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5 Tips For Choosing The Right Electric Guitar

Author: Al Wielder

Purchasing an electric guitar is very exciting and fun. The process can be made more efficient by following several basic guidelines and using several tips provided below.

Are you new to guitars and ready to make your first electric guitar purchase? Are you a seasoned player who owns several guitars and you find yourself adding to your guitar collection? No matter which category you find yourself in, getting the most from your instrument purchase is very important. It is also important to understand the types of electric guitars available.

The choices include:

1. Solid Body Electric Guitars
2. Hollow Body Electric Guitars
3. Semi Hollow Body Electric Guitars
4. Acoustic/Electric Guitars
5. Pedal Steel Guitars
6. Hawaiian Style Lap Guitars

Guitars, and particularly electric guitars are not created equal. There are many brands of electric guitars to choose from. Making the right choice when purchasing a guitar will depend on some basic factors, including:

1. Your particular situation

2. The specific application when using the guitar.

For example, if you are a beginner, there is little reason to consider investing several thousands of dollars into a pro level guitar such as a custom Les Paul or a Paul Reed Smith. Another example regarding a specific application would be if you are a traveling musician. Traveling guitarists may want to consider a slightly less expensive guitar to take on the road while saving their finest instrument for a studio environment. Regardless of your situation or the application, the bottom line is there are several factors to consider. Understanding your position as a potential guitar buyer will help you make the right decision and ensure that you make an informed purchase.

Here are 5 tips to help you in choosing the right electric guitar.

Tip 1. Evaluate your level of committment to the instrument and the art of music.

Before you choose your electric guitar be sure you understand the level of committment that you are prepared to invest into the instrument. Electric guitars can be expensive and understanding the level of dedication you plan to invest in the instrument should play a vital role in choosing your guitar.

Tip 2. Identify your particular application for the instrument.

If you are a beginner and just learning to play the instrument, your application will be quite different from an intermediate or advanced guitarist who is adding to their collection. Determine your particular situation and application for the guitar you will purchase. Consider whether or not you will be keeping the instrument at home or frequently traveling with it. For example, if you plan to keep the instrument at home for recreational use, you may want to consider including a less expensive case for the guitar. Road cases can be costly and will not be neccesary if you do not travel with the guitar.

Tip 3. Identify your budget and include patience regarding your guitar purchase.

Many aspiring guitarists have wandered into the local music store only to be overwhelmed by the vast choices and different price ranges of guitars. As with any purchase, pre-planning and understanding your budget is critical. Prices for electric guitars range from a few hunderd dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. If you are serious about playing the guitar, selecting your instrument will be one of the most important decisions you make. Be sure to take ample time during this stage of the process. Patience is more than a virtue when selecting your guitar.

Tip 4. Consult a professional to get tips on guitar quality and performance.

It is a good idea to take the time to visit several musical instrument dealers in your area. Retail
guitar shops will be more than happy to help you understand what to look for when buying an electric guitar. Get several opinions if you are new to guitars. Most guitar outlets will have seasoned players on staff who will be happy to impart their experience and wisdom. Ask questions. Find out what you need to consider when selecting an electric guitar. Getting several opinions in this area will shed light on the overall picture and will be very beneficial information when it comes time to buy.

Tip 5. Include additional items and training resources to help you get started playing the guitar.

Once you have made the right guitar purchase, be sure to have additional items on hand that will be vital to the process of learning. You will need an extra set of guitar strings, some extra picks, a tuner and a stand for your guitar. It is also very important to purchase some beginner books that include chord charts, guitar tab and chord progression exercises.

Learning to play the electric guitar is fun and exciting. There are few things in life that will provide the relaxation and feeling of accomplishment you can experience by becoming proficient with guitar chords, guitar tabs and guitar chord progressions. Applying the knowledge you gain from the right learning resources to your favorite style of music is very rewarding. Carefully select your electric guitar. Be sure to practice to develop skill, musical knowledge and basic music theory concepts. Apply what you learn on a daily basis and you will be amazed at the progress you will make with your new electric guitar.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/5-tips-for-choosing-the-right-electric-guitar-18604.html

About the Author
Al Wielder is a host and instructor at Riff TV. Contact Al Wielder at Riff TV.com, your source for guitar tab, guitar lessons and free video guitar training.

Guitar Pro and Other Guitar Tablature Software

Author: Ricky Sharples

Guitar Pro is the most popular of the software available for editing guitar tabs. As we all know guitar tab is basically a picture of the six guitar strings with fret numbers showing the guitar player where to put his fingers on the fretboard plus other symbols indicating various left hand techniques.

First let us take a look at the most basic method of writing guitar tab – the text editor. Notepad or any other text editor is capable of writing guitar tab. Guitar, bass guitar and banjo tabs are written in ASCII file format. Most of the tabs you find on the internet are written in ASCII  format. In ASCII tab hyphens are used to show string lines and numbers represent frets. Other elements like barlines, rhythms, bends, chord symbols can be shown in many ways. Guitar Pro and other guitar tablature programs generate files similar to ASCII but if you want to edit a hand-made ASCII tab you will have to do it manually.

