The questions that surround the history of the guitar are many.  Making a guitar is part art and part science. The guitar has always been made from wood but these days composite material also plays a role. The tuners, bridge and other metal parts have also progressed to a high level of function. The making of a guitar has not altered very much over many centuries. The entire world contributes to the guitars we have today in the woods that come from these countries.

Maple is the most often used material for the guitar neck as the wood must be very hard. The truss rod came to be used in the neck of the guitar to resist the forces applied to the neck.

Rosewod and maple are used for the guitar neck as well. These woods will last almost forever as they are hard wearing as well. Fret boards may be made to last a little longer if the surface is planed to produce an even surface again.

Tuning pegs have long been a simple affair, a wooden dowel or peg with the string wrapped around it. With modern tuning mechanisms precise tuning adjustments are possible. Bridges are adjustable these days as well. Together these two items have made it so you can tune a guitar and it will stay in tune.The guitar tuner is also a large contributing factor that allows guitar players everywhere to be in tune all the time.

The history of guitar was changed forever with the invention of the electrical pickup. At first crude and simple, the pickup evolved into a precise affair with identifiable sounds. From the simple beginnings of the pickup came the electric solid body guitar of today. Now the pickup allowed the guitar to be heard with a drummer or a band. The pickup altered the guitar forever.

Even though the materials and technology have changed, the guitar remains much the same as it has from the beginning.

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Setting out on the route to success with your new guitar is an extraordinary experience. At last you have that first guitar in your hands and you are ready to play it, your adventure begins!

To convert the dream of becoming an accomplished guitar player from a fiction into an actuality though takes a dedication to exercise with that new guitar until it almost becomes a part of yourself.

It is of course advisable to follow a structured teaching program for the quickest and best results when learning to play any instrument and your new guitar will be no exception.

In the early days of learning to play guitar students do from time to time find that they get very sore guitar fingers and that they can hurt!

The muscles in the hands have to alter and toughen themselves to take up the position and movement required to support the neck of the guitar and at the same time to place the fingers in the correct playing posture on the fretboard At the same time the fingers of the left hand have to be able to stretch laterally to traverse the correct frets and press the guitar strings from that position, whilst the right hand is addressing the pick to the playing strings in the right position over perhaps a lengthy period of time as well.

Exercise routines to toughen and stretch the muscles and tendons of the hand will gradually benefit playing proficiency and suppress aching and cramp but it will take some weeks rather than days. It is critical not to allow this call to develop and maintain hand strength dampen early enthusiasm as it is a stage that soon passes with regular practice.

A visit to a local sports shop will reveal to you a number of devices for building grip strength at a very modest cost. Grip strength can be bettered no end by just having a soft rubber ball in your pocket and compressing it whenever you can through the day

A good exercise to strengthen tendons in the fingers is to place the hands together as you would in prayer. Open the space between your fingers as far as you can, then pushing the finger tips together lift the palms away from each other while keeping pressure on the finger tips. This helps stretch the tendons in the fingers and make it easier to open the fingers apart. This would be a good way of warming your hands up ahead of every practice session. Your beginner guitar lessons will be the better for it.

For many students starting out with guitar lessons the tips of their left hand can become sore or even cracked from pressing on the guitar strings. This can normally be avoided by not trying to practice too much too soon. At the start limit practice times to say only fifteen minutes at a time giving the fingers time to toughen up before you start to make the sessions any longer as this will help obviate any problem. Many people say that regularly applying a some surgical spirit to the finger tips assists them to toughen them up

If your fingers do split then one way often suggested and which allows you to continue playing is to seal the cracks in the skin with a substance like Dermabond or even superglue. The best way forward if your fingers do start to become sore though is to rest them for a day or two. They will begin to toughen up with a little patience

It is bound to take a while for hands and fingers to acclimatise to playing the guitar so the rule is be patient and practice often but practice in short sessions. They do say – no pain, no gain. The lifetime of pleasure to be gained from sticking with it and mastering your guitar is worth a little short term discomfort!

So if you have your wonderful new guitar and an excellent course to follow there is absolutely nothing to stop you from achieving your dream of playing it!!

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Its only in recent years that I have really appreciated the advantage that I had through growing up in a very musical family. Both my mother and father were amateur musicians, my mum playing piano and dad playing jazz guitar.

Having children of my own I can see how they have benefited from having access to guitars and other musical instruments as they’ve grown up. They’ve never been pushed toward any particular instrument or forced to attend piano or violin lessons. Instead we’ve tried to ensure that they are provided with encouragement and resources, in the form of a few instruments, and we think that this approach has been really good for them.

Our youngest son has shown no interest in making music whatsoever. He is a very keen sportsman, loves football and online gaming. However his older brother was bashing out rhythms on a toy drum kit from about the age of three. By the time he was seven years old he was playing along with my guitar playing on his mini child size drum kit.

My daughter has always like to challenge her mother and me, ever since she was a very little girl. However, in recent years she too has begun to take a keen interest in music but for her this involves DJing and playing her music so loud that it prompts our neighbours to ask if it can be turned down. Her interest in DJ equipment and modern dance music has led to her developing skills in music production using computers and it’s looking like she will progress to a music technology course at college.

We think that our parental influence is very significant in the interests and inclinations of our children. We’ve always tried to ensure that boundaries are clearly defined but encouraged them to be independent. Their independence and self reliance is becoming increasingly apparent as they grow toward adulthood. We just wish that our daughter would play her dance music a little more quietly and stop upsetting our neighbours.

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