The rewards of playing an acoustic electric guitar

I’ve been playing acoustic guitar for several years now, but it was just recently that I finally purchased an acoustic electric guitar. At the beginning of my guitar-playing days, I was just playing for fun, and so I didn’t really need an acoustic electric guitar. Essentially, a normal acoustic and an electric acoustic guitar are almost exactly the same, except for one very significant difference: the electric one contains a built-in pickup. This means that you do not need to insert an additional pickup to the guitar to amplify it. You merely plug it in, and you're ready to play.

When you are just playing by yourself, you have no need for an acoustic electric guitar. Because unless you're playing with a band, amplifying is probably not your biggest need. Normal acoustic guitars generate enough volume on their own, and don‘t require the amplification level an acoustic electric guitar amplification produces.

An acoustic electric guitar does have several advantages over a normal acoustic with an added pickup. To start with, when playing the electric guitar the pickup is always with you. There is no need to drag it around, and no concern about the pickup falling out. In addition, acoustic electric guitars are likely to include superior quality pickups, and these pickups will be well mounted. Pickups added for a non-electric acoustic guitar are difficult to position to get a great quality of sound.

One of the best features of a new acoustic electric guitar, though, is the built-in controls included with it. There is really no easy way to control the volume of a normal acoustic guitar that’s been amplified. But an acoustic electric guitar has volume controls built into the guitar itself. This is such a great feature. If your guitar volume level doesn’t sound the best to you, then rather than going over to the amp and tinkering with it, you can instead adjust the volume on the side of your guitar. If you are playing a gig, this can be a big timesaver (not to mention it looks more professional to the audience).

An acoustic electric guitar can help evoke the confidence and desire one needs to play the guitar with other people. Although it takes more than a great guitar to play well, having an acoustic electric guitar represents a big step in that direction.

Guitar tabs

A guitar is a musical instrument. Playing the guitar depends in large part on structure. For playing the guitar, one has to understand the notes that make up a scale as well as the notes of the six individual strings. The notes are A, A# or Bb, B, C, C# or Db, D, Eb, E, F, F# or Gb, G and G# or Ab. Eight of these notes make a scale.

However, a guitar tab is a system of notations, letters, symbols and other visual representations, instead of the traditional musical notation. The sole purpose of a guitar tab is to give the direction to the player as to how to play a musical piece through a diagram of strings of the guitar.

Guitar tabs or a tablature consists of a diagram of strings of the guitar with finger positions indicated by numbers corresponding to the appropriate frets and sometimes with the numerical representations of the fingers.

If we track back the history of tablatures, it has been in practice in the Western world for the last six centuries. They were mostly a horizontal grid read from left to right with letters and numbers written over them signifying the construction of pitches, and rhythmic signs above. However, beginning in the 17th century various systems of tablatures existed in Germany, Italy, Spain and France. Nowadays tablatures, guitar tabs in particular, have vertical lines which represent the strings of the guitar, no matter what the guitar is. Horizontal lines are for the frets and dots signify the position of the figures.

Art of playing guitar

I’m sure you have seen musicians play the guitar in a band, at a gathering of family and friends, at school or maybe yourself play in the privacy of your own home. At some point you may have asked” How can I learn to play the guitar like that?”

Did you now that the guitar is among the most popular of instruments and when you learn to play the guitar you actually stimulate the brain? Today’s standard guitar has six single strings but earlier ones had double and less strings. So the guitar has evolved into quite a remarkable instrument.

The benefits of guitar playing include helping to relieve stress since while playing you can temporary take your mind off your own problems. The harmony produced fro playing also as an anti-depressant mechanism as it lightens your mood and lifts your spirits. When you learn to play the guitar you can impress your friends and other people around you. The guitar can also be played in one’s spare time helping to mitigate boredom.

If you are a professional guitar player you will agree that there is always room for improvement. As a result you may constantly seek ways to perfect the art of playing.

If you are an amateur or have experience then you can learn to play the guitar. You could use library books, take online guitar courses or even hire the services of a private instructor. The method you choose is entirely u to you but my recommendation would be to choose an option whereby you have interactive learning and a good guitar instructor. The guitar could just turn out to be your all time favorite musical instrument.