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2010 Guitar Blog Awards

Brett — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:02:45 +0000

I wanted to take time and recognize some of the really excellent guitar blogs out there, and in doing so, ultimately thank the people who’ve done an absolutely outstanding job in providing the best quality content about guitar on the web. Plus, it’s just downright fun giving away and receiving awards.

Criteria

These blogs were selected based on four main criteria: (1) content quality, (2) content consistency, (3) design, and (4) voice. By content quality, we’re referring to the quality and level of comprehensiveness of the information on the blog. By content consistency, we’re referring to how often the blog is updated with new, fresh, and unique content. By design, we’re referring to the overall look, feel, and usability of the blog. And by voice, we’re referring to that unique element and tone that sets a blogger out from the rest.

Contributors

Truth be told, there are many excellent guitar blogs out there, too many to feature all in this post (and probably some that I’ve overlooked). Many were nominated by the members of the Guitar Bloggers group at Guitar World. So, if you’re blog didn’t receive an award or get mentioned, don’t take it personally, just shoot me an email, so I can keep you in mind for the future.

Without further ado, I proudly present to you the 2010 Guitar Blog Awards in the following five categories: Guitar Instruction & Lessons, Guitar Gear & Reviews, Guitar News & Information, Other Guitar Related, and New & Upcoming.

Did your blog win an award? Tell the world by installing an awards badge on your website.

Guitar Instruction & Lessons

Classical Guitar Blog

As the name would imply, blogger Christopher Davis focuses primarily on classical guitar studies. His posts are concise, yet very informative, which means there is something to be learned even if you don’t study classical guitar. You’re not getting lost in a bunch of clutter, which makes his lessons very easy-to-follow and one of the best guitar resources on the internet.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Guitar Praise

Over the past decade, Christian worship music, from artists like Hillsong United, David Crowder Band, and Phil Wickham, has become increasingly popular. Kenny of Guitar Praise has done an excellent job of demonstrating through the use of video and tablature how to play about ever worship song imaginable. In the process, he’s developed a vibrant forum community where other guitar players come together to support and help each other.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Not Playing Guitar

If you’re reading Not Playing Guitar, then you’re probably not practicing guitar. The “gold” of the website lies in it’s excellent source for information on playing guitar. Over the past few years, Gary has built a strong base of content featuring tips on how to play guitar, riffs, lessons, and other guitar related information.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Honorable Mentions

Mark Wein Guitar Lessons, Rock House Method

Guitar Gear & Reviews

Guitar Gear

Brendan Delumpa, or “GoofyDawg,” of Guitar Gear blends a unique and personal tone into each of his posts, while remaining extremely informative and knowledgeable. You can tell he has a passion for playing guitar, and of course, gear. His reviews are honest and straightforward and written from a hands-on analysis with the product.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Lone Phantom

Peter Hodgson from iheartguitar turned me towards Lone Phantom. He said it best by saying, “Lone Phantom is doing some freaking awesome things at the moment.” Not only are the reviews written with excellent hands-on analysis, but there is some crazy information about modding different types of pedals. Sweet.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Gear Vault

For those of us with G.A.S. (gear acquirement syndrome), Gear Vault might be a bad idea, only because it is one of the most up to date resources on the latest gear for guitar, including pedals, amps, and microphones. The blog is extremely easy to navigate too, which makes it very easy to find what you’re looking for.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Honorable Mentions

Effects Bay, Guitarz, Stratoblogster

Guitar News & Information

I Heart Guitar

I Heart Guitar covers a little bit of everything, yet does so really well. From news, interviews, gear reviews, music reviews, and lessons, it’s all there done with a high level of quality, which makes it one of the most authoritative guitar blogs out there.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

300 Guitars

While covering the latest news in the world of guitar, regular updates are interspersed with reviews, videos, and helpful tips and information about owning and maintaining a guitar. Posts are written in a personal but informative tone. You’ll also want to be sure to check out the guitar gallery too.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Guitar International

Guitar International is a fairly new online guitar magazine just starting up in the past year in September 2009. For being so new, Guitar International has set itself apart with regular artist interviews (check out their interview with guitar sensation Orianthi) and the latest news in the guitar world.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Honorable Mentions

