails learning bar chords which you will not be able to play perfectly at first, but your muscles will get used to them after a while.

One of the advantages of the acoustic guitar over the electric guitar is that you can practice the acoustic guitar anywhere. Providing you\’re not disturbing other people in your house you can even practice while you watch TV. This doesn\’t mean you substitute a bunch of random practice times for a set disciplined practice session, it just means that you have the flexibility to practice any time you feel like it. This applies to repetitive practice of chords or scales that you have already learnt. You need your full attention to actually learn chord positions and how to play scales initially.

Even right from the very beginning of playing acoustic guitar you will benefit by jamming with a friend. Of course you won\’t have the expertise to play much at first but the situation of playing guitar with somebody else will give your learning a special stimulus. And if you\’re embarrassed about playing in front of somebody with more skill than you have, just remember that they had to start somewhere too.



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Ricky Sharples posted:


The acoustic guitar is a popular instrument amongst all age groups and is a very rewarding instrument to learn to play even though you do not get to fool around with cool electric guitar sounds. So let us take a look at the techniques you will learn as an acoustic guitar player and some legendary guitarists whose work will need to become familiar with in order to hang out with other acoustic guitar players.

You can think of acoustic guitar technique in two ways: you can be a strummer or a picker. A strummer plays by dragging your thumb, index finger or plectrum across the guitar strings. You can find a multitude of strumming patterns on the internet. Start with the simplest you can find. Some strumming patterns simply show the names of the chords you are supposed to be strumming, and others show that you include only selected strings. The strings that are not included can be damped with the little finger of the left hand or the heel of the right hand.

You can pick using a plectrum – this technique is called flatpicking – or use your fingers. If you decide on fingerpicking you might want to use picks which fit on the thumb and tips of your fingers. Steel strings are hard on the fingernails so you might need fingerpicks to stop your nails being torn to shreds. Nylon strings do not demand the use of picks but after you have had some experience playing guitar you can make the decision based on the kind of sound you want.

A simple start to fingerpicking is to finger an E minor chord and place your fingers on the strings you intend to play. Do not try and do any picking, just decide which strings are the ones you are playing in this chord and place your right hand fingers in a plucking “stance” ready to play. So for the E minor chord you could place your thumb on the sixth string and your first finger on the third string, you second finger on the second string and your first finger on the first string. Now pluck each string by pressing down with the thumb and pulling up with the fingers.

If you want to see what you can do if you foster your devotion to the acoustic guitar, Leo Kottke is a good start. He is an innovative fingerstyle acoustic guitarist who is strongly influenced by folk music, jazz and blues. Another great is Tommy Emmanuel, an Australian acoustic and electric guitarist known for his energetic fingerpicking style. He has developed his own style based on the “travis picking” style of playing he heard played on records by Chet Atkins.

“Travis picking” is a style of finger picking which involves playing bass with the thumb, and melody with the first two or three fingers simultaneously. This picking style was developed by Merle Travis, an American country and western singer and songwriter who composed one of the early fifties hit songs, “Sixteen Tons”. While we are talking about travis picking, you have probably heard of Chet Atkins. He was an influential Nashville guitarist and producer of records for many famous recording artists. He played mostly electric guitar and his picking technique was inspired mostly by Merle Travis with musical influences from Django Reinhardt and Les Paul.

For the acoustic guitar player who elects to stay with  the plectrumn, “Doc” Watson is an American bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music singer and guitar player. He is revered by other guitar players for his astonishing flatpicking style although he does do fingerpicking.

The acoustic guitar repertoire of today owes alot to the folk revival of the sixties. Here are some names from that era whose work you should catch up with:

John Renbourn the English guitarist and songwriter is best known for his work with fellow guitar player, Bert Jansch and his career  with the English folk group Pentangle. Renbourn’s musical interests include early music, folk, classical music and blues.

Bert Jansch is a Scottish folk musician whose influences include English guitarist Davy Graham. His music has influenced Jimmy Page, Ian Anderson, Donovan and Neil Young.

John Martyn is an English guitarist who also sings and writes songs. He has made twenty studio albums and worked with famous musician like Eric Clapton, David Gilmour and Phil Collins. He has invented his own sound featuring an acoustic guitar played through a fuzzbox, phase-shifter and Echoplex.

Davy Graham is a guitarist who featured heavily in the English folk scene in the nineteen sixties. Many acoustic guitar players like Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy and Jimmy Page. His acoustic instrumental piece, Anji was recorded by Paul Simon on an early Simon And Garfunkel album.



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richard zook posted:

So now you want to unplug your guitar and learn how to play a acoustic guitar or your just beginning to play guitar and you have chosen the acoustic guitar. Eather way it has never been easier to learn to play the acoustic guitar and achieve results faster than you may have thought possible.

Acoustic guitar, learn to play with Jamorama. The complete acoustic guitar system creation from guitar master Ben Edwards. Jamorama acoustic is aimed at the acoustic guitar player and is quite literally the acoustic version of Ben’s popular Jamorama. Jamorama acoustic comes with 153 video lessons and is packed with tips and tricks to get the student playing in the shortest time possible.

So now we have desided to learn how to play acoustic guitar. The very first step in learning how to play acoustic guitar, is to get a guitar, but I assume you already own a guitar and ready to start playing.It’s time to start practicing. Learning the correct way to practice is probably the most important part of your acoustic guitar playing success. You will need to recognize the learning method that works best for you because every one is different. The last thing you want to happen is for your guitar learning to become borring and monotonous.

Jamorama acoustic guitar, is a practical course. It hasn’t been loaded down with a lot of unneccessary theory. While you will come away from the course with skills like being able to ready guitar tab, you won’t spend time learning theory that has little or no application. You will not find more information packaged in a user friendly course for so little money anywhere.

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