Guitar Stuff » Guitar Basics

What is Intonation on the Guitar?

Matt — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:47:26 +0000

In a previous post I said I was taking my guitar into the shop to have the intonation (among other things) set. So what is this thing called intonation?

Intonation refers to the notes on the guitar being in tune all the way from open to the high end of the fretboard. If a guitar’s intonation is set properly every E note played on the fretboard will have the proper pitch. If the intonation is off, usually the notes at the nut end of the fretboard will be correct, but they will slowly become sharp or flat the further you move up the fretboard.

A manner of producing or uttering tones, especially with regard to accuracy of pitch.

Source: Dictionary.com

For the average person (like me) it may not be out enough to notice while playing. However, if it is out, once you get it set properly you will notice the difference for sure.

Checking the intonation

The intonation is pretty easy to check, especially if you own an electric tuner. First tune the strings to the proper pitch. After all of the strings are tuned, play the open note on the E string, and then right after play the E note on the 12th fret of the same string. If the tuner shows the right pitch then that strings intonation is set properly. However, if the tuner shows a change in pitch whether it he sharp or flat, the intonation is out. This process can be done on each string to determine if the intonation is out.

Setting the Intonation

If you find that your intonation is out, take your guitar to a shop to have them set it. It shouldn’t cost you too much to have it done. It is best to have a professional do this as you can make the tone worse if you try to do it yourself and don’t succeed.

What is Action on the Guitar?

Matt — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:04:54 +0000

The very first guitar I had was this small acoustic that was obviously supposed to have nylon strings on it. At first I did not know about nylon strings, but later realized that because of the style of bridge, it should have had them. Anyway, my best friend and I called the guitar “The Killer”. We called it this for two reasons. Reason 1, it was a nylon string guitar that had steel strings on it so the action was really bad and it would kill your fingers if you played for too long. The second reason was because my best friend’s mom bought it from a guy who she later found out from the local newspaper was convicted of murder. The name was suiting. There was an upside to playing it though, I developed some pretty wicked calices.

I basically just explained exactly what action is with that little story. Action refers to how easy a guitar’s strings are to fret. If a guitar’s strings are hard to fret and it kills your hand to play you would say the guitar has bad action. If the opposite is true and the guitar is easily fretted and is responsive to the touch it would be said the guitar has good action.

Sometimes action is referred to as high or low action. In this case it has to do with how far the strings are from the fingerboard.

If the strings are high, and required to be pushed down far to fret them, the guitar has high action. Guitarists who are used to playing electric guitars or acoustics with low action might classify high action as bad action. Generally though, action is a personal preference. A higher action will give a brighter clearer tone and is generally better for rhythm guitar.

Low action is when the strings are closer to the fingerboard. Generally this would be classified as good action, but again its a personal preference. Lower action’s tone isn’t as bright, but will make the guitar much easier to play for someone who does a lot of lead and technical playing. Sometimes a negative side effect of low action is fretbuzz. This happens when vibrating strings actually touch the frets and cause a buzzing sound.

When you are choosing a guitar or getting your guitar setup you want action that is a common ground between ease of playability and quality of sound. If you have a guitar and you find it hurts your fingers to play because you have to press the strings down too far, consider taking your guitar into a shop to have the action adjusted.

Not so Obvious Tips About Tuning a Guitar

Matt — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:55:22 +0000

Tuning is probably one of the most basic things you can learn about guitar. There is a lot of basic guitar theory that you can pick up in the process of learning to tune that can be essential down the line. For example one of the most important things you can learn is the notes of the strings in standard tuning. When reading guitar instructions quite often the writer will use phrases like “fret the A string on the 5th fret”. Once you have the string names memorized things like that will become natural.

At this point I could go ahead and write another set of instructions on how to tune a guitar, but there really is no point. There are so many resources out there which do just as good of a job if not better than I could. The tuning guide at WholeNote for example is a great set of instructions for the beginner.

Here are some quick points I would like to mention though:

A guitar can be tuned many different ways, but standard tuning refers to the most common configuration. This tuning starting from the low string to the high is E – A – D – G – B – E.

A string should always be tuned up to pitch. This means you should tune the string slightly lower than the note you want and then slowly tighten the string until it gets to the desired pitch. If you go beyond the pitch you wanted, turn the peg back below the note and tune back up again. Tuning this way will lower the chance of the string going out of tune as you play.

