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An Introduction To Learning To Play The Guitar
By Evert DuToit
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is played by plucking or strumming the strings, while the fingers hold down the strings in certain combinations, to play the notes. Most guitars have six strings that are tuned on the scale E A D G B E. There are two broad categories of guitars today, acoustic and electric.
Acoustic guitars have hollow bodies, called sound boxes, which produce the sound, and thus do not need amplification. However, some modern ones do come with the electronics so that it can be connected to an amplifier. On the other hand, the body of an electric guitar is solid on only semi-hollow and needs to be connected to an amplifier to be heard.
Thanks to the electronics you can produce all kinds of effects and sounds with an electric guitar that is very hard or impossible to reproduce on an acoustic guitar. Samples of the special effects that can be produced on an electric guitar are: distortion, wah, phasers, compression, vibrato, flanging and chorus effect. These effects cause the sound produced by the same note to be different. For example:
- Distortion effect. This will produce a distorted and very heavy sound, as often used in heavy metal and rock music.
- Wah effect. The frequency of the note goes up and down each time you hit the foot pedal.
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Flanging effect. This effect causes a pause in the signal, followed by a series of the note originally played, sounding like an echo.
The guitar is used to play almost any kind of music, and is usually a big part of the music played by a band. Learning to play a guitar can be exciting and is a great way to entertain yourself and your friend.
When you decide to learn to play the guitar you will also have to learn tablatures and sheet music. Guitar sheet music is useful to guide you when learning to play the guitar, as you just have to follow the notes and tablatures illustrated on the sheet music. It is a great tool to help you play your guitar. By practicing frequently and being dedicated to learning the notes, you will soon be playing like an expert.
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