When beginning to learn to play the Flamenco guitar, it is paramount for you to learn this vital element from the very first, mastering the various types of compas. When you accomplish this feat, it will create within you a deep understanding of the rhythmic nature of Flamenco music. Establish an internal sense of the compas, and the guitar will come alive in your hands; ignore it and your music will languish, losing its emotional power.

Because emotional power is so central to Flamenco music, do not seek only to comprehend the mere theory of the beat structure, accents, and patterns of the music. Rather, seek to possess an inner sense of the music, one that transforms into musical expression through the movements of your hands and fingers, making them a vehicle through which flows the energy and momentum of the music. A true aficionado of Flamenco will always recognize your ability to play the compas strictly, unerringly, and with an inner sense in which you become one with the music. Without this strict attention to compas, any Flamenco master will judge your musicianship to be boring, even if you have a flawless technique and rapid fingers.

This internal oneness with these rhythms might come easily to you. More often, though, you may need to constantly focus on these rhythms’ sound and feeling. Perseverance pays big dividends in learning to play in compas. Absorb as much Flamenco music as you can, through concerts, videos, and recordings.

Rhythmic Forms: Toques

Learn to recognize the various rhythmic forms, called toques, that compose the whole of Flamenco music. Of all the toques, Soleares is the most important. Players must conform strictly to the compas at all times, during both the passages of rhythmic strumming (rasgueo), as well as in the melodic passages (falsetas).

Master two inseparable components, and you will always play in compas. First of all, your rhythm must be regular, compelling–the kind of impetus that compels its listener to move in time to the music. Second, your accentuation of beats and the number of beats that you have in each musical phrase must always fit the characteristic pattern of the particular toque that you are playing. When you have mastered playing in compas, you will be well on your way toward becoming a proficient and passionate Flamenco guitarist.

Los Angeles Guitar Academy Online features online Flamenco guitar lessons as one of its signature programs. Its world-class faculty unpacks the language of Flamenco music, explaining it in an easy-to understand format. Lessons proceed in a step-by-step manner, allowing students to master one concept before moving on to the next. For students who live near Los Angeles, LAGA has studios located throughout the metropolitan LA area.

Guitar Tricks is a guitar learning site for everyone, the beginner as well as the advanced guitarist is sure to benefit greatly from Guitar Tricks.

You can sign up for free with Guitar Tricks, and this way you will have access to 24 online guitar lessons.

Once you have sampled the free lessons, we think you will want to push beyond the sample lessons and begin targeting your own interests with the huge variety of resources found in a full access subscription.

Paid members have access to all of Guitar Tricks resources, among them over 3000 video guitar lessons in many guitar styles, like blues, country, rock or classical guitar lessons.

45 teachers are on the moment teaching at Guitar Tricks, all of them excellent guitar players/teachers with a lot of experience in teaching guitar. Guitar Tricks instructors can do more than play the guitar. The key distinction is that their instructors know how to instruct. Hailing from all around the world, and ranging from touring professionals to college professors, their teachers know how to teach you guitar easily and effortlessly.

With their unique learning process developed over the last decade, they take care of all of the “thinking” part of learning guitar – allowing you to pay attention to playing guitar and having fun. No more flipping through books looking for the DVD or flipping through DVDs looking for the booklet. A full access subscription with Guitar Tricks is the one of the best ways to learn guitar available.

Full Access Subscription with Guitar Tricks

A full access subscription with Guitar Tricks will give you:

The price? Just $14.95 a month

More info or to sign up with Guitar Tricks is available in The Guitar Classroom, at the page for Guitar Tricks

These programs are fronted by professional musicians trained to give you the best tuition possible; many have performed with well known bands. Say goodbye to boring repetitive teaching methods; with the aid of audio, video and the written word these lessons are made to be interesting, easy to understand and most importantly fun.

Learning to play guitar online is really cost effective when compared to the old tutor/pupil model of yesterday, besides fuel and time savings there is the added advantage of being able to take your lessons whenever it suits you. Many programs will get you off to a fine start with free guitar lessons, nothing to pay or commit yourself to and if you decide to move on to the main course later on you will find the cost of the whole course far less than traditional teaching.

When looking for online guitar tuition always take a look at the free beginner lessons no matter what your ability; good guitar programs remain constant in their style of instruction and so the free lessons will give you an insight into their teaching method.

