Oh-oh, the dreaded New Year’s Resolutions where you make rash promises to do things better, more often or just do them in the first place. Usually, the best intentions last about three days, because they involve giving up favourite stuff like chocolate and cheese burgers…

But sensible, helpful resolutions to keep your guitar playing improving and advancing over the next year are a great idea. Here are seven that we reckon you can stick with and you won’t have to give up anything. You can even eat chocolate and cheese burgers while you rehearse… or maybe that’s not such a good idea.

1. Schedule a Regular Practice Time

A lot people want to commit to practising every day or maybe something like at least three times a week—and never do, because life keeps getting in the way. It’s a solid concept and will definitely work, but the trick is to first carefully examine your daily routines and create a schedule that never clashes with anything else. You can use the Uberchord app to set reminders and goals, then once you get into an uninterrupted, regular routine your playing will improve for sure.

2. Stop Avoiding Difficult Stuff

If you find some aspects of playing guitar too hard, the worst thing you can do is avoid it—like ignoring tricky barre chords or finger-picking rhythms. Instead, promise yourself that next year you’ll do the opposite and devote extra time to learning the more demanding techniques. It might not be as much fun as jamming over easier chords, but you really do have to push through the harder lessons to improve. Uberchord lets you create customised Daily Workouts and Exercises that can focus on difficult playing.

3. Set a Long Term Goal

Okay, now don’t be scared by this one. Setting a long-term goal can be motivating without the pressure of daily or weekly targets, however these goals can be a bit frightening. For instance, is there a local musician’s jam night (or “open microphone” night) where you can play your first-ever live performance in front of an audience? Is there a party coming up where you can launch your new-found guitar talent on your friends? Be brave, set a date or choose an occasion, and don’t quit at the last minute.

Create exercises and Daily Workouts in Uberchord specifically aimed at learning certain songs. You can’t just play and sing to yourself forever—set a goal to take that nerve-wracking first step to playing in front of people. It could be the start of a whole new career!

4. Join A Band Within a Year

How about joining your first band with like-minded band friends? Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to be good, before you’re allowed to join a band. There are always other novice musicians looking to try playing in a band. Being in a group gives you extra goals to aim for, it’s a lot of fun, and you encourage each other. That first recording contract might be closer than you think.

5. Reward Yourself When You Reach Goals

A good New Year’s resolution can be something like, “I’m not going to buy that new effects pedal until I can play such-and-such”. You can think up several of these. In other words, instead of avoiding learning the harder techniques, motivate yourself by offering a reward for improving your playing. You need to be tough on yourself and don’t cheat, but you’ll feel much more satisfaction knowing you’ve earned that new gadget by working through the tricky lessons and taking your playing to the next level.

6. Start Recording Your Own Playing

A lot of aspiring musicians will hate the way they sound, the first time they hear themselves play or sing, or maybe watch a home video. Don’t judge yourself too hard, it’s a weird but common thing that few people like the sound of their own performances. Instead, record yourself and use it as a tool to analyse your best and worst playing. Because otherwise, you can be too focused on trying to play and you can’t properly hear what you’re doing. You don’t need to book a session at Abbey Road Studios. A recording app on your smart phone or tablet will do.

7. Listen To Your Favourite Players

Of course, you’re always going to be listening to your favourite bands, your hero guitar players and those riffs that always get your nerves tingling. The point is to begin really listening to those guitarists. Don’t just groove along to the music and have a good time—start tuning in closely to what they’re playing and imagining how they’re playing it. In your mind, shut out all the instruments and concentrate on just the guitar. You’ll hear some pretty neat things! See if you can figure out what they’re doing. You’ll probably find a how-to video on YouTube to help you. We’ve listed our best Youtube Channels here.

So there you are—New Year’s resolutions don’t have to be about torturing yourself over giving up nice things or going on a crazy diet. Instead, make them about improving your musicianship and becoming a better guitar player. Stick with them and in twelve months time the sky might be the limit for next year’s promises and goals.

Can you think of any other New Year resolutions that will help guitar players? Let us know in the comments.

The post 7 New Year Resolutions for Guitar Players in 2017 (And how to keep them) appeared first on Uberchord App.

After a lot of blood, sweat and tears, Uberchord 2.0 has finally arrived!

This is our biggest release ever and we’ve added even more exciting features for you to learn better & faster. Here is what is new for you guys:

All New Learning Paths

Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced levels

Whether you are a beginner or an intermediate or an advanced guitar player, we have your back. We have all new learning paths with new content suitable to your needs and level. Explore new songs, exercises, chords progressions, full songs courses along with strumming and rhythm trainer.

