Posted in guitar instruction, guitar lessons, tagged guitar lessons, Vinnie Moore on January 15, 2012| 2 Comments »
I have to admit that I have never really gotten into modes and modal theory. This is because the way it has been explained has been so freakin’ confusing. But I discovered a fantastic video series by the great Vinnie Moore, and he explains and demonstrates modes so well that after all these years, I finally “get it.” check it out…
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
This is great stuff!
Posted in guitar instruction, guitar lessons, tagged guitar instruction, guitar lessons, guitar lessons online on April 15, 2010| 6 Comments »
When I first started learning guitar, I really wanted to be able to solo and improvise. I was told to do that I need to know my scales up and down the guitar neck. I especially heard of this scale called the “pentatonic” scale. Supposedly, if you knew this scale it was instant “money,” or rather, it was the key to soloing success and you’d be all set.
So I started learning my pentatonic scale patterns and major scale patterns all up and down the guitar neck. I got to know these patterns in every single position pretty well. But still, I felt like I had no mastery over the guitar fretboard. All I knew was a bunch of patterns, and I didn’t know how any of it connected or related, let alone, how to make it sound beautiful.
Perhaps you’re wanting to master and learn the guitar fretboard, or you are pretty rusty and you wish you knew it better than you do. Here are three exercises you can incorporate into your practicing. These exercises assume you know some of the theory behind guitar scales.
For this exercise, you are going to choose any scale. For this example, let’s choose a C major scale. Choose a starting position for your C major scale. For example, start on the “C” note on the 8th fret of the low E string.
Once you’re ready, start the metronome at a slow tempo (maybe around 60 – 70 BPM). From your starting point on the 8th fret, you’re going to play any notes in the C major scale as perpetual eighth notes in time with the metronome.
In other words, it doesn’t matter what note you play or where you play it as long as it is a note within that scale. Try not to play the scale pattern just up and down. Jump to any notes within a C major scale but play everything as eighth notes in time with your metronome.
In a sense, the exercise is sort of like organized chaos. You’re staying within the C major scale but you’re not just playing a pattern up and down the neck. Your jumping between scale positions all the way up and down the neck perpetually as you play eighth notes. Once, you’ve done this with your major scales, go to melodic minor, and then harmonic minor. You can do perpetual motion with any scale.
For this exercise, you’re going to start on a C major scale. You can choose any position you want to on the fretboard. Let’s start again on the “C” note on the 8th fret of the low E string.
You’re going to ascend up the C major scale in that position on the fretboard and then once you reach the top you’re going to descend with an F major scale. Then, you’re going to ascend with a Bb major scale and then descend with a Eb major scale. You’re going to continue in this pattern in the circle of the 4ths until you’ve played every key.
Basically, you are changing the scale from ascending to descending by an interval of a 4th. So if you follow the exercise all the way through you’ll cover all these keys in this order:
C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, B, E, A, D, G
And again, once you’ve mastered your major scale in ALL positions, go on to this with melodic minor and harmonic minor.
This is similar to the past exercise except you’re only going to ascend and descend up only one octave. So if you started on the “C” note on the 8th fret of the low E string, you will ascend a C major scale all the way to the “C” note on the 10th fret of the D string. When you get there, you’ll descend in F major all the way back down to the “C” note on the 8th fret of the low E string.
Each octave you will play in one scale position only covers three strings (if you look at the C major scale ascending picture above, it’s basically the lowest green dot to the next green dot in the scale pattern). Practice this exercise on all string sets (set #1: E, A, D; set #2: A, D, G; set #3: D, G, B; set #4: G, B, E) and all scale positions for all scales. Whew! That’s a lot!
As you can see, these exercises are pretty endless and give you a lot of room for practice. I like these exercises because they get you away from the pattern of scales. Sure there’s a pattern to all of it, but you really have to be thinking on your feet and thinking about the individual notes and how to change from one scale to another. You can’t merely get by knowing some patterns. You’ll be better off because you’ll be able to see how the notes relate to one another and you’ll be able to navigate much better across the fretboard as you try to apply this to improvising or soloing.
Brett McQueen is a full-time music student, guitar player, songwriter, and blogs in his spare time. Brett is passionate about teaching free beginner’s guitar lessons so other guitar players can take their playing to the next level and reach their goals.
