Many exercises, riffs and licks on the guitar are made of notes coming from strings adjacent to each other. String skipping is a technique where you play notes from strings of wider distances, either all the time, or partially. This gives you the ability to play wider intervals on the guitar, that is, notes that […]
7 String Skipping Guitar Exercises, Riffs, Licks and Solos Read More »
Your very first Heavy Metal guitar lesson The sole reason I picked up the guitar 25 years ago was to play Heavy Metal. I added new genres among my favorites along the way, but back then it was just Metal and its close relatives, Hard Rock and Punk music. And I had a problem. What
Are you a beginner at playing guitar? Do you have no clue what to learn and fear making mistakes that will lead to bad habits, or even worse, that you end up quitting? You’re in good company! The majority of people who ever picked up the guitar never made it over this stage. And no,
7 Common beginner guitar playing mistakes to avoid Read More »
The minor pentatonic scale is a big favorite among Rock and Blues guitar players. The reasons for this are rooted in the theory behind the minor pentatonic but in a nutshell, the minor pentatonic scale on guitar: Sounds great Is easy to use In fact, though guitar players at all levels use this scale, it
We take decisions all of the time and whether we’re conscious of it or not these decisions affect the quality of our life and every aspect of it, including whether we’ll improve fast on guitar or not. These decisions include not bothering to take a decision at all. As Rush remind us in the song
How to improve your guitar playing by taking decisions Read More »
How to apply the basic components of music to writing songs Musicologists have argued for ages as to how many elements of music there are. Some claim there are 5 main elements of music, some 7, some 10, and others even more. This debate isn’t really useful for us songwriters and most of the time
Understand the basic rhythmic components of music and create your guitar strumming patterns. Instead of giving you a few common guitar strumming patterns to play, which you can find on the Internet, I’ll show you the basic rhythmic components of a strumming pattern, so that you can not only play them but also create your
Introducing Guitar Strumming Patterns and the Basics of Rhythm Read More »
In music, playing two or more notes “legato” means playing them smoothly, and this can be achieved in different ways on different musical instruments. On the guitar, the most common phrasing techniques that achieve this, along with slides, are the hammer on and the pull off. In the following hammer on and pull of exercises,
12 Hammer on and pull off exercises to master legato technique Read More »
Learn what a guitar riff is, and start riffing right away! If you look at the example guitar licks in this lesson and compare them to the riffs in this, you will get quite a good idea of what makes the difference between a guitar lick and a guitar riff. In this tutorial, we will
What are guitar riffs (how to create your first riff) Read More »
In this lesson on the guitar fretboard, I’ve shown you what the notes on the guitar neck are and how to memorize them. This is important for getting started in the art of improvisation which simply means being able to come up with your own tunes on the guitar at will. However, knowing where the
