Category Archives: links

Most popular guitar lessons in 2012

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Happy New Year! If you’re learning guitar then take some time to read through our most popular guitar lessons in 2012. Make it your New Years Resolution to put these lessons to use and you’ll be surprised how much your playing will improve.

Memorize 50 Chords in 10 minutes a day

There’s a reason why this is our most popular guitar lesson: it works. We’ve created a simple plan you can follow to memorize 50 most common open chords in only ten minutes a day. Read through the lesson and give it a go. Check it out here

7 Things you can do today to change your guitar playing forever

There are some things you can do that have a permanent effect on your guitar playing. We’ve found seven challenges for you to try out that will have a massive impact on your guitar abilities. Compared to any other guitar lesson these seven challenges are far more valuable. Don’t just read through them, do them. Check it out here

Simple Exercises for Beginners: Stretch Part One

These finger exercises are one of the most basic exercises on guitar. There’s even a video to show you how it’s done. The exercises are designed to help you stretch your fingers out to make it easier to play chords. Use the exercises as a warm up every day and you’ll find it easy to play any chord. Make it part of your routine. Check it out here

Top 5 Bad Habits to Avoid When Learning Guitar

The three lessons above will help you develop good habits. This article will explain the most common bad habits people develop when learning guitar. Read through the article and make sure you avoid these bad habits. Check it out here

 

Just starting to learn guitar?

One of the first challenges for beginners is to start learning basic open chords. Countless songs use them so they’re worth spending some time learning. The whole reason this website exists is to help you learn the basics faster. We’ve developed a pack of Guitar Flash Cards containing 50 easy open chords to start you out.

Check out our Guitar Flash Cards here and get yourself a pack. They’re essential for every beginner. It even comes with a 30 Day Guide to help you learn the chords in the easiest way possible.

Good luck in 2013 and keep practicing!

Guitar sites worth checking out: liveteachguitar.com

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This guitar related site is different to the other links we have posted here in the past. Live and Teach Guitar is a site for guitar tutors and provides registered members with lesson materials ready to print and give to their students. The site also includes step by step guides to help you run every aspect of teaching from setting up a website to promote your lessons to setting your rates and managing your timetable.

The reason we have decided to include a link to the site here is that many of you may or may not have considered teaching guitar. The truth is anybody can teach guitar and you don’t need to be an expert to get started. Apart from the obvious benefit of teaching guitar, earning money, you will find that by explaining and demonstrating techniques to students, you will become a better player.

So if you want to give teaching a go, a site like www.liveteachguitar.com is a handy companion. One of the writers here is a registered member and recommends the site for anybody thinking about teaching.

Christmas gift ideas for guitarists

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Its that time of year again and people will be hunting around for gift ideas. If you’re looking for a gift for a guitarist or somebody wanting to learn guitar, here’s a few ideas to help you out. Or maybe you play guitar and want to treat yourself to something new (why not?).

Guitarists love extra gear and guitar related gadgets so any of these gifts would be a sure win.

Custom Guitar Straps

This is a great idea as it’s a relatively cheap option. The site listed below has some great designs but the real winner is the ability to custom design your own strap. Instead of buying a strap and unsure whether the person will like the style or not, you could buy a gift certificate so they can design their own strap. No doubt any guitarist would love this.

http://www.strapgraphics.com/custom-guitar-straps

 

Miniture Replica Guitars

This is a simple gift and most guitarists will like to have a miniature guitar on display somewhere. It’s relatively easy to pick the right guitar to buy as you can easily find out the type of guitars used by the person’s guitar idols and find that.

If you have a small budget this may be an easy option.

http://www.miniguitarusa.com/

Online Guitar Lesson With Dave Weiner

If you don’t know who Dave Weiner is, he’s most famously known as being part of Steve Vai’s band. He’s an exceptional guitarist who knows his stuff. He is also famous for running Riff of the Week which are weekly lessons on YouTube.

Dave gives webcam lessons which is a rare opportunity to get advice from one of the best.

