Want to set and track your guitar goals to help you become the guitar player you want to be?
Having some kind of ‘system’ to follow can really help, in fact, it can mean the difference between hitting your goals or missing them!
You’ll find a step-by-step method for setting, tracking and crushing your guitar goals inside my book The Guitar Practice Workbook.
You’ll also find killer practice hacks to get you stellar results, essential scales, chords and other useful resources plus over 50 worksheets for documenting your own awesome lick, riff and song ideas! It’s the ultimate practice workbook for today’s guitarist and is available now on Amazon in paperback.
Grab Your Copy of The Guitar Practice Workbook Now and Download the Free Accompanying Goal Sheet Below!
The goal sheet will download automatically to your device. Print it off and start using it to reach your guitar goals quicker!
Good luck!
James
If your sore fingers hurt from playing guitar then watch this quick video to discover how to prevent sore fingers, how to fix them and what to do when your fingers hurt too much to play at all!
All guitar players know about sore fingers! And it’s not just beginner guitar players who face this problem. Changing to heavier strings, doing lots of string bends, or just playing more often than normal can all lead to sore fingertips that hurt.
When you get sore fingers while playing the guitar, playing through the pain will help you to improve. However, knowing when to take a day off to rest your fingers is also important. When your fingers get harder, it becomes easier to press down the string and easier to play for longer without your fingers getting sore or going numb.
To prevent sore fingers you can apply a little salt water to them each day to toughen up the skin. Superglue can also be applied to the ends to protect fingers which are sore. This can help you to keep going even when you’re fingers are very tender.
Sometimes you may need to take a short break and play again in a few hours. And if your fingers are too sore to play at all, then don’t worry: there is a lot of valuable practice you can do away from the instrument to still help you improve. Playing a lot of guitar is going to make your fingers sore; that is just a fact. But if you push through this phase, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and come out the other side as a capable guitarist…with tougher fingers!
Cool Blues Rock Licks for blues rock guitar soloing. Learn 4 cool blues rock licks in the styles of more rocky blues players like Gary Moore, Billy Gibbons, Wilko Johnson and others! These licks are perfect for using in high energy blues rock solos and are well worth adding into your guitar lick trickbag!
All 4 of these cool blues rock licks are in the key of G and will work great over a blues rock chord sequence like a rocky 12 bar blues in G. They are using a few different patterns of the G blues scale and G minor pentatonic scales.
1:00 Watch here to see the scale patterns used in these blues rock licks (tab included!)
1:40 Cool blues rock lick 1 uses a common unison bending move and a repeating bending move – a favourite device of everyone from Eric Clapton to Gary Moore.
4:39 A cool Gary Moore style blues rock lick with palm muting and an aggressive alternate picked phrase. Listen to his solo on ‘Walking By Myself’ to hear an idea a little like this lick.
7:37 Let’s check out another G minor pentatonic scale pattern now, often called ‘shape 3’. You’ll be needing this for the next cool blues rock lick.
8:45 This lick is also a little reminiscent of the great Gary Moore. It uses a repeating unison bending idea starting in position 1, then moving up through position 3. Finally it ends in the shape 1 scale pattern moved up an octave (a handy blues rock soloing tool!)
13:17 The final cool blues rock lick uses a monster bend from inside the sliding blues scale shape. This bend is going to take a bit of pushing…so persevere! It’s worth the effort: this bend is a killer bend to get into your blues rock style soloing!
16:55 So you’ve got 4 cool blues rock licks to learn. But what can you do with them? Watch here for some useful tips.
Good luck and enjoy these licks and look forward to seeing you again in another video very soon!
Starting a blues solo in a strong ,attention grabbing way is essential if you want your playing to make an impact on the listener! In this lesson I’ll show you 3 awesome licks for starting a blues solo. These ‘solo starting licks’ can be easily adapted and changed to suit the way you play and to give you lots of killer blues starting licks of your own.
Starting a blues solo well is about more than licks though! You need to start your solo with commitment and conviction and your rhythmic feel needs to be rock solid. These two factors can really show the listener that you mean business as you kick off your blues solo. On the other hand, a weak, timid sounding start to your blues solo will most likely lose the listeners attention straight away…so dig in and play like you mean it every time. Remember this as you work through these blues starting licks!
3 Licks for starting a blues solo
1:07 All these licks are coming from the A minor pentatonic and A blues scale. See the on-screen tab if you need a reminder of these.
1:45 Blues Solo Starting Lick 1
Possibly the most common way to start a blues solo is with this lick. Hundreds of classic blues soloists use this lick all the time. Learn the lick and how to use it, you’ll be glad you did (it just works!)
4:38 Blues Solo Starting Lick 2
Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King to awesome blues solos starting with this lick. Those guys used this one a lot! The lick is using the top part of the sliding blues scale shape and is packed full of awesome sounding blues bends.
7:45 Blues Solo Starting Lick 3
This lick is how BB King might have started a blues solo! It’s using a few notes taken from the A major pentatonic scale as well as the minor pentatonic notes. Try using these notes for a sweeter start to your blues solo.
11:29 Try this great exercise to learn to get an awesome start to your solo every time. Prctice this and you” quickly hear a difference every time you start a solo. Try it!
Good luck with these starting licks and tips. Hope they help you make strong, ear catching starts to your blues solos a lifelong habit. Have fun!
Learn 4 awesome natural minor scale guitar licks for rock and metal soloing!. The natural minor scale or aeolian mode is an essential rock soloing tool used by rock and metal guitarists. In this guitar lesson you’ll learn how to use it too. Learn the most common natural minor scale pattern (in D minor), discover how to use a ‘minor pentatonic framework as a starting point for your own natural minor scale licks, learn when to use the natural minor scale and discover how to combine the natural minor and blues scale for awesome rock and metal sounds.
So what is the natural minor scale or aeolian mode? I like to think of it as a minor pentatonic with two added notes (the 2nd and flattened 6th). These notes give the natural minor scale it’s distinctive ‘darker’ sound. It’s a great scale choice for playing rock and metal licks in minor keys…and in most cases the notes in the natural minor scale will work well in this setting. From time to time the added notes might not work however, so keep your ears open for any clashes with the chords you are soloing over!
As with learning to use any scale, a good range of licks is helpful. These 4 natural minor scale licks will show you some strong sounding ideas to get you up and running with the scale. Take these licks, dissect them, and recycle them to create your very own natural minor scale licks (this is very important!). So once you’ve got these natural minor licks down, be sure to grab a D minor backing track and experiment. Good luck, and have fun exploring the natural minor scale on your guitar!