Klaus Crow, Author at GUITARHABITS

Triplet Scale Sequence Exercises Why and How

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The first scale sequence I learned without being aware of it was the “pentatonic triplet sequence”. They were all over the place in Metallica solos and I learned a lot of them.

Once I knew what I triplet really was I noticed them in many other rock and metal songs. But also in a lot of blues solos, usually played with hammer-ons and pull-offs.

A triplet is when you’re playing 3 consecutive notes per beat. Also called an eighth note triplet. (There are also sixteenth note triplets but we’ll save that for another post) Since there are 4 beats per bar in 4/4 time, you can count them like this: 1 trip-let, 2 trip-let, 3 trip-let, 4 trip-let or if you prefer you can count: 1 & a, 2 & a, 3 & a, 4 & a. It’s important to learn the feel of playing triplets.

Triplets are often used at the end of a musical phrase. They can be played fast and ascending, building a climax and leading up to that final screaming note or descending to a lower impressive last note to give it more impact.

Once you know your scales and you’re starting to improvise you don’t want to sound like you’re playing scales all the time. That’s where sequences come in. Sequences are a great tool for building your improvising chops.Continue Reading

Reward and Celebrate Your Guitar Efforts!

By Klaus Crow 3 Comments

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We all want to practice at a regular basis. If only we could stick to it.

Sometimes we succeed in practicing on a daily basis for a few weeks or even months in a row and then life takes over and we move on to busier and seemingly more important things.

But don’t worry, it’s okay to pause once in a while, reflect on it and just let it be.

And then suddenly that moment comes again when we fuel ourself with inspiration and we get back to the game. Now this time you want to hang in there as long as possible. To do that you need to keep motivating yourself. Motivation is the key to success! One of the ways to motivate yourself is to celebrate your successes and reward yourself.

Let’s say you want to learn a particular song. Depending on the difficulty of the song you can attach an appropriate reward to it.

Or reward yourself for 10 daily practice sessions of 30 minutes in a row and another one for 30 daily practice sessions in a row. Reward yourself for building a 10 song repertoire and playing it in front of people, for writing or recording your song.

Keep the celebrations alive and make it fun!Continue Reading

10 Effective Ways to Memorize Song Lyrics Much Faster

By Klaus Crow 18 Comments

memorize song lyrics

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In my early twenties I went backpacking in Australia with my girlfriend. During that trip we spent three days on a catamaran sailing the Great Barrier Reef with a group of people. One of the best times of my life.

When I first entered the catamaran the hosts asked me if I could play guitar. I was dumbfounded and said “huh, yes I do” and thought to myself, “how did they know that?” Later I would find out they asked everyone the same question.

In the evening we would all come together for a drink and a laugh. And then suddenly one of the hosts came out with a guitar and started playing and singing songs to entertain everyone.

Then after a while they handed the guitar over to me and said “Now it’s your turn!”. I thought, okay I’ll play a couple of tunes (I had been playing for about ten years by then) and suddenly I realized I could play a whole bunch of songs and some pretty cool solos, but I couldn’t sing the lyrics to the songs because I didn’t got them memorized.

Luckily my girlfriend was with me who is a singer and it turned out to be a great evening. Everyone sang along and was really enthusiastic.

I was saved! I realized what a shame it was that I couldn’t sing a few songs myself. A missed opportunity, but also a lesson learned. I would focus on memorizing song lyrics!

Here are 10 effective ways to get the job done:

Building Chords and Progressions of The Major Scale

By Klaus Crow 22 Comments

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Knowing how to build chords and chord progressions is a really great tool for writing your own songs and communicating with your fellow musicians on how to play a certain piece of music, “Let’s play a 1 4 5 progression in the key of…”

You can create the most beautiful chord progressions and songs by ear and you don’t necessarily need to know music theory for that, but it makes the life of a musician a lot easier if you do know some music theory on this part.

It’s nice to know what other musicians are talking about and how you can create chord progressions in a more effective and efficient way.

Adding music theory knowledge will reveal a lot of secrets you wish you had known before, so don’t wait for later or you’ll miss out on all the good stuff. Music theory will definitely make you a better musician!

Now let’s dive in:

From the major scale you can build 7 diatonic chords. The major scale consists of 7 notes, so that’s one chord of each note.

Let’s take the C major scale for example.

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