Properly known as a tremolo arm, the whammy bar was introduced in the 1950s. There are a number of popular designs produced by the major manufacturers but the whammy bar was first developed by Fender and released with the original Stratocaster. Since then, legends like Jimi Hendrix and Eddy Van Halen have made the whammy bar a major part of their personal sound. For this reason, a lot of beginning guitarists want to emulate their favorite guitar legend and dive right in to using the whammy bar. This is a mistake however, and it’s important to take it slow when learning how to use it.

The whammy bar requires quite a bit of attention and coordination to use effectively so it’s probably best for advanced or intermediate guitarists. It produces a vibrato effect by temporarily changing the tension of the strings on an electric guitar. Once you’ve inserted the whammy bar into the body of the guitar, it’s possible to produce a higher pitch by pointing the whammy bar toward the bottom of the guitar and gently pressing down on the bar.

To produce a lower pitch, simply point the bar up toward the headstock and press down. This is done while playing a note (and sustaining it) or while playing a chord. This type of sound effect was first used in Blues and Jazz but has made its way more prominently into modern Rock music.

You have to be more vigilant to your guitar’s needs when you’re using a whammy bar because it causes the guitar to go out of tune more quickly than it would otherwise. Once you’ve mastered the basics, beginning to use a whammy bar can add some variety to your sound. It’s one of the more advanced guitar techniques that you don’t need to learn right away but it will improve your sound and allow you to put your own spin on classic chords and songs.

Perhaps the greatest tool a novice guitarist can have is a good instructor, who can usually be found at your local music shop. Guitar lessons can be costly, but having a live person there to answer your questions and to guide you toward becoming the guitarist you’ve always wanted to be can be invaluable. There’s no substitute for a good instructor and a strong relationship between the teacher and the pupil.

Beyond the personal, hands-on assistance an instructor can provide, there are plenty of other tools for new guitarists. Magazines like Guitar World and Guitar Player, for example, can be very useful. Most guitar magazines include some combination of player features, gear reviews, how-to articles and fully tabbed songs. Check out several magazines before deciding which one best suits your needs.

If playing others’ songs is your goal, tab books can be very helpful. Many tab books are available. Some books feature all the songs from a particular album. Some feature a collection of songs from a particular band. Some feature a collection of songs in the same genre. And some feature “easy tabs,” which are simplified versions of popular songs.

For those more interested in creating their own music, a chord chart can be very helpful. This is usually poster-sized chart showing the most commonly used chords. Also, many books are available with information and charts on chords and scales, which can help a great deal when writing riffs and solos.

Two pieces of equipment that can be purchased rather inexpensively but that are both essential for playing guitar well are tuners and metronomes. A chromatic tuner will help you tune your guitar by displaying the note being played and whether it is precisely in tune or not. A metronome, which uses clicks to help you keep time in a given rhythm, can be invaluable when there’s no drummer around — or even if there is, if your drummer is as new to his instrument as you are.

The Internet might be the greatest tool of all for a new guitarist. Without much difficulty, one can find tuners, timekeepers, chord charts, scale generators and guitar tabs for free on the Internet. That might not be the best news for the sellers of such devices and information, but it can be a boon for the cash-strapped guitarist.

And when you find yourself struggling to maintain your motivation, there’s nothing like live music to snap you out of the doldrums. Seeing your favorite songs played live and in person is an exhilarating experience that’s always for a boost of energy when trying to learn the guitar. In addition to simply seeing first-hand what’s possible on a guitar, it can also be useful to see how a professional guitarist plays certain riffs and solos.

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Mastering the guitar is not achieved simply by being able to emulate the world’s greatest guitarists and play their songs note for note. True mastery is only achieved when a guitarist forms his or her own style, while also being fluent in other styles. It is a combination of technique, knowledge and creativity. The most advanced aspects of playing guitar certainly cannot be covered in one article, but we can at least set up a framework of what work there is to be done and how to go about doing it.

