Today I was playing with several down loadable guitar chord “calculators” for lack of a better term.  I am old school and usually opt for a book full of chords or scales but I must admit that these on screen tools are very useful. It takes a little while to learn how it all works, but soon you will see how to choose a chord or a scales, save it , print it and so forth.

http://www.virtual-fretboard.com/

The virtual fretboard has the best graphics and include options to color the fretboard and is user friendly. You can save the image as well as a jpg and this comes in handy.

http://www.guitarcalculator.com/main.html

The guitar calculator is very easy to work, although it appears very small to my eyes and I woudl like to be able to view it in a larger size. You can print the chords you save instantly but you cannot save the image which I do not like.

All in all though they are both very useful.

Tune your guitar

The guitar takes ideas from both hands to make a full sound. You will increase your flexibility and skill as you learn both right hand and left handed techniques.These are the terms and skills you should know and work on right away.
Skills for the Right Hand

Flat picking is playing the guitar with a plectrum or pick, usually plastic. Flat picking is essential to a well rounded guitar player.

Finger picking is usually described as playing the guitar with only your fingers, not with a pick. When you use all of your fingers, you can play difficult parts at the same time.

Read more guitar techniques here

I wanted to share a few thoughts on reading music. I think it is essential to being a well rounded musician and it can really help in learning a new tune.

Often I have one particular song I want to learn and really want the easiest way to find it and learn it quickly. I go to musicnotes.com and there I search for the song. If it is available it costs about $4 at this writing to print it out at home. I can listen to it first at various tempos and keys with the player they provide.

I can also download it in any key. Than I can get to work learning  it.

I am not an affiliate of musicnotes, I just love it and use it to demonstrate the point of how knowing how to read music helps my music learning process.

music notation

Thanks for reading