How to Play the Electric Guitar

Almost every music fan has at some point wanted to learn how to play the electric guitar. Whether you're inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen or Chet Atkins, this article will provide you with some tips and trick that will help you get up and running as an electric guitar player.

There is no one way to learn how to play any instrument, and the electric guitar is no different. You can give people some pointers, but they ultimately must find their own path to making their voice come through on the instrument. The following steps are provided to give you some general guidance and stimulate your thought process about certain aspects of learning the electric guitar.

1. What Style? – The electric guitar is an incredibly versatile instrument and can create a wide array of sounds. What you need to figure out before you begin is which kind of music you want to create with your guitar. Do you want to play smooth jazz, blues, country, hard rock or something else? These questions are important because they can influence the kind of guitar you buy and the way you approach your practice. Try to understand what you want to accomplish before you start out.
2. Find the Right Guitar – Electric guitars have many components that affect the sound of the instrument. The shape of the body, the density of the wood, the pickups and the wiring all figure in to the sound that the guitar produces. You need to match the sound you want to make with a guitar that can make it. If you try to use a semi-hollow body guitar to play death metal, you will be disappointed because the guitar will feedback uncontrollably. If you try to play smooth jazz with a Fender Telecaster, the sound produced would probably be way too bright and aggressive for that style of music. Research the kinds of guitars that are used in the style of music you want to play, and use that information to begin your search for an electric guitar.
3. Amplifier – Much like a guitar is important to a player's sound, an amp is just as essential. Some amps produce clean, smooth sounds while others make distorted, brash, heavy sounds. Obviously, you want to make sure the amp you buy can produce the sound that you want. If you are just starting out, you might try to find a small practice amp to start with. While they typically don't sound as good as some larger, more expensive amps, practice amps are a great choice because they can typically produce a wide variety of sounds from very clean to very distorted. Another benefit is that they are typically low wattage, so you can practice without waking the neighborhood.
4. Uniquely Electric Things - There are several things about the electric that are unique from the acoustic guitar. One is pickups. The electric guitar has at least one pickup, which is essentially a large microphone of sorts that picks up the sound from the strings. Most electric guitars have more than one pickup, however. The neck pickup (the one closest to the headstock) produces a warmer, mellow tone. The bridge pickup (the one furthest from the headstock) produces the brightest, loudest sound. You can adjust the pickups accordingly to get the sound you like. Additionally, there are usually at least two knobs on an electric guitar, one for tone and one for volume. The volume knob is self explanatory, but the tone knob can be adjusted to further tweak the sound coming out of the pickups. You can really zero in on a mellow sound or a harsh sound by combining the settings on the pickups and tone knobs.
5. Other Bells and Whistles - Electric guitars often have other tricks than acoustic guitars have like whammy bars. A whammy bar, or a tremolo, is a bar that hangs off the guitar's bridge that a player can depress or pull up on the change the pitch of the note being played. If you push it down, the note drops, and if you pull it up the note rises in pitch. This can be a lot of fun, but it can also throw your guitar out of tune, so be sure to use your whammy bar sparingly.
6. What to Practice? – There are many, many ways to approach practicing your electric guitar. One of the most popular ways is to use the Internet to find guitar tabs. If you have a song you would like to learn, odds are someone has transcribed it in tablature and posted it on the Internet. You should even be able to find the song for free! Other options are to find guitar chord charts, either online or in book form, and use them to learn how to play particular chords. Once you know a number of chords, you can begin to assemble them into different ways to create songs.
7. Lessons – Although they can cost a considerable amount of money, one of the best ways to learn how to play the guitar quickly is to take lessons from a reputable guitar teacher. Nothing can substitute for sitting down with an expert for a little one-on-one guidance. A guitar teacher can help you zero in on just what you want to learn and can help you find ways around parts of your playing that are causing you problems. Check around in your area if you are interested, and give it a try.

The only way to learn how to play any instrument is to put in the time. While some people are naturally more inclined to picking up musical instruments than others, the one thing that all great players have in common is that they practiced, and practiced, and practiced. No matter what style you play or what kind of guitar you have, you'll never get as good as you want to be without a lot of hard work. Keep visiting sites like LoveToKnow Guitar to make sure you always have new things to work on as you continue your journey to becoming a great guitar player.

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