LINKS TO MY OTHER FREE LESSON SITES:
• Mandolin
• Bluegrass Banjo
• Clawhammer Banjo
• Bluegrass Guitar
• Mountain Dulcimer
• Jam Session Survival
©2015
Bradley Laird
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FREE
GUITAR LESSONS - by Bradley Laird
LESSON
1
Introduction to Playing Guitar
Many guitar websites today are trying to be all things to all people and that's
cool. But I am not trying to do that here. There are, no doubt, many similarities
between
playing folk, rock, country, gospel,
jazz
and bluegrass guitar, but this site will focus on bluegrass music. If
you are
new to the guitar, learning good basic technique by playing bluegrass
music is
an
excellent foundation for any style of music if you choose to play them in the
future.
If you have been playing other guitar styles for years I will explain
the techniques which I think defines good bluegrass guitar playing. Here and
there throughout these lessons I will suggest that you go watch a free video.
Well-made
videos
can
do
a
great
job
of
illustrating the things I am attempting
to explain here with words, tablature and chord charts. But, I also think that sometimes the written
word can explain things better than just watching a bunch of videos. So, I suggest
that you do both things. Now, let's get down to business and talk about bluegrass
guitar...
Typical D
model Martin style guitar
The Bluegrass Guitar Sound
Bluegrass guitar
can only be truly played on a steel-stringed, flat top, acoustic guitar. This
is part of the "sound" of bluegrass. If you think this
is close-minded, consider heavy metal rock and roll played on a nylon
string acoustic. It could be done but it won’t sound like heavy metal!
Or imagine Segovia playing a Bach concerto on a flippin' telecaster through an array of stomp boxes! The
Martin dreadnaught sized acoustic guitar is the standard instrument of
choice
by bluegrass
players.
In particular
the
D
model Martins.
Hundreds
of other makers have imitated this style of guitar construction and many
of them are perfectly suited to getting the right type of sound for bluegrass.
(Taylor, Huss & Dalton, Gibson, Santa Cruz, you name 'em...) This doesn’t mean that you cannot learn to play bluegrass using some
other type of guitar. You can. But, to achieve the sound that is associated
with bluegrass, a large body, acoustic steel-string guitar is virtually a
requirement. We will discuss more aspects of the bluegrass guitar style shortly,
but first let's make sure you know how to tune your guitar...
Ready to learn to tune your guitar? Click here to move on to Lesson 2.
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Brad Laird's Blue Grass Guitar 101 eBook
Learn bluegrass style rhythm guitar and "bass runs" by playing these 10 tunes. (Tab, standard notation and chord charts provided.) Also the lyrics and lead sheets.
Includes a course in singing 2 or 3 part bluegrass harmony. Click here for more information on the downloadable PDF eBook. |
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