essential scales
5 Common Mistakes Beginner and Intermediate Lead Guitar Players Always Make!
Common Guitar Mistakes Beginner and Intermediate Guitar Players Make
Learn how to avoid and how to fix some of the most common mistakes beginner and intermediate guitar players make when it comes to learning to solo. Overcome these and you really can supercharge your progress, improve faster on guitar and stop getting held up.
Common Guitar Mistake 1- Weak Finger Independence and Accuracy
This can cause you to press down on the strings too hard making notes sound out of tune. Poor finger accuracy can also lead to lifting up the fingers after playing a note., slowing you down and making it hard to play smoothly.
Common Guitar Mistake 2 – Picking Problems
Don’t use too much pick when you play. It’s way harder to get good controlled picking. Just use the very tip of the pick. And make sure your picking hand stays close to the strings when you play. If your picking hand is too far away you may never develop awesome picking!
Common Guitar Mistake 3 – Weak Pull Offs!
To get strong sounding pull offs ‘flick’ your finger off the side of the string. If you pull the string out of tune as you pull off it’s probably due to poor finger independence. Follow the simple trick in the lesson to fix this.
Common Guitar Mistake 4 – Bending Mistakes!
Here you’ll learn how to control and ‘cut off’ bends before you let it down. To do this we use left and right hand muting techniques. Practice these techniques: they will tidy up your bending.
Common Guitar Mistake 5 – Bad String Muting Technique (here’s how to fix string noise!)
String noise can be a big problem on guitar. Muting or ‘string damping’ technique is how to fix this. The picking hand wants to rest lightly on any unplayed strings to keep them quiet and the fretting fingers need to lie slightly flat across the strings. The fingertips can also help by muting neighboring strings. This also helps control unwanted string noise.
Good luck fixing up these common guitar problems, you’ll definitely find they make a massive difference to how your playing sounds. Good luck!
Read More
Alternate Picking Rock Licks (for Speed Building!)
Alternate Picking Rock Licks (for Speed Building!)
In this guitar lesson you’ll discover 3 alternate picking licks for building speed and using in your solos in the styles of players like Paul Gilbert, Gary Moore, Yngwie Malmsteen, Zakk Wylde and others.
All 3 licks are in the key of A minor using a mixture of different minor and blues scales.
Alternate picking lick 1 is in the style of Gary Moore and Randy Rhoads. Not only is it a great alternate picking lick to use in your solos, but it’s also an awesome exercise to build you picking speed and chops!
Alternate picking lick 2 is in the style of Yngwie Malmsteen and uses the A harmonic minor scale. Check out the scale pattern, then jump into this challenging alternate picking lick, it’s an amazing speed building workout!
Alternate picking lick 3 uses string skipping, the A blues scale and some notes from the A Dorian mode. It’s the kind of alternate picking lick you hear Paul Gilbert play in his solos.
Read More
How to Stop Playing the Same Old Pentatonic Licks
How to Stop Playing the Same Old Pentatonic Licks.
Sick of the same overused pentatonic rock licks? Did you know you can easily transform them using the blues scale and dorian mode? In this lesson learn how to breath new life into common pentatonic rock licks to create awesome repeating licks, double stop licks, stretch licks and more.
Read More
Fast Rock Licks (3 Must Know Fast Licks!)
Fast Rock Licks (3 Must Know Fast Licks!)
Learn 3 fast rock licks in the style of Michael Schenker, Tony Iommi, and Angus Young and discover how to make up fast rock guitar licks of your own to use in your rock solos.
Having a few fast rock licks for your rock solos can really help your solos stand out. In this guitar lesson I’ll show you how to play 3 fast licks in the styles of big-name rockers like Tony Iommi, Michael Schenker and Angus Young.
Lick 1 is similar to a lick that Tony Iommi plays in his solo on Blasck Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’
Lick 2 shows you a cool fast lick like Angus Young plays on his ‘Back In Black’ solo
Lick 3 shows you a cool fast rock lick mixing a Michael Schenker style repeating lick with some Iommi style double stops.
Have fun with these fast rock guitar licks: remember to take them apart and recycle them to create some wicked licks of your own!
Read More
David Gilmour Quick Licks
David Gilmour Quick Licks.
This David Gilmour guitar lesson will teach you step by step how to play 3 famous David Gilmour guitar licks. They come from two of Gilmour’s greatest solos with Pink Floyd: ‘Comfortably Numb’ and ‘Another Brick In the Wall’ and demonstrate important aspects of the David Gilmour guitar style.
-Lick 1 is in the key of B minor and is taken from the outro solo on Comfortably Numb. Notice how Gilmour adds the 9th to his minor pentatonic scale for a more interesting sound.
-Lick 2 is also taken from the outro Comfortably Numb solo.
-Lick 3 comes from the David Gilmour solo on Another Brick in the Wall. It’s the lick that starts the solo and is in the key of D minor.
Once you know the licks shown in this guitar lesson, you should take them and use them to make up your own David Gilmour style guitar licks!
I started my channel to you the kind of ‘BS free’ and no nonsense guitar lessons I think you want. So if you want to understand ‘how to play’…rather than just learn ‘what to play’ then subscribe and look out for all my regular weekly (mostly!) lessons.
Dig in, have fun…and thanks for watching!
Read More
Blues Guitar Lesson High Energy British Blues Licks Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor Style!
Check out my premium Blues Guitar Training in my Total Guitar Lab academy! Learn more HERE.
Blues Guitar Lesson High Energy British Blues Licks Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor Style!
Check out this blues guitar lesson and discover how to play powerful British style blues licks in the styles of groundbreaking blues guitar players like Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor. These short but powerful blues licks are the kind of thing all the blues guitar legends use…so grab ’em and get them in your blues guitar solos now!
