Hey it's October 31st Halloween, and I thought that it would be fun to rip out some crazy sounding wah licks with a killer shred guitar tone to celebrate the scariest night of the year!
Were gonna have some fun, and we'll jam out through three really cool shred "scary" sounding wah licks all built from in the key of, "E Minor" - This format is the same as how the Qwik-Licks episodes are set-up over in the members area of my web-site. WATCH THE VIDEO:
If you like the format of this lesson, head over to my website at CreativeGuitarStudio.com where after you create your FREE membership, you'll have access to 30 FREE Lessons just like this. That's right sign up and get THIRTY FREE Qwik-Licks lesson episodes! Licks from this video lesson... Lick #1).
Lick #2).
Lick #3).
As you can tell, these licks are a lot of fun to jam on, they're not overly complicated, and if you follow the Speed Learning methods I discuss throughout my guitar courses, of; memorization, and speed building with a metronome, you'll be shreddin' these licks down in no time flat. Daily Deal:
Take care everybody; enjoy the licks, happy Halloween, and I hope you have fun, and you score a lot of Halloween treats tonight. Take care and all the best...
At some point almost every guitar player begins to consider that if they could take some time to learn jazz, the study of jazz could help them become a much better guitar player... and they'd be correct!
The thing that often stops players from learning jazz is that they will not understand how to start studying jazz guitar. However, the trick with getting into the jazz guitar practice method is very simple. All you need to do is learn a short jazz progression that does two things; #1). Demonstrate the important chord qualities used in jazz. #2). Develop the swing feel, since that's so vital to delivering the rhythm of this style. In this week's "Guitar Blog Insider" I'm going to cover all of these ideas. And, when we're done, you'll have your first Jazz tune to practice that will hopefully lead you to learning many more jazz songs and jazz riffs in the future.
In order to develop your ability for playing jazz guitar, your most important item will be that first group of jazz changes. Try to keep it short, my recommendation is an 8-bar maximum. The piece will need to introduce four main chord qualities, to you, which are; Major 7, Minor 7, Dominant 7th and some form of either 1/2 or fully Diminished chord. Once you can achieve some success with performing your initial jazz progression (in at least two areas of the fingerboard), you'll basically have what you need to go forward and start developing many more jazz songs in your repertoire. All future songs you study will introduce new extended and altered chords. After approximately a dozen songs, you will be well on your way playing jazz. 8-BAR PRACTICE PIECE:
(watch the video to learn the chord patterns)
Well, I'd like to wrap up by just saying, thanks for joining me... If you want to learn more about what I do as an online guitar teacher, then head over to my website at creativeguitarstudio.com and sign up your FREE lifetime membership... When you want more, you can always upgrade to either a Basic, or a Premium lesson package and start studying the guitar courses that I've organized for the members of my Creative Guitar Studio website. DAILY DEAL:
I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on all of this in the comment section below... Thanks again and we'll catch up next week, for another episode of the, "Guitar Blog Insider."
Performing a guitar solo feels easy on the electric guitar. String gauges and string action is lighter on the electric guitar platform making articulations like slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs easier to accomplish. However, when a solo is performed on acoustic steel-string, the technique required to perfect each articulation becomes more challenging...
Lesson 011 explores this idea...
In this Guitar Soloing lesson, the goal will be to learn a collection of lead lines on steel-string acoustic. Then, after developing the melodic lines on acoustic, the next idea will be to transfer them over to electric guitar. Doing this will help in accomplishing a higher degree of technical ability for performing solos on the electric.
PART ONE:In example one, I have composed two guitar licks from the "A Minor" scale. One phrase ascends, the other descends. Begin by learning each phrase on the acoustic guitar. Once they feel comfortable (up to a tempo of approximately 120 b.p.m.), transfer each idea over to the electric guitar.
Example two expands on the single-note line phrases from example one, and takes them a step further using two-note chords. The two-note chord ideas are harmonized around single-note line phrases in the key of "A Major." Learn the 4-bar lead line and then transfer the solo over to the electric guitar. Carefully select all of your fingerings that are used across the two-note chords to establish the best transitions between them and the single note line melodies.
