Guitar Tricks Blog

Posted November 1, 2019

A travel guitar is usually a little guitar that you take with you when you don’t want to bring your go-to dreadnaught or electric. But of course this is different for everyone. Your go-to guitar is probably a full-sized instrument, but we recommend traveling with a smaller form factor, like a parlor or a mini guitar. Small guitars can sound just as good and sometimes better than full-bodied guitars depending on the style of music you prefer. 

Posted October 17, 2019

Music vocabulary is all of the words and jargon associated with playing music, and in this case, all of the words associated with playing guitar. If you ever have trouble with what a word means within a Guitartricks lesson, look no further than our guitar glossary here.

Posted October 3, 2019

The Beatles’ songs are some of the most iconic of all-time and with the recently released 50th Anniversary Abbey Road album featuring new mixes from Giles Martin and additional demo recordings, it’s a great time to brush up on your favorite fab four songs. Thankfully, Guitartricks has a wide selection of songs by the four boys from Liverpool. Let’s take a look! 

Posted September 27, 2019

Posted September 19, 2019

How to sing and play guitar at the same time is something every singer and guitar player wants to do eventually. Singing and playing guitar at the same time can be challenging especially when if you’re a beginner guitar player. You may get mixed up on the timing of the lyrics versus the timing of the chord changes. Here are a few tips on how to practice singing and playing guitar at the same time. 

Posted September 12, 2019

We’ve released new songs from John Legend, Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, and Lord Huron. We’ve also added a number of modern classics to our songs library as well from Linkin Park, The White Stripes, Cage the Elephant and The Raconteurs. You can learn how to play key songs from all of these great artists right now. 

Posted September 5, 2019

The guitar blues scales are 6-note scales similar to a pentatonic minor scale but with the addition of an extra note. What are the notes of the blues scale? And How do you find the blues scale? The major blues scale pattern is 1 - 2 - b3 - 3 - 5 - 6. There are major and minor blues scales and they’re used in blues music but are often used in other genres as well. We’re going to break down the difference between pentatonic and blues scales here, so continue on for all the de

Posted August 30, 2019

The top country songs to learn on Guitartricks.com are listed below. If you're a fan of country or maybe you're jumping in as a new fan of the genre, this is a great place to start. Whether you're a beginner guitar player or more experienced, there is a lesson for you on this top 10 list. 

Posted August 14, 2019

Posted August 13, 2019

Guitar body styles for electric guitar include solid body, hollow body and semi-hollow body. Solid body electric guitars are made of solid pieces of wood, usually glued and pressed together, while hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars have one or two f holes carved out for greater resonance and a fuller, warmer tone. There are also a number of guitar body types for <a href="https://www.guitartricks.com/blog/Guitar-Shapes-on-Acoustic" target="_blank" rel="n

Posted August 1, 2019

There are a number of different shapes and sizes when it comes to guitar. Jumbo is usually the largest shape for a guitar, while parlor refers to one of the smallest. Between these shapes are dreadnought, orchestra and concert sizes, which all have their uses and are great for playing different styles of music.

Posted July 25, 2019

A guitar harmonic is usually a note that is played but the string is muted slightly to dampen the vibrations, giving it a bell-like, ringing effect. Harmonics are most commonly played on the 12th fret but you can play them all over the neck. 

There are a bunch of great tricks when it comes to harmonics. Here are just a few. 

Posted July 18, 2019

Phrasing is how a guitar player presents their notes and licks within music. Usually musical phrases are short licks or notes, each separated by space, and are full of dynamics and emotion. B.B. King was a master of the blues and also used phrasing to create his signature sound. 

Posted July 12, 2019

An arpeggio (ar-peh-jee-oh) is when notes in a chord are played individually in descending or ascending order. Instead of strumming a chord and hitting all of the notes at once, guitar players play arpeggios by picking the notes in succession.

Posted July 2, 2019

Dynamics are, according to the Guitar Tricks guitar glossary, “the loudness or softness of a piece of music. Latin words such as 'forte' (f - loudly) and 'piano' (p - softly) are used to indicate this within music notation. This is an effective and simple way to add emotional expression into your playing. It can work in both lead and rhythm play.”

You can use dynamics to emphasize certain parts of what you’re playing like a bass note or the treble notes. Seasoned g