Saturday, 19 February 2011
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
VariGrip
Whether you want to build dexterous, resilient fingers for hours of guitar wizardry, guitar hero wizardry or if you're just looking to strangle a lot of people with your bare hands, the Planet Waves Varigrip Adjustable Hand Exerciser will get your digits in top form.
The Varigrip conditions your fingers, hand, wrist and forearm with adjustable tension and even simulated strings to keep your fingers in playing shape even when you're away from your guitar. Set tension from light to hard individually for each finish, so if you've got weak pinkies, build them up to snuff.
You can perform these exercises with the Varigrip:
- Palm to Tip: Strengthens forearm, wrist, and hand muscles. Practicing scale pattern will build speed and dexterity
- Thumb to tip: Builds individual finger strength along with forearm muscles. Practicing scale patterns will build speed and dexterity
- Thumb Squeeze: Strengthens thumb-area muscles while increasing endurance
- Fist Grip: Strengthens and increases endurance of entire hand and forearm muscles
- Chord Press: Builds endurance in the thumb and forearm for chord playing. Great for beginners learning bar chords
- Callus Builder: Flip the rubber palm grip to piston side of the Varigrip to expose the simulated strings. Use the palm to tip, thumb to tip, or chord press exercises to build and maintain calluses while building muscle strength and endurance
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
String care
Its an important and often overlooked subject. The guitar is a sensitive instrument but the strings are also to be cared for.
Over time grime builds up over and under the strings and they begin to rust, just as you would wash your hands on a regular basis - you also need to clean your strings on a regular basis.
A simple rule of thumb: clean your strings after each practice session and change your strings on a regular basis.
Q: how often do I change my strings?
A: that all depends on the use of the guitar, if you are a heavy user change them each fortnight like I do, if you are a low to medium user once a month should be fine.
Q: What do I clean my strings with?
A: I use both of these to clean my strings
and the swipe its a great product and is chemical free.
Q: How will I know my strings need changing?
A: your strings will generally sound dull, the 1st string is usually my tester string. Pinch the string and run your index finger and thumb along the string. If it feels course or uneven or generally unclean - its time for a change!
Q: what strings do you recommend?
A: every one is different but the strings that I tend to have used most over the years are Ernie Balls for the electric and I like Martin for the Acoustic. There are tonnes of strings out there and each brand has its own merits.
Start off with these two and you wont go far wrong!
For the electric guitar
For the acoustic
Q: Where do you buy your strings and cleaners from?
A: Online! why would I spend £5-£6 when I can spend £3-£4 for the same product. I buy from Amazon, I have provided the link above which will take you direct.
Q: How do you cut the strings and fit them?
A: You can manually loosen the strings off with the tuning peg one by one and then feed the string through the bridge of the guitar, however this is time consuming, I slacken the string off then cut it using the below tool, it is also a saving grace when putting the strings back on as it takes the pressure off endlessly winding the string by hand.
Q: Any tips on changing the guitar strings?
A: Yes! Here is an article I produced in the summer:
Use the winder to loosen off the strings one by one. when the string is loosened enough it will be easy to take from the nut on the head stock and feed the string from the rear of the guitar via the bridge.
Notice how the nut of the string comes out first? This is the part that holds the string in place on the bridge.
Once you have removed all of the strings from the guitar, wind them up and discard them into the plastic bag – NB make sure none of them have dropped on the floor, it is very painful if you stand on one and it pierces the skin!!
Next use your antibacterial wipe to give the guitar a good clean around the scratch plate and pick ups and the neck and fret board, avoid touching the magnetic parts of the pick up or anything metal with the antibacterial wipe. Note that I take all of the strings off in order to give the guitar a good clean.
Now it is time to open up your new strings and lay them out on the work surface (in my case the sofa!)
You will Notice that the Ernie Ball strings are all in individual paper folders which are numbered according to their thickness.
Select the string labeled 10 (if buying the electric guitar strings above) and feed it through the back of the bridge in the place of string one (the thinnest string) the nut of the string wants to be the last thing to go.
The nut will stop the string from going any further and has attached the string tight.
If the bridge is not aligned with the holes on the back of the guitar you can use the tremolo bar to align the two together to aid the string going through the gap
Feed the string over the bridge saddle
Next feed the string through the gap in the nut at the top of the neck and then insert through the hole in the machine head
pull tight, then loosen off the string just enough to wrap around the machine head once, hold the loop and wind with your winder.
