How to Unlock Your Fretboard
Plus, Fender goes gold
When It Rains, It Pours
What a week it has been. One of my kids came down with covid, and my furnace decided start acting funky in the midst of it feeling like -20 F over here in N.J. Did I mention that I teach guitar lessons, and offer a special subscribers only version of Six String Sunday Club? 😭
With that being said, I still have some quality guitar linkage for you this week. I hope you enjoy, and I’ll catch you next weekend!
This week’s links!
- How Triads TRULY Unlock The Fretboard (Ft. Ariel Posen) - One of the most effective things you can do to understand the fretboard and play the most impactful notes, is to study triads and how they work across the fretboard. Ariel Posen has done two great triad target courses for TrueFire, but recently he sat down to break some of those ideas down with Paul Davids. Start with one set of 3 strings, and learn triads in all their inversions, and then move on to other 3 string sets. Studying triads will open up your fretboard knowledge, and show why these small chords can actually sound big within the context of a band.
- Stuck With Your Guitar Practice? - This rut busting video from JustinGuitar was one of my favorites of the week. Justin talks about 10 ways to break out of a guitar practice rut, so playing guitar seems less like a chore. There's tips like getting new gear, to trying a different genre of music, and even working on songwriting. Combine this one with the video below, and you should be in great shape with your practice and inspiration.
- Why 99% of Intermediate Guitarists STOP Making Progress... - One more that's a must watch, but this one is for intermediate guitar players. This video comes from Ross Campbell, who discusses why intermediate guitarists stop making progress. These are some great tips, that hit on learning theory (and enjoying it!), working on a select number of modes, and a lot more.
- How To Play FAST on Guitar (300bpm and beyond!) | - Ben Eunson is a sight to behold when it comes to fast jazz guitar. If you want to run through the changes (whether it be fast or slow) you should check out Ben's tips about finding your fastest tempo, how to work in 10 bpm increments, and some metronome concepts to work on.
- Only Practice Lead Playing? Try This | 5 Minute Licks - If your rhythm practice has taken a back seat to lead practice, and you need to tighten up your timing, spare 5 minutes with Leon Todd this week. He has a fun, accented rhythm exercise to work on.
- 5 Minute Workout: Practice nearly EVERTHING with this exercise - And if you have another 5 minutes, and want to work on a lot of things at once (my favorite type of exercises), check out this 4 for 1 exercise from Justin Hombach.
- Cory Wong // Live At The Van Buren! - Cory Wong put together a handful of songs recorded at his 2022 performance at the Van Buren in Phoenix, AZ. If you want to catch the Vulfpeck guitarist with his solo band, he's currently on tour in the U.S.
- How the Beatles crafted the guitar and bass tones that forever changed the sound of rock music - If you were ever curious about the gear used on some of the most classic Beatles tunes, check out this great post from Guitar World. And if you ever have any Beatles recording/gear questions, let me know! I'm a huge Beatles fan, and have read more on their recording/songwriting techniques than I'd like to admit.
- John 5 reveals his guitar rig for Mötley Crüe’s upcoming world tour - Apparently John 5 is fitting in perfectly with Motley Crue. Everyone in the band has been psyched at how well he's taken over the role, with Nikki Sixx calling their tour rehearsals “f**cking epic”. GW caught up with John to go over his live rig for the Crue's upcoming tour - featuring Teles (of course), a bunch of Marshall amps, lots of Boss pedals, and more.
- Exploring the Gold Foil Collection by Fender - I have to hand it to Fender - they always seem to be coming up with new ways to make old instruments interesting again. Their latest experiment has a very "garage rock" vibe to it, as they take some of their iconic shapes and add gold foil pickups to them. If you want to hear how these guitars sound and how cool they look, check out Fender’s latest video. Are you into any of these?
- Joe Bonamassa - "The Loyal Kind" (Live) - Tales of Time - Bonamassa is giving the live treatment to his latest album ‘Time Clocks', by releasing ‘Tales of Time’ - due out in April, it was filmed at one of my all time favorite venues, Red Rocks. You can check out “The Loyal Kind” from the live album right now. H/T to Simon Allaway for finding this one.
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!