In this blues guitar lesson you’ll learn:
- Eric Clapton style ‘double stop’ licks
- Peter Green style ‘blues curls’
- Essential blues guitar bends
- ‘Repicked’ bending licks
- and more…
And with on screen guitar tab you can quickly learn and be using these blues guitar licks in your blues solos for more high impact playing.
Dig in and have fun!
Read More
Carlos Santana Quick Licks
Carlos Santana Quick Licks.
In this Santana licks lesson you learn how to play 3 awesome Carlos Santana licks step-by-step as heard in Black Magic Woman., This is one of Santana’s most famous recordings and showcases the Santana guitar style perfectly! Black Magic Woman is essentially a minor blues in the key of D minor and all three of these Carlos Santana licks are using the D minor pentatonic and blues scale patterns up around the 10th fret.
To get that Carlos Santana guitar tone use the neck pickup on your guitar with a small amount of distortion. Backing off the tone control on your guitar a touch will also help make these Santana licks sound authentic.
Let’s get started with the Santana quick licks lesson!
Carlos Santana Lick #1 – this is the lick Santana uses to kick off his intro solo on Black Magic Woman.
Carlos Santana Lick #2 – This lick shows you how Carlos ends the intro solo on Black Magic Woman.
Carlos Santana Lick #3 – Carlos uses this lick in one of the later Black Magic Woman solos. Notice his cool phrasing and use of rhythm at the end of the lick!
Read More
Stevie Ray Vaughan Blues Licks
Stevie Ray Vaughan Blues Licks
In this lesson you’ll learn how to play two Stevie Ray Vaughan blues licks step by step. Both licks are using the E blues scale played up around the 12th fret and feature classic SRV style bends, double stops and more. Check out ‘Pride and Joy’ to hear lots more Stevie Ray Vaughan blues licks and tricks like you hear in this demo solo.
Remember it’s not just the notes and licks that gave Stevie his awesome style! You need to ‘dig in’ and play these licks with lots of attack to get them sounding authentic. This will help you capture the ‘high energy’ vibe so characteristic of the Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar style. Let’s get started…
0:30 Here’s a quick reminder of the scales used to play these SRV licks.
1:00 Here is the ‘Texas Pride’ solo study these licks are coming from. Listen to the solo to hear how these licks fit into it.
1:34 Here’s Stevie Ray Vaughan lick 1. It’s using a wicked double stop move from the sliding blues scale.
3:02 Stevie Ray Vaughan lick 2. It’s using similar SRV trademarks as lick 1.
4:15 Let’s give these licks some context now. Here’s how they fit into the Texas Pride solo.
Read More
Learn Guitar Scales Fast
Want to learn guitar scales fast? Well …playing up and down them like most players do is not the way to do it! In this lesson you’ll discover 3 powerful and simple scale practice exercises to learn your scales fast…and more importantly be able to use them when you play.
Learn Guitar Scales Fast!
Imagine if you could learn the essential guitar scales fast…instead of spending hours playing them up and down. Well there are some ways that you can, but we’re not normally shown them. Instead we often play them round and round with the notes in the exact same order every time. Problem is you’re not going to use them like that when you solo and jam!
0:20 Just playing up and down doesn’t help you learn scales fast! It’s also got nothing to do with how we use them when we play. You need some different ways to practice themif you want to nail those guitar scales fast!
0:55 Scale exercise #1: The ‘Random Note Exercise’
1:25 Scale Exercise #2; The ‘One Note Per String Exercise’
1:58 Scale Exercise #3: The ‘Pivot Exercise’
Read More
Blues Licks Lesson – Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, Albert King Eric Clapton Licks You Need To Know…
If you love playing blues guitar then check out my
BLUES SOLOING FOR GUITAR BOOK AND VIDEO SERIES
Blues Licks Lesson- 7 Blues Licks Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, Albert King, Eric Clapton Style You Need to Know
In this blues licks lesson you’ll learn 7 blues licks you need to know from the playing of blues guitar legends like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert King, BB King, Eric Clapton and others. All these licks are played in the key of A and are using the A minor pentatonic scale. Let’s look at blues lick 1
0:46 Blues Lick 1. If there was ever a must know blues lick then this is probably it! It’s used by all the blues guitar greats like Eric Clapton, SRV, Albert King etc and is a powerful lick to begin your blues solos with.
2:06 Blues Lick 2. This lick is borrowed from Stevie Ray Vaughan and is a lick he loved to play. Listen to his album Texas Flood to here licks like this used a lot.
3:14 Blues Lick 3. Albert King is an influential blues player and this lick is the kind of thing he used to play in his blues solos. Check out the bending tips in this lick too…you’ll need them to get your bends sounding like Alberts!
4:54 Blues Lick 4. Eric Clapton’s playing with Cream inspired this next blues lick. It’s packed full of tasty blues bends and curls.
7:08 Blues Lick 5. This Stevie Ray Vaughan style lick uses the sliding blues scale shape. Definitely check out these bends and slides in this scale pattern. They’re incredibly useful, versatile, and can add a lot to your blues solos.
8:25 Blues Lick 6. A classic BB King style lick here making use of a tasty double stop move. This is adding the 6th into our pentatonic scale (7th fret B string) giving us a ‘sweeter’ sound characteristic of BB’s guitar style.
10: 12 Blues Lick 7. British blues legends Eric Clapton and Peter Green used licks like this in their landmark solos. Some tasty double stop slides here coming from the sliding blues scale plus a cool pre-bend move.. Experiment with these they can sound great in your blues solos.
12:08 Once you know these blues licks be sure to practice using them in your solos. Also move them into other keys to you can use them in any blues setting. Have fun!
Read More
