Acoustic Guitar

Tony Hogan Acoustic Guitar Blogs

2009-05-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

I have noticed major changes n Google Search within the last few hours and thought I'd let my readers know about it. My other acoustic guitar blogs are at Acoustic Guitarist and The Guitar Player

Acoustic Blues Guitar Lightning Hopkins

2009-04-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

This Acoustic Blues Guitar Video is of Lightning Hopkins. It's a simple blues but it shows how it does not matter whether music is complex or not; what IS important is that the personality of the musician is expressed. If many other players were to play the same notes and chords and would not necessarily be of the same quality because you can't buy or practice the hidden elements of music, it is the inbuilt nature of the musician which really counts.

For some brilliant and and inspiring acoustic guitar go to:

Acoustic Guitarist Website and

The Acoustic Guitar Player

for Electric Guitar go to:

Electric Guitarist

Tony Hogan

Acoustic Guitar Blogs 250,000 Visitors

2009-02-25T22:53:00.000-08:00

That's me Tony Hogan on the left playing a guitar break on my semi acoustic guitar with the very cool Jazz Blues vocalist Karen Brown

It was only a year ago that I set up a series of test blogs to see how powerful blogging is, and I find this quite extraordinary. My two Wordpress Acoustic Guitar Blogs have now gone way past my wildest dreams and are heading towards a quarter of a million visitors.

Admittedly I know my stuff, I have had almost 40 years on the guitar plus I teach Web Development for a living.

If you'd like to see examples of Guitar blogs that actually function well, are maintained and have relevant information go thee now

acousticguitarist.wordpress.com and the-guitarplayer.com

One major difference is that I play guitar and am not just marketing blog trying to trade off other peoples skills.

Lightning HopkinsYoutube Guitar Video

2009-01-06T03:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a great old blues guitar youtube from 1962 of Lightning Hopkins playing acoustic guitar.

For other youtube videos visit the worlds best acoustic guitar blogs at

Acoustic Guitarist and The Guitar Player

Acoustic Guitar Web Sites

2008-08-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

This beautiful Guitar is made by Linda Manzer

Of late I've been writing mainly for my other two blogs.

Both my other guitar blogs now have a whole lot of guitar videos of acoustic guitar players of all styles, players that you may know, like Keith Richards on Acoustic Guitar, or Jimmy Page doing acoustic tunes off the Led Zeppelin 3 album. Plus some of the greats like John McLaughlin, and numerous players that are newer on the scene such as Andy mcKee, Phil Keaggy.

The guitar sites are educational with TAB and notation of Blues Scales, as well as lots of ideas to get your playing going. I've written a few hundred articles and they are designed to help players reach a greater level of musicality.

Ok, so what's different about my sites?

After playing for almost 40 years, I've watch the development of contemorary music and how it has been influenced by various styles, while this has been happening I have been learning, teaching, performing, recording , I haven't stayed still, I have continued to learn and am willing to share with others and make their journey through the musical maze faster. So other players can reach the standards they aspire to.

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/

http://the-guitarplayer.com/

Guitar news

2008-04-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

I've been working lately developing good resources for guitar players wtiting tabs and notation on how to play country blues scales, some alternative blues chords and scales in the key of E and A.

I've also uploaded a few guitar recordings at www.acousticguitarist.wordpress.com and also www.the-guitarplayer.com

If you are interested in improving your playing you will find numerous documents in both open and normal tuning.

The tunings used are standard with a dropped D, DADGAD, CGCGCF

DADGAD D scale TAB Notation

2008-01-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

I've added a DADGAD scale at the-guitarplayer.com

It's a standard D major scale. It's in TAB and notation including the guitar fingering

Guitar Blog - how to upload an image

2007-12-18T00:49:00.001-08:00

BLOGGER UPLOAD PROCEDURE

I put this article up because a number of people wanted to know hoew to upload an image to blogger

Click on add image icon

Browse to image

Click ‘Open’Click on ‘upload image’ button

Click on 'Done'

Make sure you are in ‘Compose’ view, else you will just see the script

The image should be there

Be aware of file naming conventions.

Use underscore acoustic_guitar.jpg or

Camel case AcousticGuitar.jpg.