Guitar Lifestyle, Red Dawg Guitar News, The Guitar Channel, Truth in Shredding

Other Guitar Related

Muzico Sphere

If you just go to the MuzicoSphere.com home page, you might be a bit confused because everything is in french. Rest assured though, if you click the english icon, you can see the blog in english. You can expect fresh content about geeky music things, pictures of cool guitars, reviews, contests, and videos.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Guitar Kadia

Guitar Kadia is all about stories centered around guitar. The blog is primarily driven by video, including interviews, performances, stories, and more. You won’t really find long written articles. As a songwriter, I particularly enjoyed the GuitarKadia Sessions that feature artist interviews and performances.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Guitar Vibe

Guitar Vibe has a little bit of everything surrounding guitar, including book reviews, film reviews, gear information, news, lessons, videos, and more. Blogger Zack Urlocker’s personal tone met with quality information makes Guitar Vibe a great read.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Honorable Mentions

Fifth Fret, Share My Guitar, The Vain Glorious Atrocity

New & Upcoming

The Daily Guitar

The Daily Guitar has two main goals: inspiration to practice your guitar daily, and then, to grow a community of guitarists. The blog is filled with quirky, but inspiring news about guitars and guitar players, and then, gear reviews and tutorials.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Fretter Verse

Fretter Verse was created to look at all aspects of playing guitar, hence, the slogan: “For the Love of All Things Guitar.” The posts are creative and well-written, which shows from an active readership through the comments and interaction.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Guitar Tone Overload

As the name would imply, this blog is all about guitar tone and all that goes into dialing in the perfect tone. Blogger Romain Bigeard compares effects pedals and writes up some detailed how-to articles about using effects pedals, all with sound samples and video.

CONTENT QUALITY

CONSISTENCY

DESIGN

VOICE

Final Remarks

Congratulations to all the winners. I believe these are some of the best guitar blogs out there. So thank you to all of you who contribute and pour yourselves into creating the most excellent guitar content on the internet.

If you’re blog won an award or received an honorable mention, let your readers know by installing a badge on your website.

Thought another blog (or even yours) should have made this list? Maybe I don’t know about it. There are a lot of other very excellent blogs out there, so drop me an email and introduce yourself. I love meeting other bloggers.

No related posts.

Introducing: GuitarGear.org

Brett — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:36:24 +0000

At Guitar Friendly, I’ve focused most of my efforts on the more instructional aspect of guitar with lessons, tips, tricks, etc. and I’ve had many people tell me that Guitar Friendly has been a really helpful resource for them in this way. However, what I don’t cover a lot here (although I do sometimes) is the other side of playing guitar that focuses on gear like: guitars, amps, effects, etc. That’s why I’m excited to introduce another guitar blog to you: Guitar Gear.

If you’re interested in the gear aspect of playing guitar, you definitely need to check it out. Brendan Delumpa, the guy behind the blog, reviews a lot of different types of guitars, amps, pedals, and more. What I like about his website is the depth he goes into when he reviews a piece of gear. For example, he’s recently reviewed some different effects pedals and posted audio files so you can hear how the pedal sounds.

All to say, when it comes to guitar gear, you name it and he’s probably covered it. So it’s perfect if you’re looking to buy a certain piece of gear but don’t know what to buy or even if it’s a good piece of gear to buy.

I ran across Guitar Gear the other day and I sent an email to Brendan. We got to talking and we saw a really cool opportunity for our sites to partner up and expose our sites to a broader range of guitar players and readers like yourself. He extended the invitation to me to write some content over at his blog, which I’m really excited about, and it’s possible we’ll see some of his expertise over here at Guitar Friendly.

So when you get a chance, go check out GuitarGear.org!

Welcome to Guitar Friendly

Do You Even Know How to Use that Effects Pedal?

Brett — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:36:55 +0000

As an electric guitar player, for the longest time now, I’ve had a hard time getting a good tone. As you probably know, good tone comes from a good amp and good effects chain. You can have the greatest guitar, but if you run it through a crappy amp and effects, your really great guitar will sound really crappy.

What I’ve done is started from the ground up on my effects pedals. For awhile now, I’ve been using a Line 6 PodXT Live, but I’ve found it doesn’t really suit me well since I use my amp and don’t use the amp modeling on the PodXT Live. So I’m buying a couple different pedals to suit the type of music I play.

All to say, I’ve been making some changes to my current setup. In the process, there is one thing that I’ve been reminded of as I’m making some upgrades that is important for all guitarists to keep in mind.

