But can you play guitar?

Kids these days.

Seems like every generation says the same thing about the younger ones. “When I was your age, yadda yadda yadda” is something we always hated to hear growing up, but now seem to find ourselves saying it more and more.

I’m not here to lecture anyone on sociology, the trouble with kids these days, every kid gets a trophy, blah blah. What I am here to talk about, however, is the responsibility I think we – as guitarists who have “been there and done that” – have to the younger players out there today.

Okay, so what am I really talking about here. Well, the way I see it, one of the things kids today – especially kids who want to be musicians – are lacking these days, are good mentors. No, I’m not saying good role models like you have to take them to church and encourage them to do their homework. I’m talking about showing the younger kids how to really master their instrument; getting back to the “good old days” where you learned by watching, listening, and emulating.

The Internet is great, backing tracks are cool, and there are certainly tons and tons of excellent books and DVDs on the market. But there is no better way to learn than by getting one-on-one attention from someone who has truly been there and done that.

Okay… So What Can We Do?

I’m putting a call out to all of you; all of us, really… the seasoned players that have had a guitar in their hands for a long time, to get involved. Get involved by showing the young guns what they need to know. Start a guitar community.

A Guitar Community?

Yes. Just think back to when you were coming up. How cool would it have been to show up to a session once every other week or once a month and jam with cats older than you, ask them questions, steal licks from them, and be so inspired that you went home and shed until your fingers bled? I know I would have.

In a time when our youth are being medicated for false diagnoses, we should be giving them an opportunity to benefit from our experience. Is it ADHD or just a lack of going outside and doing stuff instead of playing XBox and Facebook all damn day long?!?!

Okay, okay, I know… I promised I wouldn’t lecture, but the sad truth is that kids today really need our help.

How We Can Help

First, find some friends and talk to them about starting a guitar community. Just one day a month, get together and jam. Have someone come up with a topic and let them do a mini lecture. Get some jam tracks and play along. Talk to your community centers, Boy Scouts, and local music stores. Tell them what you want to do and encourage them to help you reach out to the young players.

Once things start to take off, and trust me, they will if you stick with it, you’ll reap rewards that you never though were possible. There is nothing greater than seeing the passion on a kid’s face when they are playing and really enjoying the guitar. You’ve been there yourselves; you know what I’m talking about.

So what are you waiting for? Start a guitar community!

Start a Guitar Community and Save the World is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

It's not easy to sing and play at the same time

For many people, myself included, the guitar is not just an instrument; it’s an accompaniment. I have always enjoyed expressing myself through music, in particular by singing. Not long after I really started getting interested in music in my teens, I decided to purchase an acoustic guitar at the age of 19. At the time, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to achieve. Naturally I started by learning basic chord shapes and progressions, mostly from my Oasis chord book (and still love a bit of Brit-pop today!).

Once I had a basic progression down, I would record it and then try to layer the lead sections over the top using my brother’s electric guitar – I was useless. My timing was always off and I couldn’t play quickly enough. Whilst this can be rectified in time through lots and lots of practice, it didn’t take long for me to realise that the most intriguing and ultimately satisfying part of playing guitar for me, was the ability to sing along with the chords I was strumming.

This was tough to master, and I would like to share with you five techniques which helped me learn how to play and sing simultaneously.

Try to Minimise the Pain

You can’t comfortably sing if you are struggling to play. Make sure that you keep your fingernails short and that the skin on the end of your fingers has toughened up. If you are in pain, you will more likely be concentrating on this than anything else, and I found that if there was something hampering my playing, my voice and timing would go to pot. Also, sometimes you need to step back and take a break. I was practicing for 4-5 hours at a time which was very intense on my fingers, posture and vocals.

Have a Conversation

What you need to do is separate your hand from your brain. When trying to sing and play at the same time, many people strum the guitar in emphasis along with what they are trying to sing. There needs to be a disconnect between your hand and your brain. To do this, start by just having a conversation with a friend whilst strumming. Concentrate on the conversation, not your playing. Don’t try to play anything in particular – just play what you know. This will help to sever that connection between your brain and your hand, meaning that neither is dependent on the other.

Get Your Playing Down

My timing naturally sucks, and this tip can be useful to all musicians – practice with a click track (metronome). If you never play with a drummer, there is a good chance that your playing is not consistent with anything other than itself. This isn’t good if you’re performing a solo song. Practice both playing and singing individually with a metronome, which will help to train your natural rhythm. This, in time, will make playing and singing simultaneously much easier.