Guitar Pro is a tool for guitarists who want to compose, transcribe or edit their own music. This program and others, shows the music in conventional music notation as well as tab. The guitarist can start with a new tab or import MIDI or ASCII files and use the Guitar Pro interface to write his music and hear his work played back by his computers MIDI. The finished work can be exported in ASCII or MIDI formats. The composer can then edit, play back and save his tabs. You can download a free trial version of Guitar Pro.

Power Tab is another program for writing guitar tab but it is available free of charge. You can use it to write guitar and bass tabs. The Power Tab Editor also imports MIDI files, and can also export to ASCII Text, HTML, and MIDI formats.

Using TablEdit guitarists can create, edit, print and play back guitar tabs. TablEdit also generates tabs and musical notation for harmonica, mountain dulcimer, diatonic button accordion, drums, violin, tin whistle, recorder, Xaphoon, autoharp, pedal steel guitar, piano, and banjo. You can download the free trial version of TablEdit and use it indefinitely as long as you can put up with the nag messages and the fact that you cannot save edited tabs.

TuxGuitar is an open source software for writing and playing back a number of tablature formats. TuxGuitar has many handy features including editing tabs and scores, autoscroll while the music is being played back, effects like bends, slides, vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs. With TuxGuitar you can also manage tempo and time signature. A bonus is you can import and export files from Guitar Pro versions 4 and 5.

The big disadvantage with reading, writing guitar music using tablature has always been the fact that tab does not show tempo and rhythm. This means that unless you are already familiar with the piece of music you are learning, you might be struggling to get the right note values and rhythm. With guitar tab software this problem is eliminated because even if you are working from imported ASCII tab the software tells you what the piece sounds like through the MIDI playback and the standard music notation features. My advice is to download all the programs and try them out to see which one best suits you. for the most recent version of all these programs, just do an internet search by product name.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/guitar-pro-and-other-guitar-tablature-software-609453.html

About the Author

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? http://playaguitarforfree.com/ is my blog which shows you that there are many people like you who wish to learn how to play bass, acoustic or electric guitar. You will find guitar lessons, videos, articles and reviews to answer your questions, calm your fears and help you play the guitar.

Guitar Tab: A Language Of Its Own

Author: Victor Epand

Guitarists have a tendency to be self-taught or, at the most, to have taken a few lessons in an informal setting. This is a very different approach from that of most other instruments, which are generally taught formally and with a heavy emphasis on musical theory and written music. A guitarist, for whatever reason, will usually try to work his way through a new song without the aid of written music. Anyone who has ever participated in a campfire sing-along will be familiar with the blunders of an inexperienced performer trying to get through an unfamiliar song. This does not, however, mean that written music for the guitar does not exist. It does, and it is called guitar tab.

If you look up the term “guitar tab” in Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, you immediately realize, due to the term’s absence from that book, that the expression is either relatively recent or from the vernacular. Only slightly more helpful is Webster’s fourth entry under “tab,” which denotes “[short for tabulator]: a key on a keyboard especially for arranging data in columns.” But for a true definition, it’s off to that most popular of Internet resources, Wikipedia. The Web site explains that guitar tab is simply the term for written guitar music, or tablature, which is the style of written music generally used for fretted stringed instruments, such as the guitar.

A tab staff for guitar consists of six horizontal lines, each of which represents a guitar string. The bottom line represents the lowest string, “E,” the second line “A,” etc. This arrangement, with the lowest string on the bottom and the highest on the top, follows the basic layout of Western Standard Notation. This should not, however, be taken to mean that guitar tab is a standardized musical writing practice. This is definitely not the case, the result being that songbooks and other guitar tab sources will usually include a legend defining the usage of the tablature.

Guitar tab is not without its flaws. Rhythmic notation, for example, is a major issue in written guitar music, the problem being that it is rarely there at all. So if the guitarist has never heard a song before, he or she has no way of knowing how long a note should be held. Another major problem is that only guitarists can read guitar tab, it does not translate for any other instrument, nor is it comprehensible to any other type of musician. Needless to say, this can make musical cooperation with other instruments difficult.

There are an inexhaustible number of sources for guitar tab in the world. In addition to the more traditional songbooks and guitar magazines, there is a seemingly endless number of Web sites offering guitar tab. It can be searched by music genre, by level of competency, by guitar type…the list goes on. Some of it is on a “pay per play” basis, but some of it is free. Of course, one might have to wonder about the accuracy of some of the materials, but even a somewhat erroneous written edition of Stairway to Heaven is better than nothing at all!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/guitar-tab-a-language-of-its-own-549809.html

About the Author

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for guitars, drums, keyboards, sheet music, guitar tab, and home theater audio. You can find the best marketplace at these sites for guitars, guitar tabs, sheet music, guitar tabs, and home theater audio.