Beginner Archives - Guitar Confidence

Rex’s Beginner Series for Guitar Enthusiasts

December 20, 2021 by Ravi Singh Leave a Comment

Welcome to Guitar Confidence. I am Rex founder of Guitar Confidence. I receive a lot of emails and phone calls from people who want to learn how to play guitar but are not sure where to start. I have written this blog for people who have always wanted to learn to play guitar but just have not started it yet.

There are many who doubt if they can play guitar, so let me tell you right away that anyone can play guitar. The two most important things needed to learn to play guitar are patience and practice. If you think you can manage that, well then, I can guarantee you that you call to learn to play guitar fluently.

You are not alone when it comes to learning guitar, there are many more out there looking specifically for guitar lessons rather than any other musical instrument lessons. Don’t hesitate to take up your guitar. Listening to the music coming out of a guitar is the easy thing but creating it is the difficult part. Create music and the joy you feel will be priceless. Learn it, play it, and in no time the guitar will become your best friend.

Rex’s Beginner series includes the most important things a beginner would require knowledge to be successful at playing guitar. The Beginner series first, covers the basics like what are the various parts of a guitar, how to tune a guitar, how to hold a guitar, etc. Next, Rex will teach various guitar-playing techniques like how to make first chords, how to strum, and how to play a beginner’s first song.

At the end of the Beginner series, a learner will know the various parts of an acoustic guitar, how to hold, tune, and play important guitar chords, strum the guitar, and combine all these to play his or her first song.

At the end of these online lessons, a guitar learner will have a solid foundation for future guitar playing.

I am Rex and I teach aspirant learners at all levels and ages guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and electric bass for over more than 40 years. I have the experience and confidence to help you discover and hone your guitar skills. If you want to be in a band, I can help you with all you need to know to be in a successful band – I’ve played with many well-known artists and bands. If you want to increase your music reading or writing skills, I can help you here as well. I can also share many tricks of the trade and insights I have gained in touring with bands around the world. If you are looking for guitar lessons in San Ramon, in the convenience of your home then visit guitarconfidence.com.

How to Structure Your Child’s Guitar Practice to Make Practicing More Feasible

October 20, 2019 by Ravi Singh Leave a Comment

Playing the guitar offers a life-time full of fun and learning. Children also benefit from learning how to play the guitar. Playing the guitar while young enhances the development of cognition skills. That can be carried over to school plus achieving greater success in other aspects of a child’s life. However, some parents fail to create a feasible guitar-practicing timetable. Consequently, this makes it hard for children to enjoy practicing how to play the guitar. In this article, we aim to help parents with the best approaches to ensuring that children remain motivated and focused while practicing.

Start with the basics

This will start with choosing the right guitar for your child. The market has a variety of guitar sizes to fit smaller bodies. For instance, quarter size, half size, and three quarter size guitars are a great match for children between the ages of four to eleven years. Full size may be suitable for children above the age of twelve years. Notably, getting the wrong guitar size may cause pain in the hands and arms. That may lead to significant frustration and the child will start avoiding the guitar practice sessions.

Get a teacher for your child

Getting the best guitar teacher can propel your child in developing the right attitude towards practice. Besides, teachers have a special way of making learners grasp concepts faster and swiftly than when leaning alone. The guitar teacher will understand your child’s weaknesses and strive to look for viable remedies. Be assured that lessons with a teacher will remain interesting and fun. The teacher will also choose interesting songs to keep practice vibrant and challenging songs to improve playing skills.

Motivate your child to Practice

Keeping a child motivated is one of the greatest hurdles you can ever encounter as a parent. This is a challenge that you will need to overcome for fruitful guitar practicing of a child. However, there are ploys you can use to support your child to avoid struggles and stress that can easily step in. It would be better to refrain from making your child feel as though practicing is a punishment. Encourage your child to practice as many times as possible to obtain flawlessness. More practice will help in developing dexterity, fine motor skills, and hand strength.

Timing and Length of the practice session

Children are less likely to recognize the long-term gains they will acquire from their efforts in anything they do. It would be best for a parent to remind a child about the benefits of persistence. Make the practice sessions more appropriate. Do not make the sessions too short or too long. Additionally, avoiding periods that the child is very tired will also prove to be helpful. Note that a practice session that kicks off with learning and ends with success is highly worthwhile and motivating to a child.

Make a collection of videos

One of the best and effective ways to engage kids is making short videos for learning purposes. They can easily copy the moves or recall what was learned during a lesson. You can get short videos with teachers showing simple strumming moves. This can go a long way in enhancing the practice of the right playing techniques.

Things a Guitarist or a Beginner Should Know

February 23, 2018 by Mark Leave a Comment

People around the world believe that owning talent alone is enough to guarantee a musician success in the music business. Nothing could be further from the truth. In a faultless world, the best musicians the best guitarists would be thoroughly rewarded for their capabilities. However, the business of music is far from perfect and to achieve success you have to practice day in and day out to stay competitive.

