By the time you read this you should have read and worked through my first blog about relaxation as a way to improve your playing. In short we are applying deep breathing techniques such as those found in yoga and meditations to become better guitarists. Here’s...
Imagine you’re approaching the hardest passage in the piece you’ve been working on. How many times has it happened that you tense up a bit? Anticipate trying to get it right? Inadvertently hold your breath? Just have anxiety in general about getting it...
This will help you to learn perfect and relative pitch. If you’ve been studying guitar for a while you’ve probably hear the terms “perfect pitch” and “relative pitch”. Perfect pitch is the ability to hear a pitch (note) and identify...
Tremolo picking is characterized by a quick movement of the right hand, alternating up and down strokes. Basically you pick up and down as quickly as you can. It’s that fast picking you hear in Spanish guitar styles, country “chicken pickin,” twangy...
One of the most frequently asked questions my students have is how to figure out songs on their own. Here’s a few hints. 1) Follow the bass. If you figure out the bass, or lowest notes of the chords, you can build the chords from there. Look for notes that are...
Often my students ask me which type of picking should be used to conquer a riff or sequence most effectively. In the beginning, there are very clear answers to this question. As you grow as a player you will find there are no clear rules to the game, especially if a...
We’ve all been there. Practicing a riff or chord change for weeks and still can’t play it at the speed our favorite artist plays it at. Practicing it slowly and deliberately, focusing on every note. This playing tip is about letting all that go. Sometimes...
Consider these 3 things: 1) It is easier to press the strings down more intently if you have some kind of “point” to your approach, as if you were pointing to the string you wanted to push. 2) The hardest part of your finger is the tip, where the bone is...
The fret is the point that the string vibrates against to produce a note. If there is extra string between the fret and the point where your finger pushes down the string it is likely that the string between your finger and the fret can cause a “buzzy” or...
Extra string noise plagues many electric guitarists, even the most accomplished ones. You’ve heard it before or maybe battle with it every day. Its that extra noise that occurs when you are playing and a bunch of notes or just weird sounds come from your guitar...
