Archives for November 2010

19 Inspiring Famous Guitar Player Quotes

May 15, 2019 by Klaus Crow

Photo by Sean Rogers
Inspring quotes can unleash your inner motivation or teach you that one valuable life guitar lesson that you always wanted or needed to hear.

It somehow explains the essence of what the person is trying to bring across.

I love quotes from great blues, rock, jazz and classical guitar players or quotes from wise people like Lao Tzu or Buddha.

It makes me want to learn more and realize what is important and what not.

I hope these quotes contribute to your inner motivation and inspire you to study, practice, create, enjoy and achieve something amazing!

Listen and learn from the greatest:

1 – “I dedicated all the time I had to it. The 10 hour workout was just what I put in the magazine at the time, but for me it was every waking moment.” ~ Steve Vai‎

2 – “A lot of people think that if they learn to read music they are gonna lose their feel or their groove or something. It’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” ~ Frank GambaleContinue Reading

16 Legendary Fingerpicking Patterns

By Klaus Crow 153 Comments

March 25, 2021 by Klaus Crow

Pattern #1 – For TABS see below.

Fingerpicking style is a technique that is used in many famous and legendary songs over the years. The 16 examples in this post are a good source to learn the most common fingerpicking patterns you will ever come across. The fingerpicking patterns can be applied to almost every folk, pop, country or rock song.

Try and figure out which pattern suits your favorite song. Maybe you’ll already recognize some of these patterns from songs you heard before.

I personally think pattern #12 is a really nice one. It’s a Travis fingerpicking style arrangement named after Merle Travis. The Travis fingerpicking style is known for it’s steady bass pattern played with the thumb while the rest of the fingers fill out the rest of the pattern on the treble strings.

Right hand finger positioning

Now let’s take a look at the finger positioning assuming you are a right handed guitar player.

For my right hand position I use my thumb to pluck the low-E, A and D-string. The index finger is on the G-string, the middle finger on the B-string and the ring finger on the high E-string.

For each different chord, you play the corresponding bass note with your right hand thumb.
Whenever you play an A or Am chord with your left hand, you pluck the A-string ( A root note) with your right hand thumb.
For an E or Em chord pluck the E-string (E root note) with your right hand thumb.
D or Dm chord = D-string (D root note).
G chord = E-string (The G root note is played with your left hand on the low E-string).
C chord = A-string (The C root note is played with your left hand on the A-string) and so on.

In the video lessons above the tabs I show you what each pattern sounds like and explain the pattern slowly in close up.

Practice each and every one of them thoroughly. It’s really good for you.

Enjoy!

Pattern #1

A E e:-------0-------|-------0-------|-------0-------|--------0-----------| B:-----2---2-----|-----2---2-----|-----0---0-----|-----0----0---------| G:---2-------2---|---2-------2---|---1-------1---|---1--------1-------| D:---------------|---------------|---------------|--------------------| A:-0-------------|-0-------------|---------------|--------------------| E:---------------|---------------|-0-------------|-0------------------|

Pattern #2

A E e:-------0---------|-------0---------|-------0---------|-------0---------| B:-----2-----2-----|-----2-----2-----|-----0-----0-----|-----0-----0-----| G:---2-----2-----2-|---2-----2-----2-|---1-----1-----1-|---1-----1-----1-| D:-------------2---|-------------2---|-------------2---|-------------2---| A:-0-----0---------|-0-----0---------|-----------------|-----------------| E:-----------------|-----------------|-0-----0---------|-0-----0---------|

How to Really Increase Guitarist Productivity

By Klaus Crow 3 Comments

May 15, 2019 by Klaus Crow

Photo by bjortklingd
I get a lot of questions via Twitter about guitar goals and how to keep motivated, so I thought I’d write a post on guitarist productivity.

In the past I have done some things using discipline in order to accomplish a goal, but it never brought me what I wanted or what I expected. Later I realized why discipline didn’t work out for me.

Discipline is forcing yourself to do something you really don’t want to do in order to achieve a goal you think you do want. Doesn’t that sound strange to you? Well I’ve learned my lessons.

As a Chinese proverb says: “The journey is the reward”. What it means is that you have to enjoy what you do all the way or make sure you enjoy it and forget about the destination or success what so ever.

Everything is about the journey, about what you are doing right now. Make sure you love what you do. It’s the number one rule to guitarist productivity and everything else in life.

Let’s get into it:Continue Reading