Studying music theory and how it applies to the guitar is one great way to enhance your skills and embellish your guitar playing and songwriting. Sure, you can write a good punk song with three power chords, but learning about suspended and extended chords will come in handy when you want to add some color to your song. Likewise, knowing the theory behind altered and inverted chords will give you an unlimited supply of chords you can use in your own music.

An advanced knowledge of music theory can also help in branching out to play different scales. Mastering the most commonly used scales — major, pentatonic minor, blues, etc. can be all you need to become a good guitar player. But knowing how the scales are constructed and how they can be modified can add depth to your playing. Study diminished and modal scales, which are modified versions of the basic scales.

The basic uses for the right hand, like fingerpicking and strumming are among the first skills a guitarist learns. Using a tremolo, playing advanced strumming patterns, alternate picking and palm muting come next, but that’s not the extent of what the right hand can do in guitar playing. Tapping and sweep picking, while not applicable to all forms of music, require a high level of skill but can be useful in mastering rock and heavy metal.

Familiarity with different rhythms is also important if someone wants to master the guitar. Most songs are played in 4/4, but it’s not uncommon to find songs in 3/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8 or any number of other time signatures. Playing in alternate time signatures can be difficult for beginning guitarists, since the human brain tends to be most comfortable with 4/4. But when used appropriately, odd time signatures can give a song a unique feel and can create great variety from song to song or even within a single song.

Beyond learning advanced musical theory and specialized playing techniques, the most important aspect to mastering the guitar is always going to be practice. Guitar virtuosos didn’t master their instrument with natural talent alone. Invariably hours, days, months and years of diligent practice are required if one is to achieve the highest levels of guitar playing.

There are those who consider heavy metal to be nothing other than noise. They have obviously never tried to play a metal song on the guitar, because while dissonance can be an important aspect of the metal sound, a great deal of precision is necessary to achieve such a sound.

Regardless of whether one plans on playing lead or rhythm guitar in a heavy metal band, hours upon hours of practice will be necessary. A common theme in metal is speed, but speed without precision leads to noticeable sloppiness. And in the case of metal, practicing with the right hand is just as important as practicing with the left.

Strumming techniques are responsible for some of metal’s trademark sounds. Palm muting, in which the bottom edge of the right palm rests lightly on the strings, combines with fast alternate strumming to produce that chugging, rolling sound that is the basis for many metal songs.

That fast alternate picking is also a requirement for metal solos, which can be some of the most blistering, energizing sections in all of rock music. Knowing scales and practicing techniques with your fretting hand — including using slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs and vibrato — are also very important for playing metal riffs and solos.

Once you have the metal basics down, you can move on to more advanced techniques found in the most extreme versions of metal. One of these techniques is tapping, in which the right hand taps notes at certain frets while the left hand frets other notes. This craft, made popular in rock by Eddie Van Halen and in metal by Kirk Hammett of Metallica, allows notes to be played at faster rhythms than the simple strumming of strings.

Another advanced technique that is becoming more popular is sweep picking. In sweep picking, the right hand makes a single sweep up or down the strings while the left hand usually fingers an arpeggio, a series of individual notes that make up a chord. The result is a fast but flowing series of notes that can add a fresh, new element to metal solos.

Many heavy metal guitarists also prefer to tune down their guitars to get a darker, heavier sound. Tuning the entire guitar down a half-step is an easy way to get a moodier sound, though some will tune the guitar down a full two or three steps — typical of that aforementioned metal excess.

A favorite tuning trick often used in metal is keeping the guitar in standard tuning, but tuning the low E string down one full step to D. The primary effect of this is that it matches up all the notes in a power chord on the same fret. One finger can fret the low two or three strings on the same fret to create a power chord, allowing for easier and faster changes between chords. It also means the top two or three strings, played without fretting at all, are now a D power chord. This open chord can then easily be paired with higher notes and chords, since no fretting is necessary for the former.

One of the most important things for budding rock guitarist to learn about is the power chord. Open chords — those played near the top of the neck, both with fretted and open notes — certainly have their place in rock music, but power chords are far and away the most prominent feature of rock music.