Starting from simple two finger chords to playing your first song, to learning the complex rhythm and strumming patterns, we have carefully handpicked songs and topics to kickstart your guitar career. As you progress further on this journey, the difficulty level of exercises and songs will keeps increasing, challenging you a notch higher each time.

Introducing Songs

With our new licensing partnership Universal Music we can finally offer you all the famous songs you always wanted to learn. Our learning paths already include about a dozen of the finest songs ever created, with handcrafted exercises to prepare your skills.

Everybody wants to start learning their favourite songs as soon as they can. But are you learning them correctly? The internet is great for finding out how to play millions of songs, except there’s little guarantee you’re being shown the right chords and lyrics—unless you learn them here at Uberchord.

Selected songs from the Universal Music’s catalogue will be added on regular basis in the app for you. To begin with, Coldplay’s Yellow, Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters and Bob Dylan’s House Of the Rising Sun, are available for free in the Beginner’s Course 1. You can learn to play the complete song in the perfect way along with lyrics, and rhythm trainer.

The Strumming Trainer: World Premiere

Get your your right hand to work

It’s one thing to get your chord fingering perfect, but your strumming hand is just as important to get those cool rhythms happening and play some tunes properly. A lot of guitar tutorials don’t pay enough attention to strumming, but here at Uberchord we believe great technique with both your hands is essential and focusing on just strumming is a good practice method. So we’ve developed the world’s first interactive Strumming Trainer for guitar to get those rhythm and grooves working for you.

New Premium Content Every Week

While the first Beginner’s Course is absolutely free for you to try, for just $ 4.99 per month you can subscribe to our exclusive and premium content and select songs based on artists and difficulty level.

We’ll be adding new songs and new learning content every week so that you never feel stuck or bored from learning to play guitar. Keep a look out on our online music platform, newsletter, blog, or any of our social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or GooglePlus to get the latest updates and news about us.

Uberchord is personal

Daily Workout and Statistics

To build a great chord repertoire requires a lot of repetition and practice. Uberchord’s Daily Workout feature turns a chore into a pleasure. It creates great individual chord exercises for you.

Your personal profile gives you detailed statistics on your overall learning progress, allows you to set reminders and goals, and schedule your practice.

Daily Workout: Uberchord will introduce you to new chords and patterns that you might otherwise avoid for longer than you should. Just ten minutes a day in the Daily Workout Uberchord gymnasium can make all the difference. And the heaviest thing you’ll have to pick up is your guitar.

Coming Soon: Uberchord Music

A new music platform for guitar players

Very soon you will be able to browse your favourite songs and artists from our growing catalog along with lyrics and strumming patterns on our brand new online music platform: Uberchord Music.

All of our content will be available as interactive exercises in the Uberchord app — your mobile guitar teacher is just a click away.

Our fantastic deal with Universal Music Publishing allows us to offer an ever-growing selection of popular songs with accurate chords, lyrics and rhythm trainer. More and more songs will added every week and we’re aiming to provide a huge library of songs from which you can choose.

We really hope you enjoy and use our latest additions. Let us know what you think. We’re always open to feedback and suggestions.

The post Uberchord 2 — Introducing Songs & World’s first Strumming Trainer for Guitar appeared first on Uberchord App.

Learning to play these iconic riffs can give you a great insight into how simple (and maybe not so simple) note patterns can really make a song come alive. So I’ve chosen seven well-known riffs you can start with—and have a lot of fun, too. Feel free to share your favourite guitar riffs in the comments section below.

The best way to learn any riff including the examples below would be to figure out the notes, then create an exercise in our free Uberchord app to keep track of your progress. That’s way easier than having to refer to the tutorial videos all the time. Every new riff you hear today has its roots in these kinds of songs. Have a listen, learn them, and all sorts of possibilities will open up for your guitar playing.

Can’t Get No (Satisfaction) – The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones have been performing for over fifty years and during that long career the band has been remarkable in maintaining close to its original line-up. Looking for new ideas, the guitarist, Keith Richards, is well-known for experimenting by playing songs in alternative tunings.

If you try and learn a Rolling Stones song and it doesn’t quite work—check if Richards used standard tuning or not. However, Can’t Get No Satisfaction is one of the band’s earlier songs and it is in EADGBE tuning. The opening riff couldn’t be simpler, just a three-note progression, and it became an absolute trademark for the band. Apparently, the riff was originally intended to be for a horn section. No one’s complaining that it stayed as a guitar intro.

House Of The Rising Sun – The Animals

The House Of The Rising Sun is one of those opening riffs that’s been covered, tweaked and re-invented a hundred times by many bands over the decades, but The Animal’s version is still easily the most well-known. However, believe it or not, music historians insist that the song had been around for maybe two hundred years before The Animals turned it into a number one hit. It’s based on a traditional folk song, which probably explains the right-hand, cascading strum style in which the chords should be played.

