3 Awesome Techniques That Will Totally Reignite Your Creativity on The Acoustic Guitar, And Pull You Out Of The Rut You Find Yourself In - Part 2

Part 1 of this article presented to you two unique ways you can play your acoustic guitar to inspire and reignite your creativity using octave harmonics and alternate/open tunings. Today in part 2, I am going to show you an additional three approaches you can take with your acoustic guitar so that you never need to feel bored, stale or frustrated with your playing again. Playing Your Acoustic Guitar Percussively An increasingly popular way to play your acoustic guitar these days is percussively. It’s a wooden box after all, so why not. When you get into this style, even if you only learn some basics, you will wonder why you never thought of playing your guitar like this before. It’s heaps of fun, and the potential of what you can do with this approach is massive! You’ll never look at your acoustic guitar the same way again. The great news is you don’t have to practice playing your guitar percussively for years before sounding any good. Focusing on some fundamentals will have you up and playing this way in no time at all. Here is an example to start doing exactly that: Percussive Guitar Example Drum notation is often used for percussive guitar as is the case with the example above In the example above I am using the side of my thumb to hit the lower area of the sound board of the guitar, just below the bridge (see picture below for reference). This is indicated in the drum notation with “B.T.” (bass hit with thumb). Think of this as a kick drum sound and be sure to keep your wrist nice and relaxed. It is making a flicking motion as your thumb hits the body of the guitar. Percussive Picture Thumb (B.T.) To get the snare sound, simply tap or rap the side of your guitar just below the strap lock with two fingers of your picking hand (see picture below for reference). I like to use my 3rd and 4th fingers for this, but you could use your 2nd and 3rd if you prefer. The snare is indicated with an “S” in the drum notation. You are after a higher pitched sound when executing this move to emulate a snare or rimshot. Be very patient as it can take a little practice to get this sound consistently. Percussive Picture Snare (S) Some Ways To Make Percussive Guitar Part Of Your Acoustic Playing - Copy some drum beats from existing songs. Listen to them carefully, and then using your kick drum and snare sounds, play along. You’ll come up with some cool grooves doing this. - Add the kick drum and snare sounds into some of the chord progressions you play on your acoustic as we did in the example above. - Be patient and spend a little time perfecting both the kick drum and snare sounds from our example above. You can do a lot with just these two percussive techniques alone, without any chords. Adding Open Strings To Your Playing Despite their simplicity, and the fact that they are one of the first things you learn on guitar, open strings can totally turn your acoustic guitar playing on it’s head when used in creative ways. Open strings are common place in the chords, melodies, and riffs that you play in the open position on the guitar, however, it’s realising that open strings can be played in any position on your guitar that things start to get a little more interesting. Take this G major scale as an example: G Major Scale Fretted Sounds alright, but let’s re-arrange this scale to make it sound a little more unique and way cooler. All we’ll do is replace any note in the scale that can be played as an open string, with an open string. You just need to make sure that the fretted note you are replacing is in the same octave or unison to that open string. Here is what we get: G Major Scale Open The open strings mixed in with the fretted notes gives our scale a really cool and unique sound. This approach has the potential to change the way you play your acoustic guitar, and is definitely worth exploring further. What You Can Do To Take This Approach Further And Make It Part Of Your Guitar Playing - Replace notes where possible in existing riffs and melodies that you know in the key of G. If you don’t know any, then learn some first and then do this. - Create more open string scales that you can play around with in the keys of C, A, E, and D. You are not limited to just these keys, but they generally work best because they have a lot of open string notes in them. - Take melodies and riffs you know and transpose them to the keys mentioned above (ie. G, C, A, E, and D) replacing fretted notes with open strings where possible. There will be more than one way in which you can do this, so experiment. Changing Things Up With A Capo A capo is a tool that allows you to change key on your guitar instantly while still playing the same chord shapes. Basically, you remain in the open position wherever you place the capo on the neck of the guitar, and is why you are able to predominantly use open chords whatever key you are in. It might help to think of the capo as a moveable nut. Another way is to think of it as your index finger when barring chords, as it does the same job that the capo does. For example, you can play an F chord on your guitar using the root 6 bar chord form at the 1st fret. However, if you place the capo on the 1st fret of your guitar you will now be able to play an open E chord and get the same sound. Why is this? By clamping the capo down at the 1st fret, everything is raised by one semitone. So you are fretting an open E chord form, but due to the capo being at the 1st fret, this is raised a semitone to sound as an F chord. The capo is an essential stylistic tool for the acoustic guitarist. It allows you to do things in certain keys that you just can’t do without it. Some Ways In Which You Can Create With The Capo On Your Acoustic Guitar - Use a capo with the open string ideas that we touched on above. The capo is all about being able to maintain the use of open chords and open strings so it goes hand in hand with this approach. Simply move your capo around to various positions on the neck, so you can play your open string riffs and melodies in any key without needing to change a thing. - Use your capo with a song that already has mostly open chords in it. Providing that you put the capo in an appropriate spot, this will give you a new set of open chords to play the same song. Using different open chords will give you a different sound and different possibilities. Definitely worth experimenting with this approach. - Take a song you know on guitar that uses mostly bar chords and capo at a position that allows you to play the same song, in the same key, only now with open chords. For the key of Eb major, experiment by placing your capo at either of the following fret positions: 1st, 3rd, 6th, or 8th. For the key of Ab major, experiment by placing your capo at either of the following fret positions: 1st, 4th, 6th, or 8th. These positions will allow you to use mostly open chords in these keys, even though without the capo you wouldn’t be able to use any at all. You can now take advantage of things such as chord embellishments that would not have been possible without the capo. Start Experimenting And Creating On Your Guitar Now It’s easy to get overwhelmed with each approach that has been covered in both parts 1 and 2 of this article. I suggest choosing one area to explore and taking your time to then go about doing this. The idea is to get you doing something different with your acoustic playing than you have done before. If you are doing that then great, you’re on your way! The key is to start now and enjoy the process of learning something new. There will be many victories along the way to keep you going as you become more and more inspired and creative with your acoustic guitar playing. rnCheck out this free video/pdf download on percussive guitar playing and totally transform the way you play your acoustic guitar from today onwards.