Now Marshall are unveiling their latest creation the JMD:1 Amplifier Series combining digital pre-amp, studio quality effects and EL34 Power Amp tubes that is meant to pick up where the JMP-1 left off. There are 4 Amps available in the series, the JMD100 (100 watt head), JMD50 (50 watt head), JMD102 (100 watt 2×12 Combo) and the JMD501 (50 watt 1×12 Combo) all featuring that famous EL34 driven Marshall tone.

Here is a list of some of the coolest guitar apps that you have to check out — assuming you have an iPhone!

1. GuitarToolKit.

What more could you ask for? Guitar tuner, chord library of over half a million guitar chords, scales and it has a left hand mode for all you left handed players.

One really cool think about this app is the fact that you can strum a made up chord on the screen’s virtual guitar and the app will tell you exactly what chord you are playing. Makes it a great reference and learning tool.

2. Ultimate Guitar Tabs

Want to have a collection of over three hundred thousand guitar tabs in your pocket at any given time? It will just be a matter of installing this app on your iPhone. Imagine being at a band rehearsal and wanting to learn a new cover song. A couple quick taps on your screen and you’ll have it right there and the song learned by the end of the jam!

3. Scale Wizard

This app actually comes from my favorite guitar cable company – Planet Waves. Before I checked out this app, I had no idea that over ten thousand guitar scales even existed, but this app has just that. Be prepared to get your mind blown with all the arpeggios, modes and different guitar scales.

This app even goes into alternate tunings and has a left hand mode.

4. Guitar Progression Practice

We all need some kind of practice tool to keep us in check and this one may just be what you are looking for. Get your riffs up to speed and work on your timing with the metronome, learn chord progressions in any key and has the ability to automatically change the chord progressions during a practice session.

5. Guitar Web Application

This is an excellent application to help you figure out how different chords relate to each other. Great for building your own chord progressions and figuring out what notes make up certain chords.

6. Arpeggio Studies For Guitar

Learning arpeggios can be a bit of a daunting task if you are trying to do it on your own but luckily this app makes it a lot easier. You will be sweeping in no time!

This app is great for getting your head around more technical playing as well as getting yourself warmed up for a demanding practice session. Each volume of this app series has different arpeggio studies to get your mind and fingers in shape.

7. Guitarist’s Reference

This colorful little app is another excellent reference tool for a guitarist. Comes with a library of over 3000 chords, 550 arpeggios, 500 scales, triads and a crazy amount more. Even has references for chord/scale relationships to allow you to easily figure out which scale to work with when playing a certain chord.

Who would have known that the iPhone would have become such a great influence on the guitar and guitarists

First we are going to take a look at how to play harmonics. For the moment just think of harmonics as notes on the guitar that have a little different tone that normal notes. See the video below on Natural Harmonics.

The heavy metal legend lost his battle with stomach cancer at a hospital in Houston, Texas, aged 67, and his contemporaries have been quick to celebrate the life of the Heaven & Hell star.

Ulrich has written a moving tribute to Dio, who he credits with inspiring him to become a drummer.

He says, “Dear Ronnie, I just got off stage in Zagreb. I was met with the news that you’ve passed on. I’m kind of in shock, but I wanted you to know that you were one of the main reasons I made it onto that stage to begin with.

“When I first saw you in Elf, opening for Deep Purple in 1975, I was completely blown away by the power in your voice, your presence on stage, your confidence, and the ease with which you seemed to connect to 6,000 Danish people and one starry-eyed 11 year old.”

Ulrich also opens up about his poignant first meeting with Dio as a 13 year old: “In the fall of 1976, when you played your first show in Copenhagen, I was literally in the front row and the couple of times we made eye contact you made me feel like the most important person in the world… I made the pilgrimage to the Plaza Hotel to see if I could somehow grab a picture, an autograph, a moment, anything. A few hours later you came out and were so kind and caring… I was on top of the world, inspired and ready for anything. Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to run into you a half dozen times or so and each time you were as kind, caring and gracious as you were in 1976 outside the hotel.”

He calls their first gig together in 2007 “a f–king honour and a dream come true” and wishes he had called Dio in his final days: “I kind of p–sied out, thinking the last thing you needed in your recovery was feeling obligated to take a phone call from a Danish drummer/fan boy. I wish I’d made that call.”

The members of Kiss have also released a statement, which reads: “We mourn the tragic passing of the great Ronnie James Dio. In addition to his powerhouse vocal ability, Ronnie was a true gentleman who always emanated great warmth and friendship to us and everyone around him. We will miss him.”

In a post on his Facebook page, Slash writes, “Ronnie died at 7.45am this morning, but his music will live for eternity“, while Osbourne, who Dio replaced in Black Sabbath in 1979, says simply on his Twitter.com page: “Rest in Peace Ronnie.“

One thing that helped me a lot is learning some guitar music theory. Theory simplifies memorizing guitar chords a lot and it gives you the feeling you know what you are doing, instead of just learning some diagrams from guitar chord charts.

If you’re not really sure how to read guitar chords, I suggest you read this tutorial: how to read guitar chord charts

Open chords (some call them folk chords) are usually the first thing a beginning guitar player learns.  This doesn’t mean that these beginner guitar chords are very easy: learning to get those left hand fingers work together and producing a clean sound is hard work, but with regular practice you’ll soon get the hang of it.