By the way, if you’re tempted to learn and sing House Of The Rising Sun, you could be in for a surprise. The key and starting pitch is high and beyond the reach of many aspiring singers. Stick with playing the guitar—that’s much more fun.

Day Tripper – The Beatles

Everyone knows just how influential The Beatles were on modern rock music. Arguably, along with just a few other acts of their era, The Beatle started almost everything. Even so, with the enormous amount of similar material being produced in the years since, it’s still often overlooked just how innovative their approach to song writing became.

John Lennon’s opening riff and lead guitar was truly a musical brainwave. Nobody else was creating that kind of sound or music. He wrote it under pressure, trying to come up with another hit single in a hurry. Back in 1965 it wasn’t a great idea to admit the song was about drugs and both Lennon and McCartney didn’t say too much. Later, of course, the truth came out. It was always kind of obvious.

Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple

Smoke On The Water is not only a classic riff, it’s ridiculously simple to play—which is why it has to get a mention here. Musicians over the years have mimicked and copied the opening introduction and usually over-complicated things. Like, it’s impossible to imagine that the great Richie Blackmore would mostly play the whole thing on just two barred strings. But that is, in fact, the essence of the opening riff.

I reckon playing full chords or even power chords trashes the sound too much, unless it’s later in the song. Watch the video here and you’ll see that really you should only ever play two strings at a time. You can be a beginner and as good as Blackmore at the same time. How cool is that?

Apache – The Shadows

This is seriously diving into the rock and roll archives. The Shadows were a very popular British band in their long heyday, yet probably are still better known for being Cliff Richard’s backing band—or as “Cliff Richard and The Shadows” maybe the guys would argue they had equal billing? The thing is, The Shadows were an instrumental band and relied on lead guitarist Hank Marvin’s riffing melodies instead of a vocalist.

Apache was a break-out single that knocked The Beatles off the top of the charts—no mean feat—and is still often listed as among the top 100 guitar tracks of all time. If you want to hear the Godfather of modern guitar riffs, Marvin probably qualifies. The Shadows were also influential in the designing the Vox guitar amplifier. They wanted something louder!

Beat It – Michael Jackson

A lot has been said of Michael Jackson, especially in the confusion and unhappiness since his unfortunate death, but there are two indisputable facts. Jackson was a brilliant musician in his own right—and he always surrounded himself with other, genius musicians for his studio sessions. Michael Jackson expected nothing but the best, when he was writing and recording tunes. So it’s no surprise that guitarist Eddie Van Halen is associated with Beat It, a huge hit for Jackson.

However, Van Halen only played the solo in Beat It. That driving, classic opening riff was created by Steve Lukather of Toto fame. At the time (and for years since) Lukather and the rest of Toto were the hottest studio session musicians in Los Angeles. “Luke” as he’s known, has said that at least one member of Toto was on just about every serious recording that came out of LA at the time. You could certainly do worse than learning how to play like Steve Lukather, who is recognised by the “pros” as one of the greatest modern players ever.

Stairway to Heaven – Led Zeppelin

A list like this has to include the opening introduction to Stairway To Heaven, although its length and complexity maybe disqualifies it as a “riff” as such. Playing the initial chords will be a challenge, before it changes to more standard chord shapes, but it can be something that novice players can learn slowly. Take your time and don’t expect too much for a while. A word of advice, don’t stress too much about getting it exactly right.

Even Jimmy Page dabbled in small variations and playing techniques all the time, including switching to a twelve-string for the more rhythmic parts (maybe he got bored with playing it all the time?) and you shouldn’t treat any version you hear as gospel. You’ll probably never play it live yourself, but lots of non-guitar playing people will often ask, “Can you play Stairway to Heaven” as a joke, and if you whip out a passable version, you get the last laugh. Plus, it can’t harm to learn how to play a true piece of guitar history.

There you have my choices as seven famous guitar riffs that I wish I’d written. Especially anything more modern than the examples here—the grunge and heavy metal bands of the nineties did some fantastic music. Progressive rockers are bound to have some favourites too. There are plenty more to consider, so please comment below on any great riffs you’d like to see mentioned.

There’s even more classic rock songs to learn here on our free blog! Take a browse or search for whatever you may be interested in learning for now. We recommend starting with topics like i’m never changing who i am chords, best cheap acoustic humbucker pickup, and “What key is ain’t no sunshine in?”

The post 7 Classic Rock Guitar Riffs Every Beginner Guitar Player Should Learn appeared first on Uberchord App.