You are about to receive some good news in the form of guitar maintenance tips. Why should you consider guitar maintenance tips good news? Guitars are very expensive and it only makes sense that you follow guitar maintenance tips so that you can preserve your investment. While playing your guitar is your main focus, you should also concentrate on preserving your instrument so that you can continue to play it for years to come. Guitar maintenance doesn’t have to be an involved chore. Just following the few guitar maintenance tips listed here can ensure that your instrument will be there for you to play years from now. In addition, if you perform general maintenance on your guitar it is unlikely that you will have bigger problems to worry about later.

The Easy Way to Clean a Guitar

There are plenty of products on the market that are designed for cleaning guitars. There are products to help you maintain your strings. You can buy solutions designed especially for cleaning the fretboard. You can surely try any of these. However, you can use a simple approach to keeping your guitar clean that can save your money. Dust is the main form of debris that will collect on your guitar. If at least once each week (or more if you play often) you dust you guitar, you can prevent dust buildup that can actually affect your playing. If you want to get a bit fancy with your cleaning, you can skip the fancy cleaners and purchase a solvent that is designed to be used on guitars. You can expect to pay only a couple of dollars for solvent, whereas guitar cleaners can cost as much as $10 a bottle.

If you want to take cleaning your guitar a step further, a good polish can help preserve the wood of your guitar and give it an excellent shine. There is one tip to remember about polishing your guitar. Make sure you only use polish that is designed for guitars. Other types of polish can ruin the smooth finish on guitars.

Installing Guitar Strings

When you first learn to play a guitar you will want someone to help you install new guitar strings. Later you will be able to handle this task on your own. You will install guitar strings probably more than any other maintenance task. If you purchase a used guitar, one of the first things you will want to do is replace the strings. A good rule of thumb is to replace your strings every two months. In about this time, the oil from your fingers can over time weaken the strings and their tone.

There are actually several methods that you can use to install new guitar strings. Probably the most common and simplified method that prevents ruining of the string is to allow some slack to fall at the post that you are stringing. Once the string is secure at both ends, simply tighten the string by twisting the tuner until you no longer have any slack.

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1) The first guitar playing tip is to use good posture while playing the guitar

You should sit up straight in an armless chair. If the chair has arms, you will not be able to hold the guitar properly for playing. Sit up straight to protect your back.

If you get a backache after a bit of playing, you will realize how having good posture while playing the guitar is so important.

2) The next guitar playing tip is to hold the pick firmly but not too firmly.

If you do not grip the pick firmly enough, you may lose it during a vigorous bout of strumming! But if you grip it too tightly, you may find your whole arm getting tired. Middle of the road is the best guitar playing tip I can give you where pick grip is concerned.

3) Choosing the right pick is another guitar tip that is important.

Picks come in finger and flat styles. Most guitarists use a flat one. They also come in three different levels of flexibility.

Several professional guitarists have given me the advice of getting the softest, flabbiest pick I can find for learning to keep up with fast strumming. It’s easier on the arm. Flabby picks are harder to use, however, if you are trying to pick out individual strings, as in adding a bass line, or flat-picking.

After some practice with a soft pick, you will probably want to move on to a firmer one. A final guitar playing tip about picks is that the firmest picks make the richest sounds.

4) Here is a guitar playing tip – learn to play arpeggios.

It’s fun, great for old folk songs, and sounds beautiful! You won’t be able to use a pick, though. Finger the chord. Now, pick the bass note of the chord with your thumb. You can use a thumb pick for this, however, it works just fine to use your thumb. You will grow a little callus there which will make it easier.

Now use your index finger to pluck the third string. Next, pluck the second string with your middle finger. And then pluck the top string with your ring finger. You’ve picked four notes.

If you repeat the sequence, giving each note the timing of an eighth note, you will fill a measure of a song written in four/four time. This guitar playing tip will make people sit up and take notice, but it does require practice, and calluses, to play this way. Try playing the strings in different order, and alternate bass strings.

5) A final guitar playing tip involves the chord D.

While playing the D chord, try adding your pinkie finger to the chord at the third fret. This new chord is often called “D-suspended” or “D-sus.” Then play D again. Now try lifting your middle finger so that the top string of the chord is open. And back to D again.

You can do the same thing with the A-chord, but have to do the change on the second string. Up one fret to the third makes A-sus, and you can also lift that finger to go down a step on that second string. C-suspended requires you to go up a half step on the fourth string. G-suspended requires you to do it on the fifth string. Learning suspended chords is a guitar playing tip you’ll find yourself using when you play contemporary songs.

I hope you’ve found these guitar playing tips helpful. It’s important to remember that the best way to improve your guitar playing skills is to practice, practice, practice. Good luck!

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