Guitar Techniques

Before playing, always make sure to check your guitar tuning and adjust your pitch, or your guitar won't sound right.

MUTING GUITAR NOTES
Muting is an important technique in Rock music. Many styles of music, including Heavy Metal, Punk, and Alternative rely on different muting techniques to give the music a certain sound or character.

HOW TO MUTE GUITAR NOTES
While done predominantly with your picking hand, muting can be done with either hand or with both. Muting notes adds a dynamic to your playing and is a valuable tool for making you sound more polished. In many songs, the verses may be muted while the chorus or hook is not.

When playing, most guitarists employ muting techniques all the time without even thinking about it. When playing at stage volume, muting keeps you from having unwanted noise or even feedback as you play.

GUITAR TECHNIQUE: PALM MUTING
Palm muting is one of the most used techniques in Rock guitar. It is done by having the palm of your picking hand in contact with the strings as you pick them. Heavy palm muting produces a tight rhythmic sound, while light palm muting lets the notes ring out a little more. Beginners reading guitar music should look for the letters "P.M." above the section that needs to be palm muted.



GUITAR TECHNIQUE: MUTED NOTES
Muting notes is a different technique than palm muting, and it is done by using your fretting hand. In the guitar tab, the notes are still picked, but they are not clearly sounded as the fretting hand does not press the note all the way down on the fretboard. In guitar tablature, this is shown as an X where the fret number would normally appear.



BENDING GUITAR STRINGS
Bending strings gives your guitar playing an expressive, vocal quality. To find bending in the guitar tab, beginners should look for a curved arrow over the note they want to play. This will make the pitch of the string go higher. The arrow may show a 1/2 or full step; this is telling you to make the string a 1/2 step (one note) or full step (two notes) higher in pitch. These notes are often referred to as "target" notes.

HOW TO BEND GUITAR STRINGS
Bending is done by pushing the strings up or down rather than just pressing straight down on the fretboard. For all the strings but the low E, most players push the strings up towards the ceiling, the low E must be pushed down toward the floor. The trick is to keep even, constant pressure on the string as you bend it.

GUITAR TECHNIQUE: BENDING GUITAR STRINGS
Most bends are done using 2 or 3 fingers: the "main" fretting finger (usually the ring finger), and the middle and index fingers for adding support and strength. This will make bending smoother and easier and adds control to the pitch of the note.



GUITAR TECHNIQUE: PRE-BENDING GUITAR STRINGS
When learning how to read tabs on a guitar beginners might also meet what's called a "pre-bend." In a pre-bend, strings can be "pre-bent" and then picked and released to return to the original pitch of the fretted note. This will be shown by an arrow going straight up with the range of the bend (full, 1/2, etc.) followed by a curved arrow going down. Pre-bent notes may return down to the original note or bent even higher up to another target note.

SLIDING GUITAR NOTES
Sliding is another useful technique; you can slide up or down to the next note. This is different than bending since you will slide your fretting finger up or down to the desired fret.

GUITAR TECHNIQUE: SLIDE UP
When sliding up, it will be shown by a line between the note you are sliding from to the note you are sliding to. If the note you are sliding to is higher, the line will go slightly up.



GUITAR TECHNIQUE: SLIDE DOWN
Conversely, when sliding down, it will be shown by a line between the note you are sliding from to the note you are sliding to. If the note you are sliding to is lower, the line will go slightly down.

PLAYING HAMMER-ONS ON THE GUITAR
The hammer-on is a cool guitar technique where you don't pick the note but you "hammer on" the note with your fretting finger. You can hammer on from an open note or a fretted note, and the resulting note will be higher. The hammer-on will be shown on the guitar tab by the letter "H" and an arc that connects either the open note to the hammer-on note or the fretted note to the hammer-on note. HOW TO PLAY HAMMER-ONS ON THE GUITAR
To play a hammer-on, strike the guitar string with the fretting finger with enough force to sound the note. This will take a little practice to produce a clear, strong note. It is also easier to play on the electric guitar with a decent amount of volume. Start with your open low E string and hammer onto the third fret, and hold the note to let it ring. Repeat this on different strings and different frets.