Taking it Slow

The mistake I’ve seen others make is to buy pedal after pedal without taking the time to learn how each pedal fits into their tone. It’s a myth that the more pedals you buy the better you will sound!

When getting a new pedal, take the time to learn the pedal before getting a new one. See how that pedal fits in with your tone. Understand what each setting and knob does and how that effects the tone. Are you getting the sound you want? If not, how do you go about doing that?

I almost just made the mistake of not taking the time to really learn my new pedals. Earlier this week, my new overdrive (Fulldrive 2) and delay (Boss DD-20) came in the mail.

Ecstatically, I ripped apart the boxes, ran over to my amp, fumbled around for awhile with the cables trying to hook them up, and started strumming away. This was fun, and I got a lot of neat sounds out of these two pedals, and I was quite pleased.

However, after the fact, I was surprised that it wasn’t really until I peeled back the pages of the manual that a world of options opened up for how I can use these pedals.

Now, I realize some pedals are more complicated in their features than others, and you might say, reading the manual is for idiots, but the point is: take the time to get the most out of the gear you buy before buying more gear.

Another challenge for you is: For every effect pedal you get, learn a new scale.

Just imagine how much better we’d all be if we did this!

Major Triad Positions: One Way to Learn the Guitar Fretboard

Brett — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:20:40 +0000

Are you up for a challenge?

In a recent previous post, “Guitar Lessons: Scales & Learning the Guitar Fretboard,” I mentioned a few things you can put into practice to master the guitar fretboard. One of these suggestions was to learn your triads over the fretboard. Triads can help “connect the dots” for how individual notes across the fretboard interact and relate to one other.

Just a forewarning, this discussion needs some understanding of how guitar scales work. This might make more sense to more intermediate players. If you are just beginning, you will want to check out guitar scales explained.

What are triads?

A triad is a group of three notes played simultaneously. Triads are made up of one note with a major third and a perfect fifth above it. In plain speak, a triad is just a three note chord. There are different types of triads: major, minor, augmented, and diminished.

For now, we just want to talk about and focus on major triads. If we understand major triads, we can understand the other ones better.

Major Triad Positions

There are different positions for triads: root, 1st inversion, and 2nd inversion. Say we have a C major triad (C – E – G). Root position triads have the lowest note in the triad as the tonic or the first note. In this example, that would be C. In 1st inversion triads, the lowest note is the third (E). In 2nd inversion triads, the lowest note is the fifth (G).

Common Root Position Major Triads
Cmaj Dmaj Emaj Fmaj Gmaj Gmaj Amaj Bmaj Cmaj ----- ----- ----- ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ------ ----- ----- ----- ----- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7--- ----- ----- ----- ----- --2-- --4-- --6-- --7-- --9--- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --3-- --5-- --7-- --8-- --10-- --2-- --4-- --6-- --7-- ----- ----- ----- ----- ------ --3-- --5-- --7-- --8--

Common 1st Inversion Major Triads
Cmaj Dmaj Emaj Fmaj Gmaj Gmaj Amaj Bmaj Cmaj Dmaj Emaj ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- --1-- --3-- --5-- --6-- --8-- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --9-- --2-- --4-- --6-- --7-- --9-- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --9-- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- --2-- --4-- --6-- --7-- --9-- --11- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Common 2nd Inversion Major Triads
Cmaj Dmaj Emaj Fmaj Gmaj Gmaj Amaj Bmaj Cmaj Dmaj Emaj --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- --1-- --3-- --5-- --6-- --8-- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --9-- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --9-- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- --0-- --2-- --4-- --5-- --7-- --9-- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

This is just a start of some of the most common major triad positions. You can arrange the notes in a triad to be played in a variety of different ways all across the guitar fretboard.

How do triads help me learn the guitar fretboard?

If you’re goal is to learn the guitar fretboard, it’s best to learn these triad positions in conjunction with your guitar scales. So when you’re learning a G major scale up and down the neck, learning the triad positions found in a G major scale (e.g. Cmaj & Dmaj) will allow you to see how the individual notes within the scale interact and relate with one another.

Triads are also very helpful for soloing. When you improvise a guitar solo, you’re playing over a chord progression. Say that in the chord progression there is a C major chord. If you’re soloing, you can identify all the different triad positions for a C major chord and use those as a kind of “launch pad” for your solo.

Further Learning

Craig Basset’s Guitar Scale Mastery System does a great job of teaching the guitar fretboard and making sense of how all of the different notes on the fretboard fit together.

