As a rock guitar player myself, I could probably take the easy route and tell you that your guitar amp's sweet spot is found simply by setting everything on ten! However, we all know that doing this can sometimes induce ear aches and noise complaints. Let's take a bit more of a scientific approach instead.

The first thing you absolutely need to know is the difference between volume and gain.

Volume -- What you are basically doing when you turn that volume knob is control your amp's power section signal or the loudness of the amp. This know is going to let you control how loud or quiet your guitar will be.

Gain -- Even though you are hearing your volume increase as you turn up the gain, what you are really doing is adjusting the input sensitivity level. This is used to break up your tone and give you the distorted rock sound.

There are many different approaches to finding the best mix of volume and gain settings. When I am dialing in a tone on an amp, I like to begin with my volume knob and first set the desired output level. Next, begin adding gain by slowly turning your gain knob up. Take the gain up a notch or two and play your guitar for a while. Listen carefully to the tone and make a mental note on the quality of the tone. Keep doing this until you have found your desired tone.

You may find that a setting that you love today, sounds horrible the next day because of various factors like possible ear fatigue. This approach is something that you might have to do a number of times before you finally settle on the right mix between your gain and volume settings. However, taking the time to hone in on this will surely result in the perfect guitar tone.

© Corey for The Guitar Resource, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: guitar amps, guitar tone, tube amp

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The most effective guitar practice is the one where you simply let your fingers do the walking.  Many people, when they are starting out playing the guitar want to constantly stare down at their hands as they play, strumming the chords slowly while they visually pick out the best way to pluck the strings.  This is every beginner’s biggest problem, and the only way one can break themselves of that habit is to let the rhythm flow through them.  The best guitar practice techniques involve playing as often as you can, and mastering a song before moving onto the next one.

While this may seem like a common sense solution, many burgeoning guitar players give up the activity because they want to be great right away, and when they are not feeling like they are spending too much time on the very basics of the craft.  Certainly learning to play the guitar is no easier than learning any other instrument.  There will be set backs, there will be times where the last thing you want to do is practice guitar playing because no matter how much you practice, the music never seems right.  Sticking with it is the most effective guitar practice and sooner or later, you will notice a change.

It bears keeping in mind that even the masters, even the people who earn their living playing the guitar have to remind themselves how to play every now and then.  Of course, the professional guitar player is getting his practice while he is performing.  It would be totally incorrect to assume that the pros did not practice guitar every day, for hours at a time to get to where they are in the music world.

If you are looking for specific guitar practice techniques there are several drills that can be done, and those types of drills are generally posted online, free for anyone who wishes to give them a whirl.  The difficulty of the drills will of course vary depending on the level of talent they are aimed at.

About the author - Corey Palmer has been playing guitar since the mid eighties and suggests that if you are just starting out, find some easy guitar songs to learn and use the internet or guitar teacher to help you out.  Anyone can learn to play.

© Corey for The Guitar Resource, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Before the Rehearsal

You should learn to play yourself alone all the parts or songs you have planned for rehearsals, and along with metronome. Be self-critic, to avoid making mistakes that you won't be able to fix on the spot later on. Prepare all your ideas and write them out or record them, and even send them to your band peers, so they could be prepared to what you're about to work on. If you have some solo spots, make sure that you don't look for notes or options of how to play them on rehearsal. That really should be done at home. Make a loop of chord progressions you have to solo on and hit it. The only exception to this should be a complexly constructed solo that involves all band, though, that can be worked on alone, too. If you have in plan to make new songs on rehearsal, get enough sleep and try to warm up before, if you have time. Don't be late for rehearsals, especially if you pay for rehearse time, have respect for time of everyone else in the band, and they will respect yours. Also try to make sure you take care of all important phone calls and potential distractions before the rehearsals, as well as other basic stuff such as changing strings and similar things. And of course, don't go to rehearsals drunk or under some other influence.

During the Rehearsal

The worst thing that could happen on a rehearsal is when someone comes in really bad mood. It reflects on everyone else, and the music itself. If everything irritates you, find real reasons for that, and calm down. Don't snap on your band peers, because they might not be the source of your bad mood. Negative energy issue can be a real band-breaker.

Set up your sound. I suggest you to study the physical nature of sound of your instrument, and learn how to make a healthy sound for rehearsals. Don't allow yourselves to play in the noise. And make sure you don't play too loud. If you don't hear yourself well, and you hear that you're in balance with drums, lower other instruments, or fix your frequency conigurations. Sometimes more noise occurs at bad equilizer settings than on loud playing. Be informed about making a good sound setting or have someone set it up for you. Have this problem fixed in the beginning because it will drive you to deafness and uncreativity.

