Basic Care For Your Guitar

The guitar is extremely vulnerable. If you love it, it is imperative that you handle it with respect and care. Factors that adversely affect the condition of your guitar include:

• The way your guitar is stored
• The way you handle your guitar
• Humidity & Temperature

Each factor is discussed as follows.

The way your guitar is stored

Treat your guitar as it if has a fragile label.

Gig bags & Guitar Cases

Oftentimes during your first guitar purchase, you tend to use the gig bag supplied with the guitar. For the casual beginner, this is usually enough. Always keep your instrument in the bag when not in use.

But at times I found myself wringing myself worried for two reasons:

1. When it is raining outdoors, a gig bag is not going to protect your guitar from water and moisture.
2. If you are taking public transport, chances are people will find ways to knock/touch/hold/kick your guitar.

In such cases, if you are worried you should get a hard case. The investment (protection) is worth it. Isn’t the ability to move your instrument around one of the reasons you decided to play guitar? It wouldn’t help if while transporting it from place to place, you introduce stress to your guitar.

Environment

The guitar is often prone to accidents. Leaving it upright in a crowded area almost guarantees an grand orchestral fall (that’s what it sounds like when it drops). Always keep it in a safe place, away from harsh environment, temperature and humidity changes.

The way you handle your guitar

The ritual of taking care of your guitar is a spiritual event. It serves as a reminder of the fragility of your guitar. It also teaches you to respect and care for the instrument that you decided to master.

Incorporating some basic maintenance into your playing routines will prolong the guitar’s lifespan significantly.

1. Buy a guitar polish for cleaning your guitar. It is inevitable that a little smudge or sweat stains your guitar sometimes. Wipe your guitar down after each play, and periodically apply the polish to maintain the shine.
2. Always keep the guitar in tune. Changing the tension of the strings puts different stresses on the neck. It’s also easier for you the next time you play!
3. Playing near hard surfaces is an invitation for dents to permanently emboss themselves into your guitar. Stay away from hard edges and play in a spacious environment. You will not regret it!

For more information, visit wikibooks Guitar.

Humidity & Temperature

The difference in humidity levels combined together with changes in temperature can prove the guitar’s demise in a short span of time.

Humidity is the amount of moisture in the air, while temperature is the degree of hotness or coldness of the air. How will this affect us in the tropical climate? There are times where we endure rain and cold weather for days and there are times where it is sweltering hot. And it is these changes in humidity and temperature that really affect our guitar.

The wood of our guitar is a material highly affected by humidity. When moisture enters the guitar, it swells. Alternatively, when the environment is too dry, cracks might form as the wood shrinks. Similarly, the wood can shrink or expand the wood according to temperature as well.

A shot of my warped wood tabletop. Of course the warping will not be as dramatic on your guitar, but this is to give you a general idea.

For more indepth information about humidity, you can read up on this article by Sean Hancock.

Solutions

1. It is thus highly recommended that you always keep your guitar in a padded/hard case when you are not playing it, to protect it from the elements.
2. Use a humidifier. BGW Guitars supplies an entirely affordable humidifier for just $18 and it can last years. Visit their website for more information.

Take good care of your guitar, and it will take good care of your sound quality & your wallet.

iPhone app – Gibson’s L&M Guitar

Gibson’s L&M Guitar (Learn & Master Guitar) app is a comprehensive all-in-one app that is perfect for the absolute beginner. This app is free, and if you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, there is no excuse for you not to have it right now!

Screenshot: Gibson L&M Guitar

The L&M Guitar app has all the basics you need – There are in summary a tuner, a metronome, chord lists, video lessons, corporate information built into one handy app, and on top of everything, there are no advertisements or lag. The user experience is good, and the graphics are pleasing.

Tuner

Once the app loads, the first tab from the left is the tuner. Note that if you are using this tuner, you’ll have to tune in a quiet environment. The tuner is very sensitive to sound. So if you’re trying to tune when someone is making a racket behind you, you will see the marker moving erratically back and forth across the meter, as it tries to gauge the tones of all the other sounds. Which is everything in the vicinity of the phone.

It is not very realistic to say you must go to a quiet place to tune. Guitar is about playing together and having fun! Therefore I would suggest you to get another electronic tuner for tuning, or learn how to tune by yourself.

Screenshot: Tuner

You may have noticed at this point that there is a MODE area on the bottom left. Clicking on it pulls up a list of typical tunings that you can do on your guitar. The most basic tuning is the Standard tuning – EADGBE (you will notice that these are the notes on the open strings on your guitar). Select this mode so that the tuner will only detect these notes. As a beginner, you don’t need the other tunings at this point of time.

Screenshot: Tuner Modes

Metronome

The next tab I’m bringing you to is the metronome. The metronome works just as intended – a guide for you to count your beats. You can change the time signature (choosing between 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4), and also change the tempo by sliding the wheel at the bottom. Once you click on start, the meter will tap according to the requirements that you have set.

Screenshot: Metronome

Chords

The chords tab is probably the most useful tab in the L&M Guitar app and the one you’ll frequently use. It is a graphical representation of which finger to use, and which fret to press for a chord.

Screenshot: Chords

This list is not extensive – it only holds the basic-ish chords.

Screenshot: 'A7' Chord

Here is a quick note on how to read the notes page:

• Red “x” reminds you not to play (or mute) the particular line.
• Black “o”s means play to the open string.

So in order to play this A7 chord, simply press down on the DGB lines on the second fret with your 2^nd-4^th fingers.

Lessons

In the next tab, Lessons, you will find high quality, professional Learn & Master Guitar training programmes made by Gibson in collaboration with Legacy Learning Systems. You don’t want to miss anything here if you love guitar! Part 1 shows a masterful 2-minute performance by the author, Steve Krenz.

Screenshot: Lessons

Gibson.COM

Finally there is also some corporate information on Gibson in the last tab that brings digital media to your phone. It allows you to browse through the Gibson instruments, News, Press Releases, Forums, Twitter…

Screenshot: Gibson.COM

What are you waiting for? Head on to the App Store now to download this free and useful app.

Different Types of Picks for Strumming

Picks, or otherwise known as plectrums, are little tools that you use to strum or pick the strings in order to create sound. Picks are typically triangular in shape and costs SGD$0.50 cents each in Singapore.

Now I am just going to talk about what you need to worry about in your beginner learning stages. This information is not extensive.

Sound

Different picks create different sounds. Soft plastic picks results in mellow sounds, while metallic picks result in a brighter sound. Even the sound of your own fingers or fingernails striking the strings produces a different sound. Experiment with them all if you wish to get the feel of it.

At this point of time, don’t worry too much about the type of sound you are producing. Your focus is not on making music, but making your body and your hands attuned to wrapping itself around a guitar. Give it time to learn.

Ease of play

The more malleable the pick is, the easier it is to play. As a beginner, you will want to choose the extra-thin (exactly 0.44mm in width) plastic picks, because its ability to bend easily means you are able to totally relax your strumming arm while playing.

Remember that the key to playing guitar, is to relax your entire body while keeping a good posture. If you use a harder pick, your strumming hand tends to tense up. It’s normal; the fingers are trying not to let the pick fly after you strum the pick through the strings.

Position

Hold your pick between your forefinger and your thumb. Us beginners tend to hold the pick with the middle finger as well, but this will only impede your progress as you are unnecessarily stressing your hand (with the middle finger).