This may be a more expensive option compared to the other ideas so far but will no doubt be worth it. This would be a fantastic gift idea if the guitarist you are buying for is a Steve Vai fan.

http://www.daveweiner.com/lessons/

Guitar Flash Cards

We know this is a great gift idea because last year we received a lot of positive feedback from customers who told us that the cards really made a big difference to their friend/family member’s progress.

This is a good option for a beginner guitarist or even somebody who wants to learn guitar but hasn’t started yet. Having a pack of cards with the most basic open chords can be enough to motivate somebody to learn guitar.

This is an easy gift idea and beginners will definitely find it valuable.

http://www.tempomusicards.com/products/50-easy-open-chords/

Click here to purchase this package

AmpliTube iRig (Plug your guitar into your iPhone/iPad/iPod)

If the person you are buying for has an iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, then this little device will allow them to plug an electric guitar into it. This is great for somebody wanting to practice quietly using headphones or someone who doesn’t have a guitar amp. Either way it’s a simple device and can be a lot of fun to use.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irig/features/

There are so many other ideas out there if none of these appeal to you so have a search around and you will be bound to find something useful.

Guitar blogs worth checking out: Truefire

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When learning guitar, it’s always a good idea to learn from a range of different sources. Every teacher/writer will explain things in different ways which means if you don’t understand a certain concept, it’s likely a different teacher or writer will be able to explain it in a way that makes sense to you

Unfortunately, because there are so many poor quality sites on the Internet, it can be hard to know which sites are worth spending some time on to learn new things. So if we come across a high quality site we think you should know about, we will make sure to tell you about it! So the latest guitar blog we have come across worth your time is TrueFire’s Guitar Blog.

There are a lot of low quality guitar sites that provide lessons and resources that really aren’t worth your time. TrueFire isn’t one of those sites. While many guitar blogs spend most of the time talking about new guitars and random guitar news, TrueFire’s Guitar Blog focuses on learning material. If you want to learn blues specifically, then this site is definitely going to help you out.

TrueFire’s Guitar Blog is worth checking out if you’re learning guitar. Put it this way – are you going to improve as a guitarist by reading random guitar related news, or by adding new licks to your repertoire? Exactly. We’re impressed with the site and it definitely gets our tick of approval.

Birthday Cake

Tempo Music Cards’ First Birthday

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July 26 will be Tempo Music Card’s Birthday so we figured it would be good to celebrate by sharing the 10 most popular lessons/articles/features on this site in the last year. There are many more lessons than the ones listed below; however these were the most requested and popular. So have a read through and enjoy!

July 2010 – Proper Way to Hold the Guitar (Video Lesson)

26 July 2010 – The 50 Essential Chords Pack was released and available at the online store

August 2010 – 10 Steps to Playing Any Chord

October 2010 – When You Shouldn’t Practice Guitar

November 2010 – Writing a Basic Song on Guitar

February 2011 – Memorize 50 Chords in 10 Minutes a Day

March 2011 – Blog section created

March 2011 – What to Buy When Starting to Learn Guitar

March 2011 – Understanding Chord Formulas and the Major Scale

May 2011 – A Guitar Flash Card Game to Write Chord Progressions and Overcome Writer’s Block

26 July 2011 – Tempo Music Card’s Birthday (including a special surprise)

Birthday Cake

Guitar blogs worth checking out: Notplayingguitar.com

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There are so many quality guitar blogs out there that people need to hear about. Even if one site has lessons and resources on every topic you need, you should always read through other blogs as every writer will explain things in different ways. You could say it’s like having 50 different tutors help you learn guitar.

Therefore I think it would be helpful for readers if I write up if I come across a blog worth checking out. The blog I would like to mention this week is notplayingguitar.com

A wide variety of lessons and tips are constantly posted to the site so it’s a good one you can come back to again and again to learn something new. In the past Gary has interviewed me on practice habits (you can read this interview here) as well as other guitarists. Interviews like these are well worth the read as you will often gain valuable insights into how other players think.

Have a read through the posts and you will be sure to find quality insights to help your development.