Ok, so maybe you knew that, but how do you determine the correct size for your child? The best indication is arm-length to fretboard length (the neck of the guitar). The student’s arm should not have to reach very far to be able to play the first 3 frets. Use your best judgment to determine the correct size.

If the student can’t reach (or struggles to reach) the first few frets, then the guitar is too big.

However, it is equally important to not have a guitar that’s too small!

Recently one of my students had a growth spurt and still has his 3/4 size guitar. Well, it’s small enough that it is constantly falling off of his leg (where the guitar rests) and he has difficulty sitting up straight because of it. This of course affects his playing, technique, confidence, and willingness to practice.

If you’re still not sure what size guitar to buy, go to your local music store and ask them to size a guitar for your child.

Much Respect,
Andrew
The Musician’s Toolbox

If the action of your guitar is too high, your strings are likely too spring-like. Do you feel like it takes an uncomfortable amount of pressure to press down your strings? You need to have your guitar set up.

Call your local music shop. Ask if they have a tech there who can “set up” your guitar. It might cost a few bucks, but it will be cheaper than buying a new guitar, and you will be investing into your practicing habits. Remember: “Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.”

Don’t worry, it’s not major surgery. Likely what the tech will do is adjust the torsion rod in the neck (if your guitar’s neck is bowed at all, the metal rod inside will help straighten it out), adjust the height and intonation of the bridge, and inspect the other elements that contribute to a good feel.

Take care of your stuff, invest in your practice habits, and get your guitar set up. You’ll be happy you did.

Much Respect,

The Musician’s Toolbox

What good is practicing your music without good lighting? Get a clip on light for your music stand, and save your eyes the trouble. Why make it more difficult for yourself than you have to?

You’ll be glad you invested in a music stand, trust me. You’ll be able to practice for longer periods of time because you won’t be slouching (hopefully) and getting all worn out like a lazy sack of potatoes. And we all know that perfect practice makes perfect, and that there is no substitute for diligent practice.

Wait… you knew that, right?

The Musician’s Toolbox

The second way is to learn the individual notes that make up the chord on the fret board. This method of learning chords will expand your ability to play any chord anywhere on the fretboard.

Step 1: Learn and memorize the notes of a chord all over the fretboard. For example: the C Major Chord is made up of the notes C, E, and G. You can basically play those notes in any order and still call it a C chord. It turns out that the notes C, E, and G are found all over your fretboard: (click the graphic to enlarge)

Look for all the C, E, and G notes, memorize their location, and presto, you’ve now learned all the places on the fretboard that you can form the C Major Chord. One way to quickly memorize these chord shapes is to think about the C-A-G-E-D system. You should have the C, A, G, E, and D major chord shapes memorized (hopefully). Well, it turns out that on your fretboard, these 5 shapes can be “translated” into the chord in our diagram, the C major chord. Now you can play the C chord anywhere on your fretboard, and they all sound a little different. Try them out!

(There’s a LOT more to the CAGED system, but this will at the very least give you an idea of why it’s useful…)

Here is a quick reference guide for the notes that belong to major and minor chords:

C major: C-E-G
D major: D-F#-A
E major: E-G#-B
F major: F-A-C
G major: G-B-D
A major: A-C#-E
B major: B-D#-F#

C minor: C-Eb-G
D minor: D-F-A
E minor: E-G-B
F minor: F-Ab-C
G minor: G-Bb-D
A minor: A-C-E
B minor: B-D-F#

Step 2: Start memorizing, and visualize the “C-A-G-E-D” shapes!

The Musician’s Toolbox

If you are a beginner, this question can best be answered by saying “one that won’t break within the first year.” You can get a good starter amp for less than $100 with some nice features, such as drive (distortion) and some basic EQ. Purchase an amp from a retailer like Best Buy, Costco, or Guitar Center, where they have at least marginally friendly return policies, so in case your made in China amp (everything cheap price-wise is made in China) takes a dive, you’ll have a good chance of getting it replaced without too much hassle. As a beginner, the focus should be on your playing, technique, and developing your overall practice habits, not the loudest, meanest amp you can buy.

The real conundrum occurs as an intermediate player. Do you go for the “investment amp” and drop a wad of cash on something nice, ($500-$1000 range), or is there something cheaper that will get the job done? If you are an intermediate player, perhaps you are starting a band, or playing at church, or gigging at local bars and clubs? The type of amp you need depends on where you are playing. If you’re going to be playing mostly at small venues, then you don’t need a 1,000,000 watt amp that can melt faces. You need an amp that fits the venue. So consider how you will be using the amp. Generally, as an intermediate player, 100 watts or less of power is more than enough. Practice good shopping habits, test everything you want to buy, make sure you get a good deal, and make sure wherever you buy has a good return policy. Again, test everything before you buy!