Always take a tour of the website before committing yourself, the program should have a feedback page with comments from pupils both past and present to help in your decision, there will also be an ‘About Us’ page where the instructors will introduce themselves and give some information of their experience and qualifications.

These interactive lessons were put together by musicians and are easy to navigate and understand, if you find yourself unsure of anything just hit replay. You will also be able to contact your instructor by email or live chat.

Being able to learn to play guitar online has many advantages and progress will be quick and straightforward when coupled with that magic ingredient – PRACTICE!

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Download Jayde Musica

Most people I know who play an instrument, guitar or any other instrument, do not know how to read music, or they know just a little. Most of them do not like to learn how to read music, they find it boring, they want to make music, not trying to read a lot of dots on a paper with lots of lines.

Well, learning to read music is boring, but it can be very handy to know how to read music, and for some types of music, for example classical music, is it quiet essential you know how to read music.

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A nice way to learn is a program called Jayde Musica. It is a sort of computer came, and while you play the game, you get better at reading music.

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Anyone who wants to improve his/her music reading should download Jayde Musica and start playing the game, at least once a day, for say half an hour or so. Within a few weeks you will be amazed at how much your music reading has improved.

You can download a simple version of Jayde Musica for free, although it is recommended you get the paid version, which of course has more options. The Guitar Classroom has more info about Jayde Musica

Lear to play the guitar with Jam Play

The number of frets on an electric guitar makes a difference because of scale length. Scale length is the distance from the bridge of a guitar to its nut. If you have two guitars of different scale lengths (a Fender and a Gibson for example), put the same gauge strings on them and tune them to the same pitch you will notice that the Gibson’s strings are looser. The reason for this is that the Gibson’s Scale length is shorter than a Fender’s. Go to a guitar store and check this out for yourself if you want. The scale lengths are different and you will see that their respective scale length affects string tension. Tighter strings can make a guitar more difficult to play and can also affect tone.

If a guitar has an extra two frets then obviously it has a longer scale length. This means that if you have a 24 fret guitar your strings will be tighter relative to what it would have been if you had a 22 fret guitar.

Scale length will also change the position of your pickups along your strings vibrating length. This is important because there is a harmonic at the 24th fret and if you have 22 frets the harmonic sits over the pickups. Many people including myself feel that 22 fret guitars sound better. However, it is also true that many players feel that 24 frets gives a player more flexibility.

I would recommend you try both out for your self and see which one you prefer to play with. There is a trade off between the flexibility of having 24 frets and the tone and playability of 22.

You can learn to play guitar by joining JamPlay or Guitar Tricks they both charge just a small monthly fee, and are excellent online guitar schools. For more info click one of the banners on this page. You could also purchase one of these online guitar lessons

One of the best known guitar learning sites is of course Guitar Tricks. They provide thousands of video guitar lessons for their students, in lots of different styles. Guitar Tricks has 45 guitar teachers, each one with his/her own special guitar style.

Comments About Guitar Tricks

This is what a few of Guitar Tricks students are saying about Guitar Tricks:

“I just wanted to tell you as a 44 year old pro chef who is a beginning guitarist, I just love the guitar tricks website. All of the information has been very insightful, I was able to pickup at least one new trick in the first 5 minutes of looking at the videos on the front page. Thanks for a great learning tool”

“I find Guitar Tricks a treasure trove of goodies on all things guitar. Thanks a lot. I have played classics guitar for 30 yrs and am now embarking on a discovery journey of Country, Blues and Jazz genre. Your site is an eye-opener. I thought I know all there is to guitar playing, now I realize I know not as much.”

“I have never bothered to learn any scales and now I can see how important they really are. I can see just how limited my playing skills are. I play stuff like Sultans of Swing, Hotel California, Free Bird Etc: I have no idea as to how i got to play these songs, not knowing scales, but i have got them down pretty close. If you were to ask me as to why i go to, and play certain notes on the guitar neck, i would tell you i have not got the faintest idea, except that it sounds right to my ear. Pretty silly way of playing guitar don’t you think? Always guessing. Any way thanks for your time and keep up that awesome guitar playing.”

