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The Nylon String Acoustic Guitar

The nylon string acoustic guitar has a softer, mellower sound than the steel string guitar. Strangely, modern audiences can still be spellbound by the depth of feeling of a nylon string guitar. It’s entirely up to you which one you choose to play. I could cite a list of artists who used either nylon or steel string for this or that record, and make a wild guess or two at why the artists made the choices they did, but the bottom line is that if you want a deep, quiet sound that doesn’t compete with your singing, the nylon string guitar is the way to go.

When you go out to buy a guitar, go past the general music store and on to your local guitar dealer if you have one. That way you will have a guitar expert guiding you and not some dufus who only plays two-and-a-half chords. Don’t let the guy in the store automatically steer you to the top-of-the-range guitars, and equally don’t succumb to your inner cheapskate. Pick a guitar that you like the look, sound and feel of, then come down in price range if you really need to.

To get some idea of the range you could be looking at, the Alvarez Masterworks Series MC90 Classical Guitar, a more pricey instrument, has solid rosewood back and sides, western cedar top with precision scalloped bracing, mosaic rosette and gold tuning pegs with tortoise buttons and sells for over $600. The Alvarez Regent, a beginner’s model, is about $150. Of course there are many grades of price and quality in between.

The kinds of music that the nylon string guitar was designed for are classical and flamenco music. Classical guitar music is classical music composed for other instruments but arranged for the guitar, and classical style pieces composed especially for the guitar or other stringed instruments. There is a wide repertoire of music composed in the medieval or renaissance eras for the vihuela or mandolin and arranged for the guitar which can be extremely enjoyable and satisfying to play. Flamenco music is a folk music of Spain, and is usually comparatively technically advanced simply due to flamenco being a “flashy” kind of music. If you are interested in exploring either of these kinds of music I suggest you go to YouTube and check out the classical or flamenco guitar videos. John Williams (the British guitarist, not the Starwars guy) and Julian Bream are two obvious starting points for classical guitar. Paco De Lucia, Paco Pena and Sabicas will open your heart to flamenco. We can’t finish without mentioning the nylon string guitar-driven folk music boom of the 1960’s which has given us a lot of great music which can be easily picked up by beginner guitarists. The music of Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Joan Baez or The Kingston Trio still holds some interest for modern guitarists.

So that is an overview of the world of the nylon string guitar. I hope you have found something to spark your interest.

Ricky Sharples has been playing guitar his whole life, and is presently engaged in building a blog called Learn How To Play A Guitar For Free. Ricky’s blog features free tools, lessons and resources for guitarists of all ages and stages. Ricky updates the blog regularly so if you are interested in learning to play guitar there will be an enormous variety of tip, tools and tutorials for you.

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Guitar Chord Theory

Spending time learning something like chord theory rarely sounds inviting for many guitarists, especially the self taught or those in the beginner stages just looking for songs to strum along to. Unfortunately this is one of those areas that can slow down or hinder the learning progress for many guitarists wanting to further their creative skills or enter the world of improvisation. Knowing how chords are constructed is the most important element of chord theory and only requires a small amount of effort to get to grips with the fundamentals. Doing so can make all the difference between being stuck in a rut for years or finally getting over one of the biggest stumbling blocks that holds back many guitar players.

How can learning chord theory be so helpful to making you a better lead guitarist? You already know how to play guitar chords, right? So how can this help you with improvised solos for lead guitar using a single note scalar approach? Get ready to break out of the guitar rut because it’s that kind of thinking that’s holding you back. Although getting to grips with chord theory takes more than what can be given in one short article alone, it does only require some basic knowledge to get you kick started. The real benefits come when this knowledge is put to use on the guitar and combined with some hands on experience.

Guitar books, magazines and online articles are full of fantastic information yet so much of it goes over the heads of many guitarists simply because they haven’t a clue what any of it means. Terms and phrases like, “minor third,” “flat fifth,” and “chord tones and arpeggios” can make a great article become useless for those that don’t understand it. You don’t need to be an expert, just a basic understanding of these things will take your guitar playing to the next level. Understanding how guitar chords are constructed starts with the major scale. Let’s get to it.

