Guitar Techniques: 8 Tricks Which Make You Sound Amazing

Want to learn some awesome guitar techniques? You’re in the right place!

In this free guitar lesson you will learn:

• 18 guitar tricks that will enhance your musicality and phrasing.
• Guitar fundamentals such as; hammer-ons and pull-offs, string bending, sliding, fingerpicking, tapping & harmonics.
• The no1 secret to playing guitar fast.

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1) Guitar Techniques: Hammer-ons & Pull-offs

Hammer-ons and pull-offs are a great technique for creating fluidity in your guitar playing.

To play a hammer-on you quite simply hammer your finger tip onto a string in order to produce a note, rather than pluck it with a guitar pick.

A pull-off is the reverse: when you produce a note by lifting your finger off the string.

Here’s a video of Andy playing the open E minor pentatonic scale using hammer-ons and pull-offs.

 If you’re a more advanced student, you might want to try using a closed position scale.

2) Guitar Techniques: Sliding

Sliding is exactly what it sounds like: playing a note then sliding your finger over to a higher or lower note.

To learn more about sliding technique, watch this video:

It’s important to be careful when sliding, not to ‘under-shoot’ or ‘over-shoot’ ie. slide too little or too far.

Make sure you end up at the fret you were heading for.

Sliding with chords

Sliding doesn’t just have to be done with single notes. It can also be done with chords.

If you’re an intermediate player, you might want to try sliding with barre chords.

Want to learn barre chords? Check out this article: Barre Chords: The Ultimate Guide

Sliding with a slide

Sliding is also sometimes done with something called a bottleneck or fingerslide and is very popular in styles like blues and country.

This is something you might want to try if you’re a more advanced student.

Check out this article if you’re interested in learning to play with a slide: 5 Essential Slide Guitar Lessons For Intermediate Guitarists

3) Guitar Techniques: Vibrato

Vibrato is used to add character to your single note lines.

You can do this by simply pushing the string you’re fretting gently but quickly up and down while its ringing out.

To learn how to do this, watch this video:

You can also do vibrato using a whammy bar if your guitar has one. Just gently but quickly push the bar in and out as your note rings.

Another slighly quirkier way to play vibrato is to press down the string behind the nut of the guitar.

Check out this video from Total Guitar to see how it’s done:

4) Guitar Techniques: Double-stops

A double-stop is where a guitarist plays two notes together, producing a short, sharp stabbing sound. They’re ideal for blues and old-style rock ‘n’ roll.

To play a double-stop we simply need to strum two notes together such as in this example:

This exercise is based upon the A minor pentatonic or A blues scale.

5) Guitar Techniques: Arpeggios

An arpeggio is when we separate the notes of a chord out rather than playing them all in one strum.

This often gives us a jangly sound.

To play a basic arpeggio, simply pick a chord (preferably an ordinary open position chord) and try separating the notes out.

You can do them in order at first, but as you get more adventurous, you might want to try mixing the order of the notes about a bit.

To learn more about guitar arpeggios, go here: Guitar Arpeggios: The Ultimate Guide