Even the mighty Hetfield does this rhythm reset
Plus, "String Theories" is a guitar book you need to own
There are a ton of great links in this week’s issue. Want a warmup? We’ve got Ben Elder breaking down something Kirk Hammett showed Rick Beato. Want a challenging “climbing lick”? Phil X has us covered there. We have not one, but two videos that discuss octave mapping, a new book called String Theories, and even a breakdown of The Beatles’ “Yesterday” from Paul Davids. I hope you find something fun in here.
Before we get to the links, I have two asks of you. I’ve been writing this newsletter for a lot of years at this point, but only every once in a while receive feedback. If you’ve ever found an interesting link in this newsletter, could you comment on this post / reply to this email?
Also, the Chasing Sound Discord has been pretty quiet as of late. I’d love to have even more people join us to talk guitar every day. You can join for free right here.
This Week’s Guitar Links!
- How McCartney Wrote The Perfect Chord Progression - Paul Davids is back with another exciting video. This time he's breaking down all the parts in The Beatles' “Yesterday". Davids shows us why McCartney's progressions in the song are so brilliant. What's your favorite Beatles song?
- How to Get the MOST Out of Kirk Hammett’s Favorite Warmup! - A few weeks ago, Rick Beato sat down with Kirk Hammett of Metallica. During the interview, Hammett showed Beato a "jazz chord relay" that Satriani taught him when he was Hammett's teacher. In Ben Eller's latest video, he breaks down the exercise, and makes a bunch of break out exercises as well to work on different picking styles. This was a really fun video. I'm going to be throwing some of these exercises into my own practice regimen.
- Phil X's Insane "Liquid" Climbing Lick - Speaking of Rick Beato, Rick put up an awesome video on his 2nd channel, which features an insane climbing lick from Phil X. If you want to add something amazing to your pentatonic scale runs, check this out.
- Once You Learn THIS The Fretboard Gets Easy - Want to learn the fretboard? Of course you do, you're reading this newsletter. If you want to help yourself out, you should check out octave mapping, which is exactly what Rhett Shull is showing off in his latest video. I've talked about this on a handful of livestreams. Check out this livestream from a while back for more.
- 'String Theories': The BOOK every MODERN GUITARIST needs for a LIFETIME of INSPIRATION and GROWTH. - Adam Levy is a killer guitar player and teacher. He recently teamed up with Ethan Sherman to release the new book, String Theories. I just picked this up for around $10 on Amazon, and I've been tearing through it. Many of the essays included in the book come from Adam Levy's “Guitar Tips" series he started on YouTube. If you want to get inspired on guitar, this is an excellent read!
- How the PROS Use the Pentatonic Scale - Eric Johnson Lick - Why does it pay to learn all 5 boxes of the pentatonic scale? So you can move effortlessly around the fretboard, not only vertically, but horizontally as well. John Cordy breaks down some pentatonic ideas from Eric Johnson's new masterclass, which just went up on TrueFire.
- 5 THINGS I Wish I'd Known SOONER When LEARNING GUITAR - Ry Naylor is back with a great video with 5 things he wish he'd known sooner when learning guitar. The great thing about this video is that many of the tips are connected - from really understanding the tuning of the guitar (I know, it sounds straightforward, but it's helpful) to linking octaves, which we've talked about in the past regarding finding notes all over the fretboard.
- “Even James Hetfield cheats, and he's the best out there”: Exodus's Gary Holt on the one trick everyone uses to cheat at downpicking - Hetfield...the rhythm master, cheats during playing rhythm parts? Gary Holt from Exodus talks about his "reset" when playing some really tricky rhythm parts. Your reset might be a slide, or a quick alternate pick. This is a good, short article for rhythm players. Do you do this when playing rhythm parts?
- Green Day to sell used gear on Reverb, with nearly 100 pieces available - Reverb is reopening the Green Day store on October 18th, with almost 100 pieces of gear from the band. The gear includes studio and live gear, with some seriously cool guitars. You can even win a Billie Joe Armstrong Gibson prototype.
- Classic guitars used by Kurt Cobain and Eric Clapton up for auction - Have a little more money to dish out? Some seriously classic guitars are going up for auction soon. A few of them are set to fetch millions of dollars, and include Kurt Cobain's Fender Mustang which he used on Nirvana's last show, and Clapton's Gibson SG, nicknamed The Fool. H/T to Victor C. for letting me know about these awesome auctions.
Hey did you know, not only do I talk guitar each week, but I also teach it!
Try out a half an hour to see how much you can learn when you know the right things to practice. Whether you want to learn guitar, recording, mixing or more, I can help you out!