Guitar was never meant to be this hard…
If you want to see just how far you can go being a lazy ass guitarist, look no further than Guns N’ Roses ax-man Slash. If Slash ever offers you a guitar lesson, run for your life; in fact, here’s a little taster of what you might get: Slash starts out by saying that someone … Read moreLazy Ass Guitar Heroes: Slash
One of the fastest ways to advance on guitar is not to create more work for yourself. Guitarists seem to be masters at this, and the ‘how do I break out of scale boxes and patterns’ stumbling block is a prime example. If you’ve been duped into learning the shitty CAGED system or can’t be … Read moreDumb Shit Guitarists Do: Playing in Boxes
There comes a time in every rock/blues guitarist’s life when they feel the urge to get into jazz or go from being a guitarist to becoming a real musician that happens to play guitar. As you know, jazz guitar is a bitch to master but most guitarists’ good intentions to move beyond mediocrity are usually … Read moreThe Easiest Way to Go from Rock to Jazz
Guitarists are notoriously crap at music theory; this is partly due to it being the most accessible instrument on earth i.e. anyone can pick up a guitar and learn a few chords without knowing jack shit about music, let alone music theory, and this brings the level down for everyone else. Let’s see you do … Read moreWhy Guitarists Are Shit at Music Theory
I’ll get straight to the point – the reason guitarists play too many notes is due to what I like to call ‘rhythmic deficiency’, which basically means that they have a seriously underdeveloped ability to play rhythm. You’ll find this is true among self-proclaimed lead guitarists that can’t play chords for shit because they are … Read moreThe Reason Guitarists Play Too Many Notes
As you may already know, the Guitar Faculty at the Berklee College of Music is famous for churning out some incredible guitarists called John: John Petrucci, John Scofield, John Mayer, John Abercrombie, and many others who aren’t called John, but are equally as talented. With this kind of alumni Berklee can and do charge a … Read more3 Ways to Study at Berklee for a Fraction of the Cost
A lot of guitarists bitch and moan about not being able to sing and play at the same time. This is largely because they tried it once, discovered they couldn’t do it instantly, then went on the internet to bitch and moan about it. Truth is, playing and singing at the same time requires practice, … Read moreSinging and Playing Guitar at the Same Time – Debunked
In Part 1, we looked at how to hit those chord tones when soloing over a blues to make it sound like you know what you’re doing. In Part 2, we look at a couple of other quick and dirty ways to get great results without breaking our heads. Check out this ii-V-I in C: … Read moreQuick and Dirty Chord Tone Soloing (Part 2)
If you’ve been seduced by the complex and somewhat flogged to death sounds of sweep-picking and are in the process of nailing it, I’d like to share my ‘breakthrough lick’ so that you too can do the 100 day sweep-picking challenge in as few as 10 days. This is the lick that gave me my … Read moreSweep-picking: The Breakthrough Lick
Every guitarist, whether they care to admit it or not, has gaps in their playing. These run from obvious things like not knowing the notes on the neck to gaping holes in theory knowledge and especially chordal playing. Chances are you know what you need to work on but have probably been avoiding it in … Read moreHow to Fill In the Gaping Holes in Your Playing