When you're working on your new stuff, be open to everyone's opinion, even if your're about to play the song you wrote yourself. Have everyone put a part of themselves in the song and listen to everyone's idea, because they just might provide a bit to the song that you might have missed or hadn't thought of before yourself. When some band members have to work on the part they play together and that doesn't involve you, don't make noise with your instrument, you'll distract them a lot, and it can get on a nerve easily. Rather think about other ideas you can provide for the song.

Always. ALWAYS stop whatever you're doing if you get some really great idea, and write it out or record it immediately, because no matter how good it might be, there is an enormously big chance that you will forget it. Don't allow yourself that. I lost few of ideas that way, and I totally regret it. It is also advisable to record your whole rehearsal in some way, especially if you're making new songs on the spot. You might find lots of potential material on those recordings.

When you fully practiced out a song with your band, and it is technically ready, don't stay on playing it while stand and not move at all, or even worse, not move and only look at your guitar. Jump, move, dance, give your peers a deadly eyelook, play with your guitar behind your back, play with your guitar on the floor, play with your teeth, with your tounge, whatever. Just don't stay on playing it with your mind. You should get to the point where you actually don't even think about what you play. When you get to playing live, there is a certain problem that comes out if you don't listen to what I just wrote, even more often if you play energetic music. The problem is that when you play, you turn the crowd on, and when you turn the crowd on, they turn you on even more, and you wanna do all the things you should've done and practiced on rehearsals, but you won't be able to do them, or you will do them, but make tons of mistakes. Turn of your lights and get a small light show for your rehearsals. Feel and go into it like you're on stage, in front of thousands of people! You'll find this very interesting and amusing, and it will spare you of all the bad things on the stage. Even make a small choreography of your live shows if necessary, and go into details. See what might happen on stage, and try to work it out on rehearsals, before unwanted consequences can occur.

I also advise you to squeeze all the best from the rehearsal time. Don't go in senseless jams (unless you know for sure they'll benefit your bandwork), don't have a cigar every 5 minutes, don't get stuck in some non-music related chats for too long, don't have too long breaks (though, they are useful sometimes, when you go way over the top and it really doesn't make sense to push yourself too much, because nothing creative will happen) and most importantly, don't wander off with your thoughts. Be there 120%, or at least 100%, and you'll notice the difference.

After the Rehearsal

If you have the time, go for a drink with your peers and talk about everything you've done on rehearsals. Review all your ideas, and talk about what you could do next. Give yourselves some directions for next rehearsals. Fix all the other problems you have in between yourselves right here, and not during rehearsals. And have a good time, establish a great personal relationships. If you enjoy being with your band outside the band, you will enjoy it even more when you're in the band. And everyone who'll hear or see the band will notice that, and it plays a big factor of success.

Official Josip Pesut site: www.josippesut.com. Visit the site and enjoy playing Josip's 'Licks of the month'!

© Josip for The Guitar Resource, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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In this article I will explain the 2 most crucial settings to use on the metronome and their relationship to developing lethal shredding speed!

A Major factor to becoming truly fast is mastering tremelo picking. And guess what! Yep, our buddy the metronome is going to help us to do it.

Temelo picking is just alternate picking – down,up,down,up etc. - on one note so lets set the metronome up and get started!

Set the Metronome to 8th note triplets and adjust the tempo to a nice easy speed. Your starting tempo should be something you can play easily with no error for an extended time period. You should heara steady pulse of clicks (Tic, tic, tic – Tic, tic, tic – Tic, tic, tic – Tic, tic, tic) with a staggering feel.

Now start alternate picking in time with the clicks on the 5th fret of the large E string(note A). The clicks come in a series of 3 so I want you to play the 1st click of each group of 3 slightly louder than the other 2. This is your pulse click which needs to be in perfect time.

If your metronome has a pendulum arm or a horizontal LED display you should play the pulse note whenever the arm reaches the extreme left or right. In the case of an LED display this is the extremeleft or right LED light. It is common for metronomes to play the pulse note louder as well.

You should realize that when you hear a guitar player playing fast tremelo picking that the notes are a series of small bundles - in this case they are 3 note bundles – tied together to form a larger musical pattern. The pulse note will become familiar to you so if you solo over a song with a fast 4/4 tempo you can simply count off the pulse notes in time with the beat. A bar of tremelo picking using the above setting produces 12 notes per bar. By recognising you pulse note you only have to count from 1 to 4 to keep effective time using tremelo picking.

So now that you have a few ideas about how and why to do things you can increase the tempo speed. I like to jump up in 10bpm lots but you can use smaller amounts. The main thing to remember is not to increase the tempo by large amounts too quickly. Lets say you started at 80bpm and you executed your tremelo picking with no mistakes using relaxed alternate picking technique and economy of movement(small controlled movements). Now, bump it up to 90bpm and listen to clicks before you play anything.

Before you start you should realise that there is no difference between playing slow and fast. Its common for students to hear a faster tempo and immediately say to themselves “That's too fast I'll never do that”. And guess what? Their mind makes it true. Your mind is so powerful that it will make statements like this a reality. You should instead clear your mind of all thought and simply play.