You'll find the latest DADGAD Scale update at the-guitarplayer.com free tab and guitar notation

Guitar Blog A Blues Scale and C Country scale

2007-10-28T20:56:00.001-07:00

A blues scale - for the printable version go to

www.the-guitarplayer.com/

to find out how to use it and for other scales and guitar information

Guitar Blog Free Tab E Blues scale

2007-10-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a free tab and music notation of an E Blues scale over 3 octaves.

I have used the open strings intentionally because it sounds very nice on acoustic guitar.

For the printable version go to www.the-guitarplayer.com/

DADGAD COUNTRY BLUES SCALE

2007-10-24T04:36:00.000-07:00

The DADGAD Country Blues scale that I've uploaded is available at www.the-guitarplayer.com/ in pdf format . This is what I refer to as a country blues scale. It is basically a B minor Blues scale but is very useable over a common chord pattern pattern in D suc as D , G A7 etc.

I have put a few musical twists in it instead of just having an ascending then descending to make it more musical to play

There are also other DADGAD tabs for downloading at www.the-guitarplayer.com/

Guitar DADGAD - scales

2007-10-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

Guitar Blog latest news. For Acoustic and also electric guitarists.

I've been on holidays from this guitar blog for a while.

I have been concentrating on my other two blogs and testing TAB and music notation software.

For a DADGAD blues scale with interesting fingering go to www.acousticguitarist.wordpress.com

And no doubt you want something else a little unusual and inspiring, go to www.the-guitarplayer.com , there you will find a DADGAD eastern scale.

Both of the DADGAD scales are in simple printable Acrobat Reader .pdf formats.

The Bardo for Joshua mp3 is still available at
http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/the-bardo-dedicated-to-joshua/#comments

a new acoustic guitar and blog

2007-10-09T06:20:00.000-07:00

a new guitar and blog

for the past few weeks I've been working towards creating a blog that was installed and hosted on a web hosting service . My reason for doing this was so I could create a lot more content and haave a bit more control over it. After numerous bugs and workarounds it's finally up and running.

My additional acoustic guitar blog/site is now at http://www.the-guitarplayer.com/ the first post is about a number of acoustic guitars that I tried and liked and which one I eventually purchased. It plays beautifully. The article covers why I chose the particular guitar and why I did so, and a few of the things I liked.

This blog will updated in the near future , now that I have a bit more time on my hands

Acoustic guitarist update

2007-10-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

The lastest update at my other blog is

What makes a good guitar player? - version two, can be found at

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/what-makes-a-good-guitar-player-version-2/

What makes a good guitar player? - version one, can be found at

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/what-makes-a-good-guitar-player/

Acoustic Guitar Blog Overview

2007-10-02T02:41:00.000-07:00

The Acoustic Guitarist blog at http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/ is the blog that I have been developing lately.

Recent posts include:

Fantastic woman acoustic guitar players

How to play a song your way

What makes a good guitar player

And most importantly for me:

A beautiful haunting acoustic guitar piece inspired by the passing of my son:

It's in mp3 format and can be downloaded at

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/the-bardo-dedicated-to-joshua/

I've spent the last couple of days organizing a new guitar to work with and it arrives on thursday...so if I'm never seen again...try the himalayas, sitting in a boat in a lake somewhere

The Fretboard - high E string

2007-09-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

The final string on the guitar is the top or high E string.

Note: it is the same as the 6th string

It is named high E because it is high in pitch. And it's the top E because of the way it sounds, but really it's closest to your toes.

The notes are:

E---F---F#---G---G#--A---A#---B---C---C#---

If you follow the sequence through, when you reach the 12th fret you'll be at E again

acoustic guitar mp3

2007-09-26T03:16:00.004-07:00

I recently uploaded a sample of my guitar playing. To access it and read the history about why this tune was written go to the following link.

http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/2007/09/27/the-bardo-dedicated-to-joshua/

Regards Tony Hogan

The Fretboard - B String

2007-09-26T03:16:00.003-07:00

The second string of the guitar is the B string

The notes are:

B---C---C#---D---D#---E---F---F#---G---G#

And you'd realise we recycle back to A after the G sharp

Guitar fretboard tutorial

2007-09-26T03:16:00.002-07:00

I have uploaded a guitar fretboard tutorial at http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/ .