PART TWO: In example three, the next level of harmony is introduced by way of triad harmony. Triad phrasing from the key of "C Major" is used to establish a lead concept over the keys chord progression. Several major and minor triads are applied within the lead. Study the triads, learn their fingerings and build the tempo to the goal speed of 105 b.p.m. Then, transfer the part over to the electric guitar.
Example four, focuses on performing faster phrases. This lead example is in the key of "G Minor" and includes both 16th and 32nd note ideas. The faster lead parts are found up front in the main statement with turnaround concepts occuring in the guitar solos 1st and 2nd endings. Learn the guitar solo up to speed (with emphasis on selecting proper fingerings). Then, transfer the solo onto the electric guitar. Paid members can download the handout along with the MP3 jamtrack in the members area at: CreativeGuitarStudio.com
Posted by Andrew Wasson
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
The most important skill we have next to our ears hearing music and our ability to technically play what we'd want to, is our sense of rhythm...
In order to perform rhythm parts accurately (that are also comfortable), and get theparts feeling like they're very well controlled (especially when we consider timing when we're delivering), we need to have a solid approach to performing rhythmic meter. Daily Deal:
Without a learning approach, we're going to have problems matching to the rhythm guitar parts from songs, and with being able to perform rhythms perfectly in time. WATCH THE VIDEO:
GENERAL RHYTHM PROBLEMS: The main problems that most guitar players have is two-fold. Problem #1). MATCHING A PART FROM A SONG: Most guitar players who are still studying rhythm guitar find it very difficult to accurately match a part from a recording. Problem #2). CREATING ORIGINAL GUITAR PARTS: A secondary issue comes in being able to create original rhythm guitar parts when players are composing their original songs.
In this post, I want to cover a collection of techniques that you can take in and use right away to help you build much better skills at playing better rhythm guitar. Rhythm Skill Study #1). "COUNT IN" Counting into a piece makes a huge difference. The preparation it allows you to nail the beats of the groove is incredibly valuable. The other aspect with counting in is to do it with vigor. Count in like you mean it. Doing so makes all the difference in the world. Rhythm Skill Study #2). "CONSISTENCY" Having consistency is critical to solid skill development. Without a consistent feel across the groove your rhythmic playing will operate across a wave. It will swell and dip along the groove rather than maintain a steady feel. The trick to this is awareness and conscious effort. With strong diligence to consistency your groove will be rock solid.
Rhythm Skill Study #3). "PLAY TO A CLICK" The feel of a click track can cause many players problems at first. It takes effort to focus the mind on the click of a steady back-ground meter. However, once you can focus your mind upon the click, and later to drum loops, your sense of time will become much more evolved. Rhythm Skill Study #4). "MAKE THE GROOVE LAST" Performing a solid groove is about lasting power. One of the perfect examples of this are funk and metal bands. These styles lay down a groove and maintain it. Check out some of Metallica's songs where they establish a meter and push it out for several minuets.This dedication to making a groove last is incredibly important. Strive for duplication and dedication to the part. Make it long lasting. And, keep it the same (do not deviate).
CONCLUSION: Really solid rhythm guitar technique - and just having great rhythm skills overall - will ultimately revolve around you developing a great sense of feel and timing. So, if you can't do things like; count into a song properly with your band, or if you're having troubles carrying on a really solid /consistent beat, if you can't play to a click track, or if performing the groove over and over in time has you dropping the beat - you've got some "rhythm" playing problems to overcome. This work will involve isolated study on your rhythm guitar skills. Over time, the ideas I've covered here will really help get you. And, with study, you'll find yourself getting better at keeping a solid /consistent beat in everything you do!
There's no arguing that the color of a suspended chord is really cool, and when its added to a riff - the song (that its used in) can really stand out...
In this post I'm going to run through a few examples of the use of suspended chords structured off of the root of "D." We'll study how this sound moves through both suspended second and fourth. Plus, we'll base the set-up of each suspended off of major 7th and major triad to hep better comprehend the way that the suspended operates.
