Ed Sheeran recently tweeted that he shows the below song – written at the tender age of 12 – to “anyone that ever says I was born with natural talent”. These things take practice. Still, some stars ...
Ever since Rage Against The Machine finally raged successfully against a machine – albeit a machine as irrelevant as X Factor’s automatic stranglehold on the Christmas Number One – there’s been a bullish and defiant ...
Cleaning A Violin- The Natural Way All natural, organic, gluten-free, DIY…you see those words splattered all over the internet. They are the latest trends, and here at the-violin.com we are jumping on the band wagon. Cleaning ...
The previously unnamed man who played John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ on a portable piano outside Paris’ Le Bataclan – scene of a deadly terror attack – has told the story behind his performance. David Martello, 34, ...
Eitan’s Bartel absolute love for the instrument he makes, the perfect measurements needed to craft one of his guitars, the unbelievable skill and precision required in each step, the shots of woodworking, the imagination ...
Cleaning drums is a pretty simple process, and it doesn’t have to cost you much. Even those rusty-looking drum hoops can be made to shine like new without a lot of effort (and expense). When ...
You’ve finally invested in a high-quality vocal microphone, and your voice has never sounded better. Unfortunately, the keyboard player in your band decides he wants to use your mic during his featured rap. You cringe ...
Representing the next level of professional recording performance, the H4n delivers unbeleivable audio quality and performance. Zoom’s most sophisticated handheld recorder to date will amaze, no matter the application. It’s a Field Recorder with up ...
Grab the extremely versatile Korg Pa900 arranger and start creating your next masterpiece. With so many styles of music reaching our ears these days, there’s just not enough time to become proficient in all of ...
I’ve recently had the chance to get my hands on a new MIDI keyboard and am completely blown away by the quality of components, build, and integration. Nektar is a company that has been making ...
Numark Orbit Full Review: Looking like a kid’s toy and a game controller rolled into one, the Numark Orbit Wireless DJ Controller has people thinking “gimmick!” as soon as they see it. Which, it turns ...
The Pioneer DDJ-SX is the first DJ controller designed for Serato DJ, the new DJ software from, yup, Serato. (Update: Also take a look at the Pioneer DDJ-SZ). Both this controller and the software are ...
Hey guys, this exercise involves 9ths up and down the fretboard using the lower strings. I hope you enjoy and please rate and comment! Tips: Memorize your three shapes first. Trwy and incorporate these into ...
Modes are one of the most important harmonic and melodic ideas used by guitar players and we need to study them so we have a solid handle on how we can use them to the ...
I was mucking around with some 2 string arpeggios and just messing with your standard 1, 3, 5 triad over 3 octaves and decided to add a descending run. I put a few different arpeggios ...
This is a great lick to learn! It has a pure ’70s rock ballad vibe in it. Expression is the key here. Pay attention to vibratos, bends and rhythm as well. Also be careful with ...
Most of the guitar books, Internet guitar lessons and guitar teachers show the fret-board’s scale patterns in tight fingerboard position layouts (approx. 4-5 frets horizontally). And, while some guitar licks are played from within those ...
Hey guys, here’s a lesson on some scale shapes on the top 3 strings that could further enhance your picking, speed, endurance and overall knowledge of the fretboard. Enjoy! Quick tips: I like playing with ...
The eleven chord is a strange beast all to its own. It is one of the easiest chords to play, but also one of the hardest to wrap your head around. The essence of the ...
Hello! In this lesson of Developing Legato, I will play through exercises that involve hammer-ons and pull-offs used together. While these exercises are not musical, they are focused to help you build strength so that ...
Hello all, and welcome to Operation Shred Guitar IV: Strings Attached. My name is Jake Popowski. Since you clicked on this lesson, I’m assuming you are interested in learning some more of the magical tricks ...
Hey, guys! Today’s lesson is actually a request. A handful of people who have been especially helped by my Musician Psychology series asked me to answer the question of whether it’s ever too late to ...
Hey guys! I hope you enjoy this exercise. I use this one to practice alternate picking and speed while staying in a key. Diatonic Exercise 1 This exercise is in the key of C major ...
This lesson is a short etude, a chord solo on an F blues. You should be able to use it as inspiration and resource to make your own chord solos but if it was played ...
Guitar players can apply scales/modes much more effectively if the modes’ pitches are focused directly from off of their appropriate “tonal note.” This way, guitar players can create a strong tie-in to the shape of ...
Hello and welcome to this lesson which I’ve purposely written for beginners. This time I’m going to address a topic that is relevant for each guitarist out there who wishes to play along to his ...
Hello everybody! Here is a great lesson to use to play scales diagonally as opposed to playing vertically all the time. Be sure you review my past lesson on 3 Notes per String as this will ...
