Archive for the ‘Practice’ Category
Listening is The Key to Everything
Photo by David Goehring
Learning to play guitar gets easier these days with the many YouTubes and Tabs available everywhere around the internet.
The downside of this phenomenon is that people who are learning to play guitar these days can get lazy if they just copy whatever is being taught on the net.
It’s still very important to listen with your own ears and learn to transcribe songs without tutorial videos or tablature books.
Transcribing songs will teach you how guitar playing works from the inside out. I can tell you, it taught me more than I could have ever learned from tutorial videos.
I am not saying you need to stop watching YouTube guitar tutorials….No Way! YouTube is a great tool, but just don’t forget to listen and transcribe songs on your own. A must for every serious guitar student!
Listening is the key to everything:
Give Music a Chance.
Listen to as much different kinds of music styles as possible. Explore Pop music, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Folk, Country, Fusion, Latin, Metal, Flamenco and Classical sounds to expand your horizon and become a more creative musician.
If you don’t like a song or an album at first, put it on a second time.
Now this time listen differently: Read the rest of this entry »
The 23 Essential Guitar Arpeggios to Get Smooth
Photo by Benjamin Deutsch
Arpeggios are often used for sweep picking also referred as economy picking (different from alternate picking).
It is a technique that creates a fast and fluid sound.
Frank Gambale, Yngwie Malmsteen among others are experts in this field. So if you like to show off or just create incredible sounds on your guitar try arpeggio sweep picking.
Besides using it for fast playing, I really like to use it as a handy tool for improvisation.
If you don’t want to sound like you are playing scales all the time then you can use arpeggios as an extra ingredient to spice things up with a really nice flavor.
When using arpeggios in improvisation play them occasionally, try to play parts and pieces or play random notes of an arpeggio to create cool sounding licks. Use your creativity.
Tip1: Not only play arpeggios but use them in your improvisation.
If you don’t do this it’s like you are learning new words but don’t apply them in your language.
Tip2: Learn every arpeggio in different positions on the neck so you become familiar with the shape of the arpeggio rather than concentrating on which frets you put your fingers in one particular postion.
Here are the 23 essentials that can really open up your playing and improvisation skills.
Have fun and work hard.
You’ll benefit from it!
#1 D Major Arpeggio e:--------------2h5p2----------------------------------------------------| B:-----------3---------3-------------------------------------------------| G:--------2---------------2----------------------------------------------| D:-----4---------------------4-------------------------------------------| A:--5--------------------------5-----------------------------------------| E:-----------------------------------------------------------------------|Read the rest of this entry »
4 Brilliant Christmas Guitar Albums and What You Can Learn from Them
Christmas time is a great opportunity for guitar players to show (off) their skills.
Everybody wants to hear a good old fashioned christmas tune during the holiday season.
So to entertain your family and friends or impress your audience you got to prepare, study hard and learn from the best.
Besides that, you might want to listen to some decent christmas music yourself from time to time.
We all know the famous christmas songs we hear everyday on the radio, but guitar players need quality input to improve, to be fueled, to be inspired, to fall in love with and stay ambitious.
Listening to christmas guitar albums makes you understand how melodies and rhythm work in different ways.
It shows you how every guitar player has his own unique way of phrasing.
There is so much to learn from just by listening to records.
Listen to the records and hear how guitar players make use of scales, patterns, triads, arpeggios, intervals in the most creative ways.
Listen to the feel, dynamics, timing, tempo, techniques like hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, tapping, etc.
When you’ve listened close enough to the lead guitar and rhythm guitar parts start listening to the bass guitar, the piano, the drums and other instruments.
Concentrate your ears on one instrument at a time throughout the whole song. You will learn to start listening differently with your musical ear. Read the rest of this entry »
16 Legendary Fingerpicking Patterns
Fingerpicking style is used in many famous and legendary songs over the years.
The 16 examples in this post are a good source to learn the most common fingerpicking patterns you will ever come across.