When you put new strings on a guitar you will have to tune it more often. As the strings get worn in and stretch a bit they will stay in tune better.

You want to make sure your guitar is always in tune when you are playing it, especially when you are learning. You want to do as much as you can to train your ear to the way the guitar should sound, and playing out of tune won’t help you there.

Once you get the hang of standard tuning play around with some alternate tunings, like dropped-d, open, or step down tuning.

If you are going to play with alternate tuning remember that your guitar is setup specifically for a specific tuning and gauge of strings. If you change the tuning of your guitar you may have to get it professionally setup, and in extreme cases you may cause damage to it. If you change the tuning and your strings become hard to play or start buzzing a lot, it’s probably a good idea to change back to standard tuning.

As I said above, the guitar tuning guide at WholeNote is a great resource. If that one doesn’t do it for you just do a simple Google search for guitar tuning and you’ll get a hundred other how-to’s.

How to use the Internet to Learn to Play the Guitar

Matt — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 17:41:51 +0000

We have all heard it a hundred times before: the Internet is a vast base of information. It is an unprecedented collection of professional and amateur documentation and advice. Chances are virtually every topic ever has been discussed in some form on the Internet. Well, lucky for us guitars are a very popular topic and there is an endless supply of learning material for beginners on the Internet. I am one of the thousands of people who are living proof that you can learn to play guitar using only yourself and the Internet.

What you will need to learn guitar on the Internet

Everyone’s situation is going to be different. Some people may have some musical experience under their belt already. In their case, learning the musical theory behind the guitar might be a good course to take. For someone like myself who didn’t know squat about music before I picked up the guitar, diving straight into learning songs was the best method. Learning songs allowed me to get a taste for music and made me want to learn more. When learning songs I would be required to study new chords and practice them in order to play the song. This is how my playing progressed. Eventually you will want to write music or play with others and you will get into things like scales and keys.

Regardless of whether you have previous knowledge or not you will need some basic personality traits to teach yourself to play guitar.

1. Patience

2. Determination

3. Passion

How much of each of those qualities you need depends on what level of playing you wish to achieve. Metal guitar gods like Zakk Wylde and Alexi Laiho have said that they would spend up to 12 hours a day practicing their playing. Their level of playing is a direct result of that determination.

How I learned to play guitar

I would consider myself an experienced guitarist. I have strengths in a lot of areas, but like every other guitarist there is always something new to learn. It didn’t happen over night. However after 8 years I am playing at a level now that I didn’t even know was possible when I started. Here is how I learned to play the guitar.

Learn Songs You Like
When I started playing guitar I wanted to learn to play Nirvana songs. I knew a friend who played guitar already and I had seen him using online tablature to learn songs. Tablature is a form of music notation that is very simple to read. It tells you directly what strings to pluck and what frets to press. That day I went home, picked up the guitar we had and searched the Internet for come as you are tab. I was able to learn how to play the verse of the song pretty well in about half an hour.

That night I went through my musical collection listening to songs trying to find others I could learn. Many sounded too difficult to me. Some I tried to learn and gave up because they were obviously beyond my playing ability on the first day. Although I don’t remember many of the songs now, I know I learned some parts of different Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Collective Soul tunes. By the end of the week I had a few songs I could show off to my family and friends.

Challenge Yourself to Learn More
Eventually in learning I became aware of chords. Initially I only learned power chords because they were the choice of Kurt Cobain. Power chords are 3 notes that have the same finger formation. All you do is move them to a different location on the guitar to make a different chord. When I began playing some Classic Rock I learned the concept of open chords. These chords all have different finger formations and are usually played near the end of the fretboard. As I would try and learn new songs I would have to study and practice different chords.

Through learning songs from tab files there were a lot of symbols like “/”, “^”, “h”, and “p” that I didnt understand. Searching the Internet for an article on how to read tab files I found that / was slide, ^ was bend, h was hammer-on, and p was pull-off. These guitar playing techniques were all new to me and again I had to search the internet for tutorials on each technique.