Work on Your Vocals Independently

To complete the singer/guitarist package you need to be expressive in your singing. Strengthening your voice is a great way to improve vocal projection. Take in deep breaths and release slowly 10 times in a row. Do this in the shower to take in the steam and air out your lungs. Lie down on the couch with a weight (i.e. a large book or similar) on your diaphragm and take large breaths… in and out… this all helps to strengthen the muscles which control your voice. Obviously this is the tip of the iceberg, but I encourage you to look further into vocal training as this will make you a better all-round performer.

Jam With Others

Sometimes this can be hard to orchestrate and no, a drum machine or metronome is not the same! Find people to play with; guitarists, singers, bassists, drummers… Humans make mistakes and have ideas just like you, and having a jam session with other musicians can be a really good way to train your skills. You don’t need to be the best guitarist in the world; you just need to have a passion and desire to progress your skills. Who knows, you may even decide to form a band of your own some day!

Learn to Play Guitar and Sing at the Same Time is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Have you made your resolution yet?

Yes, it’s that time of the year again; the end of the year. That time when we start to drool with anticipation and count down the days to see if our loved ones got us all of the guitar goodies we asked for. (And I know one of those things was our Scale Mastery eBook, right?)

The big day arrives, you get all of your new gear and toys, and you spend the next week or two shredding up a storm and sending the neighborhood pets running for cover. It’s a great time to be a guitarist, and you’re loving life.

But after that, then what? You probably tuck your new toys in the closet with the rest of your stuff and don’t pull it out again for a month, right? Life getting in the way of life and all that stuff.

Every year, millions of people try to set goals for themselves – things they want to accomplish or change about themselves – in an effort to improve their daily lives. It’s a noble cause, but unfortunately it’s also one that 99% of us stick with for about a month and then give up on. And yes, we all know the world is going to end in some Mayan apocalyptic catastrophe that would make Mel Gibson proud, but until that happens we’re going to help you set a guitar goal for 2012…

Notice I said a guitar goal, and that is the crux of it; we’re going to set one single goal and work on it for the entire year. Why? Because we all know you’re not going to get through an entire list. But, if you give yourself one goal and work on it while doing all of the other music stuff you like to do, the chances of you actually sticking with it and achieving what you set out to do becomes much greater.

To give you a head start, here are some examples/suggestions you might want to consider to get your brain flowin’:

• Master the melodic minor scale
• Learn 20 new chord voicings
• Memorize a favorite solo
• Stop listening to Nickleback
• Improve alternate picking
• Learn to sight read
• Write five songs

You get the idea. As you can see, I didn’t write “learn every scale” or “practice every day for five hours a day” or something insanely implausible. First and foremost you need to be realistic. My goal? Well, mine is very easy:

• Become better at improvising over ii-V-I and iii-VI-ii-V-I progressions in all 12 keys.

What’s great about this goal is that there are 12 keys to learn and 12 months in the year. Spread out, that means (obviously) I can work on one key per month. Granted, this goal is a bit open-ended in that I can easily get carried away by adding different scales, arpeggios, substitutions, etc. But I’m not going to do that. I know what I already have in my improviser’s toolbox, and so I’m going to focus on what’s already there. I’m also going to focus on what I know but cannot naturally implement. I know the melodic minor scale. I know how to play extended arpeggios. I understand how to use the minor pentatonics over each chord.

But I’m not as good as I want to be with them yet.

And so that’s my goal; one month, one key. Really nail those changes so I don’t have to think about them at all anymore.

What about you? Do you have something in mind? Comment below and let me and the other Fretheads know what you plan to work on (the ONE thing) next year.

Have You Set Your Guitar Goal for the New Year? is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar - Dr. Matt Warnock

My good friend and fellow blogger, Dr. Matt Warnock, is doing great things for the guitar community. Through his work on the Guitar International website and his own personal website, Matt has been challenging us all to be better guitarists, and his recently published eBook – 30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar – is his latest contribution.

For those of us (myself included) learning to play jazz, figuring out what we should practice and what we need to learn can become a very daunting endeavor. Fortunately, 30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar provides us with a great set of tools to improve our playing.

