Posts Related to: Guitar-Late Starter

A teacher who plays excessively during a lesson is not an aid to a student. In fact, the teacher often creates problems for learning. The goal of a lesson should not be to get a student to play like the teacher but to encourage the student to develop  his or her own voice.
Playing can be helpful as …

People sometimes ask me to describe what the jazz guitar style is. Jazz is usually (but not always) played on hollow-body electric guitars; it uses a large repertoire of chords and voicings; numerous scales and arpeggios; octaves; improvisation over complex chord progressions; the “swing” feel in rhythm; the Bossa, the Samba, the Jazz Waltz; rubato ballads. These are …

This post first appeared on The Eloquent Woman blog. I earlier wrote about Denise’s decision to take up the guitar, for the first time, at 50. Denise is a public speaking coach.
“You can’t stop when you make a mistake,” he said. “You’re pausing to think what you did wrong and how to fix it. But you’ve got …

I recently received this question from a reader: I play a little bit of piano and a little bit of guitar, but I’m a beginner on both. I want to write my own songs that others can sing, and I want to get the songs down on paper. Do you suggest I take piano lessons or …

Chords and how they’re named are sources of constant confusion. It’s not as difficult as you may think. Chords are organized into categories. One organization of chord categories is based on the number of notes that are in a chord.
Without question, if you want to understand chords and really learn chords, you need to know …

Regardless of the style of guitar you want to play, it’s important to know the fundamentals that need to be covered. Whether you want to play in a band, sing and play, or be a singer-songwriter, you’ll need to work on specific areas and skills. Here’s an overview of the ten fundamental things to learn to become …

A reader recently asked me what instrument they should take up if they want to play with someone else as a duo, rather than in a larger group or band setting.
Duos come in many shapes and sizes. A keyboard is always a contender because it is perhaps the most versatile of the instruments. This is …

A reader wrote in and asked the following:
“I’m thinking of starting to play the guitar after many years and I’m not sure whether I should buy an acoustic/steel string or a nylon string guitar. Can you talk about the benefits and drawbacks of each? I like to play and sing. Didn’t Chet Atkins use a nylon …

If you’re starting out with acoustic guitar, I would suggest using a flat pick. It’s the easiest to use and is ideally suited to strumming. Strumming chords is what you’re most likely going to do in the beginning.
Finger picking is certainly a well-developed style of the acoustic guitar. You have a choice of using a …

Students sometimes ask me for an explanation of the Roman numerals they see on lead sheets. Briefly, Roman numerals indicate the relative position of a chord in a key. A key is a set of relationships between a scale and its chords. The scale helps generate a melody and a chord or chord progression helps generate …