Lets continue. Using the correct mindset above you tremelo pick perfectly at 90bpm so you would bump the tempo up to 100bpm make your mind calm and clear of distraction then go for it!

If you find that you were not able to make the jump to 90bpm then stay on 80 bpm for a day or two or even a week. If you are new to tremelo picking then you have to condition your muscles to perform the work. Training your muscles should be done at a slow tempo from 40 – 60bpm. Once this is done then attempt to increase your speed again and you will see a huge improvement.

I mentioned 2 crucial settings earlier. The 2nd is 16th notes. Set your metronome to this setting and listen to the clicks. This time you will hear bundles of 4 clicks(Tic, tic, tic, tic – Tic, tic, tic, tic – Tic, tic, tic, tic – Tic, tic, tic, tic). Lets start with a nice easy tempo say 60bpm. As before, start alternate picking on the 5th fret of the big E string(Note A). Play the pulse note slightly louder than the other 3.

The process for improving speed is the same for 16th notes as 8th note triplets.

You should practice tremelo picking separately on all 6 strings as each string has different resistence and uses the muscles in your hand differently

If you are interested in more information on my guitar teaching methods I do have an ebook available with MP3's titled Shred Lords – Neoclassical Guitar available at my website www.jameserceg.com. James Erceg is a full time professional guitar teacher and player.

© James for The Guitar Resource, 2009. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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And so it went on year after year from Jimmy Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to Guns and Roses then Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, Van Halen, you name it! If the music had fast lead guitar I was there listening to it.

I had a natural talent for the guitar but I found that I had limits. I couldn't play all of the faster lead guitar that my heroes could on there recordings. The harder I tried to play these fast ideas the more impossible they became. Sometimes I would practice 8 hours straight and be no closer to reaching my goal of playing lightning fast. Does this sound familiar to anyone reading this?

This became even worse when I would attempt lead guitar by artists like Yngwie Malmsteen. I can play Yngwie Malmsteens song "I am a Viking" note for note perfect without even breaking a sweat now. But, back then this was impossible for me and not through lack of trying or ability.

For a few years I gave up trying to play as fast as Malmsteen. I started telling myself loser negative comments like "He's just born better and faster" or "I could never be that good so why bother" and "I'm just better at rythm guitar than lead" as well as "He probably started younger than me so I can never become that good as I started too late".

Luckily I did keep playing the guitar and worked on semi fast blues playing and a nice wide vibrato similar to Vai in the movie "Crossroads". I could always play fast on one string using ideas largely borrowed from Kirk Hammet of Metallica. Still, anything fast that involved string skipping scared the crap out of me especially around other people who would say "Wow that's really fast" while inside I would be embarrassed because I knew that I had only barely been able to play it or sometimes I would make mistakes and hope that no one noticed. In essence I felt like a fraud!

The thing is it didn't matter if other people noticed or not. I knew! I knew that I wasn't able to play fast solos properly and it pissed me off that I wasn't good enough.

Well that nightmare scenario is now very much in the past for me and I want to talk about the principles that increased my limits of guitar speed by alot!

A common and Major mistake that new players make is to try and play everything fast too soon. By doing this they develop bad timing habits which are a symptom of another common and Major mistake which is tensing the muscles in the picking and fretting hands. I can see how the problem develops in young players. Think about it; you're listening to loud adrenaline enhancing Rock and Metal that makes you want to jump around head banging and pumping your fist in the air, so it's only natural that this attitude flows over into guitar technique.

The solution for this is to be more like a wise tai chi master or budhist monk. You make all your movements fluid and relaxed. You only use the exact amount of energy required for any guitar technique. You step outside of the chaos of the music and let it flow out of you in an almost detached fashion. When I am blazing up and down the fretboard I think of nothing just “what is”.

This is why when I was younger I could never play really fast. I was super tense if anything. I would attempt to crush any failure by tensing up even more.

So start practicing any piece you want to learn very slowly in a relaxed way. Use a metronome to keep steady timing or use TAB sofware like Guitar Pro or Power Tab which have built in functions to play a piece of music at a slow pace. This is the time for you to do any serious thinking about your technique, how you hold the pick, using the most efficient energy conserving movements and hand positions. So take it slow at first and you will be playing lightning fast guitar in no time.

Thanks for reading this article. I will be be submitting more on the subject of guitar technique in the near future.

If you are interested in more information on my guitar teaching methods I do have an ebook available with MP3's titled Shred Lords – Neoclassical Guitar available at my website www.jameserceg.com. If you are serious about a career in music working as a professional guitar player I would recommend the Music Careers Mentoring Course run by Tom Hess at http://tomhess.net/.

© James for The Guitar Resource, 2009. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chords, fast, guitar, lesson, playing, scales, shred, shredding

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