Power chords are formed by pairing the first and fifth notes of the major scale in any key and on adjacent strings. The most commonly used power chords involve using the index and ring fingers, with the index finger fretting one note and the ring finger fretting a note two frets and one string higher. This shape can be used with the index finger on either the low E or A strings and can be moved anywhere up and down the neck of the guitar.

Power chords can also be extended by adding a note one octave higher than the root note (the one your index finger is fretting). If the index finger is on the low E or A string, this extra note can be found on the same fret as the note fretted by your ring finger, but one string higher.

Though power chords are the basis for the rock sound, guitar riffs are the building blocks for rock songs. A catchy riff — a refrain that is repeated at different times throughout the song — is they first step to writing a great rock song. Riffs can include a combination of single notes and chords.

In its most basic form, rock music is played in 4/4 time with a driving rhythm that includes emphasized down strokes on the first and third beats of the measure. This can change depending on the style of rock being played. Punk, for example, is still played with mostly down strokes but typically involves strumming on each beat within the measure. Progressive rock makes use of many different time signatures but still often relies on riffs to propel a song forward.

Guitar solos, often utilizing the blue and pentatonic minor scales, are common in most genres of rock music. Familiarizing yourself with these and other commonly used scales will be critical if you plan on incorporating solos into your rock music.

It would also be wise to become familiar with the many effects used in rock music, most notably distortion. When purchasing a guitar and amplifier, be sure to indicate to the salesman the type of music you’re interested in playing. Certain types of hardware are more useful for certain types of rock music.

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There are valid reasons to start off and learn how to play an electric guitar though. Electric guitars are actually physically easier to play than acoustic guitars. Their necks are usually smaller, the frets shorter and the strings closer to the neck, all of which makes the left hand’s job — fretting notes and chords — much easier. An electric guitar can also produce infinitely more sounds than an acoustic, though this generally requires purchasing digital amplifiers or effects pedals.

The physical act of playing an electric guitar is not much different from playing an acoustic guitar, except that it relies more on strumming notes and chords with a pick and less on fingerpicking — though the latter can be used on an electric guitar, it is not as common.

Because of the more manageable fret board and available effects, electric guitars are also better designed than acoustic guitars for playing solos, which have become a staple in rock, blues and other styles of guitar music. A solo is a series of mostly individual notes, generally within the same scale and key, in which the guitar is the most prominent instrument in the band.

If the solo is one of the main trademarks of the electric guitar, the other is the power chord. Power chords, given their name because of their powerful sound, are two-note chords generally played on the low E and A strings or on the A and D strings. The shape of a power chord — for example, the index finger on the second fret on the low E string and the ring finger on the fourth fret of the A string, can be moved up and down the fret board or up one string (with the note on the A string now being the lower of the two).

A third note, played on the same fret as the higher note but one string higher and fretted with the pinkie finger, can be added to power chords for a fuller sound. These chords, when played with distortion, have become the backbone of rock music.

Electric guitars, which are played through amplifiers, can be coupled with any number of effects to create varied sounds. Modern digital amplifiers, in addition to the standard distortion found on most every amp, can include effects such as delay, reverb, chorus, flange, phase shifter and various filters, each of which modifies the guitar’s sound in a different way.

Effects are also commonly used by way of pedals that are connected by one cable to the guitar and by another cable to the amplifier. Multiple effects pedals can be connected in sequence and used individually or simultaneously for a combined effect. One popular effects pedal is the wah pedal, popularized by Jimi Hendrix, which modifies the pitch of a note when the pedal is pushed down or raised up.

Subtle changes can also be made to an electric guitar’s sound using the pickup selector found on most guitars. The selector switches each pickup — the devices found under the strings on the body of the guitar that transmit sound vibrations to the amp — on or off. Each setting on the selector will produce a slight change in tone.

An acoustic guitar can be played in either a sitting or standing position. Either way, a strap can be connected to the bottom end of the guitar, slung over the left shoulder and attached the side of the body, near the neck, or around the top of the neck, at the nut. When used in a sitting position, the curve in the guitar’s body generally rests on the player’s right knee.

