Techniques

Artificial Harmonics

Artificial harmonics are good because you can produce a harmonic on any note, rather than just E, A, D, G and B. In order to understand them, you will need a basic understanding of natural harmonics.

Bends and Vibrato

A string bend is when you change the pitch of a note by bending the note to change the length of the vibrating string.

Guitar Tapping

Guitar Tapping is basically like having an extra left hand finger to help you perform hammer-ons and pull-offs. Instead of an extra finger, you use either your pick or a right hand finger.

Hammer On's | Pull Off's | Trills

A simple definition of a hammer on is, slamming one of your left hand fingers onto a fret to produce the sound. I say slam, but it shouldn’t feel like you’re breaking your fingers!

Left Hand Muting

Left hand muting is used to create a scraping sound by striking the strings while they are muffled. To acheive this, you simply rest your left hand fingers over the strings and then strike the strings to create the scraping sound.

Palm Muting

Palm muting on the Guitar is something that can be difficult at first, but is easy once you get used to it. This technique is commonly used in heavy metal, and is what produces that heavy crunching sound.

Pick Slides

A pick slide is a technique that creates a scraping sound and often empasises an important part of a song. All you need to do to perform a pick slide is hold the pick as normal in your hand and slide the edge of the pick down the string away from the pickups applying slight pressure.

Pinch Harmonics

Guitar Pinch harmonics are what can make your guitar squeal. In order to understand them, you will need a basic understanding of natural harmonics.

Rhythmic Soloing

If you’re strumming some chords and then go into some soloing or single note playing, the feeling is often like going from 1st to 5th gear in one go. It’s difficult to make it smooth, and keep it all in time.

Slides

A slide is basically a technique which will brighten up your lead guitar playing and bring it to life. A slide is where you slide from one fret to another on the same string without releasing the pressure on the string.

String Skipping

This lesson is about Guitar string skipping. I think this is really important because I believe people get too involved with simple, one string, then the next string down/up then the next string down/up.