Do you know what the difference between you and an advanced guitarist is? Learning the craft of playing the guitar is different from no other. You need to consistently keep working on your skills as ‘creativity knows no bounds.’ Here are a few that you can start with and upscale along the way.
Using chord extensions
Chord extensions are a brilliant method to upgrade your regular chord progressions beyond your usual Maj/Min chords. You can experiment and substitute a few of your standard chord choices with some extended chords to explore more voice-leading possibilities and make your playing experience more interesting.
By mastering how to spice things up using chord extensions, you can surely take the level of your playing a notch up.
Using pedals to play with the tone
The sound of an electric guitar, as it is, is incredible, but when you see a top guitarist performing, there’s a lot more to it instead of just using their fingers to create such remarkable music.
An advanced guitarists would have a ton of distinctive tones in their head that they produce using the pedalboard. They will take assistance from several guitar pedals to modify their tone and add aspects they can’t just with guitar and amp alone. Numerous pedals of various shapes and sizes can help you do a plethora of things, from overdrives and distortions to delays, reverbs, choruses, pitch shifters, and more.
Using the Legato
Legato is a technique where you use your fretting hand to play multiple notes without picking each one. It is commonly associated with playing more notes within a beat than the stated timing. You might be familiar with this as hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. However, maximizing the use of Legato requires a tremendous amount of practice and strength. So, you should be ready to put in the work for this one.
Percussive guitar and alternate tunings
There are certain skills, the possession of which can be invaluable to acoustic guitarists for achieving the maximum rhythmic and melodic freedom. Mastering alternate tunings require significant effort, coordination, and knowledge. But, the ability to tune your open strings to a chord can help you unlock the acoustic guitar’s full potential.
Two hand tapping
This is probably one of the ‘coolest’ techniques to learn on the instrument for all kinds of guitarists. Here, you need to use both your picking and fretting hands, either independently or in conjunction with one another, to hammer on or tap the fretboard in order to sound notes. Learning how to do this right will open up new opportunities for your solo compositions and significantly improve finger speed and coordination.
Hybrid picking
This is a technique where you do the usual picking with a pick with one or more of your fingers alternately or simultaneously. It will allow you to play sounds that would typically require fingerstyle playing. Developing the hybrid picking skill will unlock a unique approach to playing the guitar and the sounds you can produce.
Irrespective of which one of these skills appeals to you, mastering any would greatly amplify the quality of your music and improve all other aspects of guitar playing. These are just a few, and it never hurts to have some additional talents in the bag when you’re performing.
