Wow, I haven't posted in awhile, still trying to get things back to normal after an insane holiday season.I'm sure almost everyone has heard the benefits of alternate picking over straight down strokes when it comes to speed, however fewer people know the reasoning for alternate picking when it comes to rhythm.The idea behind alternate picking is to down stroke the on the beats and upstroke off the beats (the “and” when counting.) This obviously will allow you to play faster but it w... Read Full Story

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Mine was insane, regular posting will resume as of today, with another post about chord substitution, this should be the last one for awhile.This time I'm going to take the opposite approach I took in my blues discussion, and take a previously written song and pick apart the chords involved.I'm going to use Gershwin's “summertime” here, this tune has been done by a pile of Jazz Musicians, this version is in the key of A minor.Am |Bb7 |A... Read Full Story

My posting has been irregular for the holidays everything should be back to normal after new years.Everyone has made resolutions before, very few people keep them, I gave up on making them quite a few years ago, however, this year I'm going to attempt them again, and hopefully making them public will be extra motivation.#1 Log PracticingI've attempted to do this regularly before but always fail, I start and my practicing is much more efficient but then something happens – like leaving... Read Full Story

Everyone who has taken formal guitar lessons has probably worked out of an instructional book, these books tend to be boring, but the teachers give them to you for a reason, you learn specific skills and practice the skills you have in them. Even if you're not in lessons they give your playing structure. However, some of these books should never have been published, they're awful. Here's the books I use, note,that I am not earning commission from any of these sales.Basic Skills... Read Full Story

I was sitting in a bar the other day with a blues band on stage, at first I thought “hey this is pretty cool.” but after an hour, I wasn't convinced they had ever changed songs, they just took dramatic pauses every five minutes or so.Playing the blues doesn't mean you're limited to one twelve bar progression and six notes for lead, chord tones will still give a very strong blues sound if played over that twelve bar progression, however using what we know about chord substitution ... Read Full Story

Today at work I had a cancellation, so like always I went into my room and started practicing, and got a sudden sharp pain down my left wrist, I stopped immediately, and was unable to play much for the rest of the night without a dull throbbing pain – it didn't hurt but I knew what it was. My younger days of practicing for hours without a break were coming to bite me in the ass.In an attempt to get as many people as possible to not make the same mistakes I made when I was young here are ... Read Full Story

I expect a ton of disagreement on this article, and encourage anyone to voice their disagreements below.Style doesn't exist.The building blocks to Jazz are the same building blocks of Punk, and country, and rock, with only a little variation.Jazz is built on using the full chords – any regular reader has seen that I always use four note chords to explain something – because it's easier to visualize and understand that way, therefore you should learn how these work anyway.Rock music is... Read Full Story

Remember harmonizing scales both major and minor? If not review them.What I didn't mention before is that those chords can also substitute cleanly for each other, therefore if you see an Dmin7 in the key of C you can easily put an Fmaj7 there (this applies to both comping and soloing aspects) since these chords are so similar. This can completely alter a lot of chord progressions, let's take a three chord rock.C | C | F | GChange that to:C | Em | Dm | GorAm | C | Dm | Bdim7the possib... Read Full Story

Click to enlarge images.For something new today I'm going to give a couple technical exercises, these should be done with a metronome and gradually speed up unless stated otherwise.The first begins as a simple technique to start cross picking, play the C major scale in open position ascending but hit the high e string between every note. (downstroke scale note, upstroke open e string). The descending version of this exercise changes, downstroke the open note, and upstroke the scale note ... Read Full Story

Ear training is something that does develop as you play, however, it's rarely enough.Put yourself in this situation, you're hired for a gig with a band you've never worked with, a song is called out by request that you've never heard, you don't have charts, you're told the key, style and counted in, what do you do?Play that major scale? Nope, think of all the possible chord substitutions possible, we've shown that Db7 is a perfectly valid substitute for G7 in the ... Read Full Story