Posted in Exercises, General Tips on Jun 17th, 2007
There are a lot of simple things you can do to spice up your guitar soloing. One great technique many guitar players use is string skipping. There are many different ways to use string skipping to beef up your chops. But for this post I just wanted to focus on one simple method you can use.
Posted in General Tips on Jun 15th, 2007
A lot of guitar players first learning music theory and scales find it hard to remember notes from the scales and chords they are learning. Forget about remembering the notes of complex modes and chords, even remembering the notes of major and minor scales and chords can be tough.
A helpful way for me to remember chord and scale notes is to create note cards. I do one note card for each major scale (so there are a total of 12 cards). I put the cards in the order of the Circle of Fifths. On each card I have the major scale really big across the top of the card. Then I number each note as follows: 1, 2/9, 3, 4/11, 5, 6/13, 7. The reason I give certain notes two numbers is because it will help me remember their extension names as well. Then I also circle the notes 1, 3, 5, 7. So now I can visually see what the essential chord tones are (I put the numbers below each note).
Now I start writing out common chord names and their notes. So for example on the C major card I would write:
Posted in Ear Training, Exercises, General Tips on Jun 12th, 2007
When you solo your lines should be an extension of what you here in your head. The better you get at guitar, the less you will have to think about what to play and the more you play what you feel. Getting to that level of guitar playing takes some time and practice. But one of the ways you can speed up the process is by training your inner ear to recognize the sounds in your head, and training your fingers to execute those sounds on guitar.
Posted in Exercises, General Tips on Jun 7th, 2007
When you talk to someone you communicate different messages based on the volume of your voice, you should also be communicating on guitar by varying your dynamics when you play. When you are communicating your musical ideas you have to keep in mind all aspects of that communication. That includes notes, rhythm and dynamics. Just about all guitar players use the first in that list, many use the second, but too few pay real attention to their dynamics.
Posted in General Tips on Jun 2nd, 2007
What’s the biggest problem you face when you put on brand new guitar strings? For me it is the fact that my new guitar strings stay in tune for, say, 15 seconds until they sound like adolescent boys trying to hum an E chord. So what can you do to keep your new guitar strings in tune? Simple. You can stretch them.
Posted in General Tips on Jun 1st, 2007
The Soul of Rock 'n Roll has a great article titled "6 Things That are the Mark of a Great Guitar Lead or Solo". All 6 of these tips are quite helpful and they will all help improve your playing. Over time I plan on doing short posts/ lessons on each one of the recommendations there. That way you can really have some solid guitar exercises to practice based on his posts.
Posted in Exercises, General Tips on Jun 1st, 2007
Improving your guitar playing is not just about practicing with a metronome, learning to play exotic chords and complex modes. One of the most important, and often overlooked, things you can do to improve you guitar playing is to listen.