Guitar Cool

That title may seem ambiguous, but many trainers, coaches and teachers and industries know that learning new skills very slowly at first is actually the fastest way to learn them. Alternatively learning things quickly to begin with is the slowest way to learn new skills. I always have to keep reminding my students – slow is fast and fast is slow. ...more

Many guitar players seem to be unaware of bubble parts within songs they listen to. Indeed they can often be difficult to hear on recordings as they sit just under the vocal or instrumental melody. A bubble part is normally a simple single note line that is palm-muted, but can also be very complex and involve numerous single notes with added double or triple stops. I will only deal with easy type parts here. ...more

Sooner or later every serious guitarist faces the problem of limited practice time. Maybe you’re away from home on business or holiday, a student at exam time, or simply suffer any of a million other things that crop up in daily life. And when you don’t practice for a day or two you will begin feeling guilty, or face withdrawal symptoms. ...more

Every serious guitarist needs to have a very good sense of musical time. If you keep losing the beat when you are playing, you are like a rugby player who keeps dropping the ball. After a while the team will not want you there. It’s the same when you play in a band or jamming with friends. The better the quality of musicians you play with, the better their sense of time will be, so you need to be ready for them. We are not born with a good sense of musical time, but can develop it with a little practice each day. This is where the metronome comes in. Only 10 minutes a day spent working with a metronome will do wonders to your sense of time. ...more

The shuffle pattern for playing back up guitar is an essential one to know because it is used in many genres, and you will be required to play it on many gigs or jam sessions. A lot of guitarists know the many basic shuffle types similar to Excercise 1 here, but most players never venture beyond that basic pattern and therefore miss out on a lot of fun. ...more

Thanks to the many readers who sent in questions throughout last year. I have answered each one personally, but kept a few of the most frequently asked questions aside for this issue as I think many readers will learn something from them. ...more

The festive season is here again and a great way to celebrate is to learn a traditional Christmas song. Jingle Bells was written around 1850 by James Lord Pierpont, and at around 150 years old is still one of the most popular festive songs there is. ...more

A few readers have asked about slash chords over the last couple of months so I thought it would be a good topic for Guitar Cool. ...more

In the June/July 2010 edition of NZM you learnt the five positional minor pentatonic scales. However, for some players those positional shapes can be a creative trap and become unmusical because it can sound like you are playing exercises or scales rather than making music. ...more

Scales are the building blocks of music and the pentatonic scale is the life blood of many modern genres of music. Listen to any of your favourite rock songs and you will hear that many riffs and solos use this favoured scale as a base source for ideas. ...more

In NZM’s August/September 2009 issue I wrote about how important it was to know the form of music called a Twelve Bar Blues progression. That lesson discussed the major and dominant 7th forms of the progression. It would be preferable to get that lesson and use it in conjunction with this one as this lesson follows it on. ...more

There are many things a guitarist needs to prepare for before playing a gig, open mic night or rehearsal. However, many guitarists are not organised enough when it comes to preparing for breakdowns with their guitars or equipment while playing live. It is prudent to have a tool bag handy with all of the things you might need on a gig just in case anything should go wrong. It is Murphy’s Law that you will break a string when you haven’t got any spares handy, or the battery will go flat in your tuner when the nearest shop is 50 kilometres away. The reason I am writing this article is a few months ago a guitarist, who was playing at the bar across the road from our gig, came over and wanted a top E string for his guitar. He had broken his and had no spares. All the music shops were shut, but luckily I had a spare set to lend him. Never let yourself be in this situation. While it is normally only minor issues that crop up if you look after your equipment, they can ruin your night and possibly your reputation. ...more

There are many different types of picking technique for guitar players to master and economy picking is a common one used by many top players. Economy picking is a combination of two picking types, the first is alternate picking, where a player plays continuous down and up strokes no matter what string they are playing on. The second is sweep picking, a more advanced technique, where a player will sweep across the strings in one seamless action always changing strings with a pick motion in the direction they are moving. The benefits of economy picking are that it reduces a lot of picking hand movement when playing; you can play fast(er) passages when you want, and it requires little effort to keep up once you have mastered it. ...more

Midge Marsden, blues icon and fellow educator, gave me the idea for this article while we were flying to Auckland together a while ago. For the duration of the flight we discussed the subject of why every musician needs to have a good working knowledge of the 12 bar blues song form, yet many beginning/intermediate guitarists we come in contact with are not well versed in it. When someone of Midge’s status voices concern, one ought to take note. Please be aware though – this lesson is about the theoretical form of the blues structure, not the style of blues music, which is different. ...more

Recent reader question deserves full coverage as a Guitar Cool column as I suspect it is a reasonably common issue: ‘There seem to be many jazz-orientated rock songs among the Top 40, on many covers band set lists and played at jam sessions. How can I make the classic pentatonic scale sound jazzy when playing solos over any of those songs?’ While some jazz songs can be difficult to play just pentatonic licks over, two of the songs he apparently had in mind were Moondance and Light My Fire. Luckily both of these have an easy chord progression that do not shift key, so playing pentatonic ideas for a solo should be easy enough. ...more

Jimi Hendrix has influenced nearly every famous guitar player throughout the world, not just with this chord but with his innovative style and musical arrangements. The Hendrix chord – written E7#9 and spoken E7 sharp 9 – as shown in Example 1 is so named because Jimi Hendrix made it popular by using it in many of his songs. A good example is Purple Haze from the album ‘Are You Experienced’. ...more