Level: Beginner/Intermediate Tuning: E A D G B E (Standard) Who didn’t love crusin’ around in GTA San Andreas listening to this song and whomping people with baseball bats and ramming pedestrians with a motor ...
Hello and welcome to this lesson which I’ve purposely written for beginners. This time I’m going to address a topic that is relevant for each guitarist out there who wishes to play along to his ...
This weeks lesson takes a look into the world of arpeggios on the fingerboard, (an area often neglected by guitar players). Arpeggio patterns on the guitar neck may be neglected due to the fact that ...
This weeks lesson takes a look at performing substitutions with diatonic pentatonic scale ideas. This is an easy idea to work on that can produce a fresh new sound into any solo or melody line. ...
If I’m being honest with myself, I’d say that I’ve gone through several long periods where guitar was a secondary – even tertiary – part of my life. Sure, ever since I started playing at ...
I was messing around with a pentatonic and started messing around with some taps. I found that if I tapped 4 frets up from the most common box shape of the minor pentatonic that all ...
This time I will cover a few of the basic ideas involved with entering into the world of playing rock lead guitar and how to solo over rock music in general. It presupposes that viewers ...
When I think Hungarian minor I don’t just think about salami. I think about bands like Cacophony and Revocation with their enjoyment of exotic modes and abrasive intervals. Before we get stuck into the lick ...
Hey guys! This lesson is for those of you who want to learn how slap technique. If you already know slap, this might help you a bit too. Hope you enjoy! What will I need ...
In this tune I’ll show the melody and the solo. There are two video lessons to the tune. In the first one I’m playing the tune and demonstrating the melody. And the second video is ...
Hey guys! So the legato is getting a bit more difficult in this lesson. We will focus on essential pull-off patterns that will strengthen that technique. Things to focus on: Play with a metronome Start ...
This week we will work on playing through three intermediate level jazz chord workout exercises. The exercises begin with the common seventh chord qualities, then move on to using chord extensions and finally progress to ...
Level: Intermediate Tuning: E A D G B E (Standard) “Bark at the Moon“… Pretty win but also overlooked solo. I always loved Zakk and Randy… And poor Jake E. Lee is so easy to ...
Sus4 chords are very handy structures to use as a variation from third based structures like triads and 7th chords. In this lesson I want to show how you can apply or find them when ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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! ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
I was always pretty into rock and heavy metal as a whippersnapper. As I grew older though I found myself getting very used to the sound of pentatonics, diatonics and arpeggios working “in key.” It ...
In this lesson we discuss how to phrase melody lines over progressions that will leave the key centre to include the use of multiple modes. Modes are often thought of as being used within a ...
In this lesson we’ll look at how to use numbers and a grid to expand your musical vocabulary and invent new musical ideas you perhaps wouldn’t normally come up with! Essentially we’ll look at breaking ...
In this video lesson I’ll demonstrate how to start thinking more like a drummer/percussionist. The idea is to practice playing along with songs etc. Just tapping out rhythms on your knees, desk, steering wheel – ...
The aim of this lesson is to take licks, scales, bass lines etc that you already know and turn them into something new and cool by simply adding 5ths or octaves. If you don’t know ...
Hello once again fellow shredders, and welcome to Operation Shred Guitar II: Soloing on a Dead End Road! My name is Jake Popowski, and in this lesson, you will learn how to play my solo ...
In this lesson I want to introduce a type of chords that I use a lot which are a versatile and practical way to play chords with 2nd intervals in them which is often difficult ...
Difficulty Level: Advanced Tuning: E A D G B E (Standard Tuning) When I first purchased the “Countdown to Extinction” album I was a pretty die hard fan of Metallica and thought that guitar solos ...
Jeff Beck is without argument one of the world’s most famous guitar players. Both his compositions and his guitar playing style are quite diverse. He plays a unique blend of rock and jazz alongside of ...
I am Greg Studley, and this is Lesson 6 of Improvising With Knowledge on Ultimate Guitar. These lessons are designed to get you accustomed to yet another pentatonic scale shape, which can be used as ...
Hey guys, I decided to make a very random but informative video about Neapolitan Chords! These chords are my absolute favorite when it comes to chromatic harmony. Neapolitan Chords: Neapolitan Chords have a very distinct ...
I’ll keep this as short as possible. The motivation for this video is the fact that most lessons out there require you to perform sweeps in downward/upward motions. That means, you start either by picking ...
Standard tuning: E A D G B E Level: Intermediate I’ve always loved this song. I just think the chorus is great. It’s the kind of chorus you sing really loudly whilst quite intoxicated and ...
Practicing can be a lot less tedious when you play music instead of many exercises in a row. If you are having trouble with a certain technique, or want to explore what sort of musical ...
Hey guys! Here is a simple worksheet that will help guide you through the modes of C Major. I enjoy this because it opens up a whole lot of exercises that I will cover later! ...