What’s the difference between a lead guitar solo that makes you beg for more, and one that bores you to death? Is it the scales the guitar player is using? Is it the number of positions the guitar player can play the scales in? Is it how fast the guitarist can play? Is it an …
Guitar Phrasing: How to Improve your Solos by Simply Understanding a Concept Read More »
Some people are afraid to have their music criticized. They love what they create so much and are so protective of their music that any form of negative criticism is taken as an attack they feel obliged to defend. Other people on the other hand, are always looking for criticism from everyone, expecting everybody’s approval, …
“Practice, practice, practice”. If you are learning to play the guitar, you have probably come across this advice before. But what leads to successful guitar playing? Is it just a matter of how many hours you put in? Practicing is king, right? Great guitar players are the ones who practice a lot, and the mediocre …
In 7 myths about music theory, I explain what music theory is not, what it is, and have hopefully convinced you that you need it if you’re learning a musical instrument. But how much music theory do you need? In this lesson, I will show you that this question isn’t the most ideal question to …
What if I told you, the time you spend practicing guitar, is probably way less effective than it could be? That for each hour you’re spending practicing you’re most likely gaining less than you would if you actually applied the Pareto principle. In this article, I will explain what the Pareto principle is all about. …
How to Apply the Pareto Principle for Effective Guitar Practicing Read More »
What guitar scale should you improvise on if you’re playing in the key of C major? The C major scale, right? Or else the C major pentatonic scale, which doesn’t have any different notes, only less. What guitar scale should you improvise on if the music is in the key of A minor? A minor …
4 Minor scales you can use if you’re improvising on guitar (and how to use them) Read More »
In the power of power chords lesson, I explain how the power chord can come very handy since it doesn’t have the “third” note of the key it’s being played in. That third note is what changes a power chord into a major or a minor triad. In this lesson, you’ll see that while power …
Beyond power chord riffs: Major and minor triads Read More »
Many a time I have students who have the ability to at least start to improvise guitar solos, good solos if they commit to practicing the art of improvisation for a while, but they’re afraid that it’s not within their reach because they think they can’t play fast guitar, that they can’t “shred”, and that …
You Don’t Need to Play Guitar Fast To Improvise Good Solos Read More »
Do you sometimes feel that your guitar practice time involves learning a bunch of unrelated things without knowing the reason why you’re learning them? That you have to learn all this so that finally, one day, years from now, it will magically tie up together and “you can play guitar”? I know exactly how this …
How to focus and get more out of your guitar practicing time Read More »
What makes beautiful melodies…..beautiful? There are quite a few things you need in place to write a great melody, but the one thing that makes a melody stand out is a good relationship between consonance and dissonance. Consonance and dissonance in music is a concept you need to understand from a theoretical level as well …
The Tritone: A Lesson on Consonance and Dissonance Read More »