A few months into playing guitar I started playing songs with other friends who played guitar. While jamming with my friends they would often improvise in their playing and I wanted to learn to do that. It was confusing to me how people could learn what notes to play so that it would sound in tune with the other guitars. Again I searched the internet for “how to improvise guitar”, “how to solo guitar”, and “how to jam guitar”. Through the articles I read I became aware of the world of scales. I think this is where things really started to make sense for me. I learned a lot of things over the next few months. The basic scale to learn seems to be the pentatonic scale. So I learned that one and was improvising in no time.

The next thing I learned was barre chords. Barre chords are difficult to learn because they usually require all of your fingers to fret them, but once you learn them you arent limited to open chords when you want to play rythm. Barre chords really improved the strength in my fretting hand and allowed me to play with more precision and speed.

At this point I had a bag full of techniques and chords under my belt and I was finding songs were much easier for me to learn. I think I began to plateau at this point and really focused on perfecting the skills I had learned. Eventually I grew tired of playing acoustic guitar and started lusting after electric guitar. My musical tastes had moved from Classic Rock to Thrash and Metal. I was listening to Metallica, Pantera, and Ozzy and I wanted to learn to play Metal.

I started focusing a lot of my attention on my soloing skills. I learned several solos note for note and practiced my speed and precision.

Resources

So enough talk, simply what can you find online to help you play guitar? Probably the first thing you want to find is tabs. Find a song that you like, that in your opinion doesn’t sound too hard musically and search for a guitar tab for it. If you find a tab and you don’t know how to read it, search for “how to read guitar tabs”. Once you get the hang of reading guitar tabs start searching for guitar lessons. Most guitar lessons use tab notation to teach you, so you will need to know how to read them first.

Tablature and Chords
Tablature (or tabs) and Chords are another guitar player’s interpretation of how to play a song. Tablature ranges in detail but will tell you where on the fretboard to put your fingers. Chords tell you the names and the order of the chords in a song. Learning the rhythm or picking pattern is up to the player.

There are millions of tab and chord files online and depending on the popularity of the song may be multiple different versions from different guitar players.

Lessons
Lessons are also easy to find online. Many guitar related sites offer lessons written by site members. Some sites provide video or audio to go along with the lessons. Some just are plain text. Lessons range from beginner to expert. One note, you should never have to pay for lessons online. There is an abundance of free lessons and nothing you pay for will be any better than these.

Offline Resources
Although the Internet is an excellent source for guitar information, sometimes sorting through it all can be difficult. Many online material is written by amateur writers and therefore can be hard to grasp. For that reason, I think it’s a good idea to also look into books and guitar magazines for learning material. Since they are written by professional authors they should be easy to read and not too cryptic. Guitar magazines are also a great source of tabs. Each magazine usually comes with 5 or 6 tabs of recent and classic songs.

What You Won’t Find
The Internet can’t teach you everything. Because playing the guitar is a hands on activity sometimes there will be things that will be difficult to learn from print. There are just some techniques that would be much easier to learn if there was someone to guide you and give you feedback.

Since everyone and anyone can put a guitar lesson on the Internet it is hard sometimes to tell which technique is best or “proper”. Some really bad habits that will be impossible to break can be picked up by teaching yourself. However, some of the best guitarists were self taught and their “bad habits” have become something that amateur guitarists aspire to perfecting.

In Review

The Internet can be a great resource for learning all sorts of new skills, including playing the guitar.

What You Need

Patience and Determination
A working guitar to practice on
An interest and a passion to learn

What the Internet Can Offer

Tab and Chord files
Lessons on scales, chords, and techniques
Lessons on guitar care and maintenance

What the Internet Can’t Offer

Hands on teaching
Guarantee of “proper” technique

Links

WholeNote – The Online Guitar Community
Ultimate Guitar.com
Guitar Noise – Online to On Stage
Cyberfret.com – Your source for free online guitar lessons

Please, feel free to comment with your online learning resources.

How Often Should You Change Your Guitar Strings?

Matt — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 13:22:41 +0000

Image by Joel Bombardier

Is your guitar not sounding as bright as it used to? Are your riffs coming out sounding muddy? Maybe it’s time to change your guitar strings! Or maybe not…

Over time a guitar’s strings change in tone due to stretching and fatigue. A brand new set of strings will always start out with a bright tone and fade to a soft tone the more they are played.

So how often do you need to change your guitar strings? The simple answer: it’s all personal preference.

There is no magic number of days, months, or hours of play. Your ears tell you when it’s time to replace your guitar strings.

