Awesome Paul Gilbert licks, New Jack Gardiner, and Eric Johnson Does An AMA
Plus, a wrap-up of the coolest gear out of NAMM
It’s been one heck of a week over here at Chasing Sound HQ. I’ve bee poring over all the new gear coming out of NAMM, there’s lots of great new lessons to work on, and I even took over the ‘What’s Curation?’ newsletter this Friday to talk about one of my favorite Big Wreck songs - you can check out my post here. What’s Curation has been one of my favorite new newsletters that recommends music nearly every day.
Speaking of which, if you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed to Six String Sunday Club just yet, you can do that below!
NAMM 2022: the 10 biggest things we discovered at this year’s show - NAMM is wrapping up, and we have new signatures from Tosin Abasi and Kirk Hammett on the horizon, awesome pedals and software coming out from TwoNotes, guitars that you can fold up to take along with you, and lots more. Check out GW’s roundup of 10 things they found interesting at the show. What was your favorite announcement from this year’s NAMM?
5 words of wisdom for BEGINNING musicians - Adam Neely asked a bunch of different attendees at the NAMM show to drop some great music wisdom in 5 words or less. Some good advice in this video!
3 Paul Gilbert Licks From 2000 - Late Night Lessons has been putting out some great videos lately. In his latest “three-for-all” he goes over 3 Paul Gilbert licks from 2000 that mortals can play. The cool thing about this video is that it covers SO much at the same time, including theory and lots on technique. The licks are all from Gilbert’s cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”. Going to keep an eye on this channel, as the videos have been awesome. If you want something more “terrifying”, check out this Paul Gilbert inspired lick from Leon Todd.
Eric Johnson did a Reddit AMA! - Eric Johnson’s new double album is about two months away, and he just released two new singles this Friday. To celebrate, he hopped on Reddit for an Ask Me Anything. He answered everything from “If you could tour with any one guitarist, live or dead, who would it be?” to “who were your favorite people to work with?” Some really interesting answers in there.
Perfectly Starts Slowly - Some really good “back to basics” advice here from JustinGuitar. When you’re working on something difficult at first, try and slow it down and play it correctly. You shouldn’t worry about speed at first, because you might be inadvertently practicing mistakes, and developing bad habits. Make sure to slow down your practice, and you’ll reap the benefits of it later - speed will come as a byproduct of good practice.
I Was Completely Wrong About These Guys… - I really enjoyed this advice from David Wallimann too. I feel like when you’re young you might not be as accepting of other genres of music outside your favorite genre. Wallimann tells the story of how he was so wrong about Hendrix and B.B. King. It’s so worth it to open up your horizons to different genres of music. There’s always a handful of things you might be able to incoporate into your own playing.
Kirk Fletcher - The influence of legendary blues master B.B. King - If you want to hear more about why B.B. King was such a huge influence to so many other blues players, check out Kirk Fletcher’s latest video for Guitar World. Kirk is a monster blues player in his own right. Go check out his latest album, ‘My Blues Pathway’.
Why Should You Work On Rhythm… and HOW To Do It? - It’s great to know all the notes in a scale, a chord, etc. But if you don’t have any rhythm, it’s likely you’ll sound amateurish while playing. How do you practice rhythm? Check out Levi Clay’s latest video on how to work on this essential skill.
Fingers hurt from playing guitar? Try this! - If you’re just getting started with guitar, or if you’ve taken an extended break from the instrument, it’s possible that your fingers might hurt quite a bit. Andy Guitar talks about how you can move through this pain, and not hurt yourself at the same time.
Do THIS Warmup DAILY to Increase Picking Speed and Hand Synchronization! - If you’re looking for a great warmup exercise to kick off your practice each day, check out this latest pattern from Ben Eller. Also, if you have even $1, it’s totally worth it to sign up to Ben’s Patreon. One of the most valuable subscriptions out there for guitar players.
Don’t Practice BORING Scales, Practice THIS! - Tired of practicing scales up and down the fretboard? Rick Beato shows us how to play melodic ideas from the scales themselves. Might as well play something musical, rather than playing scales up and down, which by the way, you probably shouldn’t ever do in a song.
Jack & Owane - Glitter - Jack Gardiner just came out with a fantastic EP called ‘Guardian Spirits of the Quantum Multiverse’. I’ve been going through the tabs on some of these songs, and learning even a few of these riffs is so challenging, but a lot of fun. Check out this single called “Glitter” to get an idea of what the full EP is all about.
Reverend Horton Heat Guitar Fingerstyle Lesson (Jim Heath) - Looking for a different type of shred? Check out this great lesson from Adrian Whyte, where he breaks down the cool rockabilly fingerstyle playing of Reverend Horton Heat.
The guitarist on Top Gun: Maverick’s soundtrack has been revealed - Top Gun is at the top of my list of movies to see soon. Recently the music credits for this film came out, and we found out that Lexii Lynn Frazier played all the guitar parts for the album, and recorded them during the early parts of the pandemic. We also got some interesting info that Guthrie Govan was the Score Consultant. Check out the post to learn more about Lexii, and visit her Instagram for some awesome playing.
Jack White: “I’m the proudest I’ve been in my life of my guitar playing. There are places I’ve never gone before… techniques I thought I wasn’t capable of doing” - Jack White is the cover story of the latest Guitar Player magazine. In addition to releasing a bunch of albums, running his own record plant, and much more, he’s been taking some big strides on the guitar itself. I remember watching him on the It Might Get Loud documentary, and thinking that he was a little out of place in the group. Nothing could be further from the truth at this point. Check out the interview to hear more about everything going on in his life, and see some of his new guitars.
Five Metallica gear facts only superfans will know - Metallica has long been one of my top 3 bands, and even I didn’t know all this info about their gear. Some fun stories in this post from Guitar.com.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading Six String Sunday!
Want to learn guitar? Sign up to take guitar lessons with me!
If you’d like to support my work, check out the Chasing Sound merch store.
You can find me at: Chasing Sound, Twitter, YouTube, Discord, Instagram, Facebook and even TikTok.