There is a new Learning Guitar Now video podcast up, and you can subscribe in itunes now if you’re not already. In this week’s Guitar Lessons podcast, I show you how to play a 12 bar blues progression in the style of the late Johnny Cash. If you don’t know the chords I’m playing, simply sign up for my newsletter and receive a FREE Chord chart, as well as FREE video guitar lessons.

I think the video podcasts are coming along well. They are actually easier to do than the audio ones, but I may still do some audio podcasts in the future.

What do you think?

Who likes the video better than the audio?

I think I probably already know the answer to that one!

Until next time and keep practicing!

For more information about learning guitar please check out www.LearningGuitarNow.com

So you’re a beginner guitar player and have learned all your open position chords, and are looking to learn some barre chords. Maybe you’ve tried in the past and failed, but this time you’re going to learn how to play them. So why should you learn barre chords? Simply put, barre chords will allow you to take the same chord position, and just move it up and down the fretboard to make new chords. This is powerful knowledge to have when learning guitar.

For example, you want to play an A# Major chord, but you don’t know the chord. If you know how to play the Major barre chord with the Root note on the E string,(see below) then simply take the same shape and move it to the 6th fret, which is an A# note. That’s it. Now you will be able to move that barre chord shape and move it up and down the neck to form many different chords. It all depends on what note you are barring.

You now need to memorize all the notes on the Low E String. If you do, you will be able to play any chord within seconds! Think of how fast you will start playing new chords. After you have done this, memorize the notes on the A String, and now you will know how to play barre chords with the root note on 2 different strings. This is awesome!

If you fail to see the significance of this, reread this blog or contact me. You need to learn this to continue to move forward with your guitar playing.

So how do you play these barre chords? Well, below is how to play a Major barre chord with the root on the E string. The 5 on the right tells you that it is to be played on the 5th fret, which is an A note, thus an A chord.

This chord is used in many popular songs including Stairway to Heaven, All Along the Watchtower, Ramblin Man, and many more.

If you want a FREE Barre Chord chart, simply sign up for my newsletter at the top left here, and receive a FREE Barre Chord chart along with 3 video guitar lessons. If you would like more in depth information on how to play Barre Chords or beginner guitar, please check out my ebook Guitar Method Beginner Book 1.

For more information about learning guitar please visit www.LearningGuitarNow.com

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Do you want to know my secrets to playing the guitar like you’ve always wanted to? Do you want to be able to play all your favorite songs with , with ease? If you said yes to these questions, then you are reading the right blog. If you said no, then stop reading right now. This is only for guitar players who are serious about learning the guitar.

Now I’m going to tell you exactly how to play anything on the guitar. There is no secret formula, and it will not be easy, but it will be rewarding, challenging, and you WILL SEE RESULTS I GUARANTEE!

Here are 3 things that you MUST do to get any better on guitar.

1. Write down your goals as a guitar player. It may be as simple as learn D, and G today, or maybe learn the Pentatonic scale. Folks this stuff is easy to do. If you do not set goals for your guitar playing, you will simply not get anywhere. Think about it. It you want to play blues lead guitar, and you don’t know the path to get there, then you will NEVER get there. SET GOALS STARTING TODAY OR YOU WILL NOT GET ANY BETTER!
2. After you set your goals and achieve them, write down new goals. You should have new goals being set every week, month, year. If you do this you will get a hundred times better in a year. Whatever it is just do it. Sounds simple, but everyday I see kids and adults not being able to play what they want simple because they don’t even know what they want to learn. You can’t just say I want to learn guitar. There are many styles of guitar and by not figuring out what you want to learn, you will not learn anything.
3. Turn off your TV. People the TV is a bad thing. Am I mad you say? Don’t get me wrong, I like watching TV shows just like everyone else, but I watch them when I want, and set times that I’ll watch TV. For example, the typical person will watch his or her favorite show, and when it’s over, they’ll keep flipping that remonte controlfor hours watching nothing, losing all the time they could have been practicing. You get the picture. I don’t even have cable TV anymore. The TV will eat your time away like nothing else, so stop watching and start practicing.

Well that’s my 3 tips that will have you playing guitar better in 30 days I guarantee. “Now you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.” -Zig Ziglar

For more information on learning guitar vist www.learningguitarnow.com.

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Are you a beginner guitar player that is looking for an easy blues song to play? Or maybe you’re totally new to learning guitar and are looking to learn how to play anything on the guitar.

Well in today’s guitar lesson, I’m going to teach you “how to play the blues” for beginner guitar players.