If you prefer the crisp bright tone of a set of new strings then you will probably change your strings frequently, maybe on a monthly basis. If you like the soft tone of a set of broken-in strings then you probably wont change them very often. It all comes down to your musical style and tone preference.

I have a different preference for all of my guitars. On my Les Paul I love the way my riffs sound through a set of brand new strings. However, on my acoustic guitar I like this warm tonal spot that is half way between new and old. Because of that I change the strings on my electric guitar a lot more frequently than on my acoustic guitar.

Do I Ever Have to Change My Guitar Strings?

If none of them break then no, you really don’t. I know people who don’t even think about changing their strings and would never choose to. But what if you don’t have a choice? There are some factors that could be a clear sign that you should change your guitar strings.

The Sound. This is an easy one. If you don’t like the tone of your guitar strings any longer, slap a new set on.

Dirt and Grime – The oils, sweat, and even dead skin from your hands can easily build up on your guitar strings over time. If too much of this gunk builds up it can really hurt the strings tone and even hamper your ability to play. If your strings are really dirty this might be a time to restring your guitar.

Stiff Strings – If your guitar hasn’t been played for months or years the strings may become stiff and difficult to fret or strum. You can bring that guitar back to life by replacing the strings.

A Broken String – Many different things can cause a string to break. It could be normal wear and tear, an impurity in the string, or an intense jam session. When you break a string it’s my opinion that you should just replace the whole set.

Strings Wearing at the Fret – If you leave your strings on for a long time you will notice they will develop some flat spots caused by friction at the frets. Although this isn’t reason enough to warrant changing your strings, it will affect the tone and a string could eventually break at one of those spots.

When I first started playing I had this borrowed miniature acoustic that we called ‘the killer guitar’ because the action was so horrible it ‘killed’ your fingers. When it was lent to me it already had old strings on it. For years we never changed killer’s strings and over time those worn down spots eventually became a break in the winding around the string core making them like barbed wire. We were forced to change the strings and although the new set had much better action, the guitar never sounded quite the same.

Extending The Life of Your Guitar Strings

Factors like frequency of play, cleanliness and humidity can all play a part in the life expectancy of your guitar strings. A new set of strings sound bright not only because they are completely unfatigued but also because they are free of dirt, grime, and corrosion.

Play your guitar with clean hands.
You don’t have to develop an OCD but try to keep your hands clean of anything that could transfer to your guitar strings. You can also use a hand sanitizer which will even remove some of the natural oils on your hands.

Wipe down your strings with a dry cloth after playing.
Your hands might get a little sweaty jamming in the hot months. If this happens wipe all that moisture away from the strings after playing.

Keep your guitar in a guitar case.
This will prevent dust or anything else in the air settling on your guitar or its strings.

Following the above rules may not keep your strings sounding brand new forever. However, if you do follow them you can greatly extend the life and tone of your guitar strings.

The Easy Answer

I have outlined a few scenarios above which may prompt you to want to change your guitar strings but the easy answer is the decision is up to you.

New strings can bring a crisp tone to your music and improve the playability of your guitar. But if that doesn’t jive with your style of music then there is no reason to change your strings. Play those strings until they blow!

Fret Buzz Information at Guitar Daily

Matt — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 19:31:13 +0000

Serg has posted some great information about fret buzz on his site Guitar Daily. He goes into perfect detail on the causes of fret buzz and how they can be rectified.

To sum up his posts causes could be:

Old strings
New strings that have not settled
Action is too low
Bent or warped neck
Inconsistent fret heights

If you are experiencing buzzing on your frets I suggest you head over and read his posts.
Top Reasons For Guitar Fret buzz
Fret Buzz – Guitar Action
Fret buzz – low and high frets
and Fret Buzz: Neck Relief, Bow And Back Bow at Guitar Daily.

Guitar Books

Matt — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:06:57 +0000

I found a great post titled Guitar Reading List v3 and Instructional DVDs over at Striking the Right Chord, If You Can Find It.

I haven’t had the chance to read all of the books on his list, but nevertheless, it is a great list. One book I must agree on is his number one pick, The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer.

Bob Sutor, the blog’s author says:

The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer
This is the master bible: a lot of information about guitars and music theory and even information on how to fix things when they break.