As an advanced player, you’ve refined your chops, so now the quest focuses more on your sound, and this is where things can get extremely subjective and less practical. There are many good “boutique” style amps (handmade, better components, unique styled sounds, etc.) out there that are much “better” than your big-box retailer brands. Better means better in this case, in the same way that a Lotus is better than a Kia. Better quality control, better parts, better design, better experience. When you purchase an amp at this point, you are making a decision that will (ahem) amplify your particular style. If you don’t want to make yet another purchase, you may be curious or handy enough to modify the equipment you own. Nowadays there are plenty of how-to style videos that can teach you to “hack” or modify your amp to sound “better.”

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder to be sure, but at the end of the day, the question what guitar amp should I buy does not have an easy answer, because each guitar player is at a different level and requires different equipment for different reasons. You get what you pay for is the best advice. Test everything out, be smart about where you buy a guitar amp from, and ask around, research, and consider how dedicated you are to your instrument. If you’re playing for recreation, you don’t need to drop thousands of dollars, however, if you plan on becoming the next Slash or John Mayer, save up your money and invest in your talents.

Nothing can replace the hours of practice you put in, and NO guitar amp will make you sound better than the amount of time you’ve invested in your instrument. What good is the best golf ball if you’re just going to shank it into the lake?

There is no substitute for diligent practice.

Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox

Stay tuned for fresh posts and some updates about new products on the way.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew Wonacott, President
The Musician’s Toolbox

Music is a mystery. The deliberate organization of sound waves into something that can stir your soul is one of the things that’s great about being alive. Taking that music and adding lyrics is one of the highest art forms possible as a human. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach… all of those guys understood the marriage of music and words.

Think about your favorite songs, what is it that you like the most about them? The lyrics? The vibe? The music? The combination?

I challenge all of you to start writing your own songs using simple chords. All you have to do is strum a steady beat and start singing. Write down the words that come out. Then re-write them and change them, then change the chords that you play. You’ll discover a way to express how you feel, and someone just might be moved by it.

It’s not really enough to just sit around and practice playing the guitar. You gotta make music your own, learn from the artists that have touched you, and then try to do them one better. You can. So can I.

Warning: it’s addicting, takes an insane amount of work, dedication, persistence, and the ability to handle harsh criticism.

But that’s how you know it’s worth doing. Your soul needs exercise. Go write a song.

Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox

The numbers are the frets, and the lines going across are your strings. Play the right number (fret) on the correct string, and you can’t go wrong.

Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox

1.) Boulevard Of Broken Dreams–Green Day
VERSE: Em, G, D, A strum each chord twice
CHORUS: C, G, D, Em strum each chord twice
–end of chorus is the B7 chord.

2.) Island In The Sun–Weezer
VERSE: Em, Am, D, G strum each one twice
CHORUS: same
BRIDGE: D to G (4x each), D to G again (4x each) C 4x, Am 4x, D 8x
then back to chorus.

3.) Brown Eyed Girl–Van Morrison (simple down strums, not the actual strum pattern)
VERSE: G, C, G, D strum each chord twice
Pre-Chorus: (the … “do you remember when” part) D strum 6x
CHORUS: (sha la la’s) G, C, G, D strum each chord twice.

Remember when you’re trying to switch chords, don’t stop strumming. Make your strumming hand tell your other hand what to do, NOT the other way around. You may make mistakes, and it may feel awkward, but ultimately, keeping a steady beat is more important than playing all the right notes all the time.

Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox

An electric guitar has pickups. They’re mounted between the end of the neck (where the frets get really really small) and the bridge, (where the strings are stretched from at the base of your guitar).

These pickups are actually electro-magnets that produce a magnetic field around your strings. (Remember, the strings are metal, right?)

So, when you pluck the string, and it vibrates up and down really fast, the metal string is creating “vibrations” in the magnetic field. It’s these vibrations that are transmitted through your pickups as a signal that goes to your amp.

This signal is very weak, but it’s there. Your amp takes that signal and force feeds it a Red Bull, Monster, And Double Shot Espresso all at the same time, and gets it full of energy, therefore making it louder.

Then that louder signal gets passed to your speaker (which is a big magnet attached to a cone), and the speaker vibrates that SAME signal from your string, only now it’s loud enough to annoy your mom, or your neighbors.

That’s it in a nutshell.

Much Respect,
The Musician’s Toolbox