Right off the bat, the first thing I love about this eBook is the 30-day format. Let’s be honest, these days it’s very difficult to keep an organized practice regimen. Matt solves that problem in a very easy yet elegant way – start at Day 1 and keep going for a month. Each day’s lesson is different, so by the end of the 30 days you’re getting an excellent variety of things to work on. (It is the spice of life, after all.) From Dominant Cycles to the Pentatonic b9 scale to Sight Reading and chord studies, you are getting a massively essential jazz education.

If you are not a jazz guitar player, don’t let the title turn you off. Yes, there are “jazz” concepts in this book. But Matt has gone much further than that. There are guitar concepts in this book. You don’t have to want to be a jazz player to benefit from the content. As you know, I’m a firm believer in learning what you can from anyone and everyone. Even the most metal of the metal heads will find information to work on that is applicable to whatever they want to play.

As I worked through the exercises, I both hated and appreciated how many holes it exposed in my playing. Things I thought I had down – simple things – quickly became apparent to me that the material goes much, much deeper. These exercises are not incredibly difficult, but they will make you work. In some cases you will learn new material, in other cases you will get a better understanding of some things you already know.

And just when you thought 30 days of material to work on wasn’t enough, how about five bonus lessons? Yes, Matt is that generous. He is also extending the special offer price ($14.99) for a limited time, so I encourage you all to pick up your copy now. As 2012 approaches, there is no better way to kick start your playing for the new year by picking up 30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar.

30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar by Dr. Matt Warnock is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Gibson's new Firebird X Computer Guitar

It’s not a mystery that the line between analog and digital has been getting smaller and smaller over the years. I think Line 6 was the first company to truly innovate and show us what was possible. With modeling now taking such a prevalent position in the music product industry, it was only a matter of time before a guitar company came along and shoved a whole mess of computer equipment into it. Line 6 had the Variax, and Brian Moore added USB to their iGuitar series.

Tomorrow, Gibson will officially release the Firebird X for sale. Having “enhanced an already outstanding instrument to unbelievable performance and creative heights” Gibson aims to set the bar higher than any guitar manufacturer before by including a wide range of new features from electronic tuners to 3rd party apps.

As intriguing as this all may seem, I can’t help but wonder if we, as consumers and musicians, have finally gone so far over the edge, so far down the path of having everything in one small package with ten million options immediately available to you, that we’ve actually killed the guitar.

Is the Gibson Firebird X signaling the death of the guitar?

I won’t go into all of the specific details about the Firebird X. I think Gibson has done enough work to warrant you taking a look at their website if you want every piece of information available. But I have to say I’m really on the fence. As some of you know I’m not really a huge effects guy. I’ve always been a “plug it in and play it” kind of guitarist. Effects are cool, but kind of like baseball it’s only cool in small doses. Where I can see some advantage to the automated tuners for live musicians, at this time I just can’t see why you need a guitar that has 3rd party applications you can install into the actual guitar!

I get that it’s still an analog guitar and only the audio signal is being modified, so in essence it’s not a midi guitar or modeler where your actual performance may have to change due to technological limitations, but to me in many ways the guitar is supposed to be pure.

Pilfered from Gibson's website

On the other hand, I also get that most people don’t have the money to buy all kinds of different amps and pedals and other gadgets, so having a guitar that can do all of those things is a plus.

Yes, I get it. But I don’t necessarily agree with it.

I’ve been thinking about all of my favorite guitar players; all of the guys that have really kicked my ass through the years. And you know what? Most of them don’t usually use a ton of effects. Players like Wayne Krantz are using them more now than in the past, but I still love their “pure” stuff better. Guitarists like Oz Noy, who use tons of effects, I just don’t get into that much.

Anyway, I’m reserving final judgment until I can get my hands on one of these monstrosities and can check it out first-hand, but I wanted to get your opinions; are we going too far in the other direction where we risk losing our musical creativity to circuits and signal chains, or are we opening the doors for new innovations that will inspire and truly bring the best music out of us?

Chime in and let me know what you think?

Is the Gibson Firebird X the Death Of the Guitar? is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Dramatic, Indeed!

It is often said that our biggest periods of growth come after the most traumatic events.

If that’s is true, then progressive rockers Dream Theater recently received an Olympic-sized injection of HGH when in 2010 it was announced that drummer and band patriarch Mike Portnoy was no longer with the band. It would be fair to say that Portnoy’s exit was the biggest hard rock/metal story of last year, and continues to be highly controversial – at least to Portnoy and his fans.

