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The Ultimate Motivational Guitar Practice Workout

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Photo by Robert Bejil
Practicing is the whole key to becoming a good guitar player, but a good practice workout is not just about playing songs, riffs and solos.

It consists of some important elements.

Of course like a lot of guitar players I also started out practicing songs, riffs and licks of my favorite guitar heros, it’s why I started learning guitar in the first place.

But to let your skills and creativity reach it’s full potential there is a lot more to learn.

It doesn’t matter whether you play rock, country, jazz, blues or classical guitar, practicing all the aspects below on a regular basis will motivate you and make you grow into a good skilled guitar player.

Be sure the include every aspect into your overall workout. You don’t necessarily need to put everything in one workout, but spread out over a day or week.

You’ll benefit for the rest of your guitar playing life!Continue Reading

Listening is The Key to Everything

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Photo by David Goehring
Learning to play guitar gets easier these days with the many YouTubes and Tabs available everywhere around the internet.

The downside of this phenomenon is that people who are learning to play guitar these days can get lazy if they just copy whatever is being taught on the net.

It’s still very important to listen with your own ears and learn to transcribe songs without tutorial videos or tablature books.

Transcribing songs will teach you how guitar playing works from the inside out. I can tell you, it taught me more than I could have ever learned from tutorial videos.

I am not saying you need to stop watching YouTube guitar tutorials….No Way! YouTube is a great tool, but just don’t forget to listen and transcribe songs on your own. A must for every serious guitar student!

Listening is the key to everything:

Give Music a Chance.
Listen to as much different kinds of music styles as possible. Explore Pop music, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Folk, Country, Fusion, Latin, Metal, Flamenco and Classical sounds to expand your horizon and become a more creative musician.

If you don’t like a song or an album at first, put it on a second time.

Now this time listen differently:Continue Reading

How to Really Increase Guitarist Productivity

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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

5 Famous Repetitive Classic Blues Rock Metal Guitar Licks

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Photo by Igor Giamoniano

When I was a kid I used to transcribe solos of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Guns ‘n Roses, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, etc. And all those famous blues, rock, metal guitar players had one thing in common. They used repetitive guitar licks.

Repetitive licks create a sound that makes it seem like you’re playing really fast. Well maybe you do :) Besides that they just sound really cool. Those licks have made history.

The trick is to use them occasionally, but certainly not too often assuming that you want your solos to sound fresh and don’t want people to get bored out of their minds.

Use them in the middle of your solos when you are working towards a climax or you feel like you’re on a roll. Something like that.

The best way is to listen to those rock n’ roll guitar players and see how they incorporate them into their solos.

Try not just to copy these licks but also change them around a bit. Create your own repetitive licks. Explore and evolve those licks.

These licks are played using A minor or A pentatonic scale.

You can use them over an Am chord progression or a blues rhythm in the key of A.

I always keep repeating this, because I think it’s important. First play the licks slow and make sure you can play each lick perfectly clear before you build up speed.

Good luck!Continue Reading