Master the Essentials: Must-Know Electric Guitar Techniques for Every Player!

Do you feel like a rocker? Are you dreaming to perform on a big stage wearing your leather jacket?

Electric guitar is the perfect music instrument for you! Just think about it: electric guitar allows you to have the same sense of freedom of a classic guitar but with a cooler sound.

That doesn’t obviously mean that the two instruments are the same thing. Even if you already know how to play classic guitar, the electric one might seem strange to you at the beginning, because of the way you execute the notes.

Electric Guitar Techniques to Enhance your musicality

Essential Electric Guitar Techniques

Set Free Your Musicality: Essential Electric Guitar Techniques to Raise Your Sound!

Don’t worry! Here at Guitar Lessons London we are ready to teach you all the essential techniques to become a good guitarist with your electric guitar and make the notes really stand out with this instrument.

Are you ready to play rock and heavy metal? Let’s go!

1) Palm Muting

Perhaps you don’t know, but an electric guitar allows you to obtain different kind of sound according to the way you put your hands. For a chunky sound you can do palm muting.

This technique is very easy to do: you just have to rest the side of your picking hand on the guitar bridge. Remember: ON the bridge, not behind or in front of it. Otherwise, you won’t obtain the right sound!

2) Minor Pentatonic Scale

One of the most common techniques which is frequently used in rock and blues is the pentatonic scale. This is a simple scale played with only five notes (“penta” in Greek means “five”).

The scale is repeated across various octaves and can be also played in a descending way, from the highest note to the lowest one. In order to make things easier, you can start with a A Minor Pentatonic Scale, but you can choose to play it in any key you prefer.

3) Hammer-ons

Do you know what a “legato” is? Practically is when you play two notes tied together. Hammer-on is a particular kind of legato. You have to play two notes on the same string but, while the first one is picked, the second one is struck on the fretboard.

Electric Guitar Techniques to Boost Your Sound to New Heights!

Electric Guitar Techniques to Boost Your Sound to New Heights

The result is that your performance gains in speed and colour. Her are some examples of famous songs you can practice hammer-ons with:

• Thunderstruck by Ac/Dc
• Beat it by Michael Jackson
• Come Together by The Beatles
• All I wanna do by Sheryl Crow

4) Tapping

Speaking again about the different types of hammer-ons, a particular one is called tapping. The peculiarity of this technique is that you don’t perform it with the left hand as a normal hammer-on, but with the right one.

It might seem difficult to you, but we assure you it’s not at all! Our tip is to start with a single string: do a hammer-on with your fretting hand, and then, do it again on the same string with your picking hand. 

As you can see, playing electric guitar can be so exciting! And these are only a few techniques you can learn; there’s a whole world behind this instrument!

Would you like to learn more? Contact our studio in London to rock with us!