How To Choose an Acoustic Guitar

How can a person choose an acoustic guitar confidently? Acoustic Guitar reviews can be a great place to look, but probably not the best place to start.

Having a good grasp on what makes a really great guitar, great is the best place to start if you are out to buy an acoustic guitar.

The sheer number of choices available to a person that wants to buy a guitar can be overwhelming.

There are hundreds of really great looking guitars out there on the market - some great, some good and allot of really not so great, choices. But most look really, very good.

In your search for the best acoustic guitar, you will already have come across numerous options and types, even if looking solely within the Faith Guitars range. Maybe you’re looking for a traditional acoustic dreadnought model with a classic Spruce/Mahogany combination, or perhaps you fancy an Acoustic-Electric model with more exotic woods.

If you want to sound like Ed Sheeran, Albert Lee or Jake Bugg, which guitar should you choose?

Once you’ve chosen your favourite acoustic guitar and have decided to buy, the choice then becomes whether you should buy it in a physical music store or buy it online. There are a number of important things you should you consider when making this buying decision.

Will your guitar arrive setup? Will it be setup to your liking, and if it’s not, what can you do about it? In the event of your new guitar needing a setup, service or repair what are you prepared to do: Go to your local store for a friendly chat…. or call an internet retailer and (probably) experience a more lengthy and less personal returns procedure.

It is essential that you address questions such as this at the beginning of your buying process.

I've just completed a in depth study on what goes into making a great guitar for this page and I believe it can be summed up with nine main categories of quality factors.

Acoustic Guitar Buying Guide

Craftsmanship - acoustic guitar reviews should include details on the level of skill that is used to build an acoustic guitar because it is very much at the heart of a great instrument. That can mean little things that make huge differences like knowing what kinds of wood to use, choices in glue, types of finishes and who knows what other kinds of way there are to make a guitar sound great. 

The most outstanding example I have come across when I was researching how to do an acoustic guitar review that is a great example of this is theTaylor Pallet guitar. - Made out of an old forklift pallet by Taylor guitars. Built by Bob Taylor to demonstrate how important design and the skill of the builder is to the sound of a guitar. List price was $10,000. Did it sound good? Yes, from the reactions of people that played it, it sounded great. They also looked really good for being made out of a pallet.

Playability - This is really your part of your research on acoustic guitar reviews finding out how the guitar feels to you when you play it. You need a guitar that has great playability. A fine guitar is a pleasure to handle and easy to play.

What makes a great guitar playable? It needs to be comfortable to hold and fit the hand of the player. The action needs to be setup for the individual also. Fretwork needs to be smooth and level with no sharp edges to eliminate any buzzing and not hurt your hands.

Fretwork is expensive $80 to $500 depending on where you go.

Sound - Acoustic guitar reviews can only provide so much in this area. I can tell you a guitar sounds great, but you need to hear it for yourself.

You should try to buy acoustic guitar that sounds clear and has a great range from bass to treble with pleasing and interesting overtones.

Good projection of volume not only towards your audience but surrounds the player with sound. That is important because hearing yourself lets you know ow you are doing.

Durability - Acoustic guitar reviews should consider this. A fine guitar should be built to last for a lifetime or more, with proper care and precaution.

Will it hold up to all the different environments it will be in? Is the neck strong and stable? If it has electronics and a preamp are they high quality that will last? Are they reliable? Are the tuners durable and will they last?

Serviceability - When mishaps do happen, it should be a design that lends itself to easier repairs.

Can the electronics be serviced easily? Does it have a good stable truss rod that can take adjustments?

Appearance - a fine guitar should be presentable and pleasant to look upon as possible.

If you are planning to go pro, will it look good on stage? Appearance can be misleading.

Many inferior quality guitars can look pretty good. My first real acoustic guitar looked great but really didn't sound as good as it looked., so I took it to my guitar tech to find out why it didn't sound all that great. I became so disgusted with it after having it evaluated by my guitar tech that I put it out in front of my house with a free sign on it.

It just wasn't good enough to sound all that great.When it comes to guitars, looks can be very misleading. A fancy looking guitar can be covering up bad craftsmanship and materials.

Suitability - Will the guitar perform where and how you perform?  Rock stars will need a different guitar than somebody sitting around the kitchen entertaining their mother. If you are playing for a few people without an amplifier you might need a dreadnought guitar with a big booming sound.

