September 30, 2018:
GUITAR TECHNIQUE 014:
String Crossing and Skipping
 
 NEW  This unique Creative Guitar Studio course  explores exercises for increasing dexterity and coordination between the hands. The goal of the course is to increase awareness, mobility and control.


Lesson 014 of Guitar Technique studies how to perform string changing /switching techniques. These are referred to as "crossing" and "skipping."

String crossing is the technique of being able to play a musical passage between adjacent guitar strings. String skipping crosses over multiple strings, (2 or 3 strings) with melodic lines.

Developing each of these techniques will allow a guitarist to be able to play all types and manner of licks and guitar riffs in any location all along and across the entire guitar neck.

The exercises given throughout the lesson will help with building control over the use of string crossing and skipping in both ascending and descending directions along and across the fingerboard..
 
Paying members of the Creative Guitar website can watch both video lessons and download the PDF handout...




Join the member's area to download the PDF handout and start study of these exercises. Study all of the examples with full access to both video lessons...

Watch the Part One Video FREE on YouTube:

One of the most important areas that a musician needs to develop is their sense of rhythm. Without great feel and solid groove music is weak and meaningless. It is common knowledge that a guitarist cannot play in a group (in a band) if they have bad timing. Master these three studies to build a solid rhythmic foundation...




If a guitarist cannot record against a click-track or a drum loop, if they have a rotten sense of time and if they have a terrible sense of feel they're pretty much done as a musician. Nobody will want to work with them.

In fact, even if you want to be a soloist / a singer-songwriter you’re going to lose your audience if you have a poor sense for time and groove. It's just as bad as not being able to carry a melody.

In this lesson I’m going to give you three rhythms that you need to start with and nail down 100% in order to continue your studies and move onward and learn to develop more complex rhythms.

We’ll study the three best rhythm builders to learn early on. And, once you have these rhythms, moving onward to other more complex rhythm patterns will feel a lot easier.

WATCH THE VIDEO:



RHYTHM PATTERN #1).
The first rhythm pattern involves what I will refer to as the; Steady Quarter-Note Pulse. This rhythm feel is very popular and it will show up in; pop music, folk songs, country western pieces, rock tunes, soul numbers and Motown almost every style of music.

The feel and strumming is simple because it’s based on the quarter-note beat. You can play it with all down-strokes. A famous song that applies this is the Beatles piece “In My Life.”

The groove (when performed) looks like this…





RHYTHM PATTERN #2).
The next important rhythm pattern I want to run through is going to simply add an eighth-note into the groove that we just learned how to play. On the beats of; 2 and 4, we’re going to add in the eighth-note feel.

This creates a groove that guitar teachers will often call the “Down – Down /Up” strum pattern.

A song that you can look up and go and practice this groove into is the famous Don Willams piece, “I Believe in You.”

To help you understand how to strum this rhythm feel,the pattern is shown below...





RHYTHM PATTERN #3).
For our final rhythm pattern, we’re going to replace the quarter notes that were used in our last rhythm strumming idea (on those beats of 1 and 3), by adding more eighth-notes to create a steady eighth-note strumming pattern.

This pattern is extremely popular, especially in rock songs, but you’ll also find it applied within a lot of folk and country-western songs as well.

If you want to hear a strum pattern like this, have a listen to Steve Goodmans folk song called, the “City of New Orleans.” Specifically the version that was covered by Willie Nelson - where the strum pattern was altered to reflect this, “Steady Eighth’s” feel.

Below is an example of what this rhythm pattern looks like...





CONCLUSION:
It’s important to understand that Strumming and Chording technique are the foundation of guitar playing. And, because we mostly play rhythm on the guitar, these skills need to be available to us at a very high level.

In fact, learning to perfect chording and strumming is the very first level that we’ll learn when it comes to having good skillful hand coordination. And, these skills are what also helps us to be able to move further along and get better as guitar players.

Once our rhythm and chording ability is well developed, we’ll be able to have both of our hands working together and complement each other. Plus, once the basic rhythms and chords are developed, we’ll be able to go onward from there to learn more complex chords and rhythm strum patterns to help us play in more styles and musical situations.




VISIT THE WEB-SITE:
Hey, thanks for joining me, If you'd like to Find Out What You Should Learn Next on Guitar - take a look at the courses over on my website at CreativeGuitarStudio.com.

My step-by-step; Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses will cover what you need to know, along with how to be able to move forward and become the best player that you can be. I've worked on these courses since 1992 and I feel that all together they're the best guitar program you'll ever find.

The courses will help you learn to identify what's required to get you up to the next level of guitar playing, in a very organized way, that makes sense.

