Guitar Know How – money saving & some quick tips

Free strap locks – A perfect alternative to buying strap locks is to use the rubber bottle washersused on theold style wire flip top opening of some drinks bottles. Place the washer over the strap buttons of your guitar for instant strap locks!

Cheap Guitar Strings – Great low cost guitar strings with a money back guarantee from www.webstrings.com. Depending on quantities ordered, strings can cost as little as $2.49 a pack.

Buy Second Hand – Guitar shops have stocked second hand instruments for decades but with online auctions such as Ebay you can pick up a bargain without even leaving the house. Ebay is great for second hand instruments and accessories and many happy hours can be spent searching for that vintage gem. For UK based buyers, with the dollar rate pretty low right now, it’s a great time to buy a guitar from the US – savings of up to 50% are possible and many sellers are happy to ship internationally.

Cables – This is one area where we would recommend investing good money. Don’t skimp on poor quality cables, they’ll not only ruin your sound and not last long but in some cases pick up the local radio station in the middle of the sermon too!

Picks – a Buyers Guide – Most people don’t even think about what picks they use but the general rule is to use quite supple picks for acoustic and harder for electric. We use Dunlop .60mm and 2.0 or 3.0 for electric. The idea is that flex in the pick will improve your strumming sound but it’s no good for picking or lead work as it ruins the attack you need to play fast and accurately. So choose accordingly. One other tip, you can change your strumming volume dramatically by just gripping the pick harder or softer rather than altering how hard you strum.

Cut Capo – The “Cut” capo that is designed to only cover strings 5 4 and 3 of the guitar. If you place it at fret 2 you can play any song in the key of E with really easy one or two finger chord shapes. Another trick is to place it upside down to cover strings 2 3 and 4 and by placing the capo at frets 2, 5, 7 and 9. This lets you play really easy chords in the keys of A,C D and E. Download our Song Learner Lesson for You Are My King / Amazing Love for a lesson teaching you how to play using a cut capo.