Look at any professional guitarist’s assortment of foot pedals — you’ll find pedals for Overdrive, Fuzz, Flangers, Chorus, Distortion, to name a few.  One you’ll almost always find … and one you might not expect … is a compression pedal.  Why?  What does a compression pedal do?

In it’s simplest form, a compression “squeezes” a guitar‘s tone.  The analog tone from a guitar consists of a great many frequencies — a compression pedal addresses and squeezes the range to even out the tone.  This makes the resulting tone more consistent and level.

Compression pedals even off the loud parts and beef up the quiet parts — this not only levels out the tone, but also yields greater sustain. 

Of course, this does come at a cost — by squeezing the tone, you diminish the dynamic range.  However, the payoff is a fatter tone and a more consistent level.

So why are there so many compression pedals if this all they do?  Well, for the same reason there’s a variety of other effects pedals — they sound different from brand to brand!

The electronic components inside the pedal, the different gain and tweeking settings available, the particular “style” of desired tone (bright sparkly country?  Or phat Southern rock?) the treatment of different frequencies — all lend to the taste of the resulting tone.  Like anything else, you’ve really got to sit down and try a multitude of compression pedals to find the right one for your playing.

Compression effects work well on electric guitars — but can also help acoustic and bass players as well by providing a more consistent tone.  While you may not use a compression pedal as your only effect, it’s very common for it to be the first pedal in the chain.

Joey Robichaux

Here’s the short list of five top reasons why a bass player should know a bit about scales and music theory:

1. Know the layout of fretboard

When you know the layout of scale patterns it becomes much easier to create a visual map of the fretboard. It’s like connect the dots. Since the fretboard starts over at the twelfth fret, it’s a breeze to jump up to a high fret for a fill or solo lick. It’s easier to do when you know scales because when you jump to the higher frets, you’ll know where you’re jumping to and what the pattern is once you get there. You’ll never feel “trapped” in one spot on the fretboard again.

2. Develop coordination

Playing through scales is the best way to gain fretboard agility quickly. It’s important to know scale patterns and practice playing through them often. This will give your hands and fingers muscle memory for those patterns. Being familiar with some different scale patterns and getting some muscle memory means the right notes will suddenly start appearing under your fingers before you even need to play them.

3. Quicker to communicate

Think of scales and music theory as a language or code. Notation on sheet music would be the written form. The point is that it’s a fast way for musicians to communicate with one another. It makes it easier to explain an idea for a different way to play a song or tell someone how to play a song you wrote.

4. Play better bass in a band

Once you’ve had a chance to practice scale patterns and start to visualize the layout of the fretboard, you can listen, follow and react more closely to what your bandmates play. You will begin to get the notes under your fingers much faster. From practicing scales you will know the different sounds that different scales have. This becomes a tool you can use to identify whether the guitar player (for instance) is playing a Major or minor chord. Then just plug that scale pattern in off the root note. All these things make it easier for you to come up with your own cool sounding parts and add your own touch to cover tunes.

5. Learn songs faster

When you can hear whether a chord in a song is a Major or minor chord, you are on your way to having a developed ear. It becomes much easier to figure out songs when you have “big ears”. This simply means that you can quickly recognize what it is that you’re hearing and play it on your instrument. After that it’s easy to figure out the root notes of the chord changes and then add in scale tones to taste.

Bass players who haven’t taken the time to learn scales and a bit about music theory sometimes wonder if they should bother. The answer is yes, there are a whole lot reasons to learn a bit about it. For one thing, it’s easy. There isn’t really that much to know to apply basic knowledge of scales and music theory to the music a bassist already plays. Understanding how the music works makes it easier to control and get creative with the low end part.

anonymous

Generally people at some stage start like to learn a musical instrument. Many leave it from the mid life while other does keep on playing throughout their life. Music become passion, hobby, and even earning food if you are learn very good playing guitar. More famous is electric guitar amongst all other types of guitars. Many beginners just jump on playing electric guitar. Now, there could be varied reasons, for relatively cheap buying of an instrument or you can learn it at ease. But, the main factor is the “Rock Star look” and basically this inspires a lot to many people to learn electric guitar.

