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How To Choose The Right Musical Instrument For You
One should ask yourself whether your chosen musical instrument and its nature are rightly suited for you. Many musicians and artists overlook this and go through stages, spending years learning different instruments and searching before deciding which one is best suited for them. Music genres have expanded a great deal over the last century. The electrified and amplified nature of modern instruments brings a whole new aspect to the... -
Crunch Guitar Sounds
Everyone loves the sound of an electric guitar that screams! From the earliest rock ‘n’ roll recordings, where amplifier speakers were torn on the way to the recording – resulting in a clipping, distorted sound (Rocket 88) – to the early recordings with effects pedals that ‘distorted’ the guitar sound (Keith Richards on “Satisfaction”), overdriven guitar tones are now part and parcel of the pantheon of recorded rock guitar.... -
Digital and the Future of Guitar
There’s no doubt the influence of digital has been huge in the music world in the past decade. However, being performance specific (with the exclusion of digital album sales and the music business), the guitar has evolved due to this influence. The question is: where will guitar performance be in the next 30 to 50 years? In the words of Peter Kirn, in his article discussing digital guitar equipment,... -
10 Ways to be a Better Bass Player
Not too long ago I wrote about 10 ways to become a better guitarist, well, this time, I decided to write for our bass brothers with 10 ways to be a better bass player. 1. Listen. Always listen. Listen to as many bass players as you can, listen to what makes them good, or bad. Listen to their tone, technique, timing and their unique voice. By listening to other... -
How to Approach Improvisation as a Beginner
When dealing with improvisation with my students, I use a systematic method that begins with the basic concepts of improvisation and moves through the styles to the more advanced forms of jazz improvisation. I will give a brief overview of how to approach improvisation as a beginner in this blog, there are many ways and this is only one approach, but I have found some success with it. A... -
Be a Better Guitarist in 10 Easy Steps
All guitarists want to be the best they possibly can be. There are many ways to become a better guitarist and I am going to show you how to be a better guitarist in 10 easy steps. These are 10 practical ways that you can be all that you can be. Find some musician friends and start jamming. Even if you can only play with another guitarist, pianist, triangle-ist,... -
Improve Your Guitar Playing By Listening To Other Instruments
After a few years, when you’ve built up your technique and improvising skills, you’re bound to hit a point where you feel that you’re not improving, or at least not improving as much as you would like to. You feel that while improvising you keep using the same ideas and techniques. You know how to sweep your CAGED shapes, various patterns to use for your runs, the latest tapping... -
The Benefits of Playing Guitar with Other Musicians
“Practice isn’t doing scales but doing things like writing, jamming with other people or playing gigs.” –Tommy Bolin (Deep Purple, Zephyr, The James Gang) There are countless benefits to playing guitar with other musicians. Not only is it the general aim for most people that start to play guitar, but also it is the most fun you can have on your instrument. I’d say the number one benefit is that... -
Guitar Playing Tricks and Tips: Travis Picking
Travis Picking Travis picking (named after the Country and Western legend Merle Travis) is a technique that involves playing a constant bass pattern with the thumb of the right hand. In order to master this technique you must get your thumb to become completely independent from the rest of the fingers on your picking hand, thus freeing up your other fingers to create rhythmic and melodic interest. Try repeating... -
Understanding Modes On Guitar
Understanding modes on guitar is a big topic when guitarists start expanding their playing. Can knowledge of modes make you more attractive to the opposite sex? Or increase the speed in your picking hand? Unfortunately not, but for those of us with a desire to expand our knowledge of music and to play more tunefully, they are a more than worthwhile topic of study. I have often been asked...
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