I often hear people say they find it hard to stretch their fingers to play certain chords when they first start to play because they have small hands. Well, for those folk this seemingly obvious recommendation will be a great help and will also make early-learning life much easier for budding young guitar players who are often bought guitars which are too large for their age. 

First, if you don't have one already buy a capo. You can use any straight full-width capo or an adjustable 6-string capo such as a Flexi-Capo or Spider Capo if you already have one. Now, because the gaps between frets become smaller as they progress towards the guitar body you can take advantage of that situation by positioning the capo on any fret which makes fingering chords easier for you - if you play a lot of open chords, as beginners often do, you can even start with your capo set on the 7th or 8th fret. You will probably be amazed at how chords suddenly become so much easier to play. 

As you make progress ...

A belated Happy New Year to you all. It's been a while, my apologies.

I recently acquired an iPad, a great gift which is much appreciated, and as you might expect I immediately obtained a music creation app for it. So now I can make arrangements and write music on three platforms, an iMac, a laptop PC and my new iPad. You'd think I now have it covered wouldn't you, but despite their brilliance at handling notation, tabs and chords - and more - I've discovered they all lack the spontaneity most of us need when ideas come into our heads.

A customer once told me how frustrating it can be to pick out a set of chords making sense of a piece which may have dogged him for years, but by the time the computer is switched on and the music notation app launched parts are forgotten, particularly nuances which made the difference between being a bit close and being near perfect. Having had the same thing happen to me I know just how upsetting that can be.

Despite concerns when I first launched ...