Some people get confused between electric guitar and acoustic guitar. They sometimes misunderstand or overlap definition of both. Arch tops – a type of electric guitar is manufactured in a same way as the acoustic guitar are produced. They differ quite in their own way. Electric guitar specification is electric powered amplifiers to carry out the operation successfully. While acoustic guitars depend on the body’s vigor and create the quality sound and volume. But electric guitar mechanism can be explained by use of pickups & amplifiers to push the sound.

Electric guitar has the ability to generate a rocking sound for what this electric guitar is known for. It has many features which can thrills the audience eye’s and helps to catches their attention through high waves of electric sound waves. A good or professional electric guitarist with his magic hands that works on strings and chords with some musical notes of rock bands having heavy metal music genre. This is far better compared to down range of an acoustic version. But, effects such as overdrive increased sustain are possible to achieve.

Some more points to differentiate through design of their acoustic cousins. Electric guitar designed specification can at a glance is much to give you a good synopsis. But if you don’t know then electric guitars are available in creative designs like the “Flying V” comfortable for playing in different styles. Some of the customary designs that is more common to people are Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster style.

Differences do not end here, but even the strings of electric guitar are classically thinner because the strings need not to echo the sound effect compare to the strings of acoustic guitars. As you know, it more relies on the electric sound amplifier to produce the best quality of sound. Well, you will also find that electric guitar strings are much closer to guitar’s neck and so with needs less efforts to play it. Electric bass guitar is the exceptional case. Guitarist has only 4 and thick strings to play with it. Electric bass guitar strings is much thicker as compared to other electric guitar.

With all these differences you can come to know why any beginner will like to opt for electric guitar. A beginner should focus his mind for learning guitar with the required tutorial. Thus, enjoy your playing with electric guitar to shake the people of your town.

Bella Mclaine

Generally people at some stage start like to learn a musical instrument. Many leave it from the mid life while other does keep on playing throughout their life. Music become passion, hobby, and even earning food if you are learn very good playing guitar. More famous is electric guitar amongst all other types of guitars. Many beginners just jump on playing electric guitar. Now, there could be varied reasons, for relatively cheap buying of an instrument or you can learn it at ease. But, the main factor is the “Rock Star look” and basically this inspires a lot to many people to learn electric guitar.

Some people get confused between electric guitar and acoustic guitar. They sometimes misunderstand or overlap definition of both. Arch tops – a type of electric guitar is manufactured in a same way as the acoustic guitar are produced. They differ quite in their own way. Electric guitar specification is electric powered amplifiers to carry out the operation successfully. While acoustic guitars depend on the body’s vigor and create the quality sound and volume. But electric guitar mechanism can be explained by use of pickups & amplifiers to push the sound.

Electric guitar has the ability to generate a rocking sound for what this electric guitar is known for. It has many features which can thrills the audience eye’s and helps to catches their attention through high waves of electric sound waves. A good or professional electric guitarist with his magic hands that works on strings and chords with some musical notes of rock bands having heavy metal music genre. This is far better compared to down range of an acoustic version. But, effects such as overdrive increased sustain are possible to achieve.

Some more points to differentiate through design of their acoustic cousins. Electric guitar designed specification can at a glance is much to give you a good synopsis. But if you don’t know then electric guitars are available in creative designs like the “Flying V” comfortable for playing in different styles. Some of the customary designs that is more common to people are Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster style.

Differences do not end here, but even the strings of electric guitar are classically thinner because the strings need not to echo the sound effect compare to the strings of acoustic guitars. As you know, it more relies on the electric sound amplifier to produce the best quality of sound. Well, you will also find that electric guitar strings are much closer to guitar’s neck and so with needs less efforts to play it. Electric bass guitar is the exceptional case. Guitarist has only 4 and thick strings to play with it. Electric bass guitar strings is much thicker as compared to other electric guitar.