Posted in guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, guitar instruction, guitar lessons, guitarists, Guitars, improvisation, inspiration, instruction, learn guitar, Music, musicians, new song, tagged blues with brains, guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, guitar lessons, guitar life, guitarists, Guitars, learn guitar, Music, musicians on November 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I purchased Chuck D’Aloia’s “Blues with Brains” series. After a month, I still haven’t moved past Volume 1, but that’s only because I’m going slowly and methodically with the process. Besides, the one thing that I found is that Chuck throws A LOT of stuff at you in a very short period of time, and I’m one of those types of learners that has to let information soak in before I can move on.
There aren’t any step-by-step lessons in this series. It’s very free-form, which I find is totally cool. But as I mentioned above, there are several places where Chuck throws in lots of material in a short span of time, so I’ve found myself going back and forth and listening and practicing for a couple of days before moving on. This is a real change of approach for me because I’ve operated by this little saying for quite awhile: “If patience were a virtue, I’d be a slut.” 🙂 But this time ’round, I made a conscious decision to not move on until I could execute on what the teacher was talking about proficiently.
What about the fruits of my labor? Well… I know I’ve used this clip before, but it’s a good example of applying what I’ve learned:
Excuse the obvious mistakes, the song’s not really in a finished state (can’t decide what guitar/amp combo I want to use). But here’s what I’ve learned so far that I’ve applied to this song:
Regarding that last point, that is probably the salient point that I’m getting out of the lessons thus far, and that is taking an idea, then developing it and building upon it. It’s incredibly freeing!
Posted in gear, guitar instruction, guitar theory, guitarists, Guitars, instruction, learn guitar, Music, musicians, tagged guitar, guitarists, Guitars, instruction, learn guitar, Music, musicians on October 21, 2009| 1 Comment »
I’ve spoken about him before, but Mark Wein of Mark Wein Guitar Lessons really knows his stuff, and I’ve gotten a lot mileage from his free video tutorials. One set of tutorials that I found as a real useful review, plus learning some new stuff as well, is his series on Partial Chord Shapes. Really great stuff!
Anyway, here are links to the lessons themselves:
| Partial Chord Shapes Primer |
| Partial Chord Shapes #2 – Backbeat Rhythm Guitar! |
| Partial Chord Lesson #3 – Funk and R&B Guitar Parts |
| Partial Chords #4 – Rock guitar parts on the first 3 strings. |
Mark is such a great teacher! I love his no-nonsense approach to teaching guitar. Anyway, definitely give these videos spin!
Posted in guitar instruction, guitar lifestyle, guitarists, Guitars, Music, music theory, musicians, tagged guitar, guitar gear, guitar life, guitarists, Guitars, instruction, learn guitar, Music, musicians on October 20, 2009| 2 Comments »
I’ve been on this blues thing lately with my music; not going all out with the blues, but definitely having a huge blues influence on the music I write. But one thing that I was sure of was that I didn’t want to just learn blues licks – the same licks practically everyone plays. I suppose you could say I want to play with a blues style, and I’ve been searching far and wide to learn the blues. In my search to learn the blues, I’ve come across several instructional series and video tutorials, but many focus on playing blues licks, without really getting into learning or more importantly, acquiring a vocabulary to express the blues. Technique I can learn, but really what I want to acquire is an intellectual “sense” for what works in a particular phrase, if you catch my drift, then learn technique as a secondary thing.
I know, a bit confusing, and I’m having a hard time articulating what I’m after, so I supposed the best way to explain it is that I want to intellectualize my playing, then practice the hell out of what I learn. The only problem with this approach is that once I’ve mentioned that to teachers or others, they jump right into modal theory. Sure, that’s really useful, but in many ways, it’s also really abstract. Enter Chuck D’Aloia, who has come up with a wonderful series called “Blues with Brains.”
Blues with Brains is a two volume set. I’ve only gotten through half of the first volume so far, but what I’ve learned in just this short amount of time has really made me leap light years ahead in how I approach doing solos. I’ve always played by feel, and have fallen back a lot on the minor blues scale – mainly because it’s easy. But after I wrote my last song, I realized that while it sounds pretty good, and I have some interesting ideas, there was part of me that knew I could do so much more with it.
And by pure chance, I happened to read a thread on a popular guitar forum where this dude was demonstrating his new MIM Strat. His technique was absolutely flawless, and his presentation and tone were simply to die for! So I clicked on one of the links in his signature, and came to this site: Chuck D’Aloia Music. I read through the explanation, and saw that he also did Skype lessons, so I immediately contacted him about taking his lessons. In my email I explained about how I felt I could do more with my music and attached my latest song. He replied back several days later with exactly what I was thinking that ideas and tone were good, BUT rather than jump into lessons, I’d get a lot more out of his Blues With Brains series. It would be stuff that I could learn at my leisure, and once I digested the material, then we could explore the Skype lessons.