And with much fanfare and publicity, DT recently released their latest CD, (not so) ironically titled A Dramatic Turn of Events. Being a long-time DT fan who over the past few years has struggled to stay a die-hard fan, I was cautiously optimistic about what it might sound like. It’s no mystery that Portnoy was the driving force behind the band. So much so, however, that it became obvious to all that he was so much in control that it often placed him at odds with the rest of the band, especially when it came to songwriting, engineering, and production. That also set up ADToE (DT fans are big on the acronyms) to possibly be a huge failure now that the rest of the band had to fill that hole. The question is, how does the new CD fare?

The Pros

Let’s get to the good news first. DT fans are going to love the songs on ADToE. They are very well-written, offer tons of the great shredding you’ve come to love (and expect) from the band, and especially for us guitarists, John Petrucci delivers the goods as only he can.

Missing from the past few CD’s were the great interludes where it was all about the virtuosity. Thankfully they brought it back in full force for all of us to enjoy and salivate over. Lost Not Forgotten offers a great example of the band’s ability to piss us older folks off while relegating the younger generation to their bedrooms to try and be the first to show their cover song abilities on youTube.

New drummer Mike Mangini does a fine job of handling the material and, thankfully, not overplaying. A younger, less experienced drummer would probably have tried too hard, but Mangini does a very respectable job of simultaneously holding down the fort and tearing it up.

Fans of DT’s Scenes From a Memory era will be happy to hear some familiar riff writing showing up here, as well as a few nods to Opeth and Porcupine Tree. Personally, I’m a little tired of the SFaM riffage, but it’s a part of their sound now and so I’ll have to live with it.

I also liked that there is more diversity in this record that previous outings. Where Black Clouds & Silver Linings was all-out metal and Systematic Chaos was, well, not, Dramatic Turn has a nice mixture of the two. I think this has a lot to do with everyone having more of a say than in the past, and I also like that Petrucci, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, and bassist John Myung are playing off each other with different parts, rather than having all three playing in unison all the time.

One huge plus was that I could finally hear Myung! In most DT CDs he’s barely noticeable, which is a shame considering his immense talent. But on this CD he can be heard well and plays brilliantly.

Petrucci does a very nice job of getting back to “good” guitar solos instead of the mindless wanking that plagued the last few records. On a few occasions it sounded like he resurrected the ghost of himself from his Images and Words guitar solo days. That is the Petrucci guitar solo era I enjoy most, and I hope that moving forward he gets back to the melodic shredding instead of the notes-per-second speed tests.

The Cons

First and foremost, and I hate to jump on the bandwagon like everyone else, but I’m not the biggest fan of vocalist James LaBrie. I don’t think it’s his vocal quality so much as his melodic choices. DT’s breakout CD Images and Words had melodies that were iconic, albeit pyrotechnic. I’m not suggesting that LaBrie try to make dogs go nuts again, but it seems like he’s almost a little too comfortable with his current range. The melodies simply don’t come to life for me.

My biggest complaint still remains — the lyrics. DT’s lyrics have pretty much been god-awful from the beginning of their careers and they continue to suck. I really, really, really, really wish bands would spend more time writing great lyrics instead of just throwing shit together that they think sounds cool and rhymes. All bands should take a cue from Kevin Gilbert and learn how to write a good lyric. Yes, I know, DT is and always has been a band that puts the instruments in the forefront. But, as far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to have a singer then you need to make an effort! Case in point:

Somewhere overhead,
Distant thunder roars,
The Revolution has begun,
The war to end all wars,
As I welcome death,
I hear the battle cry,
Bullets fall like fire raining from the sky.

Oy vey!

These are lyrics from the song Outcry. Musically, Outcry is one of the strongest song on the CD, but these lyrics are so childish and phoned-in that they almost ruin it for me. I’m assuming that they are talking about the Arab Spring and all of the political turmoil going on in the Middle East. In theory, it’s a very strong topic that certainly deserves some attention, but these lyrics almost trivialize what’s going on over there.

Perhaps it’s just me, and perhaps on a guitar blog I should just shut up and only comment on the guitar playing, but for f*&#s sake, guys, your’e in your mid-40s; you should be able to put together something better than ” bullets fall like fire raining from the sky.”

