Miscellaneous Guitar Help

Hardware

Turning the tremelo on a Strat into a fixed bridge

Can you tell me how to lock/disable the tremo on my strat roadhouse so it will operate like a fixed bridge? I bend a lot and the tremo is useless to me really. Thanks for your time.

The tremolo on many Strats may be "blocked", rendering the tremolo inoperative and creating effectively, the same thing as a hardtail. This can be done by first adding two springs to the tremolo claw and tightening the claw screws tightly to the body. Next, carefully fit and place a small block of hardwood, tightly between the tremolo block and tremolo cavity wall. This will "block" any movement from the tremolo and will also increase the sustain of the guitar.

I got this information from the Fender website.

Technique

How to Play Fast

Question:

Can you send exercises that will make my right hand play faster. For the left hand too

geovaz

Answer:

In a February 1995 issue of Guitar World Magazine, Jimmy Brown had an article on How to play fast. Here are a few techniques described in his lesson. With all of these exercises, start out slow making sure all of the notes sound clear and then gradually get faster. This might get boring when you first start out, but if you stick with it you will find that as your speed increases, these become a lot more fun. Also once you get a particular technique down, try experimenting with your own riffs. It is a good idea to get some sort of regular schedule going, like an hour a day. This will get you playing faster than sporadic practices here and there. I've tried to show what exercises are for beginners, intermediate players and advanced players so the beginner doesn't get frustrated thinking that all guitarists can play all of these techniques. Don't restrict yourself to what I say though. Play what you feel like and have fun!

Single String Exercises

Multistring Exercises

Chord Voicings and Songwriting

Question:

I have been playing for over 12 years and am really interested in the songwriting aspect of things and am trying to learn when to use various chord progressions (beyond the normal Major Minor stuff). Can you recommend a way to learn such things. For example, when to use 6th, 9th, add9, Maj7, sus2, sus4, etc. Are they better on certain chords in the key? Stuff like chord resolution, etc.

Thanks in advance,
Brett

Answer:

There is not an easy answer to your question. I have looked on the internet and have looked in chord theory books and I haven't found a cut and dry answer as to when to use these chords (called chord voicings) and what chords they resolve to. The chords that you described, I have always used as accents to make a song sound a little more interesting and to keep it less robotic. What I could do is give you details of when I use these different chords in parts of songs I have made or songs I know from different bands so you can see how they can be used. I believe that music has a certain point where rules need to be forgotten and improvisation takes over (after you know enough of the rules good enough to form a good base and you don't have to think about them any more). This is what makes music so fun. Before I learned what some of these chords were called, I stumbled on them by accident by just playing around with different shapes, etc. If you do want to pursue this, I suggest taking Jazz lessons. Jazz is a very cerebral form of music that will enable you to play chords that you have never heard before. I took a few jazz lessons and learned a ton about chord theory but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go. Some of the best guitarists in the world are Jazz guitarists. Anyway, let me know if you would like me to send you what I know about these chords. I will probably end up putting some of it on my web page. Thanks for asking. It was quite a challenge.

Click here to see some explanations of the different chord voicings.

On a little different subject, the best song writing tool I have ever found is a 4 track.

Different Tunings of a Guitar

Question:

Love the web site it is really cool!!! I do have a stupid question though. I've been messing around with the guitar for some years now and now want to get into different tunings of the guitar, like tuning down a half or full step. I do have a guitar tuner but don't know how to use it to tune my guitar down half or full steps. If you could please help me I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks again!

Brendan

Answer:

One easy and quick way I have downtuned a guitar a half step is to bar the first fret (a capo works great), tune with your tuner, and then remove the bar. You can do this up the neck.

Here is a Web page I have made that describes Dropped D tuning:

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions.

Here is a link showing different guitar tunings:

Power Chords

Question:

I am looking for a website that lists powerchord fingerings. Every page I have found so far gives one example and then you're supposed to figure it out from there and I get lost. Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer:

Here is a web page describing power chords: Other web pages I made to help describe Power Chords are listed below:

Vibrato

Question:

Please send me tips on vibrato.

Answer:

The main tip I can give you is to use your wrist to create the vibrato, not the movement of your finger. This is one of those things that is easier to show than explain, but here goes nothing. Place your index finger of your fretting hand on the G string at the 7th fret. Notice that your palm is facing up toward the ceiling (roughly). Play the note. While the note is still ringing, turn your wrist of your fretting hand where the palm is facing you slightly. Keep your finger pressed against the fretboard. The string will bend. Now if you alternate between those 2 wrist positions, you end up with vibrato. The faster you move your wrist, the faster the vibrato. The more you move the wrist the more exagerated the vibrato is.

Combining Melody and Chords

Question:

Dear Eric,

I would like to ask how you combine melody and chords and play them on the guitar without using another person to help you. If it is by using fingerstyle method, how do you do that? Thankyou.

Elizabeth

Answer:

This is a good question. There are a few ways to do this.

The first method is to get a 4-track. This has helped me with my song writing skills better than anything else. It allows you to record 4 different tracks while listening to what you did before. For example:

You can record drums on track 1. You can then record some rhythm guitar on track 2 while listening to the drums you did on track one. Then you record the melody over the drums and rhythm guitar. With your last track you could sing, add keyboard, add another guitar part, etc. to complete the song. That is the very basics of it, but you will get the results you are looking for.

Another way, where you could play this live, is to get a sampler with a foot pedal attachment to turn it on and off. You play your rhythm guitar through a measure with the sampler on and then turn it off when the sample is done. You set the sample to continuous loop and then play melody over it. The main drawback to this is that you will have the same rhythm throughout the entire song unless you have a high end machine that will store numerous samples. You can stop it and start it again at different parts of the song, but you will need another sample for a different rhythm and a quick foot and good enough pedal board to switch between the samples in a timely fashion. This sounds like a monumental task but I've seen it done live, so it can be done.

Now if you are looking to combine the melodies and chords without the help of a special device, look into the playing style of Jimi Hendrix. He really innovated that type of sound that few people have been able to rival. That style along with his feel is one of the reasons why he is so revered among guitarists (he's my favorite). Explaining his style is difficult. The best way to know what I am talking about is to get yourself a Hendrix tab book on one of his CD's and then learn those songs listening to the CD. The best example for the type of playing you are wanting would be from the "Bold as Love" CD. Basically a lot of his songs on this CD are melodies with chords used as part of the melody. That explanation doesn't do his playing justice but that's as simple and short as I can get. This style is pretty hard to learn, but if you master it (Stevie Ray Vaughn is the only one I know who has done it) you will be a great one.


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