I look forward to helping you further at CreativeGuitarStudio.com ...As always, if you enjoyed this lesson, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe for more, until next time, take care and we'll catch up again on the next video. Bye for now!

Arpeggios are not only performed as blistering stacked runs of a flurry of tapped or sweep picked notes. There's another "easy" approach to the use of arpeggios and it's called "Arpeggiating" chords...




In this video, I’m going to teach you how to instantly perform arpeggios! This is incredibly easy to do and in seconds you’ll be playing arpeggios without cheating or compromising anything across your technique whatsoever.

What we’re going to do is not complicated. It’s very simple. But, it will require you to build up some strength in your fretting-hand so that you can support the grip of a few shapes that’ll be important when you’re learning this.


WATCH THE VIDEO:



Let’s get started with learning a fingering shape that I’m going to have you work out off of the sixth guitar string. This is a shape that you can slide anyplace along the neck laterally.

Where you place it will generate different chords (of course), but if you’re just starting out, and you don’t understand a lot about neck theory, just move this shape around and have fun with it.

Again, there’s no rules to this other than just having fun with the sound by moving the shape around the neck.



SHAPE #1).
6th STRING - MAJOR QUALITY
Here’s our first fingering shape. It is built from the sixth string and contains fretted intervals from; a root note, a perfect 5th and a Major third. Overall this shapes harmony is Major.

What’s going to make this a lot more fun is that we’re going to include an open 4th string “D” in this shape at all times.


At certain points along the reach of the neck, this shape's open 4th string is going to sound great. But, then at other positions, it won’t be very good because we’ll end up with clashing intervals.




THE ARPEGGIATED SOUND:
When performing arpeggiated sounds from a fingering layout (as in the shape shown above), we can use a picking concept that either drop-picks across the chords shape, or we'll use a picking pattern.

These ideas when applied, will come across as sounding like finger-picked parts. And, it's important to state that playing the arpeggiated shape using finger-style is an option.

Learn the arpeggiated riff shown below.

Example:
Arpeggiated Riff #1).



SHAPE RE-LOCATION:
The next thing I want to run through with you is a naturally occurring idea of how the guitar neck works, and how intervals end up sitting on the neck.

Now that you already know about this fingering shape off of the 6th string, we’re going to simply re-locate this pattern based off of the guitars’ 5th string. We’re also going to take things a step further by altering one of the tones to change the shapes quality.

Let's start by learning what both of these 5th string shapes look like on the neck…


SHAPE #2). 
5th-STRING - MINOR QUALITY
Our second shape contains intervals of a “Root,” a Perfect 5th and a “Minor 3rd,” making it a, “Minor” quality.

Think of that open string as a bit of a wild-card note. It’ll either generate a really terrible interval, or possibly a really cool extension depending upon where the shape is located along the span of the neck.



Our next shape is the same interval structure, as the 1st, but its quality is that of a “Major” chord.




SHAPE #3). 
5th-STRING - MAJOR QUALITY


5th STRING APPLICATION:
Learn the riff below. It is based upon using shapes number two and three off of the 5th-string. Notice the altered arpeggiated picking pattern from chord to chord.

Example:
Arpeggiated Riff #2).


CONCLUSION:
As you can tell, it is just as easy to slide these 5th string shapes around the guitar fingerboard as it is to slide around those 6th string shapes. It's also easy to learn how to play really cool sounding arpeggiated lines with them.

I know this is so simple that it probably feels like we’re 'cheating' somehow, but all that’s going on here is the shapes are acting like templates that work out to not only give us arpeggio qualities (like major and minor), but they also give us really cool extensions - due to that open string ringing out in between the fretted tones.

It’s safe to say that Arpeggiating fretted patterns (like we’ve done in this lesson), is pretty much in almost all cases the very first introduction that nearly every guitar player will have to the world of arpeggios.

The patterns - that I’ve organized here - are not just really easy to perform, but they’re also going to be a real motivator for you to keep on experimenting with other shapes across your guitar neck that are quite similar to these ones we practiced here.

What’s really cool with this is that you can almost just dream up any fingering shape and test it out with this process that I’ve covered here.

Plus, if you’re okay with understanding intervals, you’ll also be able to plot out what the arpeggio qualities are, (whether they’re major or minor).

It’s really a lot of fun doing this, it’s creative, and the best part is that you can make up arpeggio riffs literally in seconds with this arpeggio method.



VISIT THE WEB-SITE:
Hey, thanks for joining me, If you'd like to Find Out What You Should Learn Next on Guitar - take a look at the courses over on my website at CreativeGuitarStudio.com.

