Posted January 23, 2020

Country guitar licks are like musical sentences strung together by different words, or musical notes. Guitar licks are a handful of notes that create short phrases and you can use these licks to help with your lead guitar playing and improvisation. 

Posted January 14, 2020

Posted December 27, 2019

The guitar pedal order is important because having effects in your signal chain can potentially degrade your guitar’s tone. As a basic rule of thumb is to put the volume and non-destructive effects up front, or closest to your guitar while the modulation and time effects like delay go at the end. 

Thankfully, there’s a nifty graphic in this blog post for you so you don’t have to remember which types of pedals go first or last in your signal chain.

Posted December 18, 2019

What key is this song in? That's a regularly-asked question when a guitarist wants to jam or play by ear. Guitarists can figure out how to find the key of a song with a few super easy methods. In this blog post we’ll go over a very simple way of playing the correct notes, even if you don’t know what key the song is in. 

Posted December 5, 2019

The pentatonic scale is the first scale any beginer guitar player should learn. It’s easy, it sounds great, and can be applied to almost any genera or song.

The pentatonic scale is made up of 5 notes (‘penta’ is Greek for ‘five’) derived from the standard major scale or minor scale. This pattern creates a ‘box’ on the fretboard which is easily movable and playable all over the neck.

Posted November 27, 2019

Christmas songs are fun classics like “Silent Night,” “Jingle Bells,” and others. Make sure to brush up on these numbers in time for the holidays! Thankfully, a lot of these songs are fairly simple to play and you can learn all of them right here on Guitartricks! 

Posted November 21, 2019

Guitar tone can be tricky to nail down, especially when gear can cost an arm and a leg. Luckily, playing music is not all about the equipment. As long as you have a decent, completely working instrument, you will be able to extract great tones and sounds from it. Here is a list of super-easy-to-implement tone improvements you can complete right now.

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 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 14, 2019

Slide guitar is when a guitarist uses a slide, which is an object placed against the strings while playing. Playing slide guitar is a technique and is usually used in blues and country music. Slides are usually metallic cylinders that are worn on the player’s finger and pressing the slide against the strings creates a unique effect that sounds a bit like the notes are winding up or down. Learn all about slide guitar here.

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

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