While classical guitars are played by fingerpicking alone, acoustic guitars can either be plucked by fingers or strummed by a pick — with each method creating its own unique sound and feel.

Fingerpicking an acoustic guitar, which is done with the thumb and first three fingers on the right hand, can be used to play several individual notes on nonadjacent strings very quickly and in any pattern. The guitar pick, for all its benefits, simply cannot replicate the sound made by four different fingers plucking four different strings, be it simultaneously or in a pattern of individual notes.

It is with a pick, though, that an acoustic guitar can be used to create is trademark sound: a strummed chord. It’s not enough, though, so simply strum a chord — which is accomplished by strumming multiple strings fretted by the left hand. The choice of a strumming pattern sets the tone for a song. There are a seemingly infinite number of possible strumming patterns that can be used when playing an acoustic guitar, each of which can be combined with a different rhythm and tempo to create subtle differences in tone and mood.

The mood of an acoustic song can also be affected by the way the strings are played. Strings can be plucked or strummed softly for a quiet sound or with more force for a louder, more aggressive sound. Varying the force with which a chord is strummed within a certain strumming pattern, as well, expands the creative possibilities of the instrument even more. For example, even a simple strumming pattern that alternates downward and upward strums can be made to sound very different simply by giving more force to either the down strums or the up strums.

Acoustic guitars, while known for their intimacy, can still be played in large settings, such as concerts. Pickups are available that attach to the guitar over the hole in the body, allowing the sound to be played through an amplifier. There are also acoustic-electric guitars, which maintain the acoustic sound but contain electronics that can be connected directly to the amplifier.

For some great acoustic guitar lessons check out:

A modern classical guitar is most similar to an acoustic guitar, in that it is a hollow, non-electric, wooden instrument. But there are some significant differences between the two. The body of a classical guitar has a slightly different shape from a standard acoustic guitar, but the strings are the most notable difference.

Acoustic guitars generally use wound steel strings, while classical guitars use nylon strings. The difference is minimal on the lowest three strings, as the nylon strings on the classical guitar are wrapped in a thin metal. But the three high strings on the classical guitar are bare nylon, which produces a much softer sound than steel.

While acoustic guitars can be played with a pick, classical guitars are played using only the fingers. This could be the biggest adjustment for a guitar player moving toward a classical guitar, though the fingerpicking used in classical guitar can be found at times in any style of music.

Classical guitar is usually played in a seated position, with the curve of the guitar’s body resting on the left leg. The guitar is angled up slightly on the left side, making it easier and more comfortable for the left hand to reach the neck, and the right arm rests on the body of the guitar while playing.

The thumb and the first three fingers on the right hand do the plucking of the strings, while the left hand frets notes and chords — although the chords are not strummed, the notes of a chord can be played individually. This is called an arpeggio.

Depending on the guitarist’s preference, the plucking can be done by the fingertips or fingernails, the latter affording the possibility of louder, more forceful playing. The thumb of the right hand is used to strum the low strings, while the fingers pluck the higher strings. To get comfortable with this method, try plucking open notes in this order repeatedly: thumb, index finger, middle finger, and ring finger. Do that a few times, then reverse the order of the fingers: thumb, ring, middle, and index.

Try alternating the two patterns, then try new patterns (thumb, middle, index, ring, etc.), and try strumming with the thumb while simultaneously plucking with the ring finger as part of your pattern. As you become comfortable with the movements of the right hand, begin coupling them with chords and notes fretted by the left hand.

As in any type of guitar playing, classical guitar has its tricks to modify sounds. It makes extensive use of hammer-ons and pull-offs, in which a finger on the left hand frets one note, then hammers onto another or pulls off to another when the string is plucked. It also uses vibrato, a technique in which a single note is played while the fretting finger moves slightly and quickly up and down along the string, adding sustain to the note.

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Anyone with any skill can write a solo, but writing great guitar solo takes style and panache.

If notes are the building blocks of solos, guitar scales are the blueprints. A scale is a series of notes that all work together in harmony, so to speak. A cohesive-sounding guitar solo is one in which all the notes fall within a particular scale.