Open chords are called this way because they contain at least one open string (strings that you play without fingering them). These basic guitar chords are used a lot in music, especially on acoustic guitar. They also work on electric guitar, but opens strings sound better on an acoustic guitar in my opinion. Folk music, singer-songwriter music and country music use a lot of open chords.

There’s also a free printable guitar chord chart sheet that you can keep as a reference.  

Here follows a list of basic guitar chords that every guitarist needs to know.  To make it easy for you to see the guitar chord fingering, I put the guitar chord pictures next to the charts. Finger the chords with the top of your fingers and look out you don’t touch adjacent strings.

A little bit about guitar chord names:

• chords are named according to letters going from A to G
• an ‘m’ after a letter means that the chord is a minor chord
• a ’7′ after the letter means that the chord is a dominant chord
• a letter without ‘m’ or ’7′ means that the chord is a major chord

To find out what the difference is between major, minor and dominant you should read the guitar music theory tutorial.

Here’s the list of basic guitar chords:

The F chord is a bit of a special case: the top 2 notes are fretted with one finger (the index finger).
This is one of the hardest chords to play for the beginner, but you’ll soon get the hang of it (if you practice enough).

After you played these basic guitar chords some times I suggest you do the following:

1. Print out this free printable guitar chord chart. That page also explains the difficulties you might encounter and what to do with your right hand.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the original Band Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the Cover Version (played by left handed)

Click here to view the embedded video.

On these two videos, we’ll see how to change guitar strings on acoustic guitars, and then on electric guitars.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the second video, learn how to change strings on electric guitars.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Slide guitar is most often played (assuming a right-handed player and guitar):

• With the guitar in the normal position, using a slide called a bottleneck on one of the fingers of the left hand; this is known as bottleneck guitar.
• With the guitar held horizontally, with the belly uppermost and the bass strings toward the player, and using a slide called a steel held in the left hand; this is known as steel guitar.

Slides may be used on any guitar, but slides generally and steels in particular are often used on instruments specifically made to be played in this manner. These include:

• All steel guitars.
• Many (perhaps most) resonator guitars, particularly Dobros and their descendants.
• Lap slide guitars, particularly Weissenborns and their descendants.

Since the introduction of slide guitar playing in the early 1900s, many different materials have been used to play slide guitar. Various smooth hard objects may be used as a slide. One of the most common and still the best sounding (according to most^[who?]) is the neck of a glass bottle, which is slipped over one of the fingers of the fretting hand. The term “bottleneck guitar” to describe any type of slide guitar playing is derived from this. Modern bottleneck slides are still manufactured by companies such as Mr. B’s Bottleneck Guitar Slides, Blue Moon Bottlenecks and Diamond Bottlenecks.

A glass, stainless steel, brass, or chrome tube of approximately the same size (typically one to three inches long) may also be used. There are also the Mudslide porcelain and Moonshine Slides ceramic slides, invented by Terrie Lambert in 1990, which are glazed on the outside but porous on the inside, so that finger moisture is absorbed, preventing slippage. Another more recent kind of slide is made of Pyrex, an imitation of glass bottle slides that have been utilized by slide players.

Technically a slide can be made with any material, so long as it resonates, and the craftsmanship is good. Examples include stag antler and buffalo horn, although slides like these are not often sold in mainstream shops, if at all, as the time and effort needed to create one is often too much when conventional slides are available. An alternative method is to use a solid metal bar or rod, also about the same size as above, laid across the strings of the guitar and held by the fingers of the fretting hand being laid on it to either side, parallel to it. Shotglasses, pipes, and stones have also been used to good effect, as have rings, spoons and even cigarette lighters.

One can also use a knife instead of a bar:

“As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularised by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable.” ―W. C. Handy on his first hearing slide guitar, a blues player in the Tutwiler, Mississippi train station.

An ordinary guitar, either electric or acoustic, can be used for playing slide. Often the strings are raised a little higher off the neck than they would be for ordinary guitar playing. This is done especially if the free fingers are not going to be used for fretting. An extension nut may be used to achieve the higher string height at the peghead end of the neck. This is just a normal nut, with the slots filed less deeply, and often in a straight line rather than following the radius of the fretboard.

The lap steel and the pedal steel are guitars that have evolved especially for playing slide in the horizontal position. Resophonic or resonator guitars have often been employed for slide playing, typically held horizontally. They are sometimes known as dobros after the Dopyera brothers, whose company first made them. National is another brand. In resonator guitars, rather than the sound being produced by the body’s hollow, a special bridge transfers the vibrations from the strings to a metal cone placed inside the body.

The main technical challenges with slide guitar playing are:

• Intonation (playing each note right at the desired pitch, not a little flat or a little sharp)
• Muting undesired strings.

Slide guitar places greater demands on one’s ability to mute strings than standard guitar does. Playing a melody with well articulated individual notes requires more skill than may at first be apparent; it is easy to get a howling mass of notes on slide guitar until muting is mastered. This is because the movement of the slide, which is usually pressing down more than one string, causes those strings to sound, but not all of those strings are necessarily intended to sound at a given time. In contrast to fretting, in which the note decays quickly after the fretting finger is lifted, unwanted notes while using a slide must be actively muted. One can touch the string with a fingertip of the picking hand, or lift the slide and damp with a fretting-hand finger. The first method is more selective, the second stops all sound.