How to reach your full potential on the guitar
Plus, the final week of the CS Song Challenge!
The Chasing Sound Song Challenge is coming to a close this Wednesday. It was an awesome month! This week on the blog I talked all about mixing (one of my favorite parts of the entire songwriting process). If you ever have any mix questions, let me know!
My own single will be coming out Wednesday, and I’ll share it everywhere on social media. If you have a song that you worked on this month as part of the challenge, let me know! I’d love to share it in next week’s newsletter.
But the single that’ll be coming out this week isn’t the end of our songwriting journey. There’s more to come in June, so stay tuned to this newsletter and ChasingSound.com.
We have some really good lessons this week, so let's get right into this week's links!
You know ‘em, you love ‘em…it’s this week’s links!
- The MOST Requested Solo I've Had All YEAR! Extreme RISE Solo - Nuno's solo has to be the solo of the year at this point, and the mighty Levi Clay has taken on the enormous task of transcribing it. If you ever wanted to learn Extreme's "Rise”, this is your best bet.
- Math Guitar Voicings I Actually Use - I never know what I'm going to see in a Ben Levin video, and that's half of the fun. This video has a couple of really unique chord voicings that you can try when you're writing your next song. These are sure to turn listeners' ears.
- How to reach your full potential as a guitarist - One of my favorite videos of the week comes from Chris Sherland. He goes over how we need to try and use context based practicing more often, to really move forward on our guitar journey. If you watch anything this week, make sure it's this video.
- Robben's Diminished Blues TRICKS - This link came from Simon Allaway (thanks for the share!) It's from Steve Allsworth's channel, where he breaks down some awesome diminished blues lines that you can add into your own playing to create some slick lines.
- 5 Shapes Great Guitar Players Know (But You Don’t) - I'm such a huge fan of CAGED. As mysterious as it might initially seem, if you spend even a little time on the 5 shapes, you can gain so much knowledge, so quickly. In this video from Ricky Comiskey, he shows us the benefit of seeing root notes within the system.
- Fender John 5 Ghost Telecaster: Signature Spectral Shredding - John 5 is known for owning a Telecaster from every year of production. When he goes out on tour, you're always sure to see a plethora of cool Teles. John had an awesome mirror Tele signature, but now he's back with an even wilder looking guitar, in the Ghost Tele. The red, white and black color scheme is cool to look at, with even the fretboard being white. And in true John 5 fashion, there's an arcade button style kill switch for some muting madness. The guitar isn't the only thing Fender released though - with picks, a strap and more as part of the new collection.
- What Scale Was Eddie Van Halen Using?! - Eddie Van Scale-n. Ben Eller shows us a very straightforward 1,2,4 pattern that Eddie used all the time to great effect. The trick here is the ability to use a bunch of notes that might not be in the traditional scale, but starting and ending on a "right note”.
- Building 5150 Studios | The Van Halen 1984 Documentary Episode 1 - The Tapes Archive is doing an amazing 5 episode Van Halen 1984 documentary. The first two episodes are already up - in the first ep, the channel shows how 5150 Studios came to be. I love seeing well-made fan documentaries. If you were ever interested in a really great behind the scenes look at VH during these important years, check this series out!
- How Intervals Could TRANSFORM Your Playing and How to Practice Them - If you're looking to practice scales in a different way than just running up and down the pattern, check out this video from John Cordy. He shows us how to practice familiar scale patterns, but in different interval steps.
- Professional Guitarist Reacts to "Guitar Playing" in Commercials - If you want a laugh, watch this new video from Stevie T. If you're a guitar player and have watched any commercial lately, it's super rare that the actor is actually playing guitar. Stevie breaks down some of the best "playing" in commercials.
- Tribute to Jeff Beck - Gary Clark Jr.; Eric Clapton - 2023-05-23 - ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers – The Tribute to Jeff Beck concert happened this week, and there were a number of great performances. One of the best though, had to be Clapton and Gary Clark Jr. playing “Cause We've Ended As Lovers". I think they do the iconic Beck track justice. If you want even more Jeff Beck, check out the recently released 3 song ‘Jeff Beck Tribute EP’.
- Watch Foo Fighters play their first show with new drummer Josh Freese – and is that Dave Grohl’s new Gibson DG-335 signature guitar? - When Taylor Hawkins died, I wasn't sure what the future held for the Foo Fighters. But I'm so glad that they decided Josh Freese was the man to fill Hawkins' chair. Freese is a fantastic drummer, and I hope he'll fit in with the rest of the band. The Foos played their first live show with Freese just the other day, and Grohl was sporting a new DG-335, in a white that matches the aesthetic of their new album cover.
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!
Where was YouTube when I started learning. To my disgust I was sent to a school where playing rugby was the highest honour you could aim for. Music was 40 minutes a week focused on the lowest denominator in the class, ie., a class to skive off in. So I taught myself, the way a lot of people did, by playing along with records. Then as I started to learn more and play with other people, we helped each other with licks and chords. I was musical and came from a musical family. I knew what worked instinctively, but I didn't know why. 10 years later I went to the Creative School of Musicianship where I studied everything from single string, to harmony, modes and other aspects of theory. Suddenly I understood why things worked. They still made it complicated, perhaps because of their studies at Berklee Music in Boston, or because of the books they modeled their courses around. I thought, why couldn't someone have shown me this when I first started? The videos you share, such as Chris Sherman and Simon Allaway are awesome. For which my thanks.