The major pentatonic scale is a very commonly used one in rock music, but there is no shortage of scales to fiddle around with to find different sounds. There are also major scales (which have a brighter, happier sound) and minor scales (which sound darker and moodier).

First check out this incredibly simple and useful scale generator. Select the key of your song, choose the area of the neck where you want the scale (or “full”, for the entire neck) and pick from among dozens of scales. The page will display the notes in the scale directly on the image of the neck and in tab form at the bottom-left of the screen. You can also select a number of different tunings and choose between horizontal and vertical structures.

Once you’ve selected a scale to use, the real fun begins.

The key to writing an interesting, memorable solo is to avoid making it sound like you’re just going up and down a scale — one of the easiest traps to fall into for beginning guitar players. The good news is there are a number of different methods by which you can modify what you are playing and create a unique solo.

The first is simply to avoid long runs up and down the scale. Use nonconsecutive notes often enough to keep things interesting.

The other major factor in creating a great guitar solo is to avoid the tendency to play one note on every beat. That means playing faster at times — and by “faster” I mean playing quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc. – but also using pauses to give the listener a reference point between licks or sections in the solo.

It can also help to occasionally take a two-, three- or four-note pattern and repeat it several times — without allowing it to become monotonous, of course. Such repetition can build drama, making certain sections of the solo stand out and become more memorable.

And never hesitate to throw in techniques like hammer-ons, pull-offs, vibrato and slides or effects like a wah pedal to liven up your solos.

When writing your guitar solo, the best thing you can do is to avoid relying on just one or two of these methods and techniques. A great guitar solo is one that is varied and memorable and fits the song it’s in. Skill and technique are critical, but just as important are creativity and musical sensibility.

The key as a beginner trying to play a song, is to keep your standards low at first. Don’t expect to sit down for two hours and be slaying the song note-for-note by the time you’re done. It’s just not realistic. Rather, take the song one riff at a time.

First, go online and find a tab of the song you want to learn — and if you’re just starting out, do yourself a favor and keep it simple. Think Every Breath You Take not Master of Puppets. You can also find what are called “easy tabs,” which are simplified versions of songs tabbed out especially for beginning guitar players. If you are a stickler for detail, no, you won’t be playing every note. But these easy tabs allow you to at least sound like you’re playing a more complicated song.

It also helps to pick a song that matches your guitar. Rock songs with distortion, for example, won’t sound all that great on an acoustic guitar, and acoustic ballads might lack some character if strummed on an electric. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but it will likely make for a more enjoyable experience. When choosing a song to learn, make sure it’s one that you have in your CD or digital music collection. You’ll need to be able to listen to the song on decent speakers and have easy controls so you can move quickly back and forth over the section you’re trying to learn.

Before you begin trying to play the song, listen very closely to the intro several times, paying close attention to the guitar and what it is doing. Then look at the first bar or two on the guitar tab and slowly try to put the notes and chords together in your mind.

Again, I must stress: Lower your expectations. The first two, three, 20 times you try to play that intro riff, it might very well not sound like music at all. You’ll likely have to play the notes very slowly at first. The key is going to be – even if you are playing slowly — to play at a steady rhythm.

Try to get to a point where you can play the entire riff by memory, even if you are taking three full seconds between notes to get your fret hand where it needs to be. Just keep playing it and playing it some more. Once you can comfortably and smoothly play it at a slow speed, try to play it a little faster. Then faster still. When you can get through the entire riff without missing a note, at a reasonable speed, try playing it with the song itself playing in the background. If you can keep up, pat yourself on the back and move on to the next riff.

Go through the same process with each riff in the song — most songs have verse and chorus riffs that repeat, so it won’t take as long as you think. Each time you complete a riff, go back and play the full song up to that point so you can get comfortable with the transitions between riffs.

Don’t get discouraged, and don’t give up. Learning to play songs on the guitar can be very challenging. Just keep in mind that the harder a song is to learn, the more rewarding it will be when you finally master it.