Three Guitar tricks that would make you sound like a professional

Rhythm Guitar lessons

michael@phils@music

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November 9, 2015

After learning to do all the exercises that you have been given, there are a three basic techniques that you should add to your playing, they will add a little feel to your rhythm.

guitar tricks to make you sound like a professional

The Vibrato Effect
Hammer-on’s
Pull-off’s
Slides

Vibrato effect: I call it the vibrato effect because the sound is going to reverberate in a up and down way. How do you do this, you simply sound whatever note you want to play and while holding it slide it upward and downward in a uniform manner, sometimes you can slide it up only for a long period to really feel it or vice versa; people who play the blues use this technique very
much.

Hammer-on and pull-off: This is when you are holding a note on a particular string and without plucking the string you use your finger to tap the next note to play it, that is called the hammer-on.

The Pull-off technique is like the opposite of the hammer-on. It’s like releasing the second note that you hammered. When you are holding two notes on a particular string, releasing the higher note makes it a pull-off.

Slides: This technique is very very important, it makes you feel like a pro whenever you are soloing. Let’s assume you want to play a note, for example C, the note before C is B, so instead of playing C directly, instead play B and immediately slide to C. You can do it for subsequent notes, just makes sure it sounds cool. You can even decide to do that and add the vibrato technique.

How to tune your Guitar as a beginner

Rhythm Guitar lessons

michael@phils@music

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November 9, 2015

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Tuning your guitar is a very easy thing to do, whenever you siblings play around with your guitar and dis-tune it, you should be glad because it gives you more experience with the guitar. You can use a piano to tune your guitar or you can do it with

your mind, that is if you are already very familiar with the sound of the notes of music. You could download an app on google play or in the apple app store for it.

So for begginers, i will advise you to use the piano.
If you look at the strings of the guitar, the strings have their respective notes when they are open. look at the diagram above. The first string has the E note when open. the second string has the B note when open, the third string has the G note when it is open, the fourth string has the D note when it is open, the fifth string has the A note when it is open and the sixth string has the E note.
On the piano

All you have to do is to play the respective notes on the piano and whine the knob of the string you want to tune until they make the same sounds. Be careful as you whine so the strings will not snap.

Easy Way To Play All The Major Chords Of The Piano

Piano Lessons

michael@phils@music

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November 9, 2015

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The Easiest way to get to play all chords very easily is by using the correct fingering pattern. Look at the image below:

For an illustration, let us use the Key of C

C D E F G A B C

C – C E G (Major)
D – D F A (Minor)
E – E G B (minor)
F – F A C (Major)
G – G B D (Major)
A – A C E (minor)
B – B D F (Diminished)

All those chords above, which ever way or arrangement by which you want to play them; on the left hand you should use the pinky for the first note, the middle finger for the second note and the thumb for the third finger, that way it is 5 3 1. For the right hand you should use the thumb for the first note, the middle finger for the second note and the pinky for the third note, that way it is 1 3 5.

when ever you play a particular chord, make sure you leave your fingers in that shape, try to stiffen it to that shape and place it on the second chord you want to play, practice it that way for a while till you get used to it. Your fingers will easily get any chord correctly, and it would make you sound like a pro whenever you are playing on another key.

How to play makossa chords on the piano

Piano Lessons

michael@phils@music

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November 9, 2015

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This is a simple method to get a hold of knowing how to play the makossa progression on the keyboard or how to solo to it.
The basic progression for it is

C F G F
DOH FAH SOH FAH

To solo with it i.e if you do not want to play chords you can play the notes individually
C – C E G C
F – F A C F
G – G B D G
F – F A C F

See list of basic piano chords here

Some kind of nigerian gospel songs that this progression goes with include

Every body luku luku see what the lord has done for me
Eeh Eh eh eh, my God is good oo

Easy Methods to play Hymns on the Piano

Piano Lessons

michael@phils@music

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November 9, 2015

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While playing hymns, you will need to harmonize. It is very necessary. Sompe people find it difficult to play a particular note with one hand and another note on the other hand. This technique will really help you if you listen.

We shall be using the key of C# for an illustration.

The trick is you will be playing chords with the left hand and the right hand will be playing the note of the hymns. You would not need to look at your left hand while it is playing the chords. You would only have to focus on your right hand that is playing the notes.
So in order not to be able to look at the hand playing the chords you must find a way to play them without moving your hand too far. Look at the illustration below o the key of C#

C – G C E —– Middle finger – Pointer – Thumb
F – A C F —- Middle finger – pointer – Thumb
G – G B D —- Middle finger – pointer – Thumb
A – A C E —- Middle finger – pointer – Thumb
E – G B E —- Middle finger – pointer – Thumb
D – F A D —-Middle finger – pointer – Thumb
B – you can use the chord for G to play it.

If you can master them perfectly, it would be easy for you to play hymns, it would also be an added advantage for you when playing other songs.

How To easily Transpose on a Piano

Piano Lessons

michael@phils@music

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November 9, 2015

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This post will teach you how you can easily transpose on the piano.

I do not want to talk much on this and I do not want you to get used to it because it makes you a lazy and an unprofessional player. It has advantages and more disadvantages. So If you have a Piano and you have gotten used to the functions, you would have been seeing a function called the “transpose”. This function will enable you to be able make you play another key on the key that you are most familiar with.

If you want to do that, if the key you want to transpose to is on the higher octave you will use the minus button, if it is on the lower octave you will use the lower button. How do you know how many times to press it, its by counting how many notes are between the two keys you are dealing with. So if you want to transpose from the key of F# to C# you would press the plus button five times and if it from C# to F# you should press the minus button five times.