GUITARHABITS

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Listening is The Key to Everything

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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:Continue Reading

How to Really Increase Guitarist Productivity

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Photo by bjortklingd
I get a lot of questions via Twitter about guitar goals and how to keep motivated, so I thought I’d write a post on guitarist productivity.

In the past I have done some things using discipline in order to accomplish a goal, but it never brought me what I wanted or what I expected. Later I realized why discipline didn’t work out for me.

Discipline is forcing yourself to do something you really don’t want to do in order to achieve a goal you think you do want. Doesn’t that sound strange to you? Well I’ve learned my lessons.

As a Chinese proverb says: “The journey is the reward”. What it means is that you have to enjoy what you do all the way or make sure you enjoy it and forget about the destination or success what so ever.

Everything is about the journey, about what you are doing right now. Make sure you love what you do. It’s the number one rule to guitarist productivity and everything else in life.

Let’s get into it:Continue Reading

5 Famous Repetitive Classic Blues Rock Metal Guitar Licks

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Photo by Igor Giamoniano

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 that makes it seem like you’re playing really fast. Well maybe you do :) Besides that they just sound really cool. Those licks have made history.

The trick is to 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 rock n’ roll guitar players 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. First play the licks slow and make sure you can play each lick perfectly clear before you build up speed.

Good luck!Continue Reading

Learn The Guitar Fingerboard Thoroughly in 16 Days

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Part I

If I have to name two things that took my guitar playing to the next level it would be music theory and memorizing the fingerboard.

It made me understand the big picture.

Combining music theory (understanding scales, modes, chord structure, improvising over chord progressions, etc, etc.) and knowing all the notes on the fingerboard will open up a whole new world.

Guitar playing becomes more fun when you know what, when en where to play it on the fingerboard.

Part II

When you want to know where to play any type of chord shape instantly it’s pretty helpful if know the notes. For example: An F major Barre chord shape (133211) can be played on any fret. Every time the chord shape goes up a half step (1 fret) the name of the chord changes.

To know the name of the chord you need to know all the notes on the low E-string. For Example: The note on the 7th fret low E-string is a B note, so your chord shape becomes a B major. The only way to see this right away is to memorize the notes.Continue Reading