Materials - Woods, glues, hardware choices.

Top quality materials and hardware choices, such as tuners and truss rods, along with master craftsmanship are needed to create a great guitar.

Choice solid woods are a major ingredient in producing great guitars.

What about laminates? Isn't that just plywood?

There are various grades of laminates. The quality of the layers of wood and the glues used to join them make all the difference.

You will find laminates in some of the worst sounding guitars and in guitars that sound great. Properly chosen and used by a master craftsman, laminates will produce guitars that are worthy of the best performers.

Affordable - A top of the line, fine quality guitar can run many thousands of dollars.

If a person can afford the best they should have the best. For performing professionals, this can be the right choice not only for sound but appearance.

For people that have other things going on in their lives like families and regular jobs, top quality guitars can be out of range.

The newer more affordable priced guitars from companies such as Martin, Taylor and Seagull, (some people would call them cheap guitars, there is nothing cheap about how they sound or their craftsmanship), have never been better.

Credit to Roy Barnett

Engineering Structure

Which Speaker Has Best Sound Quality?

If you need a speaker that's affordable and consistent, these are the list that we collect from the market preview and analysis:

• Sony XB10. If you need a speaker that's affordable and consistent, the XB10 is the one to look at and most recommended.

• Sony SRS-XB30. 

• Sony GTKXB90.

• JBL Clip 2. 

• JBL Flip 4. 

• JBL Boombox. 

• UE WONDERBOOM. 

• UE BOOM 2

The Art Of Practicing

How To See Real Results By Chris Standring

Re: The Art of Practicing... I have always believed that success, in practically any subject you can think of, is a direct result of "clear thinking". That is, the ability to understand very clearly what needs to be achieved and the action to set about surmounting very necessary hurdles in order to reach those goals. Less than successful people are either not clear in their goals or for one reason or another give up along the way. It's leveling that rough terrain, along with a clearly defined end result in mind that will get you there in the end. The success roadmap might go something like this:

Visualize goal => Surmount problems => Score

Sounds simple doesn't it? However, this clear thinking is all very well but it's usually the thought required before step 1 (visualization) that causes problems. Very often the goal does not manifest in mind because the process is so overwhelming.

And so it is with practicing the guitar, or any instrument for that matter. In more laymen's terms it's more like "What should I be practicing?"

Practice is a constant struggle for many people. There is so much to learn and often so little time to allocate to it. For the jazz musician, clear thinking can be as simple as "I really like that Charlie Parker 2, 5 - how does he do that?". Then transcribing the line, practicing it in all keys and working the phrase into your own vocabulary.

The 'score' as I like to call it is the ability to work it in to your own playing. I want to talk a little about that in a minute.

First, I think the most important thing to talk about is how to make best use of your practice time. There was a time when I started playing where I used to sit in my room and allocate 15 minutes to practicing scales and arpeggios, 10 minutes on technique exercises, 20 minutes on sight reading and 1/2 an hour on practicing my classical guitar repertoire. Why? because my teacher told me I had to. Years later once I started to study jazz guitar on my own I didn't feel the need to be practicing this way. It wasn't really benefiting me fully.

I started to have my own goals in mind that I wanted to reach. I wanted to learn to play like one or two of my heroes, but more importantly because I liked what they played. Even more under the microscope were certain melodic lines and licks that tweaked my ear and fueled me to transcribe or simply copy the way they phrased or 'felt' a phrase. Once I clearly had in mind what I wanted to achieve I could go about achieving it - I knew what I had to do.

It's important to sit down to practice and be really clear about what you are going to do during that practice time. Now, one thing that helped me tremendously was when I made a huge commitment to scheduled practicing. In other words, deciding that every single day, no matter what, I would sit down and dedicate exactly one hour to working at this instrument. The amazing thing I found is that my regularly scheduled practice literally fueled my regularly scheduled practice!

Does this make sense? What this means is that, the more I practiced, the more I wanted to practice. What started out as a committed hour turned into committed six hour sessions. Once I got into music college in London I remember waking up in the morning and practicing until I went to bed at night, remembering to eat on occasion. I was so fueled by the commitment to practice that the drive to play took over completely.

Does this make sense? What this means is that, the more I practiced, the more I wanted to practice. What started out as a committed hour turned into committed six hour sessions. Once I got into music college in London I remember waking up in the morning and practicing until I went to bed at night, remembering to eat on occasion. I was so fueled by the commitment to practice that the drive to play took over completely.

