Welcome back to the Wood&Steel guitar lesson, featuring session player and guitar teacher Taylor Gamble.
This time around, Taylor takes things back to square one with a trio of essential concepts for any guitar player: strumming, picking and palm muting. New learners should practice these techniques until they become second nature, incorporating volume dynamics and the varied touch that makes a piece of music truly resonate.
Beginner: Strumming
Taylor kicks off our lesson with an introduction to strumming technique, demonstrating the basics while illustrating how subtle variations can add feeling to your sound.
Next, Taylor explains simple picking techniques before showing how mixing strumming and picking together can create beautiful melodies with basic chord shapes.
Finally, our lesson concludes with a technique utilized by guitarists from pop and R&B to country and heavy metal: palm muting. Taylor illustrates how using your strumming hand to gently mute the strings can add dynamics to your playing, especially when mixed with open strumming and picking.
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