To play an easy blues guitar riff, you will only need to use 2 fingers. Yes it is that easy. This blues guitar riff has been used in thousands of songs including “Johnny B. Goode,” “Pride and Joy”, “Keep your hands to Yourself”, and “Rock and Roll”. Is that an impressive enough list for you?

Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s learn one of the most used guitar riffs in history. Below is how to play this blues riff in the key of A.

When playing this blues guitar riff, use your 1st finger on the 2nd fret, and your 3rd finger on the 4th fret. Always keep your 1st finger down on the fret, even when you play the note located on the 4th fret. By doing this, you will be able to play faster and cleaner, due to less motion of your hand.

Practice this guitar riff everyday until you can play it perfectly in time with the beat. In my ebook for beginner guitar players, I’ll show you how to do the entire 12 bar blues progression by playing this pattern.

For more on learning the guitar please visit www.LearningGuitarNow.com

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Everybody learns how to play the guitar in different ways, and in this series of blog posts I’m going to tell you “my story” of how I learned how to play the guitar. I think it’s good to hear how others began, and also see that everyone starts off learning the guitar in the same way. So this is part 1 of an ongoing series of blog posts about my experience playing and learning the guitar.

When I was 16 years old, back in 1990 I think, I was watching Quantam Leap, a show that was really popular at the time, and the episode had a sequence where the main charactar, “Sam”, sat down and played “Imagine” by John Lennon. What an emotional experience! After I heard that, I knew I wanted to be able to take an acoustic guitar, and produce that kind of magic through the instrument. Also, after hearing Led Zeppelin III, I realized that I must learn the greatest instrument of all time, the guitar!

Well after that, I saved up some money and purchased a Kay electric guitar and a small Peavey amp. As soon as I plugged it in and pressed the saturation button, I hit the Low E string on the guitar and thought , WOW this is cool, I am a guitar player!

I soon began to take private lessons from a small music store in Mobile, Alabama where I learned my first song,”If” by Bread. I practiced everyday after school, until I could at least change through some open chords. I remember thinking, “If I only could change from G to C and D then I would be awesome!” Those chord changes seemed almost impossible, and forget about lead guitar. I had been given this thing called the Pentatonic scale to practice, and man was it hard. I did practice my chords and the scale for about an hour everyday after High School. I kept thinking that someday I might actually be able to play a song in front of someone, but that day seemed so far away.

Eventually I learned how to play some chords and a couple of easy lead riffs, such as Johnny B Goode. I thought I was awesome now! So I asked my friend to come over and check out what I had learned. He arrived and I sat down and proceeded to play the intro to Johnny B. Goode. I knew I was awesome! When I had finished I asked him if he knew what song that was, he replied “Uh, I have no idea.” I said, “You know, the song in Back to the Future.” He was like “I don’t think what you played sounded like that, but yeah it sounds good.” with a smirk. I knew that he was not impressed. Oh well, I guess I needed more practice.

In part 2 of this series I’ll tell about my first live performance. Until next time.

For information on how you can learn how to play the guitar please visit www.learningguitarnow.com

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Do you want to increase your chances of being able to play the guitar? Maybe you’ve taken some guitar lessons in the past and didn’t quite get the results you were looking for. In today’s guitar lesson, I will give you 5 mistakes beginning guitar players commonly make. Knowing what not to do on the guitar, can almost be as good as knowing what to do?

Here are my 5 mistakes beginner guitar players commonly make.

