Is new Van Halen music on the way?
Plus, “a-ha” moments you’ll wish you learned sooner
This week, I’ve got a mix of lessons, interviews, and some interesting guitar news to share. There’s a great Jack Ruch video on making your rhythm playing smoother, a deep dive into fretboard visualization, and Tosin Abasi talking about his approach to guitar. Plus, some big updates from Van Halen and Pantera, along with solid lessons on soloing, triads, and the circle of fifths. Lots of good stuff to check out—let’s get into it.
This week’s guitar links!
Improve Your Rhythm Guitar Playing Immediately! - If it seems like I link to Jack Ruch often, it's because I think his lessons always provide an immense amount of value, in a short amount of time. Not to mention, he's always playing a great sounding guitar, and has the most dynamic playing I've seen in years. This video focuses on major and minor chords, and ultimately combining the two, along with some cool flourishes. These small ideas, all presented in under 7 mins will make your rhythm playing sound smooth.
How I Relearnt The Fretboard Properly After 20 Years Blagging It - Q&A Practice Stream Ep1 - I've been getting back into Tom Quayle and David Beebee's app Solo. It's a great app you can use to learn the fretboard, by bringing up chord changes and trying to hit the right scale degrees that you're presented with. David has been doing a practice series where he talks about he relearned the fretboard after decades. If you're into this thing, check out the app and the fretboard visualization course that goes with it.
Ernie Ball String Theory ft. Tosin Abasi - Tosin Abasi showed up on Ernie Ball's String Theory series to talk about his unique style, how Animals As Leaders came to be, why he chose Ernie Ball, and more. My favorite part was how Tosin talked about how he stays inspired - not only is he inspired by so many new guitarists doing new stuff on the guitar, he also feeds off the crowd when he's playing live. He also talks about being a “maximalist" on guitar, and how he makes that work for his songwriting.
My 3 Best "A-HA" Discoveries That Will SKYROCKET Your Guitar Skills! - This was one of my favorite videos of the week. The “a-ha discoveries” aren’t things you’ve never heard of before - triads, modes, and intervals - but the way that these discoveries were explained, was why I loved this video so much. If you feel overwhelmed when you’re learning guitar, going back to basics is always a good idea.
“There is no-one who can do this process with me as well as he can”: Alex Van Halen says a new Van Halen album is in the works – and he’s recruited Steve Lukather to help him complete it - This news actually sounds legit, coming from Alex Van Halen. Between this and the news about new Pantera music (see below), I’m very excited. I’d love to hear new Van Halen songs, and I’m sure Lukather could do it justice. We also had Ben Eller put out a killer video with VH riffs, featuring that sweet, sweet Van Hagar-era tone. Check that out here.
Practice Scales and Modes Like the PROS - John Scofield and Allen Hinds Do This For MELODIC Solos - Great video from John Cordy that shows us how to go from scales to actually playing melody. Cordy shows us how Scofield practices scales not in a straight up and down manner, but jumping around the scale. Then he shows us how to apply it to all modes, using C as a starting point. If your solos are sounding too scalar, and not super musical, check this video out.
Circle of Fifths Explained (For Guitar) - How to actually USE the Circle of 5ths guitar lesson - First time I’m linking to Active Melody, thanks to friend of the newsletter Kirk (thanks for the heads up!) This video shows us how to actually apply the circle of 5ths to guitar and writing music. They start with showing us how to find the 1,4, and 5 in any key, what the relative minor is, and much more. If you want a “cheat sheet” on what chords work with each other, this is a great place to start.
Open Voice Triads 101 - Chris Sherland is one of my favorite guitar teachers on YouTube. This week’s video focuses on understanding open voice triads. If you want to start to play lines similar to Eric Johnson or Steve Morse, open voice triads are where it’s at. It’s easy to see how these triads are created, but Chris helps us understand where we’d want to use them.
Molly Tuttle’s Acoustic Acrobatics on “San Joaquin” | Shred with Shifty - Molly Tuttle’s acoustic playing is some of the most exciting stuff out there. She recently joined Chris Shiflett on his Shred With Shifty podcast. I’ve linked to the podcast before - it takes solos from different songs, and has the guitarist explain them and teach them to Chris right on the podcast. This episode features some incredible playing from the “San Joaquin” song.
Soloing Secrets - Peter Green - Soloing Secrets it's one of my favorite series from David Brewster. This episode focuses on Peter Green, and features some incredible blues rock licks that I'll immediately be trying to steal and make my own. I love it when David picks licks from different times in an artist’s life - this one has licks from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Fletwood Mac, and from some of Green’s solo material.
John 5 - In studio - Working on new material - I love seeing behind the scenes/early days demos of songs before they hit an album. Here, John 5 is in the studio working on a new song called “Fiend". John has a lot going on these days - not only is he in Motley Crue, he's also focusing on solo material, working on a documentary, and opening his Kiss museum. You can read more about everything he's doing here.
“If they were Dime's original riffs and ideas, of course”: Zakk Wylde says he's open to recording new Pantera music – but only based on Dimebag Darrell's existing ideas - Pantera coming back at all ruffled a lot of feathers. I'll be the first to say I didn't know how I felt about it, but after watching them open up for Metallica, it felt like they did the old band justice. Now, Zakk Wylde has talked about potentially releasing new music, based on Dime's riff tapes from back in the day. I've always loved this music, so of course I want to hear more of it. What are your thoughts on this potentially happening?
Great newsletter as always. Thanks for putting in the time and effort to keep this going!