The fingerpicking patterns can be applied to almost every folk, pop, country or rock song.
Try and figure out which pattern suits your favorite song.
Maybe you’ll already recognize some of these patterns from songs you heard before.
I personally think pattern #12 is a really nice one. It’s a Travis fingerpicking style arrangement named after Merle Travis. The Travis fingerpicking style is known for it’s steady bass pattern played with the thumb while the rest of the fingers fill out the rest of the pattern on the treble strings.
Right hand finger positioning
Now let’s take a look at the finger positioning assuming you are a right handed guitar player.
For my right hand position I use my thumb to pluck the low-E, A and D-string. The index finger is on the G-string, the middle finger on the B-string and the ring finger on the high E-string.
For each different chord, you play the corresponding bass note with your right hand thumb.
Whenever you play an A or Am chord with your left hand, you pluck the A-string ( A root note) with your right hand thumb.
For an E or Em chord pluck the E-string (E root note) with your right hand thumb.
D or Dm chord = D-string (D root note).
G chord = E-string (The G root note is played with your left hand on the low E-string).
C chord = A-string (The C root note is played with your left hand on the A-string) and so on.
Listen to the audio player below each tab to hear the pattern played twice in uptempo and slow tempo.
Practice each and every one of them thoroughly. It’s really good for you.
Enjoy!
PATTERN #1
A E
e:-------0-------|-------0-------|-------0-------|--------0-----------|
B:-----2---2-----|-----2---2-----|-----0---0-----|-----0----0---------|
G:---2-------2---|---2-------2---|---1-------1---|---1--------1-------|
D:---------------|---------------|---------------|--------------------|
A:-0-------------|-0-------------|---------------|--------------------|
E:---------------|---------------|-0-------------|-0------------------|
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
21 Must Have Online Musician Tools For Guitar Players
Today I present to you a list with 21 online musician tools so you don’t have to download or install anything. Just click the links and you’re up and running.
19 out of 21 tools are free to use. Most of them are virtual tools, a few of them are blogs but they can be a great tool as well.
The tools come quite in handy whenever you are practicing, playing, transcribing, improvising, songwriting or promoting.
I’m a major fan of cloud computing / Web 2.0 therefor I love online music rescources. It’s great to access these tools from any computer where I happen to be. It makes life a lot easier.
One of my personal favorites is tool #8 for improvising over blues backingtracks. They sound really cool.
In case you are going to copy/paste this list on a blog, a spreadsheet or mail it to someone, (which you are free to do) I wouldn’t want anyone to miss out on my own blog so that’s why I put Guitarhabits on #21.
Enjoy the ride and good luck with it.
For your convenience:
1 – Myna Online Audio Editor
wwww.aviary.com/…
Use Myna to remix music tracks and audio clips. Apply sound effects and record your own voice or instruments. Read the rest of this entry »
5 Famous Repetitive Classic Blues Rock Metal Guitar Licks
When I was a kid I used to transcribe solos of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Guns ‘n Roses, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, etc. And all those famous blues, rock, metal guitar players had one thing in common. They used repetitive guitar licks.
Repetitive licks create a sound where you feel like you’re playing really fast. Well maybe you are :) Besides that they just sound really cool. Those licks have made history.
The trick is too use them occasionally, but certainly not too often assuming that you want your solos to sound fresh and don’t want people to get bored out of their minds.
Use them in the middle of your solos when you are working towards a climax or you feel like you’re on a roll. Something like that.
The best way is to listen to those guys and see how they incorporate them into their solos.
Try not just to copy these licks but also change them around a bit. Create your own repetitive licks. Explore and evolve those licks.
These licks are played using A minor or A pentatonic scale.
You can use them over an Am chord progression or a blues rhythm in the key of A.
I always keep repeating this, because I think it’s important. Play the licks slow first and make sure you can play each lick perfectly clear before you build up speed.
Good luck! Read the rest of this entry »