It is a compilation of the material posted to this blog.

Feel free to download it. There will be many others in the future.

Acoustic guitar blog

2007-09-26T03:16:00.001-07:00

For information on the emotional side of music, go to http://acousticguitarist.wordpress.com/

I will be publishing a complete doc soon that summarises all the posts of this blog.

Acoustic Guitar Fretboard

2007-09-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

You can learn the guitar fretboard in a very short period of time. It's quite simple really.

The reason people often have difficulty in learning is because they:

Can't see the big picture and

Don't break things down into manageble chunks

An example of the BIG picture in relation to the fretboard is 'The same notes are repeated over and over and over'

The manageable chunks are 'There are only six strings to learn' = one a day for 6 days

So let's look at one of the manageble chunks.

In music you only need to know a small section of the alphabet A B C D E F G

The lowest sounding string on a guitar is generally tuned to E

If we were only using ABCDEFG and were going from A to B to C to D etc the sound would be getting a little higher. Don't worry too much about the detail, just try and get an overview.

And again if we were only using ABCDEFG and were going from G to F to E to D etc the sound would be getting a bit lower, not much just a little.

So the first thing you need to master is the letters of the alphabet A B C D E F G and what will be extremely useful for the future is to learn those 6 letters backwards. G F E D C B A

So there are two simple things to learn:

There are only 7 letters of the alphabet to learn
It's useful to learn them backwards

NOTE: I will be adding to this post very shortly. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of this information if you are a good player already, over a period of time I'll be explaining

--- How to use Jazz improvisation to enhance your playing acoustic blues and other styles.

--- And also some interesting things like how to integrate aspects of Indian music into your playing.

--- How to play open tuning guitar, DADGAD is great but it's only the beginning

The foundation of your music needs to be firm to be able to develop into a balanced musician / guitar player. If you are like me, you'll still want to play guitar in 20 years and will be eternally fascinated by the potential of the guitar and other instruments that the guitar will no doubt morph into.

Acoustic Guitar Fretboard - G string

2007-09-06T02:33:00.007-07:00

LEARN THE NOTES ON THE NECK - G

The third string of the guitar is the G string

I'll repeat the music mantra:

THERE ARE NO SHARPS OR FLATS BETWEEN B and C

THERE ARE NO SHARPS OR FLATS BETWEEN E and F

The notes on the G string are:

G---G#---A---A#---B---C---C#---D---D#

And also as before, we are only working with SHARPS (#) and forgetting flats.

So you'd guess the next one, yes? E

Once you know just one note, you can systematically identify any note on the fretboard

FRETBOARD the D STRING

2007-09-06T02:33:00.006-07:00

LEARN THE NOTES ON THE NECK - D String

For some mysterious reason a lot of music teachers like to do things the hard way. I can't quite work out why, maybe it's because they pride themselves on the intellect. There's a very good American Singer Guitarist called David Wilcox who plays a lot of very nice open tunings on his guitar, he uses capos and half capos. David once made a qoute, from memory I think it was in the excellent Acoustic Guitar magazine, it went something like " I had one Classical Guitar lesson and the teacher put the fear of music into me, I never went back".

Now, it's important to note hear that I'm not knocking Classical Guitar, I am very fond of the music of Narcisco Yepes and Julian Bream and am in awe of Bach. My issue is about the attitude of some music teachers being a bit snobby about other players if they don't play the same style or don't have the theory thing together.

I also am very much for guitar players the training themselves in music theory, because it's great tool to have to be able to communicate with non guitar players. The introduction of TAB is a blessing, especially for working with open tuning. The issue with tab is that the bad TAB leaves out the timing. The TAB I prefer is like what I've seen in the Bluegrass players Steve Kauffman's books. When you read it, you don't necessarily need to have heard the tune to play it.

So now I'll continue with my fretboard tutorial.

The 4th string, as you may know is the D string. And it's important to remember that when we number the strings, the 1st string is closest to the toes.

As we are continuing it's important to remember the rules don't change.

THERE ARE NO SHARPS OR FLATS BETWEEN E and F

our notes are::

D---D#---E---F---F#---G---G#---A---A#

And also as before, we are only working with SHARPS (#) and forgetting flats. By doing this it's easier to see the sequence of notes.