How cool was that? Rather than taking the higher money route, he just pushed his video series. So I downloaded both volumes for $40. When I got home that evening, I launched the first volume, and within the FIRST FIVE MINUTES, Chuck had effectively changed the way I looked at playing solos! That’s all it took! Obviously, I’ve had to apply and practice those concepts as I don’t have the fingering down completely, but the mere fact that I was able to attain a sense of what to do in a relatively short amount of time was just amazing to me!
Chuck’s approach is simple. He plays over a chord progression first. Then he takes apart the progression, and discusses and demonstrates what is possible to do at that particular point. The cool thing is that he also intersperses modal theory into the explanation, but doesn’t make the central to the discussion. It’s like, “Here are the notes you can play, and here’s what you can do with these notes…” It’s a very straight-forward approach, and while I realize I have a lot of practicing to do, I’ve gotten more out of the 40 minutes I’ve spent so far in these lessons than I have poring over books of scales and modes. The most important thing that I’ve gotten out of these lessons is that Chuck doesn’t teach licks. What he teaches is possibilities. He leaves it up to the student to express themselves! That is EXACTLY what I have been after all these years!
Without a doubt, I’m a total believer in Chuck’s series! If you want to learn the blues, and not just blues licks, and you want to really understand what you’re playing, you owe it to yourself to get this series. You will not be disappointed in the slightest!
Posted in guitar instruction, guitarists, Guitars, instruction, learn guitar, Music, music theory, musicians, tagged guitar, guitar instruction, guitar lessons, Guitars, instruction, learn guitar, mark wein, markweinguitarlessons, Music, musicians on August 20, 2009| 6 Comments »
I normally don’t write about instructional sites, mainly because they’re a dime a dozen, and most follow the same model of discussing theory, and providing scale diagrams that accompany the theory. Not that these aren’t helpful, but I tend to be the type of player that learns more effectively by actual example. So it was fortuitous that I happened upon a discussion on a forum about guitar lessons. Someone asked a question about guitar lessons online, and to a person, the respondents all replied that the original poster should go to: Mark Wein Guitar Lessons (http://www.markweinguitarlessons.com).
Intrigued, I went there, and was totally blown away by what Mark Wein offers: Free instructional videos that not only cover theory, but provide instruction on practical applications of the theory. Take, for instance, the following video on the minor blues progression and some variations:
While Mark mentions some theory in the video, it’s mostly about interesting ways to “liven up” the minor blues chord progression. Now that’s useful!
After I viewed several of the videos, I decided to give Mark a call and just chat with him about his vision for the site. Here’s a transcript of the interview:
GuitarGear: So Mark, tell me about the site… Why would you just give away great lessons like these?
Mark: I wanted to differentiate my site from other instructional sites that simply offer text-based discussions of theory and give you a few diagrams of scales. Frankly, the videos draw in a lot of business for us. But as far as the videos are concerned, I didn’t want to just show the information, I wanted to provide the “why” behind the instruction. It’s all about communicating these ideas; teaching them in an easy way for students to understand and adopt in their playing.
GuitarGear: So what would say your overall philosophy is with respect to teaching?
Mark: There’s a real concentration on really teaching the guitar and more importantly, making music. I found that it students progress a lot faster when they have a context. Sure, I can teach mechanics, but to me, it’s more important to teach students to play music.
GuitarGear: Mark, I have to tell you that it’s refreshing to hear that. I work with a lot of young people who join my Church band, and some of these kids are incredibly talented, being able to cop their favorite guitarists’ licks like there’s no tomorrow. But ask them to strum some simple, funky blues progression, and they flail hopelessly.
Mark: Right. That’s my point exactly. Lots of people know technique, but are they really playing music? Probably not.
GuitarGear: Let’s move on… Can you tell me a bit about your history? How did you start with guitar?
Mark: It’s actually kind of a funny story. Like a lot of kids I got together with a few guys to start a band. I had been around music all my life, so it was only natural that I’d do the band thing. Anyway, I wanted to play drums, but one of the guys already played. So I couldn’t do that. I did bass for awhile, but another guy did that. You really don’t want me singing, so I basically got stuck with guitar. When I got older, I went to a local community college to study music theory and performance, then I got accepted to USC – unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend, so I started working in a couple of bands, produced some stuff, and did teaching as well. Anyway, I decided to put a real focus on teaching, which I loved anyway.
