by Tom Hess

Would you like to have the ability to control what your listeners feel when they listen to your guitar playing? Do you want to know how to express your emotions perfectly with your music? Having the skills to control musical emotion in this way is the ultimate achievement for any serious musician.

Sadly, for many musicians this ability remains an unattainable dream. Even though most guitarists desire to express themselves on this level, very few are successful at reaching this goal. Here are the most common reasons why this happens:

Reason #1:

It is very rare that guitarists ‘attempt’ to develop this ability. You can see the proof by looking at the data provided by Google’s own Keyword Tool showing average searches done per month (worldwide) for the following terms:

play guitar with feeling = NO searches
expressing feeling with guitar = NO searches
play guitar with emotion = NO searches
express yourself on guitar = NOT A SINGLE search
playing guitar with teeth = 320 searches

You read it right! The majority looks up “playing guitar with teeth” instead of “expressing feeling with guitar” or other such topics. Pretty sad…

Reason #2:

When guitarists begin learning about applying theoretical musical concepts to guitar, they spend a lot of their time focusing on the wrong things. Although this info can be helpful to your guitar playing up to a certain extent, these things by themselves will do little to help you express very specific emotions when you play guitar. The same applies to songwriting, and guitar improvisation.

Here is a great illustration of my point: If I told you to find an “E” note on the guitar you would probably be able to do this very quickly. However, if I told you to quickly find a note on your guitar that creates a particular feeling, you wouldn’t be able to find it (assuming you are similar to most guitarists). Let me explain this a bit further…

Suppose that we were both in the same band, and were getting ready to play guitar for band practice. Instead of our usual practice schedule of running through our song list, I brought a new idea to the group. I get things going by playing an “A Major” chord rhythm. Next, I ask you to pick up your guitar and “instantly” generate the feeling of “joy felt by a man who just proposed to his girlfriend (and she accepted!).” What is the one note you would play on the fretboard (above my “A Major” chord) that would perfectly express the idea of “joy felt by a man who just proposed to his girlfriend (and she accepted!)?”

The greater portion of guitar players would have no idea how to express this with guitar playing. They would likely scramble around the fretboard trying to find something that works. Even if we switched to trying to express something totally different, the majority still would not understand how to quickly find the right note (…in their head, before even touching the guitar.)

The key to accurately expressing ideas with guitar is knowing exactly (in your head) which note will work in any given context, before you touch the guitar. All of the greatest guitar players who can freely express strong emotions with their music have the ability to know ahead of time which note(s) will best express a certain feeling in any context. Not to mention, that they can use this ability to make anyone who listens to them feel the same. This is the greatest ability that one could ever look to obtain in all of music.

How can you get great expressive skills on guitar?

Perhaps you think that you need a masters degree in music performance or detailed knowledge of how music works to be able to become highly expressive with music. Well, you don’t need either one.

Here are 2 things you must do to master musical expression with guitar:

1.From now on, any time you pick up your guitar, play the guitar while thinking specifically about the emotions you are feeling and what you want to express.

2.Stop seeing the fretboard as a series of notes, fret numbers, and scale patterns. Start seeing emotions that you can express on guitar.

To see and hear how this works, begin by watching the video below.

As soon as you begin watching the video, you will find out that by doing what most guitarists do to learn guitar, you will not be able to become a highly expressive guitar player.

By changing your current guitar playing mindset to fit that of a “highly expressive guitarist,” you will be able to become a masterful musical artist, and significantly affect the way others experience your music. As you practice expressing yourself on guitar, you WILL see huge results in all areas of your guitar playing.

Watch this video about music theory for guitar to become much more expressive guitarist.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is an electric guitar teacher online, recording artist and a mentor for musicians.  He trains guitar players from around the world how to reach their musical goals in his correspondence guitar lessons online.  Visit his website tomhess.net to receive many free guitar playing resources, mini courses, guitar practice eBooks, and to read more articles about guitar playing.