If you have any questions about any of this, be sure to post a comment!

Minor Guitar Barre Chord Charts

Brett — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:35:19 +0000

Last week, I added some major barre chords to our ever growing list of guitar chords. This week, it’s time to add some minor barre chords. These minor barre chords are based on the same common position that can moved up and down the fretboard. Again, these barre chords bar all of the strings.

On these barre chord chart diagrams, you’ll notice that there is a little marking to the left of the diagram that has a number and “fr.” like 3fr. and 5fr. These markings indicate what fret you play the barre chord position on. So if the markings say, 3fr., you’d play the barre chord on the 3rd fret.

Again, you can view the whole list of guitar chords here!

Minor Guitar Barre Chords

F minor

G# minor

B minor

D minor

F# minor

A minor

C minor

G minor

Bb minor

C# minor

Major Guitar Barre Chord Charts Added!

Brett — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:39:55 +0000

Our list of guitar chords has been updated with the most common major barre chords! These barre chords bar all of the strings (except the first type of F major chord).

If you are just learning your barre chords for guitar, be patient! It may come quick for some, but more than often, it requires time to build up the adequate amount of strength in your fingers and wrist to be able to play a clean barre chord. I won’t lie to you. Barre chords can be hard! So give it time.

You can view the whole list of guitar chords here!

Major Guitar Barre Chords

F major

G major

Bb major

D major

F major

Ab major

C major

F# major

A major

C# major

Subscribe to Guitar Friendly: How does it work?

Brett — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:41:31 +0000

Do you want to stay updated with the latest posts on Guitar Friendly?

You might have noticed that on Guitar Friendly’s home page, in the middle column, there is a newly added “Subscribe to Guitar Friendly” area. This is a new and easy way for you to stay up to date with all the newest guitar lessons, videos, and tips added to Guitar Friendly!

How does it work?

You can either subscribe by email or to our RSS feed. If you subscribe by email, whenever there is new content added to the Guitar Friendly blog, whether it be guitar lessons, videos, tips, or anything else, you will receive an email of that content right to your email box.

If you subscribe to our RSS feed, you will need an RSS reader. One free and easy to use RSS reader is Google Reader. All you have to do is add the URL of our RSS feed into your reader.

What’s so great about it?

The beauty of subscribing to Guitar Friendly by RSS or email is the fact that the update come to you. Many websites, especially blogs, have an RSS feed you can subscribe to. This is the newest, easiest, and fastest way for you to receive updates from your favorite websites.

How do I subscribe?

You can subscribe to receive email updates by entering your email below. A Feedburner window will popup. You don’t have to register or anything, you just have to confirm your email address.

Enter your email address to subscribe:

To subscribe by RSS, make sure you have a RSS feed reader, and then subscribe to our RSS feed. You may have to enter the URL of our RSS feed into your feed reader.

I still don’t get RSS.

Here, watch this video. It explains everything you need to know about RSS!

RSS In Plain English

Welcome to Guitar Friendly

Brett — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:24:33 +0000

Welcome to Guitar Friendly! I find the first post to a blog kind of awkward unless introductions have been made, so first let me introduce myself to you. My name is Brett and I’ve been playing guitar for quite a few years now. I started playing when I was just a kid. Now, I am in college studying music. I am extremely passionate about music and especially playing music, so I’m really excited to start up this blog!

The purpose of this blog to provide a helpful resource for fellow guitar players and musicians. Whether you are totally new to guitar or have been playing for years, my hope is that you can find something beneficial here to your growth as a guitar player.

Also, this blog will be run in network with Piano Friendly. If you are a piano player, be sure to check it out in the near future!

That’s all from me for now. Feel free to give any suggestions or comments for the website.

Guitar Friendly » Site News

2010 Guitar Blog Awards

Criteria

Contributors

Final Remarks

Related Posts

Introducing: GuitarGear.org

Related Posts

Do You Even Know How to Use that Effects Pedal?

Taking it Slow

Related Posts

Major Triad Positions: One Way to Learn the Guitar Fretboard

What are triads?

Major Triad Positions

How do triads help me learn the guitar fretboard?

Further Learning

Related Posts

Minor Guitar Barre Chord Charts

Related Posts

Major Guitar Barre Chord Charts Added!

Related Posts

Subscribe to Guitar Friendly: How does it work?

Related Posts

Welcome to Guitar Friendly

Related Posts