With all these differences you can come to know why any beginner will like to opt for electric guitar. A beginner should focus his mind for learning guitar with the required tutorial. Thus, enjoy your playing with electric guitar to shake the people of your town.

Bella Mclaine

If you are interested in playing guitar, you may want to get one of your own. It would be impractical to use other people’s guitar for your practice. In addition, guitar is not an expensive instrument. You will be able to get a decent guitar for your practice for just a few hundred bucks. This article will give you some tips on buying a guitar so that you can make use of it when you decide to get one.

1 Set up your budget: I guess if you read this article, you are new to guitar. Am I correct? In that case, you have to know that you are the beginner. Since the price range of guitar can be from a few hundred dollars to several thousands. So you have to know the range of your budget. With the budget in mind, you will be able to look for the one that is suitable to your need. I would suggest that you should start with a not so high price one. Just a few hundred will do in my opinion since you are a starter. You can get a new one when you are better at it later.

2 Decide what type of guitar you want: There are several types of guitar to choose. You can get either electric guitar or acoustic guitar. You can choose to buy a bass guitar or a lead guitar. You can even buy a banjo which is a type of guitar. With all the choices you have, you must know which one you want to go for. For the beginner, I would suggest that you start with acoustic guitar since it is simple to use. And you don’t need sophisticate stuff now.

3 Set up the brand preference: Like any other merchandises, guitar price and quality differs according to their brands. Famous brand will cost you more but it provide you with better quality. In one brand, there may be a wide range to choose. I would suggest that you select the one at the low-end price of a well-known brand. The brand can somewhat confirm the quality and the price will be still under your budget.

4 Know how to screen out the bad ones: You may need to bring along someone who know guitar well when you go to the shop. He can help you by playing the guitar you choose and listen to the quality of sound. If you have no body, ask the store owner or seller to show you by playing at them. You can compare the quality of the sound by listening to his performance. Look at the frets, the cords, the board and the structure of the guitar if they are all OK.

Buying guitar is not a difficult task. You can do it with some tips and you then can carry your new guitar home.

Jim Somchai

Country guitar lessons in these days of the world wide web are now popular all over the world. If you are wondering what the fuss is about I will just mention some aspects of country guitar playing that excite the interest of music fans and guitar enthusiasts alike. This article will focus on a couple of the more individualistic guitar styles in country music and also talk a little about the Telecaster – the country musician’s guitar.

First let us look at a guitar style that has entered the country genre through blues and rock. The slide guitar, also known as the bottleneck guitar is a lyrical way of expressing feelings through guitar music. It was developed in the early twentieth century by the early blues players, and popularized by young white rock and blues players in the nineteen sixties. Now there are many country guitar players who see the musical possibilities in this style of playing. The key to this technique is sliding an object along the guitar strings to make a whining or wailing sound. This presents the guitar player with many opportunities to play notes that fall between the frets of the guitar as well as imitating the sound of a singing voice.

The term “bottleneck” refers to the practice of many slide guitar performers of producing the sliding sound by fitting the neck of a bottle to their first or second finger. Popular wisdom has it that other players used the blade of a knife. Modern slide guitar players usually go to a music shop and buy a slide. You can play slide guitar with the guitar held in the normal playing position or with the guitar in your lap. A player can use an ordinary steel string acoustic guitar tuned in the standard way or to an open chord, or a resonator guitar which has a distinctive metallic sound well suited to slide playing.

Another guitar style used by country guitar players is chicken pickin’, developed to high art by Walon Jennings. It is used in lead guitar solos and involves the guitar player pulling on the string with his right hand fingers and at the same time damping the string with his left hand. Most country guitar players use a plectrum or thumbpick to play bass notes in conjunction with chicken pickin’ on the treble strings.

Chet Atkins is a country guitar player who was adept at the chicken pickin’ technique but he was most well known for his adaptation of the Travis picking technique. Merle Travis developed an impressive solo playing technique using his thumb to pick bass notes and his index finger to play melody or filler notes. Chet Atkins was so impressed with Travis’ solos that he assumed that Travis was using his second and ring fingers in addition to his index finger. This mistaken assumption led to a whole new generation of country guitar players inspired by the Chet Atkins style.

