Posts Tagged ‘classical guitar’
Hawaiian Steel Guitar
The term steel guitar refers both to a type of guitar and a method of playing guitar. Steel guitars are held horizontally with strings facing up towards the player, who in turn uses a slide called “steel” above the fingerboard. In other words, the player’s fingers don’t pluck or fret the strings. Any guitar can be played in this manner, though guitars specifically built for steel guitar playing produce the best sound.
Steel guitar was popularized in Hawaii during the 19th and 20th centuries. During the 1950s and 60s the steel guitar enjoyed immense popularity. Due to its origins, the steel guitar is sometimes referred to as a Hawaiian guitar or Hawaiian steel guitar; however, in Hawaii the term Hawaiian guitar refers to a slack string guitar. It is thought that the design of the bottleneck guitar may have been inspired by steel guitar technique.
When people make resolutions or set goals for themselves, a common thread is that they would like to learn how to play a musical instrument. And for many people, there is a strong desire to learn how to play the guitar. Guitar is a great starter instrument because once you learn some of the basics, you can already sound halfway decent. Of course, learning the finer points and the complicated picking patterns can take you years to master, but it really only takes a few weeks to master some of those basic chords.
This is why so many people opt for acoustic guitars. If you want to learn how to play this instrument, just pick yourself up a guitar, a tuner, and a few how-to beginner books. These will offer the basics of reading music along with a chord list. Once you feel you have a handle on these very basic elements, hop onto YouTube for step-by-step tutorials on how to play all your favorite songs.