How To

Staccato and Legato

This video was requested a while ago, a demonstration and explanation of the difference between the terms “staccato” and “legato” in music. Most of the confusion is causes by people thinking about these two things as specific guitar techniques…and they’re not! The words only relate to the type of sound produced, regardless of the technique. [...]

January 30, 2012 at 11:39 pm | How to, Music Theory | No comments





Improvisation on Nothing…

Here’s an interesting video from a Jazz musician called “Stefon Harris”. I wont spoil it too much, just to say that he gives some good insight into how improvisation really works. You see, there are no mistakes in improvisation, as long as everyone is listening and aware of what’s going on around them. Everyone just [...]

January 9, 2012 at 8:00 pm | Developing Your Ears, How to | No comments





Are Technical Exercises a Chore?

This was originally supposed to be part of the Ways Exercises can be Fun series, but I’ve decided that this point is important enough to warrant taking over an entire post to itself! Don’t worry, there is a post coming up with the rest of the (now only 4) ways that technical exercises can be [...]

December 14, 2011 at 10:18 pm | Exercises, How to | No comments





Jimi Hendrix’s Style

This is a special post in honour of Jimi Hendrix’s birthday- today, the 27th November. So what if he’s not alive anymore? He was an amazing guitar player! This jam is based around the E minor pentatonic scale, and the main riff (played here at the intro and then twice at the end) is based [...]

November 27, 2011 at 2:54 pm | In the Style of... | No comments





Kirk Hammet Style!

MetallicA! This week I’ve been looking guitarist “Kirk Hammet” of Metallica’s approach to creating a guitar solo. Kirk’s style is heavily influenced by a mix of angular, more modern metal, and classic rock style blues licks- which is what I’ve tried to show here. The solo starts off with a quick, tapped lick inspired by [...]

October 25, 2011 at 1:38 pm | In the Style of... | No comments





Zakk Wylde Style

Here we are with another of our “In the Style of…” series, and this week we’re looking at Ex-Ozzy Osbourne guitarist “Zakk Wylde”. You may also know Zakk from his own band “Black Label Society”, his appearance on “American Idol” (as a guitar player playing with one of the contestants), and more recently from his [...]

October 5, 2011 at 5:46 pm | In the Style of... | No comments





How to Write a Harmonised Guitar Solo

So, I’ve been talking a lot about chords, rhythm playing, and soloing…but not much about where the three things meet in the middle- the twin guitar (a.k.a. harmonised) solo. If you’re in a band with two guitarists, getting the two to harmonise can add a depth to the sound that probably isn’t used enough in [...]

September 14, 2011 at 7:00 pm | How to, Music Theory | No comments





Guitar Harmonics

Having covered this on bass, and talked about how harmonics are written down, I thought it must be about time I explain them a bit more for guitar. So here is a video explaining how to play harmonics (and how they work), and also a diagram explaining where you’ll find them. Basically, it shows the [...]

September 2, 2011 at 9:38 pm | How to | No comments





How to Solo (part 2)

The second video in this series is about spontaneity, and being able to keep the groove going with no “gaps”. You know what I’m talking about: when you’re taking so long to think about the next note that it’s now too late to play it… Using the above exercise should start to get you over [...]

August 25, 2011 at 11:00 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, How to | No comments





Guitar Scales: Phrygian Dominant

The Phrygian Dominant scale is kinda like the Phrygian mode, only very different… Ok, so I should probably explain that a in a bit more detail (this being a tuition website and everything…). The Phrygian Dominant scale was invented by playing the Harmonic minor scale from the 5th note- so in that sense it’s technically [...]

August 24, 2011 at 7:00 pm | Guitar Scales | No comments





Next Page »