Everything in western music theory is based on the major scale. This scale contains seven notes and each note is numbered from one to seven. The numbering system always starts from the root note. In other words, C will be number one in C major, D will be number one in D major and so on. The actual notes in the C major scale are C-D-E-F-G-A-B and numbered from one to seven respectively. Once we know the scale notes and their numbers we can begin to see how chords are built on those scales just by knowing a few simple formulas. Here are the formulas for the most common chords that all guitarists should know.

Major: 1 - 3 - 5 Major seventh: 1 - 3 - 5 - 7

Minor: 1 - b3 - 5 Minor seventh: 1 - b3 - 5 - b7

Dominant seventh: 1 - 3 - 5 - b7

Using these formulas we can find the notes belonging to any chord. Using C major as our example we can conclude that the C major chord consists of the first, third and fifth notes of the scale which equates to C - E - G. The minor chords have a flattened third. To flatten a note simply means to lower it by one half step. In this case it is the E, therefore the notes in a C minor chord would become C - Eb -G.

This article outlines the basic chord building blocks. Moving onto larger chords follows the same idea by just stacking notes in third intervals from the major scale. There’s a lot more you can learn about this subject but it’s important to take it one step at a time, build your experience gradually. Understanding basic chord construction is just as important as learning guitar chords. Memorise the few simple formulas above and you’ll find many guitar articles now make more sense which will enable you to move forward and make the most out of what they are trying to teach you.

Guitar Chords

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A Brief History of Metallica

Metallica have easily been arguably the best, most influential and most respected Heavy Metal band of the 80’s and the 90’s. Instead of drifting off in their own success, they brought the music back down to Earth, back to the street, where it belongs.

The band formed after a series of events in 1981: Lars Ulrich, a Danish born drummer living in the Bay Area of San Francisco, was looking for someone to ‘jam’ with. He put an add in the local Trading Post, ‘The Recycler,’ stating that he was interested in playing drums for a band. To answer his add was James Hetfield, a 19-year-old guitarist, also living in the Bay Area of San Francisco. The two started playing together their favorite Heavy Metal songs, such as those by such bands as Diamond Head, and Black Sabbath. Hetfield later asked roommate (and part-time bassist), Ron McGovney to join the band, and McGovney accepted the offer. The trio then recruited lead guitarist Dave Mustaine, and the band was complete, or was it….

With Hetfield doubling up on vocals, the band recorded their first demos in mid-1981. The demos entitled “No Life ‘Till Leather,” became the product of bootleggers, and the band became popular among the Underground Heavy Metal community. Later, when Hetfield and Ulrich attended the concert of a fellow Bay Area band called Trauma, they were stunned by the ‘volcanic’ ability of Trauma’s bassist: Cliff Burton. Subsequently, McGovney was kicked out of the band by Hetfield and Ulrich, and the very impressive Burton was asked to join Metallica. After some strenuous decision making, Burton decided to join. Metallica then started to play concerts, mainly as a warm-up band for established Metal acts such as Saxon, and Metallica’s popularity grew, while they hadn’t even released their first album yet.

Mustaine, the band’s lead guitarist became increasingly unpopular with the other three members of the band. His daily intake of drugs and alcohol was not liked by Hetfield and Ulrich, so, in turn, Mustaine was kicked out of the band.

The band searched for another lead guitarist. They attended many concerts of other Bay Area bands, and, they got lucky. They found Kirk Hammet, a guitarist playing for a little known band called Exodus. The trio were in awe of Hammet’s lightning-fast fingers which played intricate minute-long solos, that left the fret board on the guitar smoking after they had finished. Hammet was therefore asked to join the band, and after an age of thinking, Hammet decided to leave Exodus, and join Metallica.