GuitarGear: So you’ve had this business for awhile…
Mark: Actually, we’re celebrating our fifth anniversary this year. But it was my wife who was really behind me opening up a school, and since we’ve opened, we’re up to ten teachers, teaching all sorts of styles. Plus we have a performance program so bands and musicians can learn performance.
GuitarGear: Very cool…
Mark: We also offer online lessons…
GuitarGear: Really? Now you’re talking. That’s exactly what I’m looking for! And since we share similar philosophies about guitar playing, I’m going to set up some lessons in the near future…
At that point, the interview kind of ended, because we got into a discussion about what I was after, and how I could take lessons and stuff, then of course, we got into the obligatory discussion about gear. Here’s a brief synopsis of what Mark plays:
Guitars
Suhr Classic
Suhr Classic T
Les Paul Standard (cream-colored – nice)
Amps
’66 Bassman
Silvertone 1484
Peavey Pentone
Tons of pedals…
It was great talking gear with Mark. He’s a true believer in using lower-wattage amps so you can take advantage of the power tube grind. He shared a story with me that had me chuckling where he played a gig on this HUGE Van Halen-size stage and only had a 22 Watt amp. People laughed, but the sound guys loved him. And that’s a great story because unlike the bad old days when sound reinforcement wasn’t nearly as good as it is now, you had to have multiple stacks to get your sound out. But nowadays, you have great PA gear, so it’s just a matter of getting a stage volume that you can hear, and let the PA handle the rest. That makes a lot of sense, and Mark’s sensible approach to guitar is what has given him success so far.
Rock on, Mark!
For more information, go to http://www.markweinguitarlessons.com
Posted in guitar, guitar instruction, guitar lifestyle, guitarists, Guitars, inspiration, instruction, learn guitar, Music, music theory, musicians, tagged guitar, guitar gear, guitar hypnosis, guitarists, Guitars, hypnosis, learn guitar, Music, musicians on April 28, 2009| 10 Comments »
I recently read a press release on Harmony Central where this company, Hypnobusters, has just released a self-hypnosis audio to improve your guitar playing. I snickered at first because when the word “hypnosis” is mentioned, my gut reaction is, “Yeah, right… just some more of that New Age crap…” But then again, over the years, I’ve developed meditation techniques to help focus and quiet my consciousness to develop and extend my “chi” (for those martial artists out there), and even so far as performing self-healing. In a way, those meditation techniques are a form of self-hypnosis. And if I’ve used self-hypnosis to accomplish different things, why not apply it to guitar playing?
The mind is a very powerful tool. And if you have the ability to quiet your consciousness, and filter out the hustle and bustle of your waking mind, you’ll find that you can much more clearly analyze different subjects or help steer yourself towards accomplishing many things. It’s not hocus-pocus. It’s pure focus.
For instance, have you ever been playing guitar at a gig or in the studio, and you close your eyes because you’re so in tune with the song that what you’re doing is just pure expression? While you’re in that “groove,” nothing else exists. It’s just you and your axe reverberating with the song. That, my friends, is a form of self-hypnosis. That’s happened to me many times in my studio, and when I listen to the printed track, I’m sometimes in total disbelief that I actually played what I played! I’m not really all that good of a soloist, so I suppose any clean take is a good take. 🙂
In any case, I went to the HypnoBusters site, and found their guitar improvement page. The audio session only costs $9.95, so I said, “What the hell? I’ll give it a whirl. Besides, I could use a little mind quieting time.” And really, that’s what it’s all about – quieting your mind, and allowing yourself to explore the limits of your playing. I’ve often found that the limits of my skills on guitar aren’t merely technical – there is definitely that – but also because my conscious mind often tells me “You can’t do that.” It’s like an inherent fear. But as I break through those boundaries, I find that my actual limits are much further than what my conscious mind tells me.
I’ll give this audio a try, and report back. I’m not sure that it’ll make me a better player – that’s purely up to me. But one thing I know about things like this: They help you give yourself the permission to improve.
