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50 of The Best Alternative Guitar Songs of the 90s

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The 90’s. Oh dear, they were really good times for young guitar players like myself who adored rock music.

There were so many alternative rock bands back then you got lost in the woods, but that didn’t bother most of us.

Not that everything was great, but at least it was guitar music playing on the radio, just like in the 60’s and 70’s authentic bands playing real guitar songs.

Nowadays I even like some of the songs that I didn’t really dig back then. It has all become nostalgia.

They make me think of the good times or maybe I just listen to those songs differently now. Has my alternative taste expanded? It doesn’t matter. The bands and their songs that were so awesome then have just become more awesome after all these years. Those cranked up guitars just got better.

Favorites? Of course: REM, Radiohead, Alanis Morissette, Oasis, Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but it was great putting the entire list together.

Yes, there were many more songs that i wanted to add, but fifty seemed like a nice round number. So here you are. Continue Reading

A Golden Productivity tip for Practicing Guitar

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Sometimes you can feel like you’re stuck in a rut and wish you would make more progress with practicing.

It seems there’s always something else coming up in the midst of practicing.

You get distracted, you think of an idea while you play something and you go along with that idea and that idea leads to another idea and so on. No progress in what you actually should be practicing.

Another time you feel like this fast lick is too challenging, so you throw in the towel and decide to play something else that feels good instantly. No progress there.

Or you feel absorbed by everything around you and stuff that is on your mind and as a result you lack focus. Progress? Nope.

So how do you change this?

You set time limits for practice.

If there is a time limit and the clock is ticking, you know there’s no time for your mind to wander and think of other things. It’s easier to focus because you don’t have that much time to squander and you want to go straight to work and practice that riff, solo or song. It makes it more manageable.Continue Reading

Practice Guitar Improvisation using Different Drum Beats

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Okay, you know your blues scales inside out and are confident improvising with these scales.

But you might not be aware that you always practice improvisation with a drum backing track using the same drum beat over and over again.

You tell the drummer of your band to play a slow blues shuffle because it feels so good. Or could it have anything to do with the fact that it feels safe? Does it sound familiar to you?

Then the day arrives you have to play in a new band or with a different drummer and this lunatic starts playing an uptempo country blues. Huh? What’s this? Suddenly your phrasing doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit the groove and you have a difficult time keeping up and putting it all together. That’s a hard truth to be confronted with.

It’s because blues (as any other genre) can be played in many different styles, variations and tempos. Something you may not have focused on. This is a scenario you want to avoid. You want to build the confidence to handle every common drum groove that is being dished up.

You want to play in a band and feel free to solo over every blues, rock, country, pop song like a real pro. It’s something a lot of guitar players struggle with and it’s good to work on this and make sure you get this under your belt.

To make sure you do, take on a 30 day challenge to keep yourself at it! Here’s what to do:Continue Reading

10 Awesome Guitar Players Apps for iPhone and iPad

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I must confess, the reason I bought an iPad in the first place is because I wanted to have access to jam tracks in the quickest way possible when sitting on my couch playing guitar, but without having to walk over to a computer, a CD player or anything like that. That’s just too much of a hassle.

When the urge comes to play, I want to grab my guitar out of the stand and start playing. I rather not waste time looking for stuff like sheet music, a tuner, a metronome, jam tracks and so on, because I might get distracted in the process of trying to find these things, which would be such a shame.

The iPad is the answer to this rather ridiculous inconvenience. Guitar, iPad, Play.

But hey it works and my guitar playing has improved because of it. Everything I need is in there and it works fast. I love it when my jam tracks are just one click away from me and I can start improvising. I usually use jam tracks CD’s that I imported into iTunes. I tune my guitar with Guitar Toolkit and use sheet music that I uploaded to Dropbox, Tab Toolkit or Pocket.

Here’s a list of some pretty awesome apps that makes life easier and better for guitar players.

There are two apps (Bias and Hokusai) that I haven’t tried yet, but having read the reviews of users and professional guitar players they are really worth checking out.

Here we go:Continue Reading