As you can see all of my strings are wound the same way, making for easier tuning. If you wrap it round clockwise on the initial wind as above the string should fall to the right as illustrated. Turn the tuning peg anticlockwise to tighten.
The String winder will on average save you about 30 minutes per string change and alot of frustration as tightening by hand is a lengthy process.
Once you have secured your top e string , the process with the other five strings, remember they are numbered for your ease of use. Next is the 013 gauge string the b string and follow this process until all 6 strings have been secured.
Spot check: are all the strings wound the same way? Are all the strings fed through the guides on the nuts of the bridge and the nuts of the neck?
Good!! now it is time to snip the ends of the strings off to tidy up the appearance of the guitar and avoid poked eyes!
Over time grime builds up over and under the strings and they begin to rust, just as you would wash your hands on a regular basis - you also need to clean your strings on a regular basis.
A simple rule of thumb: clean your strings after each practice session and change your strings on a regular basis.
Q: how often do I change my strings?
A: that all depends on the use of the guitar, if you are a heavy user change them each fortnight like I do, if you are a low to medium user once a month should be fine.
Q: What do I clean my strings with?
A: I use both of these to clean my strings
and the swipe its a great product and is chemical free.
A: your strings will generally sound dull, the 1st string is usually my tester string. Pinch the string and run your index finger and thumb along the string. If it feels course or uneven or generally unclean - its time for a change!
Q: what strings do you recommend?
A: every one is different but the strings that I tend to have used most over the years are Ernie Balls for the electric and I like Martin for the Acoustic. There are tonnes of strings out there and each brand has its own merits.
Start off with these two and you wont go far wrong!
For the electric guitar
For the acoustic
Q: Where do you buy your strings and cleaners from?
A: Online! why would I spend £5-£6 when I can spend £3-£4 for the same product. I buy from Amazon, I have provided the link above which will take you direct.
Q: How do you cut the strings and fit them?
A: You can manually loosen the strings off with the tuning peg one by one and then feed the string through the bridge of the guitar, however this is time consuming, I slacken the string off then cut it using the below tool, it is also a saving grace when putting the strings back on as it takes the pressure off endlessly winding the string by hand.
Q: Any tips on changing the guitar strings?
A: Yes! Here is an article I produced in the summer:
Guitar Strings Change
string change
Once you have removed all of the strings from the guitar, wind them up and discard them into the plastic bag – NB make sure none of them have dropped on the floor, it is very painful if you stand on one and it pierces the skin!!
Next use your antibacterial wipe to give the guitar a good clean around the scratch plate and pick ups and the neck and fret board, avoid touching the magnetic parts of the pick up or anything metal with the antibacterial wipe. Note that I take all of the strings off in order to give the guitar a good clean.
Now it is time to open up your new strings and lay them out on the work surface (in my case the sofa!)
Guitar strings
Guitar strings
string change
If the bridge is not aligned with the holes on the back of the guitar you can use the tremolo bar to align the two together to aid the string going through the gap
Feed the string over the bridge saddle
Next feed the string through the gap in the nut at the top of the neck and then insert through the hole in the machine head
pull tight, then loosen off the string just enough to wrap around the machine head once, hold the loop and wind with your winder.
As you can see all of my strings are wound the same way, making for easier tuning. If you wrap it round clockwise on the initial wind as above the string should fall to the right as illustrated. Turn the tuning peg anticlockwise to tighten.
The String winder will on average save you about 30 minutes per string change and alot of frustration as tightening by hand is a lengthy process.
Once you have secured your top e string , the process with the other five strings, remember they are numbered for your ease of use. Next is the 013 gauge string the b string and follow this process until all 6 strings have been secured.
Spot check: are all the strings wound the same way? Are all the strings fed through the guides on the nuts of the bridge and the nuts of the neck?
Good!! now it is time to snip the ends of the strings off to tidy up the appearance of the guitar and avoid poked eyes!
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Guitar Cases
Here is a selection of guitar cases
Above for a dreadnought acoustic guitar.
Above: for a regular acoustic guitar.
Above: for a single cutaway acoustic guitar
Above: a gig bag for acoustic guitar
Above: electric guitar case
for guitar lessons in nottingham visit www.eventstudiosnottingham.co.uk
Above for a dreadnought acoustic guitar.
Above: for a regular acoustic guitar.
Above: for a single cutaway acoustic guitar
Above: a gig bag for acoustic guitar
Above: electric guitar case
for guitar lessons in nottingham visit www.eventstudiosnottingham.co.uk
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
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