Learn Guitar Quick

Archive for the ‘Jazz’ Category

Dean calls them warm-ups, but they’re really great technique and speed-builder exercises too.
Note the great tip which tends to get overlooked by many students: always use a metronome!

Try these. Start out slow and build…

A specific scale is defined by its intervallic formula. In other words, it is not necessarily the specific notes, but the pattern of intervals that defines a specific scale. And it’s also this same pattern of intervals that gives the scale its characteristic feel or tonality. By altering the intervallic scale formula, we change the type of scale being played. We can change the key of the scale by starting the intervallic formula on a different note.

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Scales are simply collections of notes arranged in a specific order—just as the alphabet is simply a collection of letters arranged in a specific order. We often think of scales as practice devices. The stereotypical image of the beginning piano student is that of the little boy or girl sitting captive and forlorn at the piano bench—plinking away at their scales as their joyful friends play outside in the background. And, in fact scales are practice devices—very useful and effective practice devices. But scales are more—much more than just practice tools as we shall see in this article.

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“I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.”
Author, Anonymous

Have you ever complained because your picking hand just didn’t work right? Or you just couldn’t find the right pick? The .60 was too thick but the .50 was too flimsy and what you really needed was a .57 – but who makes that? And it’s just too hard to do string-skipping or alternate picking or flutter picking, or the sun was in your eyes, dog ate your homework… or… or… or…

Well, we’ve all run out of excuses. Watch this video. Then… get to work. Get the right tools, the right knowledge and practice, practice, PRATICE. The rest is JUST EXCUSES.

Nice job Marc!!!

DON’T LET LACK OF KNOWLEDGE BE YOUR FLIMSY EXCUSE…

Bone up on your scales and learn your fretboard!!!

Face it. You have to play your scales. We all do. Everything we play on the guitar comes out of our scales—just as everything we write comes out of the Roman alphabet. So (and this is no big revelation) soloing or improvisation is simply a matter of disassembling our scales into smaller chunks and reassembling them in an order and a style that creates the mood or effect we wish to hear.

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Once again, this type of playing comes from intimate knowledge of the fretboard and your scales.

Want to play like this? You have to know your scales!!!

The name “pentatonic” comes from a couple of Greek words: “penta” – a prefix meaning five and “tonic” – which makes reference to a tone. Thus a pentatonic scale is a scale consisting of only five notes. This is opposed to the full diatonic scales which contain all seven tones of the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, and G). The pentatonic minor scale is a very popular scale and is heavily used in blues, classic rock, heavy rock, jazz and other popular genres.

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Thought we’d try a couple days of jazz. Pretty cool jam session with Rick Graham and Tom Quayle. They make it look soooo effortless. That’s what comes from really knowing your fretboard and your scales inside out…

Want to play like this? You have to know your scales!!!

In this article we will be tackling the all important subject of speed as it pertains to the guitar. We have all seen incredible guitar players that seemed to defy the laws of physics and play and the speed of light. While it may seem a bit hard to attain, with a little work and understanding we can improve our technique and increase our speed on the guitar. After all, let’s be honest for a second and admit that playing fast on the guitar can sometimes be as fun as putting the pedal to the metal in a race car. The problems arise when our fingers just don’t seem to be moving or coordinating fast enough, or we may play fast but it sounds more like unintelligible mumbles rather than a coherent musical phrase.

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