If you want to take country guitar lessons you should learn about the typical sound that is associated with country guitar music. While rock and roll has as many sounds as there are guitar players, country guitar has its own sound. This is due to most country players opting to stay with the clean, unadorned sound of the Fender Telecaster. The “Tele” had a sound that made aspiring guitar players sit up and take notice combined with a design that made it a dream to play. It is a solid body electric guitar with two pickups, and was the first electric guitar to be successfully produced and sold on a large scale.

In the early days of the electric guitar both rock and country guitar players wanted to be heard by the audience without feedback interfering with the sound of the guitar. The Telecaster filled the bill when it came out in 1950 and has remained a popular choice for solo guitarist ever since. Country guitarists noted for being enthusiastic Telecaster players include Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, James Burton and Merle Haggard.

Ricky Sharples

This is a brief note on how to sort through free country guitar tablature and use it to start yourself off as a guitar player. Some of the biggest solo artists in history have been country artists. Garth Brooks springs to mind immediately. But country music is not unique to the USA. Australia has country legends like Slim Dusty and James Blundell. Canada boasts Hank Snow, Shania Twain and Anne Murray. There are also country artists in Russia, The Middle East, England and Germany.

If you are a country music fan and want to learn how to play country songs on your guitar, you could start with this list of country standards as a beginning for your repertoire:

Achey Breaky Heart
Am I That Easy To Forget?
Deep In The Heart Of Texas
Bonaparte’s Retreat
Folsom Prison Blues
Coward Of The County
Jambalaya
King Of The Road
Green, Green Grass Of Home
You Are My Sunshine
Wabash Cannonball

As the internet is constantly changing I will be giving you the names only for these free country tab sites. If you type the names into Google or the address bar of your browser you will get to the site and you should be able to navigate to the appropriate page. It works, I have tried it.

Cowboy Lyrics is a site that has lyrics for country songs, guitar tablature for popular country songs, chord and sheet music. You can search through the genres of western swing, traditional country, progressive and outlaw songs, folk music, bluegrass, country gospel and, of course, cowboy songs.

The free country guitar tabs section at Love To Know.com has all the material you need to become a country guitar player. Their free country guitar tablature will have you playing your favorite songs in no time.

About.com is a huge repository of information and tutorials on any subject under the internet sun. In the country music archive you will find a range of guitar tabs, chords and lyrics sorted according to the artist’s name. There is also a list of the top five hundred country songs and the top two hundred most influential albums.

There is a large archive of guitar and bass tablature at Fretplay.com. There is also a comprehensive guide telling you how to read tabs. Visitors can also submit tabs that are not included in the collection.

Country Tabs.net boasts that it is the best music resource for tabs, lyrics and chords for your favorite country artist.

Tab Country.com is another site with a collection of free country guitar tablature. This site offers you the latest and hottest country guitar tabs without moving from your seat. You can read the tabs online or download them to keep. The tabs are filed under the name of the artist and by the titles of songs. Another feature is the lists available that show top rated country guitar tablature and the latest tabs added to the site. If all this is not enough, Tab Country is an online community where you can meet other country guitar players, share your knowledge and ask for advice.

Ricky Sharples

If you are influenced to play guitar then you ought to know about learning guitar. It’s the passion that works or motivates behind every beginner. Because playing guitar not like playing with doll so but natural knows all about playing guitar. A person wanted to learn about guitar depends on his personal interest, information file of guitar that works to build his musical life.

Playing an instrument is the thing not only doing for your won sake, happiness or pleasure but it is music is that thing when sometimes you are not interested or in good mood in you’re life or things happening around you is the force driving you to feel the enjoyment of satisfaction from it.

Experience of playing bass guitar will give a good outline of learning it. If you feeling the joy while playing the instrument you will carry down for a longer period of time but if you get disheartened while playing it then its of no use to keep the guitar with you. If you want to be a good or professional guitarist player then the desire or passion should work within from you’re heart, stop bothering about its output. Just feel the pleasure while playing and enjoy it. Learning guitar is not a big deal; many ways can be followed to walk on but with one condition learning it with sincerity and passion. As the time will go, you will used to by all musical & technical skills to sharpen your guitar playing.