Just listen to Tom Petty's, "Free Fallin," or Rick Springfield's classic hit song, "Jessie's Girl." There's suspended chord harmony within those songs that really helps the affected parts stand out with the unique highlights of the suspended chords applied in the ways they are.
Daily Deal:
SUSPENDED CHORDS: In this lesson, I will be showing you some quick and easy ways to add the suspended 2nd and the suspended 4th sounds around a couple of common chord patterns.These patterns will be based off of both the open position, and also off of the 5th string as well. For these examples our "Root Note" will be that of a, "D."
Make a study of the various suspended chord patterns shown below. Each shape is unique and can be based upon either the "Major Triad," or off of the "Major 7." 5th Position /5th String Root:
Open Position:
You can use suspended chords in all kinds of different ways - essentially, if they sound good, then they're probably perfectly fine to apply in whatever ways that you'll want to use them.
Keep in mind that these suspended chord types have no quality (they're neither major or minor). This means that their resolution will end up dictating the quality that they appropriate in the long run (i.e., how and where they get applied musically in your song).
So, have fun using these chords. Over time I'm quite sure that you'll dream up plenty of very cool ways to apply these chords musically!
Exposure to specific playing techniques is the key to advanced finger-picking success. In this lesson, we'll explore a collection of finger-style techniques from the perspective of Classical Guitar in order to help you learn how you can advance your finger-plucking skills and how to apply these ideas musically...
NOTE: Take your time working on each assignment in this lesson. Some of the techniques may seem of average ability level, however other studies may feel very complicated.
Keep in mind that your right and left hand technique will improve through three levels of progress. These are; (1). Comprehension, (2). Memorization, and (3). Development (up to faster tempos) using a metronome. In this episode of Acoustic Guitar, we're going to run through six exercises that will help you develop better skills for Classical Guitar technique...
PART ONE: In example one, [00:50] the 6th, 5th and 4th lower register strings are used to establish a series of arpeggio drills. This work is essential to the development of smooth playing across the string sets.
Example two [05:31] introduces the concept of using a series of "2-Note" chords, (also often referred to as, "Double-Stops"). The melodic exercise in example two applies these chords across many different string groupings. They will occur in the exercise as close together as two adjacent strings and as far apart as 5 strings in distance.
Example three [11:13] organizes the sound of upper and lower melody in a study that introduces another important area of playing for classical guitar. The melody employs a "Waltz" feel (3/4 time), and includes everything from broken chords to 16th-note repeating phrases. Be mindful of any low tones that are required to sustain. In those situations, the best choice of fingering will become the most critical part of mastering the proper execution of the part.
PART TWO: The exercise in example four [00:04] expands our use of chord structures with the technique of "3-Note" chord types. The study applies several different types of 3-Note chord structures. The study does not limit the use of the 3-Note chords to diatonic "Major" and "Minor" qualities. Several different harmonies will be applied throughout the example.
Example five [04:41] places the focus on the introduction of faster speed bursts within a piece. This idea is very common in the Classical style, and also sounds great when used in many other musical situations. Flowing 8th-Note rhythms are interrupted by faster speed bursts that use 16th-Notes. The example should be learned at a slow pace, then the tempo should be increased slowly until the part clips along at a decently fast rate and pace.
Related Videos:
RELATED VIDEOS for: Chords and Patterns of DADGAD Tuning...
This week on the Guitar Blog Insider I discuss what I believe is probably the best guitar book for learning guitar skills with scales and arpeggios (all over the neck) that has ever been created...
It seems that in recent months, I've been seeing a lot of YouTube videos going up with titles like; "Don't Learn Scales," and "Don't Learn Chords," and there's even a few that say "Don't Learn Theory."
I'm going to give all of these YouTube video posts the benefit of the doubt in that they're just "click-bait" titles and the authors are not actually serious in truly saying and promoting the idea of don't learn any of this vital stuff.
