Archive for August, 2008

An "Iron Maiden"-style metal guitar jam track today. The track is in the key of E minor (metal approved!) and follows this chord progression: |E5 - - - |C5 - D5 - | Some cool scale choices: Rock on! View Lesson

The Minor Pentatonic scale is one of the most widely used scales in improvisation in every musical style so it makes sense to know it well all over the guitar neck. When it comes to moving beyond the first pattern learned (see my lesson on 4 Scales You Should Know) the next step is usually to introduce five overlapping patterns, each staying strictly in ... View Lesson

Dividing your practice session into short time frames - two to five minutes - is beneficial on many levels. It helps clarify what you are hoping to accomplish. It focuses you on the task at hand. And it breaks up your large musical journey into small steps. Focusing on short-term successes can ward off the ... View Lesson

Jazz guitar legend and teacher, Howard Roberts, gave one of my all-time favorite quotes when it comes to guitar technique: "Speed is a by-product of Accuracy". If one rushes to play a lick, melody or song before learning how it physically should feel when played well, the parts will never sound fast or ... View Lesson

So you've studied our natural notes on the E string lesson and are left wondering how to name those mysterious blank spaces in between? Well, these are the 'chromatic notes' and we will learn how to name them in this lesson In our natural note lesson, we learned a pattern where between most natural notes there is a two fret distance, or a 'whole-step'. The ... View Lesson

Hey, Mon! Have fun "jammin'" Jamaican-style over this Reggae Jam Track. This looping guitar jam track is in B minor, following the progression |Bm - - - |G - A - | Some cool scale choices: A clean, reverb-drenched guitar sound will serve this style well. Try using a touch of palm-muting for that staccato, "stucky", sound ... View Lesson

You will practice more efficiently and get more done if you keep your practice sessions distraction-free. This means no telephone calls, no visitors, and no television. Find set times to make this happen by communicating with family and friends. Most will respect your space and you will get an invigorated commitment to your guitar practice. View Lesson

Rock music will live forever! I know this because it readily accepts other music styles and fuzes them together to create ever evolving rock hybrids. Jazz-Rock, Country-Rock, Blues-Rock, Rap-Rock. The list will keep evolving. This looping jam track in B minor takes techno/electronic music elements and fuses them with a rock feel. This jam track is taken off of my Jeff Beck Style lesson series. ... View Lesson

Knowing the notes on the neck is important on many levels. It adds a certain concreteness to what you play when you know and use note names rather than fret numbers. It helps with communication with other musicians. Try telling your keyboard or sax player "I'm playing the note on the 8th fret" and watch the troubled, quizzical looks that follow! It is also much ... View Lesson

I want all my students to know their note names in two ways: on the music staff and on the fretboard. This lesson deals with learning the natural notes on the neck. Let's start off learning the notes on just one string, the low E string. And instead of learning all the notes here, we will learn just the 'natural notes'. Natural notes are the 'white-key' ... View Lesson