Essential tips for flying with your guitar
Plus, using the 80/20 rule to improve your leads
A slightly shorter issue than usual this week, but for good reason. As the weeks go on, I’m going to try some new sections and see what sticks. Your feedback helps me know what you’re into! As for this week’s links - Andy Wood’s got some solid tips to help your axe survive the trip if you’re flying with a guitar, and we’ve got even more from him on tone and effects. Plus, we’re diving into impossible metal licks, transforming scales into killer solos, and checking out Fender’s surprising new (free!) DAW. Let’s get into it!
Airlines vs Guitarists - How to Fly with your Guitar - Flying the friendly skies with an instrument can be super difficult, especially if you’re looking to arrive with it in one piece. I’ve seen countless photos on Instagram of airlines damaging guitars, but we’re in luck - this week Andy Wood shared some tips on traveling with your guitar.
If you decide to check your guitar, you need to have a sturdy flight case to protect it during the journey. There are a ton of great companies making flight approved cases, often with some type of insurance.There’s also a handful of things you can do to your guitar before the flight to increase its chances of landing intact (from loosening the strings to taking off the whole neck). You also have simple life advice like being nice to the gate agent so your guitar might get preferential treatment as a carry on item.
If you want even more Andy Wood advice, he recently sat down with Sweetwater to discuss crafting tone and creating your own signature sound. It was great to see him tip his hat to guys like Eric Johnson and others on the use of delay, compression, and other effects. You can watch that video here.
The 10 Most IMPOSSIBLE Rock/Metal Songs To Play On Guitar - Bradley Hall tackles some of the most difficult rock songs to play on guitar, featuring guys like Meshuggah, Guthrie Govan, Bumblefoot and more. The best part? There’s tabs for all the licks. If you want to practice tapping, crazy rhythms, and lots more, check this video out.
Transform BORING Scales Into BEAUTIFUL Guitar Solos - Are your guitar solos sounding way too scalar in a bad way? Ross Campbell’s latest video gives us a sneak peek on an upcoming course he’s launching in June that shows us how to use pentatonics alongside modes to make our solos really stand out. The course looks like it’s going to follow the Pareto principle, which is a great way to look at anything you’re learning. It’s also often called the 80/20 rule, where you try and find the most effective 20% of what you’re trying to learn, which should get you 80% along the way (this works for things like learning languages and more). I can also recommend Ross’ book with Guitar Vivo, Beyond Pentatonic Blues.
How To Solo With Arpeggios: 5 Levels (SLICK Licks, COOL Tricks) - Charlie Long’s deep dive into arpeggio soloing will shake up your lead lines, starting with simple triads and moving through advanced concepts like inversions, 7th chords, and more. Similar to the link above, if your arpeggio work sounds like you’re just moving up and down the triad without sounding musical, try some of the licks and concepts Charlie shows off in this video for inspiration.
Fender Just Released a DAW?! (It's Free Too) - Fender just dropped a free studio app for desktop and mobile that links up nicely with their portable Fender Link IO. This app is great for anyone looking to get into recording, and comes with jam tracks, effects and more. Leon Todd was the first review I saw on YouTube, and is the linked video here. Leon goes over an overview of the recording interface, shows off some amp emulation and effects, and ends the video with a jam. If you’re not already using something like GarageBand, this might be a great option for you.
Introducing BOSS Effects Pedals | Software Effect - Let’s do a little good news/bad news on this recent announcement from Boss. The good news - some of the most iconic Boss pedals are now in plugin form. We’re talking the DS-1 distortion, OD-1 overdrive, PH-1 phaser and more. The bad news? You have to be part of their Roland Cloud Ultimate Tier - which is $199 a year. That being said, you do get a great amount of plugins in that tier, but for guitarists only, you might be better off sticking with the hardware versions for now. What’s your take on this news?
Some More Links You’ll Love!
We’ll talk more about why this week’s issue was shorter, and a lot more next week. I’m cooking up something new for Six String Sunday. Need a little bit more time and I should be ready to go for next week’s issue. Thanks so much for supporting what I do.
Great newsletter! Thanks! Funny that Steve Lukather lick is from the only actual Lukather solo I know. 😀