Regular practice clearly keeps your guitar technique on tip top form. There's nothing like picking up the guitar and playing a few short runs and being on top of your game, simply because you are playing regularly.

The other wonderful thing about committing to regular practice is that it actually helps you to think much more clearly, because you start to see results. Once you start to see results the concept of learning is much less overwhelming and you are able to make decisions about what you want to work on much more easily.

So do yourself a huge favor, first, make the decision to want to get much better at your guitar playing. Then once you have decided that, make a clear commitment right now and allocate a certain time of day to your guitar practice. If you only have limited time then give yourself what you know you can afford. Once you get your teeth into this system, if you don't have more time, trust me you will want to find more time. You might just want to wake up earlier. The drive to learn will take over.

Quality practice is key. I find now I am older that, if I let myself, I can get more and more distracted because there are so many other facets to my life. When I make the decision to focus 100% on my guitar problems and how I can surmount them, I find I can get completely absorbed for hours once I get going. Sometimes it helps to avoid those distractions from the outset. Maybe turn the phone off!

There is a huge difference between playing the guitar and practicing the guitar. I can play for days quite happily but am I learning anything new? Not unless I stop myself and work on my weaknesses. And there are plenty of those trust me! Many years ago I wanted to learn licks from my favorite players. I would hear a line and transcribe it. Many times I found that those musical phrases would not come out in my playing and I asked myself why. It dawned on me that there were three possible reasons:

1) I found the phrase too technically difficult to pull off. 2) It just didn't feel like it belonged in my vocabulary. 3) I hadn't fully explored the idea enough - perhaps I didn't fully understand how to use it in a practical sense.
Let's talk about these briefly.

Sometimes a horn line does not necessarily fit under the fingers on the guitar. The line might sound just terrific on a sax but if I can't play it on my guitar it's not going to have the same effect. In fact quite the opposite! Everyone is somewhat limited technically (although there are a few players that keep my head scratching I must admit!), every player has a ceiling in their own mind and I think it's perfectly OK to let some things go because they are just two gymnastic on the guitar. It's of course relative to each player's ability and comfort zone.

Occasionally I'll try and work something into my music vocabulary and it just doesn't feel like me. Some players sound great playing certain things and when I play them they either sound too much like that other great player or I just don't feel it. Music has to be personal, it's OK to weed out stuff that you don't want to use, even when those 'weeds' are a rose garden to others.

The last idea is something very important I think. That is the idea that when you work on some new vocabulary or a new harmonic idea, that you fully understand how to use it and just as importantly, how to work it into your playing so it comes out naturally. Let's assume you are transcribing a lick on a CD you like. The first thing to do is to make sure you get the notes right. You might slow it down (there is plenty of software on the market that enables you to do this now). Whatever it takes, make sure the notes you are transcribing are correct. Then it is a matter of practicing that phrase so it feels good when you play it.

Now most folks stop right there and wonder why the phrase never shows up in their playing. The secret is to figure out exactly what chord (or group of chords) is being played underneath that line. After that, figure out what other chords could also be played underneath that phrase.

Next, learn how to play that phrase everywhere on the fretboard, in different positions and keys. Finally and the most important, work the phrase into your own playing. To do this, start by improvising in any way that you normally might and focus on ways to connect that new phrase you want to play. The new phrase starts on a certain note and you will need to focus on that starting note in order to make a connection to it. Practice improvising freely and connecting to that new phrase, focusing on its starting note. Do this in all keys. Pretty soon you will know if the phrase is going to come out into your playing or not.

The art of practice is a huge subject and musicians have written complete books on it. But I do believe the real success starts with clear thinking. Make a decision to focus on something specific. Here is a more detailed roadmap to take on board:

1) Visualize. What do you want to work on - what do you want to achieve? 2) Plan. What exactly do you have to do in order to achieve that goal? 3) Action. Explore the subject in enough detail. 4) Surmount. Expect problems along the way - this is normal - don't give up! Just level the terrain. 5) Score - making sure that the subject is fully absorbed and part of your new musical make up, unless you decide otherwise.

