A triads masterclass with Tim Lerch, Molly Miller and more
Plus, the CAGED secrets other channels won’t tell you
This week’s issue is jam packed with great guitar lessons. We have Ben Eller talking about how to use the minimal amount of pressure when playing so you don’t get injured, to a masterclass on triads with Molly Miller, Tim Lerch and other guitar greats. Guthrie Trapp shares some CAGED “secrets”, Late Night Lessons talks about creating chords, and a bunch more. Let’s jump right into the links!
This week’s guitar links!
THIS Bad Habit Can WRECK Your Playing! Here’s a Fix! - We talk about it all the time, but after you start practicing a bad habit, it’s tough to turn it around…but it is possible! We’ve also talked about how much pressure you should apply with you fretting hand. Most beginner guitarists press down with way too much force. There are so many exercises you can do, including practicing an alternate picked note, pressing as lightly as you can until you can make a note, and then that should be your new baseline. In Ben Eller’s latest video, he gives us some more ideas about how to develop new “muscle memory” for your fretting hand.
The CAGED System: What Most People Are Not Telling You! - Guthrie Trapp has been a huge proponent for the CAGED system over the years. His newest video gives us some new things to think about when using this system. Similar to things like the pentatonic scale, the CAGED shapes are all connected by root notes, so that can help you map the fretboard when navigating around the neck. Trapp also discusses how to use triads inside of these shapes, and that’s something that I’ve been getting a ton of mileage out of over the past couple of years.
Using the CAGED system in conjunction with pentatonic scales can open up the fretboard – and offer an escape route from cliched blues licks - If you’re excited about the video above with Guthrie Trapp, and you’re all in on CAGED, then you should also check out this lesson from Guitar World. After a brief rundown on what CAGED is, the lesson goes over breaking down the shapes into smaller pieces, and using the pentatonic boxes inside of them. This is a great lesson, with 5 licks you can start practicing today.
Julian Lage on Improvisation with the Fender Telecaster - If you read this newsletter with any frequency, you know I’m a huge fanboy of Julian Lage. I love his fresh take on jazz composition, and if he’s not playing on an acoustic, he’s doing it with a Telecaster. Lage sat down with Guitar Center to talk about improv and why he loves the Tele so much.
I like this short post from a Substack I just started reading recently, called The Modern Improviser. It talks about practicing along with real songs rather than just jam tracks. This is how many people my age practiced guitar 10-20 years ago, and I think it’s some pretty good advice! You can check out the post below -
Pat Metheny called him “one of the brightest new talents on the instrument today” – and Dan Wilson’s remarkable phrasing will elevate your jazz guitar vocabulary to no end - Speaking of great jazz players, if you haven’t checked out Dan Wilson yet, you owe it to yourself to at least check out this lesson from Guitar Techniques going over his style. After briefly talking about how to get Dan’s tone, GT dives into 6 awesome jazz lines, accompanied by video and tab. If you like what you hear, I can’t recommend his album ‘Things Eternal’ enough.
“I don't know why I didn't discover one of these a long time ago”: Why David Gilmour has swapped his Strats for a Gibson - When you think about certain guitarists, a lot of times you’ll associate them with their signature guitar - while you might think of Page playing a Les Paul, Hetfield playing an Explorer, and Danny Gatton playing a Tele, when you think of David Gilmour, it’s hard not to think how important the Strat has been to his sound. Gilmour’s newest album is about to drop soon, and in advance of it coming out, he’s been talking about guitars he’s used on the album. The latest video talks about his new love for the Gibson ES-335, which you can hear on the track “Dark and Velvet Nights”. The song is already out now if you want to take a listen. It’s cool to see a veteran of guitar trying new gear in his setup.
Chordplay - Secrets of Chord Construction - Building up from the chromatic scale, David over at Late Night Lessons shows us how easy it is to create chords by adding or modifying one note. He starts with simple major and minor chords, and builds from there. Great starter lesson for new guitarists. If you want another great lesson on chords, check out Eric Haugen’s latest video in his how to be a tasteful guitarist series. You can check it out here.
Guitar TRIADS Epic Masterclass! - And we wouldn’t have chords if it weren’t for triads. So rather than just one guitarist talking about them, how about a bunch of great players all talking about this essential musical concept. Adam Levy got together players like Molly Miller, Tim Lerch and more to give their take on why triads are so important.
How a studio compressor became the secret ingredient in an iconic Led Zeppelin guitar moment – the story of Universal Audio’s 1176 compressor - I’ve always loved the sound of the Universal Audio 1176. When I was lucky enough to use the limiter in “real life” as a hardware unit, I’ve always adored the tone it added to my tracks, and I even loved the tactile feel of the hardware itself. Moving more to my personal studio over the past decade, I’ve learned to love the countless plugin recreations of the unit. In this great Guitar.com post, they talk about how the unit became super popular when Led Zeppelin used it on the track “Black Dog”.
Uncovering the SECRET of Eric Johnson's Spread Triads - Sometimes I feel like there’s an endless amount to learn from players like Eric Johnson. John Cordy dipped into Eric’s spread triad playing in both the A and G shapes (see the CAGED stuff above!) After checking out the general idea of the lesson, skip ahead to 9:30 to see how you can use this in your own playing.