Of course you have to decide for yourself if Guitar Tricks is the guitar school you want to join, that is why The Guitar Classroom has published a few of their lessons on our site. Have a look at a few free guitar lessons from Guitar Tricks

“Just letting you know that I am very pleased with my JamPlay membership. I’m having a lot of fun and learning many new and exciting things about playing guitar. Particularly the Bluegrass with Steve Eulberg and Rock with Brad Henecke lessons. I’ve checked out some other areas too that are equally exciting and I’m planning to really take advantage of this site and all it has to offer.Thanks for making a difference in my playing skills. Thumbs up for JamPlay.”

Video Guitar Lessons From Jamplay

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“Hi;
I have just started the beginner series with jamplay and I have taken lesson one on one in the past but I am enjoying the teacher and the lessons they provide a lot more with jamplay. I find your approach as well as the format very well done and entertaining. The quality of instructors is very good and their approach as well as their teaching methods are great and unintimidating. They make you feel good about where you are and are very encouraging. I am more then satisfied and will definately recommend this site to all the people I know that are looking for quality as well as a fun way to learn how to play.”

“It’s even better than I expected. I put my guitar to one side while I watched through a few of Brad Henecke’s lessons to see what was in store for me (I’ve watched up to lesson 20), and I must say that I’m very impressed. Even just watching Brad play has put plenty of fresh ideas into my head after many years of being ’stuck in a rut’. I’m really looking forward to going over the lessons again properly and rating myself for each lesson. I expect that when my monthly subscription runs out, I’ll be renewing it with a yearly subscription, after all, learning guitar, no matter how experienced you are, is a never-ending process, so it stands to reason that my membership of Jamplay will be never ending.The only complaint I have so far is that Brad Henecke won’t send me that lovely guitar of his! (I’ve already got a Gibson SG Special…but hey…i’m a greedy bastard) All in all…Jamplay rocks! So yeah, I’m very happy with it “

These are just a few comments from guitar players who use the JamPlay site for their online guitar lessons. Visit The Guitar Classroom for more info about JamPlay, or to test a few of there guitar lessons for free, you find them here: free guitar lessons from JamPlay

The answer is not an easy one, The Guitar Classroom does give their visitors the opportunity to join both these guitar learning sites, and with a reason. I feel that JamPlay as well as Guitar Tricks are excellent resources for anyone who is serious about their guitar learning. Both sites have lots of lessons available for the beginner as well as for the more advanced guitarist, and they both offer guitar lessons in many different styles. If you want to play electric guitar, you want to rock, or play heavy metal that is possible with both JamPlay and Guitar Tricks. Maybe you want to play country guitar, or classical guitar, no problem, both sites have the guitar teachers to teach you just that.

Guitar Teachers from JamPlay

Meet a few guitar teachers from JamPlay:

Guitar Teachers from Guitar Tricks

Meet a few guitar teachers from Guitar Tricks:

These are just a few of the guitar teachers that teach at either JamPlay or Guitar Tricks. On the moment JamPlay has 25 guitar teachers, and Guitar Tricks has 45. So which ever site you decide to join, you can be sure there will always be guitar teachers available who are just right for you.

There is not much difference between the two sites by way of cost. A full access subscription from Guitar Tricks cost just $14.95 a month, the same with JamPlay will set you back $19.95 a month, which is a bit more expensive. However, if you know you going to stay with JamPlay for a while, they do have a generous discount if you pay in advance. A yearly subscription cost just $139.95, which works out at about $11.65 a month.

This brings us back to the question what I would do if I wanted to join a guitar learning site. Well, to be honest I do not know, both sites seem to be very good at what they do, teaching you how to play guitar. I think I would join both sites, for one month, and after this month I would decide which site I would keep.

Click the banner to join Jamplay

If you want your guitar to sound good then you need to keep your guitar properly intonated so it is in relative tune to itself. Generally you should check your intonation regularly or so, just to make sure that your guitar is sounding as good as it can. To check your intonation you need a tuner and you should do one string at a time. The procedure for checking your intonation is as follows.

1. Turn on your tuner and tune the string to the right pitch.

2. Strike the 12th fret harmonic; make sure it is tune with the open string. (they should be the same note)

3. Now strike the note at the 12th fret (not the harmonic) all three of these notes should be the same note. If they are, then your intonation if probably fine if not then you could have a serious problem.

If you have a problem with your intonation then you should take your guitar to the nearest guitar store and get a professional to fix it for you.

Are you looking for quality online guitar lessons? Try a membership with Guitar Tricks