For the next year, Ulrich, Hetfield, Burton and Hammet worked on improving the songs they had written in the No Life ‘Till Leather demos, and wrote new songs, all while performing concerts all over the country. A recording contract was secured with American recording label Elektra, and in 1983, the band released their first album: “Kill ‘Em All.” Kill ‘Em All contained improved songs from the No Life ‘Till Leather demos, and couple of songs written by the band after Burton and Hammet had joined. The album was a huge success amongst the Heavy Metal community, but it never really broke into the mainstream music market.

After the release of Kill ‘Em All, the band decided to cut down on the touring, and decided to work instead, on writing their next album. “Ride the Lightning,” the band’s second album, was released almost exactly a year after Kill ‘Em All. It was the product of a year’s hard work. As with Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning was a success, and it continued in the traditions of the speed-orientated music from the first album.

Metallica’s popularity grew with the release of their album, “Master of Puppets,” released in 1985. Some say that ‘Puppets’ is the best all time Heavy Metal album. It, as with the previous albums was a great success, and Metallica were more popular than ever before. After the release of ‘Puppets, the band decided to go on a world tour, mainly because on the huge success of their albums. The tour was launched in Copenhagen, Denmark, drummer Ulrich’s home town.

While on tour in Sweden, tragedy struck. Metallica’s tour bus crashed on a long trip between cities, and bassist Burton was tragically killed. After Burton’s funeral, the band wondered if they should continue playing or not, and they decided they would play on….

Auditions were held by Metallica for a new bassist, and many budding bass players turned out to see if they were good enough to join Metallica. Jason Newstead, with his heavy, rhythmic technique on the Bass, was chosen as the new bassist for Metallica. To work Newstead into the Metallica mold, the band decided to go back to their roots, and to play some songs written by their favorite bands, the bands which had influenced them the most in their early career. The cover songs (as they are known), were recorded, and the songs were released in 1986’s $5.95 EP entitled “Garage Days Revisited.” Now the EP is extremely rare, and is considered a collector’s item.

With Newstead on board, 1987’s “….And Justice For All,” was released, Metallica’s fourth album. For the first time, Metallica broke into mainstream music via the album, and it entered the American and British Top 20 in the music charts. From the album, the singles “One,” and “Harvester of Sorrow,” were released, and the singles also had success in the charts.

After the album, the band decided to tour again, and the “Justice” tour, as it came to known, lasted for about 3 years, from 1987 to 1990.

1991’s self-titled album “Metallica,” brought the band their biggest success to date, selling 7 million copies in the USA alone. The album became Number One in the American Music Charts, and the singles “Unforgiven,” “Enter Sandman,” and “Nothing Else Matters,” became huge hits, each entering the Top 10 in both the American and British singles charts.

Then, it was back on the road again for Metallica, for yet another world tour. This time the tour lasted for four years, and the band played in such obscure place in the world such as Moscow.

The Release of 1996’s greatly-anticipated “Load” album was not liked by many of Metallica’s hard-core fans. For Load, Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammet and Newstead had decided to step away from the speed-metal scene, and decided to step into the arena of Alternative Rock. Although the album debuted at number one in the American charts, the older Metallica fans did not take to it greatly, they claimed that Metallica had “sold out.” Metallica lost some fans, but they also gained many more new fans, who were more interested in the Alternative side of Metallica.

For the next year, in between touring, Metallica wrote songs for the next album, not phased buy the comments made by their so called fans on the Load album. Reload, the seventh album, was released in 1997. The album debuted at number four in the American charts, and like the Load album, the older fans did not like it, but the legions of younger fans continued to grow.

Metallica have always been, in their 19 year career, a constant force on music. Metallica have changed the rules for all Heavy Metal bands, not only are they respected by the fans, but also by mainstream record buyers and critics.

Many bands have emerged from the Metallica way of playing music. Kirk Hammet has become one of the most copied guitarists in all forms of music, James Hetfield has developed a signature growl in his vocals, as with his rhythm guitar, while Lars Ulrich’s constant bang of the drums clicks in perfectly with Jason Newstead’s bouncing, yet heavy, bass tunes. Metallica have, single-handedly changed the face of metal, forever.

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