Guitarists often complain that their strumming is not adequate for what they want to play and they don't know what to do about it. There are many reasons why you might feel that way, but most commonly the problem lies in limited knowledge and technical facility. There are many different types of strum patterns and techniques used in modern music so this lesson is only to whet your appetite and are only a fraction of what there is to play. ...more

This lesson is the second part to last month's Hammer Ons article. I mentioned then that all guitarists need a good legato (smooth) playing technique for single note lines and one of the ways you can gain a good legato technique is to be very good at pull offs. Pull offs and hammer ons are quite often played together within a lick, but need to be learnt separately first. Pull offs require a lot of practice to really make them flow so don't take this lesson too lightly. ...more

All guitar players need a good legato (smooth) playing technique for single note lines, but it is a major downfall of many players. While many top players make it look easy, it is a technique that takes a lot of practice to really make it flow. One of the ways you can gain a good legato technique is to be very good at hammer ons. ...more

The issue of playing cover songs (songs other people have written) or originals (songs you or your band have written) is one of those topics that many new guitarists seem to be unsure about, and need to get their head around. I regularly get asked questions like, "Is it really cheating to play covers? - Will playing covers stifle my creativity? - Do I really need to learn them?". ...more

There can hardly be a guitarist on this planet that is not in some way influenced by the work of Stevie Ray Vaughan (SRV), so it makes sense to know a little about his style. ...more

The major scale is like the DNA of music because everything we do in music relates back to the major scale in some way. ...more

The combination of chords and notes can create interesting parts for guitarists who want some extra punch in their rhythm playing. ...more

A popular style of playing among guitar students is that of chord melody. ...more

Many guitar players use the minor pentatonic scale for solos by default, not realising that a whole new world of possibilities lie within the major pentatonic scale. ...more

Typically singer/songwriters like to accompany their vocals with a great guitar part, but one of the questions most often asked of me has been, "How can I make my guitar accompaniments sound more interesting when I am singing?" ...more

This article is simply a series of common questions I have received from readers of all levels over the last few months. I have picked those I thought would best help. ...more

A turnaround is a short musical phrase (or lick) that you hear in the last two measures of a blues progression and with blues progressions making a big part of the modern music repertoire, you will come across them often. ...more

In my teaching practice I find a problem common to many guitarists is that they lack a good command of what the notes are under their fingers. ...more

Two important parts of a song that need careful thought are the beginning (which I will deal with in a later lesson) and the ending. Just like reading a good book or watching a great movie, a song needs to have an interesting beginning and a good ending to complete it. ...more

Many guitarists play vertically (top to bottom) across the neck most of the time, never realising there are immense possibilities with playing horizontally along the neck. ...more

Something that is absolutely essential to soloing is the technique of string bending. ...more

This article and others from the August/September 2005 issue will be online in a few weeks. ...more

The percussive style found in a lot of funk, R'n'B, blues, hip hop, and many other genres is a style of playing that is very popular among guitarists. ...more

A few months ago I was on a gig, the room was packed, hot and smokey (obviously before the anti-smoking law came in), and right in front were a few beer swilling fans yelling out for me to play faster when it came time to solo. ...more

One simple thing I have found to be a major problem for many players is they are not very comfortable using a pick, or else have totally inadequate picks to use. ...more

In today's music forms there is a common trend for one chord to extend for 4-8 bars or more of a song. ...more

Many people ask the question, "How can I spice up some of my back up guitar parts?" Most of the time the best answer involves chord substitution. ...more

Top level guitarists of all genres have studied the work of J.S. Bach and have him to thank for many of their ideas. ...more

Many players tell me that when they play a solo their efforts sound like they are just playing up and down scales, or that they sound too "scaley". There are many different reasons why this could happen but in this lesson I will show you a cool trick to quickly get rid of the "scaley" sound. ...more

Something I get asked a lot is "How do I get a better guitar sound?". ...more

Reggae music was born in Jamaica and is a very unique style, which covers various sub styles - rock steady, dub, roots, raga, UK reggae, and deejay among others. ...more

Rock guitarists, let's face it, just love playing some good quality guitar riffs. ...more

In my experience playing an improvised solo for most guitarists seems to be something to be cherished. ...more

As this issue of NZM has an education focus I thought I would chance taking some of you out of your comfort zones. ...more

Last issue I talked about getting the preparation for fingerstyle playing off so that you can execute the technique smoothly. I hope you have done your homework and are now ready for playing songs. ...more

There has been a lot of interest lately in acoustic-related guitar styles, and a large part of that style is playing with your fingers. All good guitarists should be able to play with a pick and fingers as it will increase your ability to be creative and perform different styles. ...more

One thing few guitarists realise is how important it is to be good at enhancing the rhythm section and creating a good groove. In fact this is one of the main roles of a guitarist. Guitar players most probably spend about 95% of their time playing a backup role – so it would pay to be good at it. But there are some special problems that arise which seem to cause heartaches for many. ...more

Last issue I talked about playing the F minor pentatonic scale off each string. ...more

Not many guitarists realise that we have a complex muscle structure in our hands and arms, and when playing our favoured instrument we are very much like an athlete because at times we are exerting tremendous strains on our muscles. ...more

Last issue I talked about a common mistake of many guitarists being that they try to play things too fast too soon. Well, another common problem with many is that their right hand accuracy is not very exact. ...more

Hi, I'm Kevin Downing and I am very delighted to be bringing you the new Guitar Cool column every two months. I have been a professional guitarist most of my working life and have been involved in all facets of the industry. ...more

In this issue I'd like to tackle the age old art of string bending. Most guitarists at some point will start to experiment with bends, some incorporating them into their playing style. ...more