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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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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