“[Heavy metal] has as one of its central elements the element of hatred” Dr. Paul King, Live Buzz 93, in my country Malta, was my first Heavy Metal gig, and I couldn’t say I hadn’t been warned. I knew that this went beyond skipping mass on Sunday, or doubting the existence of God, as I […]
When you start learning the guitar you are clueless. You don’t know what you will need to learn, how to learn it, in what order, whether you have what it takes, how long will it take, and many other questions you don’t yet have an answer for. In this article, I will delve in some […]
Simply put, arpeggios on guitar are the same notes you play when you strum a chord one note at a time. For this reason, I used to believe that playing a guitar arpeggio meant plucking the notes of the chord I was playing (ex a) instead of strumming them (ex b) Though frequently called a […]
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 […]
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, […]
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: Sounds great Is easy to use In fact, though guitar players at all levels use this scale, it is a […]
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 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, others even more. This debate isn’t really useful for us songwriters and most of the time it […]
Understand the basic rhythmic components of music and figure out guitar strumming patterns on your own. In this lesson, rather than give you a few common guitar strumming patterns to play, of which you can find many on the Internet, I’ll be showing you the basic rhythmic components of a strumming pattern, so that apart […]