Blasting With The Blasters
Saw The Blasters last night at Hopmonk in Novato and they blew the roof off. They’ve been playing for about 40 years now and still have most of their original…
Read more »How to Use Sweep Picking in Jazz
Sweep picking is a popular guitar technique in metal, allowing players to articulate licks with tremendous speed. Sweep picking is a popular guitar technique in metal, allowing players to articulate…
Read more »Investigating the Hirajoshi Scale
All rock guitar players play repetitive sequences in their solos, and I have found it very useful to utilize a systematic approach. Last month, I introduced a few approaches based…
Read more »Using Out-of-the-Box Scale Fingerings to Master the Fretboard
Two of the most common questions I hear from students are, “How do I break out of box patterns?” and “How can I learn the notes on the neck without…
Read more »How to Construct Classic Eighties-Style Metal Guitar Parts
Back in the Eighties, during the heyday of metal, bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest and the Scorpions were releasing incredible, killer albums packed with amazing guitar playing. Today, I…
Read more »How to Hear Music in Context
Ear training is one of my favorite topics to work on with my students, and many of the best guitar players of all time learned to play through listening. I…
Read more »Secrets of Shred: Eddie Van Halen-Style Speed-Picking Technique
In this lesson, I’ll be showing you a relatively unknown picking technique used by my favorite guitarist, Eddie Van Halen. It can be heard in countless Van Halen songs, including…
Read more »Secrets of Shred with Sammy Boller: Speed Pentatonic Scales
This example demonstrates how to play the B minor pentatonic scale on the E and A strings using two notes on the E string and three notes on the A…
Read more »How to Play Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Pride and Joy” Sliding Chords
A guitar solo is the highlight of any Stevie Ray Vaughan song, and the solos he performed in his 1983 hit “Pride and Joy” are among his finest. A guitar…
Read more »Creative Approaches to Rhythm Guitar
As much as guitarists love to solo, the reality is that, for most of us, the majority of time spent in a band setting is applied to playing rhythm guitar….
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