PLAYING PULL-OFFS ON the GUITAR
Pull-offs are the exact opposite of the hammer-on. Instead of pushing down on the string, you pull off the string to an open note or a note you are fretting with another finger. These are shown in the guitar tab with the letter "P" and an arc connecting the pulled-off note to the open note, or the pulled-off note to the fretted note. The resulting note will be lower.

HOW TO PLAY PULL-OFFS ON the GUITAR
To execute the pull-off, you will press the note down and then pull off the note to play either an open or fretted note that is lower. When playing pull-offs on the guitar, you are "grabbing" enough of the string with your fingertip to make the note sound.

You can then combine the two techniques to play a combination of both hammer-ons and pull-offs by repeating the two motions in an alternating fashion. This is sometimes also referred to as a "trill".



PLAYING VIBRATO ON THE GUITAR
Vibrato is the technique of repeatedly bending a note and returning to the original pitch without releasing the note. This produces an expressive note and tone, and vibrato is shown in the guitar tab as a zig-zag line above the staff. When learning how to read guitar tablature, beginners should look at the length of the line for the vibrato. In general, the longer the line, the longer you should apply the vibrato.

HOW TO PLAY VIBRATO ON the GUITAR
Vibrato is like bending, but it does not change the pitch as much. You can add vibrato using a single finger, or by using a main finger with other fingers as support. Start with a smooth, slow vibrato, and vary the speed for different effects. Like bending, vibrato adds a vocal quality to soloing, and no two guitarist's vibratos are the same: they are as individual as a fingerprint.



TAPPING GUITAR
Tapping is a popular technique that involves fretting notes with your regular fretting hand while also "tapping" or fretting notes with the index finger of your picking hand. The tapping of your picking hand is a variation of a hammer-on. Tapping is notated in the guitar tab by a letter "T" over the indicated note.

HOW TO FINGER TAP GUITAR
Tapping was popularized by Eddie Van Halen, but the technique has been used in classical guitar for decades. To finger tap on the guitar, fret a note with your "regular" fretting hand and "tap" a higher note on the same string with your index finger on your picking hand.

Finger tapping is like the hammer-on technique, but instead of your fretting hand, you are using your picking hand. This allows you to play the notes with wide intervals that you cannot reach with just your fretting hand.

Playing with a decent amount of gain and volume will also make this technique easier and sound better. It also allows you to play very quickly since you are fretting notes with both hands.



GUITAR TECHNIQUE: TWO-HANDED TAPPING
Two-handed tapping is as the name implies: a technique where both hands will play notes independently without picking the notes. To achieve this, both the fretting and picking hands hammer on notes. This is sometimes done with the fretting hand tapping the bass notes and the picking hand tapping the melody or solo notes.

STRUMMING GUITAR NOTES
When strumming chords on your guitar, there are two types of strokes used: upstrokes and downstrokes.

Downstrokes start on the lower strings of the guitar and end with the higher strings while using a downward motion. In the guitar tab, downstrokes are shown by a symbol that has a thick horizontal line with two "legs" pointing down on both sides.

Upstrokes are the opposite and start on the high strings and end on the low strings using an upward motion. In guitar tablature, upstrokes are notated by a "V" shaped symbol.



HOW TO STRUM GUITAR NOTES
When playing chords on a guitar, various strumming patterns are used depending on the rhythm of the song. You can strum in a constant downstroke and upstroke pattern, or any combination. Songs with an 1/8 note rhythm are counted as: "one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and, one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and..." Many songs use alternating upstrokes and downstrokes in an 1/8 note rhythm with the downstrokes on the 1, 2, 3, 4 and the upstrokes on the "ands".

GUITAR TECHNIQUE: PLAYING DOWNSTROKES AND UPSTROKES
When playing single notes in the guitar tab, the same notation of upstrokes and downstrokes applies. Your pick will go downward as you pick the note and are shown by the thick horizontal bar with "legs" pointing down on both sides. Conversely, upstrokes are played with an upward motion of the pick and are notated with a V above the note to be played.