1. They don’t practice with a metronome. Playing in time is so critical in the beginning. I know it is no fun to play to that awful clicking noise. I’ve done it, but I also used drum machines which are just as good. If you can’t take the clicking noise, go buy a cheap keyboard with a drum machine built in.
2. They don’t play on the tips of their fingers. If you want to sound good, you must play on the tips of your fingers. This will allow you to hear all the notes of the chords that you’re trying to play. When practicing open position chords, play each string to ensure that every note is able to be heard. If you can’t hear every note, then you’re probably not playing on the tips of your fingers.
3. They try to play too fast. Playing things beyond your capability is not bad. Playing things beyond your capability at the wrong speed is VERY BAD! When learning difficult things, you must slow them down to where you can play the part without messing up. In reality you can play anything if it is slowed down enough. The fastest guitar runs can be slowed down to where you can play them and practice them to a tempo you are comfortable with. Now each few days, speed them up, and a couple weeks later you will have it. This way works much better than playing it at the regular tempo badly everyday, because you will never actually be able to play it perfect only fast BADLY! You play like you practice is true with guitar playing.
4. They don’t practice what they can’t play. This is critical. If every time you sit down to practice and you reel off everything you can already play well, you will never get any better. This is called playing the guitar not practicing! When you practice the guitar you need to do things that you can’t do well. By setting aside 30 minutes a day of playing things you need to work on, you will improve you’re skills dramatically over the course of a few months. If you just sit down and play everything you already know how to play, you will not learn anything. While this may be fun, you will never learn anything new. For a practice guide from myself sign up for my newsletter and you’ll also receive free guitar videos.
5. They don’t play in front of people. Playing in a room by yourself is safe and comfortable. No one will ever hear you mess up, and no one will ever hear you play that awesome song you’ve been working on. GO FIND SOMEONE TO PLAY FOR! There has to be someone that will listen to you, so go ask them to listen. By playing in front of people, you will notice something different happens. You will tense up, get nervous and become aware of everything that you can’t do. This is good. Magical things happen when we play in front of people, that will never happen if you don’t. There is just something about being in front of someone, that causes people to do exciting things. Performing music is one of the most exhilarating things of this world. Don’t miss out on it because you’re too scared. If you still can’t find anyone to play for, go get the dog. If he starts moving his head sideways, you may want to reread this blog post!

Well that’s it folks for my 5 mistakes beginner guitar players make.. Go start practicing and don’t do the things mentioned above and you’ll be on your way to rock stardom. Check out my E-book on guitar, for everything beginner guitar players need to learn.

For more information on learning the guitar, or guitar lessons from myself, please visit www.LearningGuitarNow.com.

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In this weeks podcast, I show you how to practice your scales using swing eighth notes; I analyze Caledonia by BB King, and an album review of Fandango.

FREE shipping on Slide Guitar DVD 2 The Major Scale till Friday May 2! Buy the Slide Guitar Bundle and save money.

Start setting goals and see your guitar playing improve drastically!

For more information on learning guitar please visit my website at www.LearningGuitarNow.com

Technorati Tags: Learning Guitar Now, learn the blues, learning Guitar

Do you want to unlock the soulful sounds of the slide guitar? In this slide guitar lesson, I’ll tell you how learning the major scale for slide guitar can benefit every aspect of your slide guitar playing.

First let’s take a look at the major scale in open E tuning.

These are the notes contained in the major scale. There are seven notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. The distance from the root note to another note in the scale is called an interval. For instance, from the root note C, 8th fret to the 5th note G, on the 8th fret also is called a 5th. This is one of the most important lessons to learn when learning slide guitar solos. You need to memorize what these 2 notes sound like.

This is the beginning of music theory. By learning intervals you will no longer be playing box type patterns, but you will hear your notes in your head before you play them. This is a powerful way to play the guitar and will open many aspects of slide guitar playing you never knew existed.

So why is this important? Well, it’s pretty much the difference between being an “OK” player, to becoming a seasoned pro. Once this technique is learned, and it will take some practice, you are unlimited to the sounds you can create. You will now look at the fretboard as many different sounds, instead of many box like patterns. This will help you achieve the sounds you’re looking for and will allow your inner voice to speak when playing the slide guitar.

Here’s a cool major scale lick in the key of C for Open E tuning. This lick is taken directly from my new DVD, Slide Guitar Method 2 The Major Scale.

By learning the Major scale in open E tuning, you will start to understand the basic elements of music theory, and start becoming the slide guitar player you’ve always wanted to be.

For more info visit my website, Learning Guitar Now. [tag]slide guitar lesson, learning the major scale for slide guitar[/tags]

Let’s face it everybody wants to play guitar. With the popularity of Guitar Hero, even more youngsters are picking up and learning how to play the greatest instrument of all time. That’s right, I said the guitar is “The Greatest Instrument of All Time!” Don’t even try to disagree.

Now that we’ve got that covered, let’s talk about my favorite albums for learning how to play blues, rock and slide guitar. Of course there are many on my list but there can only be 5. I challenge all readers to submit their 5 favorite guitar albums and see where we disagree or agree.

Ok here we go. in no particular order these 5 are seen as equal to me, but at the end I’ll name my favorite guitar album of all time!

1. Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” You know it, you love it and if you haven’t heard this album, man you are missing out. Beginners can benefit from all the basic chords in such songs as “Brain Damage/Eclipse”, while the blues guys can learn a thing or two about melodic leads from “Time”. I listened to this CD over and over for about 2 years while in college, and it is just fantastic. Get it, learn it, enough said.
2. Jimi Hendrix “Are you Experienced” What can I say it’s Jimi. There are so many cool songs and styles on this debut album that if you don’t learn the whole album, you really don’t know how to play guitar. Yes it’s that good, and yes you will learn it. From the fuzzed out solos of “Foxey Lady”, to the clean R&B scrapings of “The Wind Cries Mary”, no one should be without this album. He really is the greatest guitarist ever. Don’t even try to deny it!
3. Steve Ray Vaughan “Texas Flood” The debut album from the King of the Texas Blues. Listening to this album is like listening to pure perfection of the blues guitar style. I don’t think anyone has been so influential of the blues genre in recent history. The title track does it all, a barrage of notes coming at you like a texas flood. This album feels the blues and the guitar playing is nothing less than legendary. “Pride and Joy” has been covered by more bar bands than I care to mention. All hail SRV. It’s also a fact that this album was recorded live, with only one overdub, in a couple of days. The only reason for the overdub is because SRV happened to break a string!
4. Allman Brothers “Live at the Fillmore East” You’ve already heard my affection for this album, but I’ll say it again, This is the best live album ever recorded period. Bill Graham, Tom Dowd, what else do you need to know. Standouts include, “Whipping Post” perhaps one of the greatest jams ever recorded! It blends jazz, blues, and rock like no other song before it. Their use of the Dorian scale recalls their love of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. This is a must have. Get it and revel in the masterful sounds that come out of your speakers, or ipod buds these days.
5. Led Zeppelin “Led Zeppelin II” No list could be complete without getting the Led out! Responsible for all rock music as we know it. The Gods of Rock release this monumental album in 1969. Every song on this CD is the stuff only legends are made of. From the crushing solos and power chords of “Heartbreaker”, to the Acoustic strummings of “Thank You”, there is something for all rock lovers. The riff to “Whole Lotta Love” Inspired a whole generation of rockers, while the funky bass, and bluesy guitar solos of “The Lemon Song” proved they were a band that knew how to groove. Buy this album if you truly want ot rock. Without it you are stuck in Kenny G. land!

So there you have it folks, my unofficial top five guitar albums of all time. Let me know you’re top 5. I love to see other people’s opinions. Oh yeah, if you wanna hear my number one, you’re gonna have to listen to the upcoming podcast. Subscribe here

For more info on guitar playing check out my website, and for slide guitar players check out the DVD.

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If you haven’t heard of the game “Guitar Hero”, then you’ve been living underneath a rock. It is only the single most popular video game in existence. I teach many kids private guitar lessons, and let me tell you the songs on these games are extremely popular.

Let me give you an example.

I had a 12 year old kid request to learn a song by some aging old southern rock band called 38 Special, no offense. But I never thought the day would come when a 12 year old would want to learn “Hold on Loosely”, and even a song by Eddie Money! And let me tell you this is not an isolated incident. There have been numerous requests for these songs and others, all because these songs are on Guitar Hero the video game.

I think this is a good thing. A lot of songs on this game are very good, and have challenging guitar parts, which in turn will make the student practice and learn these songs, instead of some of the newer songs which don’t really have anything challenging in them at all. I love some of the new rock, but let’s face it, a song by Semisonic, or Breaking Benjamin is far less challenging than learning “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns & Roses.

Here’s a short list of some of the songs that have been included in Guitar Hero.

“More Than a Feeling” by Boston has become the new anthem for the middle school kids. It’s pretty unbelievable how one video game has changed the music industry. What happens when all these kids start writing their own music? In five years or so, the songs on the radio will have been written by kids who grew up with Guitar Hero and learned all those songs. How will this affect the sound of the music in the next 10 years? I believe the classic rock sound, and being a great guitar player will come back into the mainstream.

Even the rockstars of the music industry are taking note. Notice who is in the commercial for this game, and featured inside the game itself. No other than mega rock star, Slash, from Guns & Roses. And look who has a brand new signature Gibson Guitar out now, Slash of course. The biggest guitar manufacture is pushing this as their biggest campaign right now. Every kid now wants to learn how to play like Slash. For many kids, he is considered the greatest guitarist of all time.

Legendary band Aerosmith are having an entire game dedicated to them. You will go through the game performing all of the Aerosmith classics. What does this say about the marketing of bands inside video games as well? Do you think Aerosmith will sell millions of Albums because of this? I would say yes.

There’s no denying Guitar Hero. It could single handedly jumpstart the struggling music business like nothing before. Which is good for me since I teach people how to become a real Guitar Hero!

To start learning guitar from me please check out my website.

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