I like the book because it has a lot of everything. It has guitar history, construction, and maintenance information as well as chords, scales, and technique lessons ranging from beginner to advanced.

Bob has made a great comprehensive list and I will be checking out a few of his suggestions myself.

Guitar Strings – How and What to Buy

Matt — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:42:40 +0000

As with many things pertaining to guitar, the type and size of strings are all preference. At most guitar stores there will be a selection ranging from $5 strings up to maybe $35 for premium strings. Strings come in all sorts of different thicknesses and are made from different metals, so how do you choose what type is right for you?

Type of Guitar

The type of strings you are going to get first depends on what type of guitar you have. You will need a different type of strings if you have an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, a classical nylon string guitar, or a 12 string guitar. There is usually a large selection of strings for each type, depending on what store you go to.

String Gauge or Thickness

Strings come in a range of standard and custom gauges (or thicknesses). Usually they range from extra light, to light, to medium, to heavy, and in some cases extra heavy. The gauge of strings you choose depends on a few things. The first is the strength of your fingers. A heavy gauge string will be much harder to fret and bend than a light gauge string. If you have been playing guitar regularly and it only takes a little bit of playing to hurt your fingers, you might need a lower gauge string. The another difference between a heavy and light string is sound. A heavy string will have a much sharper bright tone where a light string will be softer. The type of string you settle on may have more to do with your musical preference than the strength of your fingers. Stevie Ray Vaughn used heavy strings which is what gave his music that unique sharp clear tone. Lighter strings are more common among metal players because it gives them an easier instrument to play when playing shredding solos.

The setup of your guitar

When a guitar comes out of the factory it is setup to use the stock strings. Usually, depending on the manufacturer, the strings will be a medium gauge. If you decide you want to start using lighter or heavier gauge strings, you will eventually have to take your guitar in to have it setup for that gauge. Because the tension on the neck is set to hold medium strings, if you go to a lower gauge or a higher gauge the pull of the strings can change the straightness of the neck. The best way to do it is find the strings you like sound and feel wise, play them on your guitar for a few months, and then take your guitar into your local shop to have them set the intonation and bridge height. This will give you the best possible action and sound with your strings. The only exception I would say is if you are going to go from a heavy string to a light or vice versa you might want to get a shop to do some initial adjustments first and take it back in a few months for some fine tuning. The last thing you want is a bowed neck on your guitar.

String Materials

Acoustic, electric, and classical guitar strings all use different materials. The different materials effect the tension, the tone, and the feel of the strings.

Acoustic Strings
Acoustic strings are typically made from bronze wound steel. This type of string is very bright and clear when new, but will quickly loose its tone the more they are played. Bronze strings are the most common for acoustic guitars. Other options for acoustic guitars are phosphor bronze strings. This type of string has a warmer tone which lasts far longer as opposed to a bright tone that fades over time. A third option is also silk & steel strings. This type of string has a nylon coated core and is wrapped in silver plated brass. It will typically be the most expensive of strings, but will have a much lighter nylon like sound and will last longer.

Electric Strings
The most common type of electric guitar strings are nickel plated strings. Other options include pure nickel strings, where the wire wrap around the string is pure nickel as opposed to nickel plated. These strings will produce a softer tone and will have less output on the electric guitar.

Classical Guitar Strings
Classical guitars use nylon strings and should never have steel strings put on them. The nylon name refers to the core material. The three low strings will have a silver plated copper wound around them to add mass to the string, but the core is still nylon. Like steel strings should never be used on a classical, nylon strings should never be used on a steel string acoustic. The nylon strings do not provide enough tension for the neck of a steel string guitar and will cause it to bow.

For the health of your guitar it’s not a great idea to be constantly switching from light to heavy to medium strings every time you change. Because of what I said above with the tension on the neck, the constant change of pull on the neck could cause damage to your guitar. Once you decide on a set of strings you should stick with that set. The only exception is if you find a gauge you like that another company offers, you should be able to use them without affecting the setup of your guitar.

Final notes

Feel free to ask the guitar tech at the store any questions you have about the strings or your guitar. Remember the following points when choosing strings:

Whether your guitar requires acoustic bronze, electric nickel, or classical nylon strings
What gauge or thickness strings you want (sound/action tradeoff)
How much you are willing to pay – ($10 to $20 = good quality strings)
The cost of having your guitar re-setup if you are changing gauges

Some strings are better than others depending on what materials they are made with. Some strings are made to last longer and some are made with sound and performance in mind. In the end it all comes down to personal preference.