But, what I wanted to get into on this week's episode of the "Guitar Blog Insider" is just how beneficial it is to put in a ton of hours and an enormous amount of very serious guitar practice. And also, how it really changes your guitar playing to go and put in the time to really study chords, and to seriously study scales, and music theory. WATCH THE VIDEO:
HOW PEOPLE GET INTO GUITAR: Most guitar players begin learning the guitar for fun. Maybe a friend plays, and that inspires them. Or maybe they'll watch a movie and see the guitar featured, or maybe it's a song, and that one song inspires them. However the interest in guitar "grabs hold" of a person, something in them makes them feel like they've just got to learn how to play guitar. And, after getting their first guitar, and trying to learn for awhile, usually people are pretty blown away with how challenging it is to develop the skills to be able to play well. It is generally around that point when a teacher is called upon to shed more light on details like technique and general skills development.
DEVELOPING GUITAR FURTHER: Once a practicing guitarist begins getting more technique down and they learn several songs, and more about all kinds of other ideas surrounding guitar - like; using a capo, and maybe a slide. And, learning barre chords, moveable scale patterns, arpeggios, and down the road - how key signature theory operates all across the neck, and intervals all of that stuff... they're going to be ready - at some point in there - to organize their study of playing lead, doing improvisation, and learning how to solo. The whole process of learning "some" information, just bleeds over to learning even more and more until eventually the guitarist pursues advanced material for a much deeper / really in-depth guitar study.
WHEN GUITAR BECOMES AN OBSESSION: When this happened to me, I asked a teacher of mine what the most complicated, most in-depth book was that he'd ever studied from. I just figured that if I could study from the same book as him I'd get as good as him, (because he was a great player). So, he told me the most challenging book that he ever studied from was by an author named "Howard Roberts," and it was called, "SuperChops."
WHAT A BOOK - "SUPERCHOPS": Now, the benefits of doing the SuperChops program are incredible because the entire process is based around following chord changes in all of the different areas of the guitar neck using scales and arpeggios. So, the SuperChops method takes a very involved chord progression, (that you first need to learn well enough to go and record a backing track of). And then, (once the backing track is organized), you're next goal is to play over the chord changes repeatedly - over and over again - until you can consistently perform the associated scales or arpeggios in time all across the chord progression. The work involved is nothing less than incredibly, time consuming, but the pay off that you get from studying the SuperChops method is amazing! Example of somebody doing a Super-Chops exercise:
So, let's do a quick demonstration for how this works using a very basic example. Even if you don't own the SuperChops book, you can still do the concept of the work-out and get some benefit from the concept of it all. Let's begin with a chord progression to use as our backing track. We'll go with a chord progression based from the key of "D Minor." Example Jam: Key of "D Minor"
STEP #1). Now, once the chord changes are learned and developed up to a decent tempo, you'll have to record them. Once they're recorded, you'll start phase two of the SuperChops process which is playing over the changes in a very robotic way. You can use scales, modes or arpeggios to cover the chords. The main thing is to play in a simple fashion. Stick with straight 8th-notes or 16th's and avoid phrasing devices like hammer-ons or pull-offs, slides or bends. STEP #2). Once you have a handle on this side of playing, start branching out and playing over the changes using a more free improvisational nature. I'm sure at this point you're starting to become aware of how valuable this learning method can be for developing your playing skills.
THE SUPERCHOPS METHOD WILL KICK YOUR BUTT: Doing the actual SuperChops program from the book is a lot more intense than what I've shown you here. The book's progressions are really, REALLY long and they contain very complex chord changes. The book's examples also include melody lines that you'd need to learn, (and they are written in traditional music notation, [there's no TAB], so good music reading skills are going to be an absolute must). Now, I know this sounds like a lot of work, but what I wanted to get across in this post, is that there's no substitute for serious guitar study. Great players, don't pass over work on; scales, chords, theory and technical skills. They actually dedicate many many long hours to developing their ability. And, that's why the greatest guitarists are well known as such fantastic players, they've worked very hard and they're very serious about how they Study the Guitar.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on all of this in the comment section below... if you enjoyed the video above, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more on YouTube. Thanks again and we'll catch up next week , for another episode of the, "Guitar Blog Insider."
