Month: May 2015
Hello all ye brave lads and lasses, and welcome to Operation Shred Guitar III: The Shredding! My name is Jake Popowski, and in this lesson I will teach what I consider the most challenging and ...
Chord progressions are nice, and a lot of good songs have been made using them, but to move on to more complex patterns (or make your own progressions) you really need to learn the personalities ...
There is already a perfectly good way to name your chords, it already makes perfect sense, and, it describes what notes you are supposed to play, where you might play them on the neck and, ...
Level: Intermediate/Advanced Tuning: C# G# C# F# A# D# I’ve always loved Lamb of God. They’ve attributed to many speeding fines and weightlifting injuries as a result of my body surging from their unique brand ...
Would you like to be able to touch the hearts of the people that hear you playing? When most blues players train improvising, they just arbitrarily keep playing lick after lick and think that the ...
Break out the reading glasses, bring the iPad to the bathroom, it’s story time! A short story, long, about the importance of clear oral communication when speaking the language of music. Music theory is boring. ...
Because of the strict “up & down” nature of alternate picking, players will encounter difficulty when attempting multi-string playing because the picking always remains the same regardless of what passage/lick is being played. Sometimes the ...
I’ve had a lot of requests for a lesson on the Lydian mode, so I thought I’d finally try to honour that. I’ll try to give you some, hopefully new, melodic and harmonic tools to ...
Self-esteem is one of those things that seems like some people have it naturally, and others simply don’t. Unfortunately for those who seem to lack it, confidence in yourself is one of the most crucial ...
Although these exercises can be set to different rhythms, I’m focusing on just triplets as the slap, index, middle pattern works nicely as you have three different strikes (motions) which creates a single beat. For ...
Sweep picking across small triad shapes is a very cool sound that can be applied into both instrumental melodies and within your guitar solos. If you’ve ever tried it, sweep picking technique is not exactly ...
This is a follow-up lesson to my last article, How to Avoid Sucking as a Self-Taught Guitarist – a simple song-learning strategy designed to help self-taught guitarists find direction, enjoy the learning process and get better results with less cut-and-dry ...
A great way to improve and expand your own guitar playing is to study the styles and techniques of others, and then apply what you like to your own playing. Chet Atkins is a great ...
You know your metal guitar scales like the back of your hand but you have noticed that your guitar heroes sometimes are simply “ignoring” the scale and play seemingly random notes … and yet they ...
You know your metal guitar scales like the back of your hand but you have noticed that your guitar heroes sometimes are simply “ignoring” the scale and play seemingly random notes … and yet they ...
Examples of each topic are given below. All of the examples are meant to inspire you to learn more. There is not really an order or one of more importance. Your goals are up to ...
Using scales, a lot of students ask me why they should learn scales, what use will it have to their playing and perhaps even, shall I practice scales more than songs and just focus on ...
This article is developed in line with my other post, “The Use of Scales.” Read this article before proceeding with practising scales for guitar, this is a more advanced method to incorporate what you have ...
This is part 2 of 4 in a Legato Series that I’ve written. These patterns will help develop your legato playing regarding hammer-ons. Things to focus on: Play with a metronome! Start slowly and don’t ...
In this lesson I want to first demonstrate 4 exercises that you can use to gain the necessary vocabulary to solo over a turnaround with chords. I also give three examples of how I would ...
This lesson isn’t going to deal with writing harmonies, so much as what to do with them once we have them. We’ll cover two simple concepts that will give awesome results for your writing. You ...
As a bassist it is very important to know how chords are made up, especially if you want to get better at improvising quickly and/or coming up with bass lines that are more than just ...
Two Finger Exercises This is part 1 of 4 in a Legato Series that I’ve written. These simple yet effective exercises should help you improve your technique. Things to focus on: Play with a metronome! ...
Funk is some of best fun you can have on the guitar. It’s a party; get on up! The simplicity to the style is a part of its beauty, but also becomes deceptive in how ...
The Angus Young lead guitar sound originates from his unique application of the common major and minor pentatonic scales, as well as, how he employs the diminished 5th tones from the blues scale. He orchestrates ...
Do I Need to Learn to Read Music? If you are a hobby guitarist, the outright answer is no. If you enjoy playing songs, can play along to backing tracks in time and can read ...
Mapping out the C scale. Let’s memorize those whole and half steps with scale degrees as well. C step D step E half step F step G step B half step C. Step = 2 ...
In this lesson I’ll show three pentatonic scales to soloing with in the Dorian mode. I’ll be in the key of A minor (Dorian). The common pentatonic scale in that key is the A minor ...
Ladies! Gentlemen! Cyborgs of indeterminate sex! It’s time for a brand new installment of “This is Why You Suck at Guitar.” It’s been far too long since Uncle Ben here dropped a TiWYSaG lesson on ...
Using chromaticism with swing picking Hi Guys. I’m taking a break from interval-related theory, to show you some ideas for working with chromaticism and the technique of swing picking. This can really help open up ...
For a quick overview on how to play gypsy jazz, check out this excellent lesson by TheWall27! It covers all the basics. I will be focusing more directly on the harmonic and chords aspect. Django ...
Ladies! Gentlemen! Cyborgs of indeterminate sex! It’s time for a brand new installment of “This is Why You Suck at Guitar.” It’s been far too long since Uncle Ben here dropped a TiWYSaG lesson on ...
In this lesson, I want to first demonstrate 4 exercises that you can use to gain the necessary vocabulary to solo over a turnaround with chords. I also give three examples of how I would ...