Chords vs Tabulature vs Music Notation

Matt — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:21:25 +0000

When learning songs from written sources like instruction books or online files there are three main forms of written music for the guitar. The three types are chords, tablature, and music notation. Each form brings its own advantages and each form is a bit more complex than the last.

Chords

Probably the simplest form of documenting a song is through chords. The chord progression for the chorus, verse, and bridge of a song is written out for the player to read and play. The advantages to chord files are they are simple and usually show you when the chords are played in relation to the lyrics. Singing guitarists may find this the easiest method of learning a song.

THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE

D  D/C  G/B  Gm/Bb  C  Esus4  E  A7

D                           D/C
I caught you knocking at my cellar door,

G/B                      Gm/Bb
I love you, baby, can I have some more?

C F              Esus4  E
Oh the damage done.

The disadvantages are the player must know how to play the chords in the song and if the song includes any picking patterns, leads, or solo’s, the player will have to figure them out on their own.

Music Notation

Music notation is the most detailed and complex of the three. It provides everything the player needs to know to play the song including notes, tempo, rhythm, and timing. The advantage is musicians who can read sheet music should be able to play the song by reading the notation without ever hearing it played before.

The disadvantage is there is a lot of music and guitar theory required to read music notation. It is somewhat complex and it can be discouraging for someone who just wants to play the guitar. However, if one can read sheet music, and has memorized the notes on the guitar, sheet music is the best way to go for those guitarists.

Tablature

Tablature or tabs for short are a pretty good combination of the above two. The advantage to tabs is they show you exactly where to put your fingers on the fretboard. Tabs have a line for each string on the guitar and are read from left to right. As you follow the line the notes are played in the order they appear on the tab.

TITLE: THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE

E|-----2-----0--------------|-----------0--------------|
B|-----------------3-----3--|-----3-----------3-----3--|
G|--------------------------|--------2-----------2-----|
D|--0-----0-----0-----0-----|--------------------------|
A|--------------------------|--3-----------3-----------|
E|--------------------------|--------------------------|

E|-----------0--------------|-----------0--------------|
B|-----3-----------3-----3--|-----3-----------3-----3--|
G|--------0-----------0-----|--------0-----------0-----|
D|--------------------------|--------------------------|
A|--2-----------2-----------|--1-----------1-----------|
E|--------------------------|--------------------------|

The disadvantage to tabs is that they do not provide any information about timing. This means the player must be able to hear the song or know it from memory to learn through a tab. Tabs are also the easiest because anyone who takes 5 minutes to learn how to read them can use them to learn a song on the guitar. They don’t require that you know how to play any chords or know any musical theory.

Conclusion

I don’t know where my playing would be today without guitar tabs and the internet. The only reason I started playing was because it was so simple for me to download a tab and learn. The first song I learned was Nirvana’s Come as You Are. I had never played an instrument in my life and within a week I knew 3 or 4 basic rock songs and I couldn’t tell you a thing about music theory. I would suggest though that if you have any music knowledge under your belt, if you have played an instrument before and learned to read music for it, take the time and learn music notation for the guitar. Tablature is sort of a short form and most serious learning material will be in music notation. Finally some people just want to know the chords to a song so they can figure it out themselves. That is when the chord files come in handy.

Buying Your First Guitar

Matt — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 04:23:49 +0000

Patrick Crosley has a great post on his blog White Man Stew about purchasing your first guitar. I was lucky when I started playing that we already had a decent guitar in the house, so I didn’t go through this until I had built up some guitar knowledge. If you are thinking about buying your first guitar I highly suggest you check out his article. He does a great job of covering all of the important stuff and he provides external sources to build on his points.

To sum up his post:

Spend as much money as you can afford
If possible spend $300 minimum for a cheap guitar
If you are not experienced with the ins and outs of guitars, ask a friend to come shopping with you
If you don’t have someone to help you, read guitar reviews online

He also provides some tips for people buying used guitars as their first. Buying a used guitar can be like buying a used car. There are a lot of issues that may not be apparent until you get a few hours of playing in.