Posted in guitar, guitar instruction, guitar lifestyle, guitar theory, guitarists, Guitars, learn guitar, Music, music theory, musicians, tagged guitar, guitar greatness, guitar instruction, guitar life, guitar lifest, guitar lifestyle, guitar practice, learn, learn guitar, Music, musicians, teaching guitar on March 31, 2009| 3 Comments »
Ah, Padawan. Come to receive the wisdom of the ages, you have I see. Into the realms of guitar playing greatness delve deep do you wish; to play among the stars of guitar such as Vai, Satriani, Johnson and others of that ilk. Good for you! Welcome you with open arms, do I. Now dispensed with the pleasantries have we Padawan, it is time to let you down…
Now that sufficiently crushed your dreams of guitar greatness have I, tell you I will the secret to achieving your place among the titans:
There are no shortcuts!!!
Bwah-hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Okay, enough of the Yoda talk… 🙂
To be completely serious, if you want to be a great guitarist, there is no other way to get to greatness without dedication and focus. Simply put, you have to practice – a lot! You can learn all the theory in the world, you can take all the A/V classes out there. All of these things are absolutely helpful. But until you apply the things that you learn and master the techniques, you’ll never get there.
Playing guitar, or any instrument for that matter, isn’t something that you can be good at simply by intellectualizing being good. It takes practice – every day – to develop the skills to play well. I look on my own experience with playing guitar. Yeah, I’ve been playing for over 35 years, but I’ve only reached a certain level of proficiency in the last five years when I decided that I wanted to change the direction of my music, which was almost entirely acoustic, to include more electric guitar.
The experience in the last five years has been both rewarding and painful. When I was starting out, it was so frustrating because I could hear in my head what I wanted out of my guitars, but I didn’t have the technique. So I put my head down, so to speak, and started playing and practicing everyday, seven days a week. I’d even bring a couple of guitars and an amp on vacation! I try to play at least a half-hour each day. It’s not necessarily just straight practice of scales, and different techniques, I also spend a lot of time exploring how to express music that comes into my head.
I’m still learning. I feel I have so much further to travel, but I have also come a long way compared to where I was five years ago. Back then, all I knew were chords and playing chords in alternate tunings. I could fingerpick pretty well, and do a lot of stuff with an acoustic guitar – that’s all great, and I don’t want to discount what I could do on acoustic, but my abilities on the electric guitar, especially with doing improv, were sorely lacking. But from constant practice, I can do at least a basic lead in pretty much any key. That’s the reward; having the satisfaction of knowing I’ve made a lot of progress.
I originally got the inspiration for this article from a blog entry I read at GuitarVibe. It really got me thinking about what I’ve accomplished over the past few years, and moreover, how I got to where I am. Like with anything in life, learning is often fraught with moments of despair and discouragement, but it also has its times of complete satisfaction and reward.
So go practice, young Padawan, and may the Force be with you!
Posted in guitar, guitar instruction, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged greg howe, guitar, guitar instruction, guitar lessons, guitar lessons online, guitarists, instruction, Music, musicians on March 2, 2009| 1 Comment »
Looks like guitar maestro Greg Howe is getting into the act and offering lessons via Skype. I wrote about guitar great Charles Sedlak doing it, but Greg Howe? Awesome. The price isn’t outrageous either: It costs $75 for a 1-hour lesson. That’s significantly more than what Charles charges, but hey! It’s Greg Howe!
This lessons on Skype are really intruiging to me. Apparently they work, otherwise people wouln’t be offering them. For more information, check out: Greg Howe – The Official Website.
Posted in buying gear, GAS, gear, guitar, guitar instruction, guitarists, Guitars, jam, jam track, learn guitar, Music, musicians, vox, tagged GAS, gear, gear find, guitar, guitar gear, guitar practice, guitarists, Guitars, instruction, jam track, JamVOX, learn guitar, Music, musicians, new gear, practice, vox on February 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »
JamVOX Front View
JamVOX User Interface
Even though I have some patterns and scales that I practice, I usually end up jamming to jam tracks that I either write myself or download. But I also like to jam to music from popular bands. The only problem with this is that the guitar parts are already printed, and it’s tough to jam over recorded stuff.
But VOX has just come out with the JamVOX, a jam and practice tool consisting of softare and a mini practice amp to play along with any MP3. The software apparently extracts the guitar part from any MP3, and you can rip away! I don’t think this is the first of its kind, but compared to the solutions I’ve seen in the past, this looks like it is the most well-integrated software/hardware solution to date. I’m definitely going to check it out as soon as I can! Here are the features from the VOX site!
Check out a few videos:
After watching the videos, I’m REALLY stoked about JamVOX!!! And at $249.00, it’s a great deal!!! Can’t wait to give it a whirl!
Guitar Gear 