Using Guitar Play - Along To Advance Your Playing

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Michael_O'Leary]Michael O'Leary

Guitarists are always looking for ways to advance their playing. One tool they might come across is a guitar play-along. It is a book/CD combo for learning popular songs. The book contains the notes and tabs for the songs. The CD contains two tracks for each song: one track with the guitar to hear how it sounds, and one track without the guitar so you can play the guitar part yourself. A guitar play-along can help you make dramatic improvements in your playing.

For one thing, you need to follow a beat to play the songs. Most guitarists don't pay enough attention to their rhythm and timing. It is important to play the notes exactly at the right moment and to keep time with the rest of the music. A play-along can provide great practice for this. It will help the guitarist develop the ability to both listen and play at the same time, which is one of the most important skills a musician can have.

A guitar play-along is helpful to better understand how songs are structured. It will help you learn to memorize songs and play the right part at the right time. The guitarist will see clear examples of how to learn the different parts individually and combine them in the right order to make a song. Anyone wanting to write their own songs could get an idea of what structures are typically used in their style of music.

Anyone new to guitar who wants to play in a band should practice with a play-along. It will help the guitarist learn to follow along with the music. It will also help the guitarist to understand the role the guitar plays in a song.

A guitar play-along is not the only learning tool that a guitarist needs, as it will not provide any information on theory or techniques. It will just provide a good practice tool. If you don't have a good book that explains techniques and theory, you should get one to better understand the guitar and music in general.

Michael O'Leary is an accomplished guitarist who enjoys sharing his ideas for improvement. For more information, please see [http://p-a-review.guitarplayinginfo.com/]http://p-a-review.guitarplayinginfo.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_O'Leary http://EzineArticles.com/?Using-Guitar-Play---Along-To-Advance-Your-Playing&id=491950

So - Why It Is Essential To Learn Guitar Music Theory?
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mike_Dimentyev]Mike Dimentyev

At the beginning we must answer a question: why we should study the theory of music and guitar music in particular? Lots of well-known musicians don’t know the theory and play the guitar very good." So, why do I need to know those notes?" – Every self-educated guitarist will ask me.

In fact, it’s not as easy as it may seem at first:

1) Those musicians we’re talking about are very gifted guitar players and much was given by nature itself to them. If you consider yourself as brilliant as Paul McCartney (by the way, he says he does not know notes), you may not continue reading this article.

2) The greater part of those guitarists was engaged right at the beginning of the expansion of contemporary rock music in 1960-70 years, created styles and studied all the required stuff at the same time.

3) Many young musicians are being endorsed due to their appearance and other reasons which have no association with music itself, as a rule. As usual, fans completely forget about them 2 or 3 years later.

4) From time to time guitar players just lie, saying they do not know notes, thus producing the effect of "being closer to ordinary guitarists like you and me".

5) There’re always brilliant self-taught players who simply resist learning the theory.

Now let us look some of the major benefits of studying music theory:

- At the same time as studying guitar theory you grow to be a more sophisticated musician.

- Random information you owned before becoming to be a piece of helpful system.

- You’ll be able to recognize other musicians and “speak the same language”.

- Learning basic guitar improvisation, scales, chords progressions, etc., it will be much easier for you to transcribe other guitarists (and not only them). You will know exactly “what is happening” while you’re playing and which way to go when improvising themselves.

- Perhaps, it’ll be easier to write music.

So, make a decision, whether to learn theory or not. It can deprive one person of his individuality but help the other to find his musical style.

For free guitar lessons from pros for beginners and advanced players you may also visit [http://www.guitarlessonspros.com]Free Guitar Lessons site.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Dimentyev http://EzineArticles.com/?So---Why-It-Is-Essential-To-Learn-Guitar-Music-Theory?&id=528656