subject: Skills For Guitar - 3 Important Skills Every Beginner Should Learn, Part 1 [print this page] Starting out as a beginning guitarist, there are so many skills for guitar playing that you might have a hard time keeping them all straight. You see lead players zooming all over the fret board, country stars doing soft melodic chords, and none of it makes anything clear as to where to start.
However, even though these guitarists are playing in very different styles and tastes, they are essentially using the same skills over and over again. Check out this list of the most commonly used skills for guitar playing magic.
1. Chords. It all begins and ends with chords. If you've heard a song on the radio, then you've heard a guitarist using chords and it's never going to end.
Every guitarist, whether they're a beginner or advanced, needs to have knowledge of chords and their formations because as much as you might try to avoid them, chords are everywhere and you're going to have to play them someday.
This can simply be done by studying a chord chart or taking a stab at your first song that maybe consists of only three or four different chords. If you try to attempt anything more than a few chords for the first time, be prepared to get discouraged.
Don't try to bite off more than you can chew or else you'll lose your motivation. Chords are best approached in a limited supply and in tunes with slower tempos, progressions, and rhythms.
2. Pull-offs. Out of these skills for guitar, pull-offs are considered one of the most prevalent in lead techniques. Pull-offs are the simple technique of pressing a string against the fret board and pulling off to create a sound.
In the beginning, they might sound pretty weak and childish, but used in the correct context and with more strength, you can really enhance your solos and lead riffs.
A couple tips for better pull-offs are to press firmly to the string before pulling away and to almost bend the note as you release. Don't put too much effort into it or you'll create a strong "twang" and that's not what we're aiming for.
3. Hammer-ons. This is another one of those skills that lead guitarists use very often to spice up their solos and single note progressions and it's approached in the opposite fashion of pull-offs.
To execute a hammer-on, you simply try to create the sounding note when your finger is placed quickly and firmly onto the string, pressing it against the fret board.
When you get the hang of both hammer-ons and pull-offs, try using them together since you'll find that they're normally played together in context.
The best way to really learn these guitar skills thoroughly is to use them as much as possible, so if you have some practice riffs or songs you're writing, stick in some of these skills and let them develop with time.