Posted by Andrew Wasson
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Is your body going through pain just to be able to play guitar? Does it hurt to sit or stand? Are you experiencing muscle fatigue and stress pain due to overdoing it? Do you have issues with tension and /or poor performance? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you NEED to read and watch this discussion...
Do you ever experience strange back, shoulder or neck pain after sitting or standing with your guitar for extended periods of time? Or do you ever find that there's tension in the wrists, hand or arm after playing chords, or scales for awhile? These are all signs of tension build-up. And, tension is the leading cause of poor musical performance. If left alone, it can also start making your life in general a living hell.
Tension build-up is quite common among beginner and intermediate guitarists, however many advanced guitarists also suffer from tension problems as well. Awareness is the first step to tackle the issues, and once you're aware of tension and how it's developing in your body, the more capable you'll be at controlling it. Daily Deal:
TENSION WARNING: One word of warning, you'll unfortunately be battling tension for the rest of your guitar playing days, so you'll have to start learning the tools that are out there to control tension as soon as possible.This will very likely be one of the most important guitar articles that you'll ever read. Just, take in these ideas and use them to soak up the benefits! Let’s look at some common causes of body tension build-up.
Tension mainly comes from a combination of improper technique, bad posture, and the inability to completely relax while playing an instrument. In this blog post and in the video, we’ll look at the most common causes of body tension and poor posture, which also happen to be the easiest ones for players to correct.
1. Guitar Posture - Sitting: More often than not, how you currently sit with the guitar is likely your biggest factor in tension issues. Many of us already have bad posture while sitting down, and this is further amplified when playing guitar. So let’s talk about how we should sit in a manner that won’t hurt our bodies. The main thing is to sit with your chest slightly sticking outwards. You don’t want to overdo it though, because pushing your chest too far out will cause you to arch your lower back too far. Think about what a position of “dignity” looks like. Try it out; think about the position of your body when you’re sitting in a position of dignity. Most of you would have already assumed the proper posture when the word “dignity” flashes through your mind. If that doesn’t help, imagine there is a ball right in your solar plexus. Now try to raise this imaginary ball up towards your skull. You should find that your spine begins to lengthen, which in turn releases tension that may be in your back. The main thing you want to avoid doing is to arch your lower back outwards, which is what most of us do when we want to straighten our backs. Instead of straightening our backs, we need to, "lengthen" it.
2. Bring the Guitar Closer Toward You: One of the main reasons why we hunch our backs, (compressing our stomach and rib-cage), while playing guitar is the instrument may feel like it’s too far away from us. The key to correcting this is to bring the instrument towards you, and not your body towards the instrument.
Use a Guitar Players Foot-Stool: By using a Guitarists "Foot Stool" (to step on so your leg is slightly raised up), it will in turn raise your instrument more toward yourself. This will also help straighten your back. A guitar players foot-stool can easily accomplish this, and they offer height adjust-ability. You can use almost anything to step on, (a stack of books, or even a piece of wood, etc.), but a guitarists foot stool is very inexpensive and was custom made for this very task.
3. Understand How to Hold a Guitar: When you hold your guitar, your fretting hand should not be involved in holding your guitar. If you sit down and assume your regular playing position without touching the guitar with your fretting hand, the guitar should stay in place on your lap. Your strumming arm should be what's supporting the guitar against your body.
4. Relax The Shoulders for Better Playing: A lot of stress and tension is held within our neck, lower back, and across our shoulders, and this can be an issue for us both when playing guitar, and also after we put it down. The shoulders often increase in tension as we perform more difficult ideas.
Playing with tension across your neck and your shoulders creates stress, so check in on your shoulders and your neck to make sure they're nice and relaxed. The more awareness you have about this topic the less likely you will be to have aches and pains from stress in this area. This, along with the lower back, are the most common sites of pain and tension while playing guitar. So, pay regard to how your body is dealing with tension and if you need to, take more breaks and always remind yourself to stay relaxed.
