By Bruce Lamb

http://www.TheGuitarWorkShop.com

A guitar is probably the most popular string instrument of today. One common thing about modern teenagers who want are creative, have an artistic setup or just want to be ‘cool’; is that they love guitar as a playing instrument. The guitar has generally six strings and is popularly one of the two broad classifications: acoustic and electric, though it can have much more strings attached to it and can come in various types such as a Hawaiian guitar and it can have many mechanisms such as a double neck guitar etc.

But those are for advanced users! Typically a guitar may look stylish, trendy or cool, but guitar lessons for beginners can be tricky. If you want to learn to play guitar for a living or simply as a hobby and you are serious about it, you need to know that playing guitar is not easy, contrary to what it looks on the screen for the greatest guitar players playing it as a piece of cake.

Construction

In case of guitar lessons for beginners, it is important to understand the general construction of a guitar. The guitar has three main parts: the body, the neck and the strings; although number of strings, length of the neck and size of the body tends to vary from guitar to guitar. Strings are attached on the fretboard (a piece of wood on the neck) and some frets run orthogonal to the strings; while each fret produces different sounds.

Other parts of the mechanism may be understood later but for now it would be interesting o know what is the difference between two main types of guitars. An electrical guitar relies on electronic amplification to make their sound audible, while an acoustic guitar uses only acoustic methods to make the sound proceed via the strings. We can hear the sound form an acoustic guitar from the hole (a round hole or F hole) that is inscribed inside the body of the guitar.

Where to learn

If you want to learn guitar, the materials and resources will never be inadequate. Search for the keywords ‘guitar lessons for beginners’ or ‘guitar workshops’ and thousands of websites will be returned for free. Also if you want to be personally taught, you can avail the guitar lessons that are given in exchange for a reasonable amount of money. So the more important decision that has to be made is not where, but what!

What to learn

Guitar comes in a diversified array of classifications and culture. So one needs to decide what to learn; for example: learn acoustic guitar or electric, learn to finger pick (playing with bare fingers) or flat pick (playing with the use of a plectrum/pick) etc. and moreover the genres of music such as blues, rock, pop, jazz etc.

Learning a guitar may not be easy but once learnt, it is a great friend to the end of your days.

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McKinley Morganfield, born on April 4, 1913 and died on April 30, 1983, more popularly known among his fans as Muddy Waters, was a reputed musician of the American blues genre. Muddy Waters was generally acknowledged as “the Father of Chicago blues”.

Muddy Waters debuted on harmonica but by the age of 17 had started playing the guitar at a number of parties where he emulated two very reputed blues artists Robert Johnson and Son House. Qualities for which he got instantly noticed were his rich baritone, his ability to add dark coloration to his tone and his wonderful ability to add a lot of embellishments to the music he played.

The real success phase for Muddy Waters the Original Huochie Coochie Man began with an association with the Chess brothers Phill and Leonard Chess who had formed a music group known as Aristocrat.

In the year 1948, his music on “I Feel Like Going Home” and “I Can’t Be Satisfied” were huge hits and that was the point in time when he began to climb the popularity charts in the clubs. After this, soon, Aristocrat rebranded their name to Chess Records and instantly, Muddy Waters the Original Huochie Coochie Man’s signature tune which happened to be “Rollin’ Stone” became a huge hit among its fans.

By the time September 1953 arrived, Muddy Waters the Original Huochie Coochie Man had started recording in association with one of the more acknowledged blues groups ever in history: This group comprised Elga Edmonds who played on drums, Otis Spann who played on piano, Little Walter Jacobs who played on harmonica; and lastly, Jimmy Rogers who strummed the guitar.

The highly acclaimed band had already recorded a number of blues classics during the time of early 1950s, with the active help of Willie Dixon who was a bassist/songwriter and the masterpieces included “I Just Want to Make Love to You”; “Huochie Coochie Man”,  and “I’m Ready”.

These songs were branded macho songs and they earned a lot of critical acclaim. These songs gave Muddy Waters a series of showstoppers and a tremendous thrust, which proved very important for a hitherto unknown bluesman who was trying to break free from the world of local gigs into the lime light of national prominence.

His beginning was not great but he had a lot of support, both institutional and from his peers who helped him with free guitar lessons and Blues Guitar lessons. It was to his credit that he utilized the opportunities to perfection to rise to prominence.

Muddy Waters, by the time he passed away, had carved out his own niche and his music and songs had inspired an entire generation and the Blues Music had begun to earn its laurels.

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When you first start or begin to learn how to play the blues it is a very good idea that your first know what type of blues you want to learn to master. There are several types of blues that have been developed in this country. Many regions around the United States have their own style of blues guitar playing. There is Chicago Style of Blues, there is Texas Style of Blues, The Delta Style, also New Orleans Style of Blues Guitar, and the Piedmont Style of Blues that comes for the mid east coast up to Delaware style.

A very first and most important thing in my opinion is knowing what a progression is. The blues is comprised of a kind of pattern or order of notes that are played. This is the blues progression patterns. The blues progression is a one, four, five progression (1-4-5-). I’ll try to describe what this means so pay close attention. There are seven major notes in playing music. These notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Now here is where it gets kind of tricky. If some one says they are going to play the blues in the key of A, this simply means that the A is the (One Chord) or the very first chord in the song. The next chord to be played in the song would be the ( Four Chord) or the second chord that would be played. And then the next chord is the (Five Chord) this is the 1 4 5 progression.

Looking at the 7 major chords A, B, C, D, E, F, G, start counting from the left you will notice the first chord is the A chord the fourth chord is the D chord and the fifth chord is the E chord. Now lets look at a song in the key of E. Can you figure out what the progression is?

Starting with the E Chord as the first chord in the song it would be the one chord. Now counting from the E Chord and using it as the number one chord you count F chord as the 2nd chord in the major scale, then the G chord would be the 3rd chord in the major scale then the next chord in the song would be the A chord or the four chord in the song. Now to complete the 145 progression the 5 chord would be the B chord. So the 145 progression in the key of E would use these 3 chords. They are the E, A, B chords.

Start practicing using these chord progressions, keep playing them over and over and try to develop a smooth strum or plucking when you practice them. Its far better to practice chord over and over again with out pausing from on chord to the next. I guess what I am trying to say is play them until they become fluid with out stopping to find the next chord. After a while you will start to here the music and you can move on to new and better things.