*sigh*

Okay, the lyrics suck ass… rant over.

Though the production on the CD is very good, I think at times the mixing is a bit uneven. I can especially hear this in the drums, where in some parts the drums jump out to the front of the mix very prominently. I found this a bit distracting and wasn’t quite sure why it was mixed that way.

Thumb Up or Down?

All in all, the pros far outweigh the cons on A Dramatic Turn of Events. The lyrics are never going to improve (I’m resigned to that fact) and mixing is, to a point, certainly subjective. The music is great, they are all playing as well as ever, and there is more than enough kick-ass material to keep the listener enthralled for quite a long time.

From a guitar-only perspective, it’s all Petrucci. The guy is simply amazing and you will not be disappointed.

CD Review: Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn of Events is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Stop the Madness!

If ever there was a crutch that would forever stunt the musical growth of guitar players throughout the history of time, that crutch would be the Pentatonic Scale. Thousands of potentially great guitar solos have been spoiled by that little sequence of five notes that simply will not die. More disturbingly, millions of potentially great guitarists have languished in Pentatonic Purgatory.

I have taken up arms and put the call out to my fellow Fretheads to stop the madness. We may not be able to get the government to stop bleeding the middle class dry, but we can certainly stop musicians from making our ears bleed.

The Pentatonic Scale Has Been Banned!

It hit me after watching a few episodes of That Metal Show on TV. For those of you not familiar with the show, it’s a talk show of sorts that, obviously, focuses on rock and heavy metal music. It’s a great show and I like to watch it when I can (which is very rarely). One of the added bonuses is that every week a famous guitar player will sit in and do some shredding leading into the commercial breaks.

And that’s when I noticed it:

Every. Single. Friggin’. Guitarist. Played. A. F*&$(#@*ING. Pentatonic. Scale!

Every single one. It’s like they all read from a wall chart of approved-for-TV licks, or they of a sudden got stage fright and couldn’t come up with anything creative. Up and down the neck as fast as they can like hamsters on a wheel. Completely useless, sounds like shit, and is impressive only to the most uninformed. And when I thought about it more I realized that in every single jam session I’ve ever attended, or any  backyard part that had a band, that same damned Pentatonic Scale reared it’s ugly head and just would not go away.

Now before you start to hand me a bunch of B.S. about the great blues players, it’s a great beginner scale, most people just want to play guitar for fun, blah blah blah… I will tell you know that I’ve heard it all before and I’m still banning it. Sure, when Derek Trucks or Warren Haynes uses it, it sounds great. But they use it in addition to the twenty million other things they have in their bag of tricks. It’s not the only thing. The word “sparingly” comes to mind. But when it’s the only scale or sound a person knows — which seems to be the case for 99.8% of the world’s guitar population — it really makes me want to get out my Guitar Police identification badge, go door-to-door, and confiscate everyone’s guitars.

If I was a marketing genius I would use this opportunity to plug my first eBook, Scale Mastery, in an attempt to get the world to see past the five note hell we’re being subjected to. But, I guess I’m just not that savvy.

Ladies and gentlemen, the time is nigh. There’s more to music than the same friggin’ thing being done over and over and over and over again. The definition of insanity comes to mind. Add another note; even just one more will do. Put in a b2 or a 6th, for goodness sake. Just do something! So many wonderful things, so much beautiful music, that can be created if one would just take a peek outside your tiny musical hole. Just dip your toe in the water; take a very tiny sip of that funny looking drink. It won’t kill you, I promise.

Hell, you may even like it!

The Pentatonic Scale Has Been Banned! is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Get your fingerstyle on!

If you’re intrigued by fingerstyle guitar playing but haven’t yet found a way into feeling comfortable with the technique involved, then you’re not alone.

It took me ten years of dabbling on and off with fingerstyle guitar before I finally felt like I had a handle on how to fingerpick. Then, I found a teacher who upended everything I thought I knew and sent me back to basics with the fundamentals of how to use the thumb and fingers to make fingerstyle guitar music.

This guide is what I wish I’d had 15 years ago when I first started exploring fingerstyle guitar. Fingerstyle guitar technique really isn’t that complicated. Yes, it’s challenging to master the many applications that arise in all sorts of different music, but virtually anyone can have a solid handle on the best approach to fingerstyle guitar technique in a very short period of time.