To be a good guitarist player, you’re mind should be focused enough to groove the stage show, restaurant or hall. Because it’s the passion that drives you away or motivates you to work further with interest. Motivation will take care of your discipline to practice but then it all depends on your great desire to learn playing guitar.

There is something to learn that is very essential and the primary need is to know about you because it plays an important role rather than getting best of bass guitar and learning from proficient teacher.

The will power that works in you positively answer if you love playing guitar or the fantasies that you keep on dreaming for you favorite guitarist idol, their music notes that comes like true or a replica of your dream that carries you away to learn and comes out with fruitful colors.

So now comes the role of playing you’re guitar. All you need to do is to take your bass guitar with vigor and stop thinking about scales, chords, amplifier or even the sound quality. Just get into the world of music by closing your eyes and the song that you always love to listen or touch your heart and start the magic while playing guitar. Don’t think too much about the sound, rhythm or the musical notes. You just need to enjoy it.

With every practice that you do, you are surely going to achieve something and that is part of learning. Need not to hurry or worry at all. That is not going to work here, don’t be so anxious. Initially, learn hardly and play in a simple way. This will help you to go further, just take some notes full of harmony and music and start your work. With every first and little success at each step that keep you’re will to practice. Of course with every success the satisfaction also increases. And this how the learning cycle works and helps to reach your goal. This is how practice your guitar playing in different session and rock the world.

Bella Mclaine

Playing the guitar doesn’t really need to be troublesome or difficult with the help of guitar lessons and tutorials that will give you a good start in learning how to pluck and strum the strings to produce the correct melody instead of noise. Here are a few simple things you need to know in learning to play the guitar:

Types of guitars. There are many different types of guitars that have been made popular in the past. Guitars can be electric or acoustic, depending on the guitarist’s preferred genre and style. Guitars are also perfect for rock bands, varieties of which include bass guitars and rhythm guitars. A rhythm guitarist usually provides powerful progression of beats, which is usually done with playing guitar chords instead of plucking the strings. A bass guitarist, on the other hand, usually makes use of low tones with its low pitched strings to produce the beat of the song. A bass guitar should perfectly blend with the drums; otherwise everyone will go out of tune.

Guitar chords. Transcriptions of songs for guitar players include chords that are the basic component of a song. There are so-called major (for a more determined sound) and minor chords (for a mellow sound), as well as seventh chords (mainly used for various transitions). They all produce distinctive sounds that distinguish notes from other forms of melodies present in a song. Guitar chords are available in the form of a music chart, which displays all of the existing finger positions that are simply the source of the distinct sound that these chords make. To start studying guitar chords, you have to be familiar with the finger assignments and placements when making an A minor chord, for example. You have to position your fingers on the guitar frets in the exact way the chart indicates – otherwise you will find your fingers awkwardly placed in the frets and the produced sound will be far from the desired one.

Reading tabs. This is one of the basic skills that any guitar player should gain. Tablatures are notes of a musical transcription that can be used to accompany a learning guitarist to “ride” with the tune and tempo of the actual song. A tablature is usually composed of strings and numbers, symbolizing frets and fingers that are required to play a certain part of the song. However, you can’t make any use of these tabs if you are not familiar enough with the timings and rhythms of the actual song you want to play. It is very helpful, therefore, to master the song first, so that you can finally “play it by ear”, just like any other guitarist. Tabs can be of great help to you especially if you want to impress friends with playing the most important part of the song – the lead.

Guitar tuning. This is basically the most important thing you need to do before your playing session – yes, I really recommend you that you tune your guitar every single time you want to play it. A guitar that sounds the same every time you play it really helps you to advance faster, it makes it easier for you to sing along and it helps you to stay in tune. For guitar tuning you can use an electronic tuner (you can find one in practically any store) or a computer software, if your PC has a microphone built in.

Will Griffin