My step-by-step; Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses will cover what you need to know, along with how to be able to move forward and become the best player that you can be.

I've worked on these courses since 1992 and I feel that all together they're the best guitar program you'll ever find. The courses will help you learn to identify what's required to get you up to the next level of guitar playing, in a very organized way, that makes sense.

I look forward to helping you further at CreativeGuitarStudio.com

As always, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more, until next time, keep jammin' and we'll catch up again on the next lesson. Bye for now!

A lot of beginner guitar students hope and dream of one day being able to play a guitar solo. Is that You? Are you struggling to find a good shape or pattern on the neck that will help you with playing lead guitar? If that's so, then this guitar lesson will be fantastic! Let me introduce you to the, "Scale of Your Dreams"




To help my students with their quest in learning how to solo, I like to introduce a scale shape that even a total beginner can start into quickly. The scale I like to show them is a perfect fit to popular styles like Rock or Blues.

This neck pattern is very easy to remember on the guitar neck and it works fantastic for being able to quickly play over popular riffs in minor keys.

WATCH THE VIDEO:



DREAM SHAPE 1).
Our first shape is an outline of two rectangular boxes that organize notes from the Minor Pentatonic Scale. The scale tones include intervals of the Minor 3rd, Perfect 4th and P5th as well as the Minor 7th.

This shape is the first of two octaves of this pattern and when both regions are developed on the neck, they work great for Rock progressions, (or for any Minor Key jam). Here’s what this 1st pattern looks like, and how it’s played across the fingerboard…

NOTE: The "circled dots" are the roots. For example, if you lined up the circled dots on frets "7" and "9" you would have an "E Minor" style shape.






DREAM SHAPE 2).
Next, let’s run through the upper octave of this shape. It’s located on the highest three strings. Keep in mind that these are all the same scale tones as our first shape, but they’re simply re-located up into the next higher register of the neck.




DREAM SHAPE PRACTICE:
Now, it's time to apply these scale patterns into a key of “E” minor jam progression.

If you’re new to the whole idea of playing solos, try working at targeting into each ending phrase of your lead so that your resolutions either point toward the scales Root or to the scales 5th step.

In the case of our progression (from the key of “E” minor) our Root is “E” and our 5th step is the note of “B.” I’m going to jam over this riff right now and let you hear what this kind of chord tone targeting would sound like over an “E Minor” Jam-Track…







GOING FORWARD:
As you work further at developing these patterns you’ll also be able to start modifying them, so that they can work well over other keys and also for other music styles.

It really doesn’t matter what kind of music that you’re playing, as long as the chord harmony is from the color of a Minor key. As long as that’s the case, you’ll be able to use these shapes to be able to play over those kinds of chord changes.

The best part is that these shapes are easy to memorize on the neck and when you’re able to target your resolutions into the root notes and the scales 5th degree, your skill for phrasing melodic lines with them will start to feel easier and easier, (which also means that your solos will start sounding much better as you keep practicing). 




VISIT THE WEB-SITE:
Thanks for joining me, If you'd like to Find Out What You Should Learn Next on Guitar - take a look at the courses over on my website at CreativeGuitarStudio.com.

My step-by-step; Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses will cover what you need to know, along with how to be able to move forward and become the best player that you can be.

I've worked on these courses since 1992 and I feel that all together they're the best guitar program you'll ever find.

The courses will help you learn to identify what's required to get you up to the next level of guitar playing, in a very organized way, that makes sense. So, I look forward to helping you further at CreativeGuitarStudio.com 

And, as always, if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more, until next time, take care and we'll catch up again on the next video. Bye for now!

September 21, 2018:
RHYTHM GUITAR 014:
Pop and Contemporary
 
 NEW  The 14th lesson of "Rhythm Guitar" explores the popular groves and feel of pop and adult contemporary music. The lesson plan is organized around some of the most common rhythm styles used in all forms of pop music including; Dance, Hip-Hop, R&B, Blues-Soul, Progressive Pop, and Adult Contemporary.

A bonus for BASIC and PREMIUM web-site members are the (9) MP3 play-along tracks that will help with learning each rhythm example. 


Paid Web-site members (BASIC and PREMIUM), can watch the associated video lessons and download the detailed PDF handout, along with the MP3 clap /strum play-along tracks...

Join the member's area to download the PDF handout and MP3's. Study all of the examples with full access to both video lessons. Be sure to spend some additional time on learning the "Rhythm Jam Challenge" piece that I performed at the start of the lesson in the "Part One" video...

Watch the Part One Video FREE on YouTube:






Paid members can download the handout along with the MP3 jamtracks in the members area at: CreativeGuitarStudio.com