Talent is the most important thing for any artist, but whether you are a fingerpicker or a two handed tapper, in order to continue your musical journey, you have to distinguish yourself from rest of the world. You do not have to be a Jimi Hendrix at the beginning of your guitar playing stage, just learn the basics and be good at what you are learning. To be a good guitarist you don’t have to compete with each and every guitarist in this planet, you just have one competitor to compete with and that one competitor is yourself. Compete with yourself, try to be better than yesterday and I bet you will be better than the best.

Some of the basic things which you should know when you run your fingers across those strings of a guitar, things that probably no one would have told you when you start learning guitar or as a matter of fact if you are a guitarist so that you can be good at it.

Feel good about your guitar as your guitar is your asset, respect your guitar, and treat it like your friend. Let’s face it if you don’t feel good or don’t have the passion for doing something you will always fail. So, feel good about your step forward towards music, love it, feel it and be passionate about playing guitar. This would help you to lock in with the rhythm section and produce a track that grooves. Pay attention to the legendary guitarists to absorb how grooves should be played, everyone from rock Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love to blues shuffle Pride and Joy by Vaughan to Sex Machine by Brown. Practice, practice and practice to make yourself perfect, remember you are your toughest competitor.

Pay attention when you listen to guitar as this is one of the most important areas which you should develop if you want to be successful. Great legendary guitarist had already done half of the things for you so all you have to do is listen to their guitar. Also, if you are already a stage performer or if you are in the studio, do not just be in your own world, try to listen and engage with the other musicians you are working with. React to what they are playing.

Practice, practice and practice, well everyone says it but this is the best way to learn guitar. Hard work always pays off. Only practice can make you better, can make you perfect. And there is no right or wrong time or place to practice, if you feel like practicing at mid-night then practice at that time don’t stop your inner you, but make sure you don’t wake your neighbours.

These are my all from my own personal experience; I learnt to play guitar on an acoustic guitar. I have over 40 years of experience as a musician, music instructor, arranger and performing artist. If you want to add guitar to your life by learning to play, then just visit my website guitarconfidence.com and give me a call. I have been doing mobile guitar lessons for many years. I will come to your home and give you private guitar lessons at your home. Guitar Confidence covers over 30 cities in the East Bay and South Bay areas; including Danville, San Ramon, Dublin & Pleasanton.

Best Guitars For Beginners | Guitar Confidence

October 22, 2017 by Ravi Singh Leave a Comment

Picking your first guitar isn’t a simple undertaking, and it merits taking as much time as necessary. Your new guitar ought to be something you’re totally content with, never sufficiently enough.

Being prepared for your trip to the guitar shop, and getting a good idea of what to look for when you get there, will go a long way in minimizing your chance of error.

To start with, for any beginner it’s important to know about the types of guitar, there are mainly three variations:

Classical Guitar (Nylon String)
Acoustic Guitar (Steel String)
Electric Guitar

Here is a small description of all the above Guitar variations,

Classical Guitar:

Mostly made of Nylon strings, gentle on fingers
Ideal for young children
Not loud as acoustic, sounds soft and mellow
Smaller in size compared to the other two variations

Acoustic Guitar:

Made of steel strings, can be stressful for the fingers
Sounds bright and loud. Ideally, suits strumming chords
Lighter compared to the other Guitars, but bulky
Ideal for slow rock, pop-folk music

Electric Guitar:

Made of steel strings, can be stressful for the fingers
Little heavy depending on the model
Smaller in size
Ideal for Pop, rock, metal and country music

Now, let’s throw some light on few of the important considerations to be made while choosing the right guitar,

Choose a Guitar which is easy to play: Guitars with stronger steel strings can be deterrent to practicing. The reason for this is that the steel strings can be sharp on untrained fingers. Nylon string guitars are great for beginners as they are good for fingerpicking rather than strumming chords.
Choose a Guitar with Solid wood: Guitar with the best wood quality or solid body will have a tremendous acoustic capability, and every note that you play will sustain as desired producing a boomy lush sound usually built in high-quality guitars.
Choose the right sized guitar: A guitar which is too large will make it difficult especially for children to make the proper reach with both the hands. Guitar Neck angles that are too far forward or backward will tend to develop adjustment problems.
Choose a guitar with a finish and color you enjoy: The visually appealing guitar can immensely contribute to your motivation. So, go for choosing a guitar which is also eye catchy that interests you the most.

Another thing to notice is there are guitars made to suit different age groups like for children, Teens, Adults, Experts or seniors. So, be wise and don’t forget to keep this in mind before choosing the best guitar.

Here are some of the recommendations:

Electric:

Yamaha Pacifica PAC112V
Yamaha Gigmaker
Ibanez Metal Jumpstart package
Ibanez RG2EX1 Electric Guitar

Acoustic:

Seagull S6
Yamaha FG700S

Classical:

Artist CL34 ¾ Size
Artist CL44SPKAM Ultimate Beginner Classical guitar

Summary:

Buy a comfortable guitar with the best sound
Buy a guitar which suits your personality & taste
Buy a guitar with comfortable strings
Buy a guitar with solid wood quality
Get a guitar whose strings stay tuned
Buy a guitar with support materials
Play songs you like & practice hard

Want to know more about Electric Guitar? Or want to learn how to play guitar? Then visit GuitarConfidence.com, enroll yourself and learn to play guitar!

