Whether you take private lessons or are teaching yourself from YouTube tutorials, learning to play the guitar online can be a challenging and rewarding hobby that allows you to broaden your knowledge base, improve your hand-eye coordination, and, after you master the basics, look super cool wherever you go. Once strumming a few tried and true chords for your parents becomes passé, you can start practicing these guitar tricks – your friends will be calling you the next Hendrix before you know it!
Guitar Tricks #1. Slap harmonics
A great trick for beginners that’s simple musically and mechanically. When playing in a standard open-chord based key, you can incorporate slap harmonics to punctuate the end of a phrase. Start by taking the middle finger of your picking hand and slap it parallel directly above the fret bar of the 5th, 7th, or 12th, fret. The large movement of your picking hand not only looks like something a guitar legend would do, but improves the tonal quality of your music and adds a unique layer to a chord progression or riff.
Guitar Tricks #2. Bridge picking
The bridge of the guitar is the base that connects the strings to the instrument’s body. If you’re looking to add a unique sound to the bridge or outro of a song, especially on an acoustic guitar, try rake picking as close to the bridge as possible. The resulting sound is hauntingly pronounced, and has a natural reverberance that can drastically shake up the tone of any song. Your fans won’t even realize how easy it was! To move forward with these skills and build guitar chops, we recommend getting music homework help.
Guitar Tricks #3. Percussive performance
Another great trick for acoustic guitar players. The potential for sound lies everywhere in your instrument, so why limit yourself to only manipulating the strings? Start by playing a simple chord progression and use the body below the guitar’s bridge as a bass drum to be hit with your picking hand. You can also use the top of the guitar’s body near the fret board, often referred to as the shoulder to create a snare-like sound. You can make your rhythms increasingly more complex as you become more comfortable playing. The “one-man band” sound will always satisfy audiences everywhere!