From the category archives:

Guitar

A First Guitar – Electric or Acoustic?

by David McCormickJanuary 2, 2011

A frequent question from parents is whether to start children on electric guitars or acoustic guitars. Most kids interested in playing rock will obviously want an electric guitar, but there is a widespread idea that it is somehow better for them to start with a “regular” guitar. I have no idea where this idea started. [...]

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One Click to Your New Blues Nickname

by KevinSeptember 14, 2009

Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightning Hopkins, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Blind Willie McTell … you may be eating their dust when you try to play the blues, but you don’t have to suffer the added indignity of having a name that nobody will remember after the open mike is [...]

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So you’re left-handed…

by Lia ZitoMay 29, 2009

If you’re left-handed, should you learn to play an instrument left-handed? Well, no. And I’m a lefty. Being a violin teacher, I come across this idea pretty regularly, since the left & right hands do very different things on the violin (unlike, say, piano). Guitar players also will ask the left-handed question. It’s not quite [...]

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Why won’t my instrument stay in tune?

by Lia ZitoMay 22, 2009

Instruments aren’t built to stay in tune perfectly, and they shouldn’t. Here’s why: all materials change size with changing temperature, and wood is also quite sensitive to changes in humidity. To survive in Alaska, instruments must be able to respond to the changing weather, and this necessarily changes their tuning. Ask any carpenter: wood moves. [...]

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