The four fundamentals of fingerstyle guitar playing are:

1. The Hand Position

2. How the Thumb Moves

3. How the Fingers Move

4. How to Coordinate the Movements of the Fingers and the Thumb

Let’s dive right in!

The Fingerstyle Hand Position

The key with how you hold your hand when you play fingerstyle is to allow your hand to move as naturally as possible.

To get your hand in the right position, follow these instructions:

• Extend the arm you’re going to use to pluck the strings straight out in front of you.
• Keeping your wrist straight, allow your fingers to relax and hang down from your hand.
• Keep your thumb extended out from your hand.
• Now, keep your hand in that same orientation and bring it down to the strings of your guitar.
• Pay close attention to two ways you might lose the right form here: don’t allow your fingers to flatten out and don’t let your arm rotate down toward the floor.

Once your hand is in good position, it’s time to start using the thumb and fingers to play some notes.

How the Thumb Moves for Fingerstyle Guitar

Consider the thumb to exist in its own world separate from the fingers. When it plays, it should sweep wide of the fingers. Don’t allow your thumb to bump into your fingers while you play.

The bulk of the thumb’s movement comes from the big powerful muscle at the junction where the thumb meets the hand.

Finally, as you move your thumb, don’t just let it float and hover out above and beyond the strings. Always try to bounce your thumb back behind the next string it has to play. That way, your thumb will always be in a place where it can do something musically useful.

How the Fingers Move for Fingerstyle Guitar

With the fingers, the name of the game is moving from the highest knuckle where the fingers meet the rest of the hand.

The most common mistake beginners make is clawing at the strings and using the knuckle closest to the fingertips to try to make notes happen. It’s almost impossible to stay relaxed while playing this way.

All your power, control, speed and nuance come from the middle and top knuckles. A small amount of energy from the highest knuckle translates into a whole lot of movement in the fingertip as it plays through the string.

Check out these two images to see the before and after of the index finger as it prepares and then plays through its string:

Before

After

Go slowly at the beginning and develop the habit of moving your fingers from the highest knuckle almost like you’re waving your fingers through the strings.

Try this exercise to help you get the feel for the proper finger movement: keep your index, middle and ring finger together as one unit. Place these fingers on three consecutive strings (the 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings work nicely) and then make a waving motion with your fingers as you pull your fingers through their strings. Wave your fingers all the way back and make them touch your palm. When you perform this movement, notice how much your fingers move high up where your fingers join your hand.

Get used to this “waving” sensation as you play through the strings with your fingers. The more you move from higher up in the fingers toward the hand, the more control and power your playing will have.

How to Coordinate the Movements of the Fingers and the Thumb

Those first three points will put you in a great place to be able to play beginning fingerstyle guitar music.

However, as you go deeper with fingerstyle guitar, you’ll quickly discover that one of the biggest challenges of playing more challenging pieces is how to coordinate the various fingers and the thumb.

When your technique works for you, the experience of playing more challenging music feels like your fingers are like spider legs walking efficiently across the strings. They’re never lost–they always know right where they are, where they need to be next and how to work together with the other fingers to get there.

To begin developing this spider sense in your fingers, think in terms of “preparing” your fingers whenever possible.

Get your fingers to the string they’re about to play a little early and “prepare.” Put a little energy into the string and have them ready to play when their turn comes along.

The easiest way to play with this idea is to play your fingers in order: thumb, index, middle, ring finger.

After you play through all four fingers, as you sweep back around to begin the next cycle with your thumb, put the fingers back on their respective strings. As your thumb plays, the index, middle and ring fingers are already in contact with the strings they’ll be playing.

By working on preparing your fingers ahead of time, you’ll train them to stay closer to the strings ready to play their next note.

Build on Top of this Fingerstyle Foundation

Ultimately, fingerstyle guitar can become as complicated and nuanced as you want to make it. These pointers will get you moving so that you can tackle your favorite fingerstyle guitar challenges whether they’re Chet Atkins arrangements, classical pieces or fingerstyle blues numbers.

Demystifying Fingerstyle Guitar is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Volume 1: Scale Mastery

We hinted about it here — and was a bit more blatant about it here — so it’s not really a surprise announcement by conventional standards. But, we (Fretterverse) are quite pleased to announce the release of its first eBook — Scale Mastery.

Over a year in the making, Scale Mastery takes you way beyond the typical scale-learning methods available on the market today. I promise this eBook to be an original solution to an old problem.