5. Finger Pain - Hand, Wrist and Arm: Another playing mistake that often happens to guitarists, especially for those starting out, is finger pain. FINGER TIPS: Your fingertips will unfortunately hurt for the first while because they're doing a lot of rubbing against either steel or nylon guitar strings. The friction from sliding around on the strings causes the skin on our fingertips to heat-up and develop calloused tips, as well as, peel away, which results in soreness and pain. The good part is, (yes there's a bright side), that this will go away, especially as you play more and more and develop calloused finger tips. Your fingertips skin will become harder so that you’ll be able to play for hours without feeling any pain at all. FINGER JOINT PAIN: Sometimes, even after playing for months, our fingertips or finger joints still hurt from applying a lot of pressure on the strings. So, always be aware of how hard you're pressing down, and be careful to not be pressing too much. If you do have pain in your finger joints, re-evaluate your playing technique. The best tone comes from the least amount of force needed to get a nice /clean sound. And, as long as you're placing your fretting fingers nearest to the fret-wires closest towards the sound-hole, you'll get the best tone. This is true for both chords and single-notes. So, always place your fingers nearest to the upcoming fret-wire. You'll get the best sound, with the least amount of effort.
6. Guitar Issues (cheap instruments): Never pass over the idea that the problem with your sound may be your guitar and not you! For example string action and guitar string gauge are two serious issues that a lot of beginners overlook. ACTION (STRING HEIGHT): The action is the distance between the fret-board and the strings. And, all too often, the strings are too high off the fret-board, which forces a player to use a lot of strength to press down on them. Even the difference in a millimeter or two can be felt in your fingers.
To fix this, you’ll probably have to bring your guitar to a shop to get a professional setup. It is possible to do it yourself if you're handy with tools, but I would still recommend bringing it to a professional guitar repair-person for your setup. Some stores will let you stay to watch your guitar being worked on, so if you can stay and watch - do it. You’ll learn a thing or two.
7. Guitar Posture - Standing: Standing postures should be very close to sitting posture. The same principles apply here regarding lengthen your back by straightening your shoulders. Stand in a straight position when playing guitar and avoid slouching as much as possible. Along with having your back and shoulders in their correct positions, you should also look at how to keep your instrument at a comfortable distance while standing. The idea is simple; we want to set our guitar strap so that the guitar is roughly the same distance away from us as when we’re sitting. Try adjusting the strap while in the sitting posture. Adjust your strap so that your guitar sits nice and snug with you. After you’ve done this, your guitar should be more or less at the correct height when you stand up. Some slight adjustments will need to be made because most people prefer to have the guitar slightly lower so it doesn’t feel like the guitar is choking you. The main thing is that your wrist isn’t bending too much when you’re playing (which happens when the guitar is held too low). Spend some time raising and lowering the guitar to find out what feels the most comfortable for you.
CONCLUSION: You can use these ideas as a guide to help you understand the causes of your own personal mistakes, (like tension buildup and body pain). By pinpointing the causes, you can maintain good body posture and improve your finger placement. Remember that slight discomfort is inevitable for guitarists at all levels, especially for beginners, (whose fingers are still getting used to playing on the strings until their calluses have developed). Keep in mind, that the best way to minimize any pain or tension throughout your body is to take constant breaks and stretch and move your entire body as much as possible. Let pain be a warning, but also don’t obsess over it. As long as you take breaks when you feel pain and tension, then you'll be fine. Most of these problems tend go away with rest, movement, stretching, and exercise. However, if your pain persists, it’s also a good idea to talk to your doctor, or even better maybe speak to a physiotherapist. And, along with taking breaks, there are other methods to release tension. These include, but are not limited to; supplements, yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, and just plain old physical exercise. Spend some time researching and trying out each of these methods. Find out which ones work best for you. The main thing is to relax and just play some music on your guitar in the best state of mind as you can.