One thing I would like to add to his article is make sure you budget for a case. If you are buying a cheap or an expensive guitar you want to be able to keep it in the best condition possible. You can get a cloth case, or even better go for a hard-shell case.

Playing Guitar Makes my Fingers Hurt!

Matt — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 17:00:49 +0000

If you are just starting to play guitar you have probably learned something not everyone knows when they start – playing hurts your fingers. After hours of pressing the strings down your fingers will get tender. So what can you do to make it less painful? Play more guitar. I know, not the answer you were looking for, but it’s the truth. The more you play, the more your fingers will build strength. Also you will begin to form calluses on the tips of your fretting fingers which will dull the pain. After a few weeks of regular play you should be able to go for a few hours at a time without pain.

Some people suggest covering your finger tips with band-aids or the tight cotton mittens, but that really won’t help in the long run. Your fingers will heal and you will be back to square one. If you are currently in pain just know, it will get better.

One thing to just make sure of is that you are using a reasonable string gauge. People with small hands might be better off using a light string gauge when playing. If you have been playing regularly for more than a month and it still hurts consider replacing your strings with a medium or light gauge.

Getting my Les Paul Setup Part 3 (Finale)

Matt — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:23:48 +0000

So when I dropped my guitar off on Tuesday the tech said he would have it for me by the end of the week. I hadn’t heard anything (on my cell) on Friday and I was getting a little upset that I would be guitarless for the weekend. However, when I got home he had left a message on my answering machine. I ate dinner with my girlfriend and then we went to pick it up.

The repairs were $107.99 CAD + %7 taxes. This was a little bit steeper than I had expected. I didn’t think it was going to take him that long to do the repairs. However, it turns out that I really did a bad job installing the EMG pickups that I bought last Christmas (a year ago), so he had to reinstall them as well.

When I got the guitar home and plugged it in it all made sense and it was 200% worth it. I would have paid twice as much. I mean it sounds better than when I bought it new. I looked down the neck, and it’s perfectly straight. Now I can see what he saw when he looked at it for that half second when I took it in.

The strings stay in tune all the way up the fretboard. I checked by plucking each string open, and then plucking them while they were fretted on the 12th fret. The pitches sound the same. I can tell the bridge was adjusted because the high strings are lower and the base strings are a bit higher. Also the saddles have been moved. The pickups are working great as well. The tone is much clearer and I get less noise at high volumes. I think he set the height of the pickups as well because the sustain is about 100 times better.

I’m really happy I took it in. It was totally worth it and I’ll probably have it looked at once a year. The next time it won’t be expensive because my pickups are all setup mint now. It’ll be cheaper to have the bridge/intonation set if needed.

Getting my Les Paul Setup Part 2

Matt — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:23:24 +0000

I took my guitar into Guitar Works today for a setup. Here’s what I asked the tech to look at:

The Neck
Bridge height
Intonation
My Pickups

First off, I stared down the neck of my guitar for a good 5 minutes one day trying to tell if it was bowed and I couldn’t tell. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for though. When I took it into the shop the guy took all of 5 seconds looking at it to tell it was off. My girlfriend thinks he was playing on my ignorance to squeeze some money out of me, but he was obviously not short on business. So I don’t think that was the case.

I have Zakk Wylde EMG pickups in my guitar and I installed them myself. At the time I purchased them I didn’t have the funds to pay for them and have them installed professionally, so I did it myself. Now that I can afford it I have asked him to make sure I installed them properly. I have a feeling I didn’t do a very good job of installing them.

Finally, since I know the bridge adjustment went out when I installed my pickups, I have asked him to check the bridge height and set the intonation.

He told me he should have it done by the end of the week, so we’ll see how it goes.

Getting my Guitar Professionally Setup

Matt — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:22:34 +0000

I have been playing guitar for over 7 years now and I just bought my first guitar book. I have had tab books in the past, but never a book about guitars and how to play them.

The book has a section on guitar maintenance and repair which discusses topics like action and intonation. Although I have heard of these things before, when going through the steps to check them on my guitar I found it was a bit out. The book says some guitar shops will setup a guitar before it is sold, but if it is sold without being setup, the factory doesn’t always do a great job of it.

So I have decided to take my guitar in to have new strings put on, and have the intonation, bridge, and truss rod setup.

I’ll post back with how it goes.