Whether you are a beginning guitarist just starting out, an intermediate player having trouble getting certain sounds under your fingers, or even just a player who’s bored with his playing and wants a fresh approach, Scale Mastery will open up your eyes and ears to new possibilities.

The best part is, we’re selling the eBook (along with accompanying audio backing tracks) for $10. Yes, only ten dollars USD. That’s a bargain.

Please visit our Products page for more information about Scale Mastery, as well as a link to purchase and download the eBook instantly.

Buy a copy, tell your friends and family, or just buy them copies, too!

Fretterverse Releases First eBook in Series is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.

Challenge!

If ever there was a day of the week when motivation simply does not exist, Hump Day would be it. It’s still a wee bit too early to get excited about the weekend, it’s never a paycheck day and, as much as you really want to sit around and do nothing, you know you can’t. To make things worse, the summer is just about over, the vacation days are pretty much all used up, and now begins the push for the holiday marketing and 2012 business strategy sessions are starting to take hold.

Good times… good times.

I mean, a guy would have to be some kind of nut job to think that people would be motivated to actually sit down and practice guitar on a day like this, right? I mean, the sheer gall to ask someone to do more work when they are already mentally spent with two more work days to go!

Who would be so much of a jerk that they would issue a challenge on a Wednesday to try and see who has the moxy — the balls — to challenge you to get off your ass and show what you’re really made of?

I would.

That’s right, slackers. Today is the Hump Day Challenge. There are no excuses, no reasons why you can’t, no if’s, and’s, or but’s. Today is going to make you a better guitar player. If for nothing else because you got off your butt and put in the work. I am a firm believer that you make the most progress when you are the least motivated but show up and put in the time anyway. The gains may not show up immediately, but they have been made and you know you feel better having done the work when it’s over.

So, today I am giving you three things to work on. Do all three and good manna from heaven and all that other stuff will happen. (It’s true; I’ve seen it and stuff.)

1. Chord Inversions

Using the 1346 string group (low ‘E’, D, G and high ‘E’ strings), play all of the chord inversions for the following chords: EMaj7, Em7, E7, Em7b5. If you need help with the fundamentals, read about them here and here.

I specifically chose this string group because it’s uncommon. What kind of challenge-maker would I be if I gave you easy stuff? There will be some odd stretches. Too bad; work ‘em out. You might find some very interesting chord voicings that you like.

2. Learn Eight Bars of a Solo

You’re probably thinking, “This isn’t too bad.” I didn’t tell you what kind of solo or in what musical genre to learn a solo from. It doesn’t even have to be a guitar solo. But here’s the kicker:

You’re not allowed to use your index finger.

That’s right. No 1st finger allowed! You have to learn the entire eight bar solo using only your middle, ring, and pinky fingers. And no, you can’t show me how strong your middle finger is if you know what I’m sayin’…

A solo with bends in it or a fast bebop solo would be ideal, but your choice of solos is ultimately up to you. Just remember, there is no quiz for this challenge, so the less work you put in the more your flaws will show up later.

3. Ten Minutes of Rhythm

Using your metronome, pick a comfortable tempo. Find a fretted note on your guitar — it really doesn’t matter which one — and for ten minutes straight (no stopping!) I want you to play the following one right after the other:

• 4 quarter notes
• 8 eighth notes
• 12 triplets
• 16 sixteenth notes

The quarter notes fall on the metronome beats. Immediately follow that with eighth notes (two per beat) and then divide the beat into triplets. Then on to 16th notes (4 per beat). Continuously repeat this pattern for the full ten minute time period. Concentrate on:

• Consistent timing
• Hand/pick coordination
• Dynamics

This is not easy. It’s boring, repetitive, and will get on your nerves.

That’s a good thing.

If you can go the full ten then you are a maverick among slackers.

I urge you all to take today’s Hump Day Challenge. It’s good for your playing, good for your brain, and good for the environment. Al Gore personally sponsors this exercise to help prevent climate change. (It’s true, just ask him.)

Good luck, Fretheads!

The Hump Day Guitar Challenge is a post from: Fretterverse.com: Guitar Blog | guitar news & reviews, amps, effects, guitars, music theory, guitar lessons. If you are reading this on a site that is not Fretterverse.com, it's been ripped. Please come to the real Fretterverse.com.