FRETBOARD the A STRING

2007-09-06T02:33:00.005-07:00

LEARN THE NOTES ON THE NECK - A String

After reading the last couple of posts you’ll know the seven letters of the alphabet used in music are ABCDEFG and I'll assume you’ll know them backwards – GFEDCBA

Now we’ll go to the next string, the A string, the second lowest sounding string.

The principles are the same right throughout music. As in the previous post about the E string we’ll only use sharps at the moment.

The notes on the A string are:

A --- A sharp --- B ---C --- C sharp --- D --- D sharp --- E ---F

So if you complete this tomorrow by the end of the day, you would have mastered the first 8 frets on 2 strings

One day at a time, one string, that’s enough for today.

Acoustic guitar site

2007-09-06T02:33:00.003-07:00

The acoustic guitar site is now up and running. This is the first in a series of sites that will relate to the guitar, in this case acoustic . This and the other sites will be developed to eventually cover all aspects of the guitar. Fretboard , technique, scales, theory, tab, reading music and all aspects of the acoustic and electric.

TH

FRETBOARD E STRING

2007-09-06T02:33:00.002-07:00

GUITAR PLAYERS - LEARN THE NOTES ON THE NECK - E String

To summarize the last two Blogs:

There are only 7 letters of the alphabet to learn - ABCDEFG
It’s good to know them back to front – GFEDBA
Between B and C and also between E and F there are no SHARPS or FLATS
A SHARP note is one note closer to the sound hole
A FLAT is one note closer to the tuning pegs

Now let’s put that in to practice

The lowest sounding string is an E string …Yes?

So if we apply the information written above we can start naming the notes as we work our way up the neck, and to keep it simple for the moment we’ll forget FLATS exist:

E---- F---- F sharp ---- G ---- G sharp ----A ---- A sharp ----- B---- C

We’ve just completed the first 8 frets of the guitar.

One day at a time, one string, that’s enough for to day.

More tomorrow

If you want to read my other blog that deals with the emotional side of music,

go to acousticguitarist@wordpress.com

ACOUSTIC GUITAR MADE EASY

2007-09-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

The Acoustic Guitar Fretboard, making sense of it is easy.

I’ll assume that you’ve read my previous post Acoustic Guitar Fretboard, if not please read it to make better sense of this post.

You’ll notice I've barely even mentioned the guitar so far. Why not?
Well, it’s the same as learning to read a language, you need to learn the components, “the letters” first.

What I‘ve noticed is that many self taught guitarists don’t see the pattern of notes as they move up the fretboard, “ABCDEFG”. Maybe the confusion came about because of a misunderstanding about sharps and flats and / or a music teacher told them, “ Every good boy deserves fruit”, no wonder music students are confused. I was discussing this issue with my good friend the guitar great (the late) Ike Isaacs about 25 years ago, and we both decided that it should be outlawed as it is quite nonsensical and is really a hinderence to the learning process.

To put it simply:

a Sharp is ONE NOTE HIGHER, up one fret on the guitar
a Flat is ONE NOTE LOWER, one fret down the neck closer to the tuning pegs.

The rule is:
There are no sharps or flats between B and C
There are NO sharps or flats between E and F

This means there are sharps and flats between all the other notes
A and B
C and D
F and G
G and A

It’s really quite simple!

Acoustic guitar player blog

2007-09-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

To be a good acoustic guitar player or not to be

Whether it's an electric guitar, an acoustic steel guitar or a nylon string guitar, you will still need to know a number of basic things to get by if you wish to play with other musicians.

Where a lot of players go wrong is they don't realise what it is they need to know to become a better guitar player.

I have created this blog to help fill in the musical gaps that self taught guitarists have, to help guitarists develop the confidence to play with other players and to speed up the self learning process.

A few questions

Do you know the names of the notes on the fretboard?

Was your music teacher silly enough to teach you that Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit nonsense and you still can't make sense of musical notation?

Can you change the key of a song if you need to do so in a matter of minutes?

Think about the questions a for a moment. Do you want to be a good guitar player and would you like to be on top of the things I have mentioned? These are just the beginning steps that can be easily sorted out.

I will start posting regularly to this blog. So drop in if you want your playing to improve and be a better all round guitarist.