Great players really got to grips with practicing in the early stages. It became fascinating to them and the results they saw fueled more practice. It's a self perpetuating phenomenon. By simply not practicing, the incentive to pick up your instrument diminishes over time. Then the excuses start to pour out in torrents. Then regrets. Then a very dusty guitar possibly in a dark attic somewhere.

Get practicing. Quality practice. Ask yourself questions. Look for the answers. Insist on results. This is the key to improving.

Four Online Promotional Steps

By Lance Trebesch

Today’s artists have a wide range of possibilities to promote themselves, especially online. But that means you must compete with other groups to gain an online presence. There are four key steps in online marketing to gain a successful start with promoting your music on the internet.

1. Submit to Directories

The first step is to submit. Submit to directories, online radios, and online magazines – anywhere that plays or features music. The more places that play your track, the more people will hear and recognize your music. Thousands of people listen to free online radios daily and most of these stations allow artists to submit their music to them. Similarly, directories permit you to add your website with a brief description, which is then added to the directory site. An even better idea is to make a friend submit your site or music for you so you are not always pushing your own music.

You must be careful when submitting to sites, however, because search directories like Google will downgrade you if your incoming links look unnatural. This means that when someone performs a search for your site, it will not show up in the top search results because the search engine is punishing you. Try submitting your site or music to a couple sites weekly with various anchor texts. For example, the words “an awesome rock blog” are the anchor text to the link www.motorcityrocks.com. Also, do not always submit your site with a link pointing to your homepage. Sometimes submit your site with a link to the secondary page of your website to make the links seem more natural.

* Anchor text – visible, descriptive text you click on for a hyperlink.

2. Give Away Music

Secondly, offer your music at no cost. With the plethora of options available to users to download free MP3s, strictly offering your music for purchase hurts your online status. When a listener gets your MP3 for free, he or she has a greater possibility of returning to your site to hear more music by you if they liked what they heard. Only after listening and liking your music will they purchase your album. You have to be sure not to give away too much music, though, because the listener will have no reason to purchase your album if they can find everything for free.

Adding a podcast or MP3 to your sites also allows users to hear your music without paying anything for it. The hardest part in adding music to the site, however, is the recording, so start by focusing on a quality recording of your music. To add music to the site:

• Find a computer with audio input capability and an easy to use audio encoding application. This is easy if your music is on CD, just rip it with iTunes or a similar application. If it is in some other analog or digital (mini-disc) format, it gets a little harder, but applications are freely out there.
• Then with MP3 file in hand, you can upload the file to your web site and link like you would link a web page or other media/image file.
• From there, there are more complicated ways of doing it so it is more "presentable" with a nice embedded player, etc.

3. Make Business Friends

The third step is to build professional online relationships to boost your online presence. You know a lot about music, so comment on it. Look up blogs related to rock music and add meaningful comments to help others reading the blogs. Most of the time the comment box asks for your URL, which is a great way to promote your own website or blog while helping others by posting comments.

Blogger ethics state if one blogger comments or links to another’s site, the other blogger will comment or link back. This is a great way to build an online relationship and promote one another’s music. An additional option, besides just commenting on their blogs, is to help them out somehow. When you find online radio stations to submit your music to, compile a list and send the list to them. They will in return promote your music to thank you for your help.

Besides commenting on blogs, creating a blog can prove very beneficial in online rock music marketing as well.

4. Utilize Social Networks

Connect yourself to tons of different social networking sites. YouTube, Yahoo Video, and Google Video allow you to post different videos onto the site at no cost, like the OKGo video that was fairly inexpensive and still receives views daily. Post all your music videos and add links to your website to these videos.

MyBlogLog allows users to share different sites and build a community based on various interests. You can also add your site to your profile and view who else has your site as their favorite. Although just over a year old, MyBlogLog is quickly gaining popularity, which presents a great way establish yourself early in the community. Similarly, Ning allows you to create a social network for any topic. Joining and commenting on various rock music networks and creating your own network for group provides the best methods to get the most out of Ning.

Finally, joining the additional social network sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace are all necessary in promoting you or your band. Finding friends and friends of friends can boost you music and be helpful in additional ways. Network as often as possible both online and offline.

These four simple steps provide a great way to start promoting your music online. Remember to submit, give away, and comment. Online marketing is a continuous process you must constantly work on, but it pays off in the end.

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This article was contributed by Lance Trebesch of TicketPrinting.com

Contact: lance@ticketprinting.com