Guitar Confidence provides private in-home guitar lessons throughout the East Bay including Benicia, Berkeley, Clayton, Concord, Crocket, Danville, Dublin, Fairfield, Hercules, Lafayette, Livermore, Martinez, Moraga, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Pleasanton, San Ramon, Vallejo, & Walnut Creek, CA.

FREE Guitar Lesson in San Ramon!

April 4, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

Get your first guitar lesson free in San Ramon CA

“I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.” – Jimmy Page

Are you planning to learn guitar in San Ramon but do not have the time to visit guitar music center for lessons? Well that is not a problem anymore, if you reside in San Ramon, you can get your guitar classes at the comfort of your home. And guess what you will get your first guitar lesson absolutely free!

My name is Rex Bell and I am the founder of Guitar Confidence which provides mobile guitar lessons. I will come to you to give you personal one-on-one lessons in the privacy of your own home. Guitar Confidence covers Dublin, San Ramon, Pleasanton, Livermore and all cities in east and south bay.

Decades ago, playing any form of musical instrument was considered an important part of a person’s basic education. But by the early twenty-first century electronic diversions like music-playback machines and video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band series, made the effort of mastering an actual musical instrument somewhat less appealing. However, this has not deterred people in San Ramon from leaning their favorite musical instrument. Even today, people try to find the little time which they can out of their busy schedule to learn their favorite musical instrument. Thinking of learning a musical instrument is sort of like a bucket list item. Sadly, most often these items stay hidden in the bucket. Possibly you may have got yourself a guitar thinking to learn how to play it and noodled around on it for a few days, before placing it back in the closet (bucket list collection site). But, now longer have to hold back that guitarist inside you as we will come to your San Ramon home to help set that inner-guitarist free.

Guitar Confidence provides you the opportunity to get the guitar out of your closet and start learning this wonderful musical instrument in the comfort of your home or office in San Ramon. Our private in-home classes will save your time and you don’t have to think about losing your time commuting to and from the musical academy. Isn’t that cool!

So what you have to do to get started? It’s simple, just click on the big red button on the top right of this screen.

Whether you just want to play for pleasure, or want to learn guitar I can help you with your dream and provide you with one to one tuition in the comfort of your own house. I have over 40 years of experience as a musician, music instructor, arranger and performing artist. I have been a guitarist in San Francisco Bay Area and New York City recording and performing with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr., Paul Simon, Michael Jackson, Wild Cherry, The Drifters, Tammy Wynette, Jackson Brown, The Pointer Sisters, Tower of Power and many others. I have designed a specific guitar teaching system for a beginner which is different form how I teach intermediate and accomplished guitar players.

Guitar Confidence covers over 30 cities in the East Bay and South Bay areas; including Benicia, Berkeley, Clayton, Concord, Crocket, Danville, Dublin, Fairfield, Hercules, Lafayette, Livermore, Martinez, Moraga, Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Pleasanton, San Ramon, Vallejo, & Walnut Creek, CA.

So what are you thinking about! Get your guitar out, start practicing it today and discover a new you!

Call NOW to book your FREE guitar lesson in San Ramon CA

(925) 695-7060

Guitar Lesson 02 – Naming the Notes

April 20, 2015 by Mark Leave a Comment

Master guitar instructor Rex – naming notes on bottom guitar string.

Rex, owner of Guitar confidence takes you through full steps and half steps on the bottom (top) guitar string. Guitar Confidence comes to your home for private guitar lessons in Pleasanton, Danville, San Ramon, Dublin and Livermore, CA

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Guitar Lesson 01 – Naming the Parts of the Guitar

April 20, 2015 by Mark Leave a Comment

Master guitar instructor Rex discusses the different parts of the guitar.

Rex – guitar, banjo and mandolin lessons – Dublin, San Ramon, Pleasanton, Livermore CA. In this guitar lesson for beginning guitar students , Rex talks guitar – from the guitar head and neck to the guitar’s body parts and strings.

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Picking the Right Guitar for YOU

February 3, 2015 by Jesse Deol Leave a Comment

Don’t take a Banjo or Uke to a Guitar Shredding Fest

So you’ve decided you want to play? The next step is finding the right guitar for you. There are a couple of things you should consider before deciding on your purchase. For example:

Choose the type of guitar that interests you most so you’re passionate and motivated to play. Don’t pick up an electric guitar if your heart is set on a bass.
Get the right size. Especially if you are shopping for a child; something too large can make it physically impossible to reach the correct frets or strings.
Don’t buy the cheapest guitar you can find. You will get what you pay for, so it’s not a good choice if you’re really dedicated to becoming a good musician. Also look out for guitar packages that offer a plethora of items at an incredibly low price.
The name brand guitars are not always the best. I would recommend reading reviews – sometimes reviewers can address the same issues you may be concerned about.
Select the style and colour of your choice. Self-explanatory.
Do your research! These are just a few quick tips, but if you want the perfect guitar, it will require some research. Hey, nothing worth having is ever easy, right?

Call (925) 695-7060