Marco Sfogli’s masterclass on melody

Plus, do you prefer to rent/buy your guitar courses?

If you love melodic rock guitar, this week’s issue is for you. I’m diving into There’s Hope by Marco Sfogli - one of the most expressive and inspiring instrumental albums out there - and pairing it with his brand-new JTC masterclass. His tone and melodic playing always pushes me to slow down my practice rather than noodle aimlessly. I’m also grabbing Tom Bukovac’s new course and asking - do you prefer to rent your guitar lessons or own them for life? Let’s jump into this week’s issue!

🔊Turn This Up

I’ve been a big fan of guys who show up on JTC Guitar over the years - players like Guthrie Govan, Martin Miller, Justin Derrico, and Marco Sfogli. If you’re looking to improve your instrumental guitar chops, their platform is where you want to be. This week I’m recommending the album There's Hope by Marco Sfogli.

Released in 2008, this is some of Marco’s most inspired playing. Songs like “Andromeda” showcase beautiful and clever lead lines, “Texas BBQ” shows off that this mostly rock guitarist can shred country lines, the title track “There’s Hope” shows off Marco’s Petrucci-esque riff building, and “Memories” is a touching, more subdued ballad.

If you’re into this album, I can also suggest his latest which came out in 2023, Welcome to Ooglyworld. It was one of my favorite guitar albums of that year, and proves that instrumental music can still be fun. If you're into Marco's style, check out the course I'm recommending below.

❓Sunday Sound Off

This week has been somethin’ else for my wallet - picking up a new course from Marco Sfogli, and the long awaited course from Tom Bukovac. All of this got me thinking, do you prefer to subscribe/rent your courses or do you like owning them outright? Let me know in the poll below, and also comment to let me know why.

📝 Course of the Week

Tying in to our album recommendation of the week, I’m also recommending Marco Sfogli’s new course on JTC Guitar, simply titled The Marco Sfogli Masterclass. I’ve always loved Marco’s playing, which led me to another one of his courses on the site that goes over melodic rock soloing. Having played the guitar for a couple of decades, I’d much rather be wowed by someone’s melodic capabilities, than their technical ones. The cool thing is that Sfogli combines both exceptional playing ability and great melodies.

In his new masterclass for JTC he focuses on what he does to warm up, techniques that he uses constantly like smart tapping and legato, and tapping into intervals to make ear catching melodies. There’s all of this and much more. I’m only a few lessons in, and I’m already loving his thought process when it comes to writing leads. Plus, every bit of music has interactive tab, which has always been so helpful - this allows you to slow things down, loop, and more. One of my favorite ways to practice.

So, that’s what I’m working on this week, a bit of Sfogli and a bit of Bukovac, and I have a lot of hours of practice in my future. What are you working on this week?

---

🔗 This Week’s Guitar Links

• Carl Verheyen's Intervallic Arpeggios - Carl Verheyen sits amongst studio legends like Carlton and Lukather, having worked with everyone from Dolly Parton and the Beegees to Seinfeld and Supertramp. This lesson from David Brewster goes over an older Guitar Player article, where Verheyen talked about using intervalic arpeggios. If you want your leads to sound less scaley and more unique and angular, this is a great place to start. It includes some cool string skipping ideas that you can experiment with.

• How To Build Your Own Fingerstyle Arrangements | Guitar Lesson - I loved this video from Acoustic Guitar Magazine. Using “Greensleves" as an example, they teach us how to build our own fingerstyle arrangement - first focusing on learning the melody, adding an easy bassline, and then adding additional notes and all sorts of different techniques to make it sound unique. When you build the arrangement this way, it becomes a lot less daunting. If you've made any cool fingerstyle arrangements of your own, I'd love to check them out.

• 4 Easy Hacks for Endless Fast Licks - Troy Downward came up in the Discord chat this week, and in a bit of synchronicity, he came out with a super helpful video on how to make long and fast licks. The tips focus on repeating patterns, moving amongst string sets, position shifts and a lot more. Just like the fingerstyle video above, if you use some of these "hacks", difficult licks become a lot more approachable.

• Triads Are The Real Key To Learning Guitar! - One of the best videos of the week comes from Guthrie Trapp. Trapp talks about one of my favorite topics - triads. Not only how they're the building blocks of chords, but how you can use them to create tension, how you can connect them, and how to use triads not only as a chord device, but to help your lead playing too. If you want to learn about the technique side of your triad shapes, check out this video from Dan Seriff (that's two links to Seriff's channel in the same vid, so you know his lessons are good).

• Mixing Triads with Pentatonics gives you endless Blues lead ideas - Guitar Lesson - ML116 - This might be one of the first times I'm linking to Active Melody's YouTube channel. This week's video talks about one of my favorite topics - triads, and how to put them into/visualize them in your pentatonic scales for hitting those sweet chord tones. Not only does it talk about the targets, it also focuses on what notes sound good when bent, and how to work over certain chords in your typical blues progression. If you're into blues, you should check this one out.

• 4 Shapes That Changed Everything For Me - Hey, let’s take things a step further. We’re already working on triads, so why not apply all this awesome knowledge to the good ol’ pentatonic boxes? Check out this video by Ricky Comiskey. It breaks down 4 shapes that’ll help you visualize the fretboard in a super cool way. In my opinion, these are the best videos to learn from, because they’re basically shortcuts to making awesome music instead of just noodling around.

• Cory Wong // Syncopated Summer Camp (Rhythm Section Masterclass 1) - We're seriously so lucky these days with the amount of educational content that's online for free. Case in point - Cory Wong posting this 1 hour long rhythm masterclass from his Syncopated Summer Camp. Cory talks about mindset, working on the arrangement and the type of feel, when to be ahead, behind or dead in the pocket, and so much more. If you want to work on your rhythm chops, start here.

• The SECRET to using CHROMATIC notes - Chromatic passing tones are like the glue that holds your licks together and makes them sound more exciting. But rather than using them randomly, you can make them have a bigger impact. In this video, Jack Ruch uses a few 2-5-1 progressions to show how to target the root, 3rd, 5th and b7. After watching this video, try adding chromatic notes and moving to those chord tones while playing your licks. If you want more in the style of this video, check out this lesson from Daniel Seriff. Daniel talks about moving away from noodling, using silence effectively, using repetition, call and response and much more. It was one of my favorite videos all week.

• 11 alternate and open tunings every guitarist should know - If you're getting bored with standard tuning, or you just want to try and spark new song ideas, an alternate tuning is a great way to get where you want to go. Guitar World put together this great lessons on 11 tunings you can try. If you've never messed with alternate tunings before, my advice for you is to start with something simple like Drop D, where you're simply tuning your low E string down a full step. Then, move on to some open tunings where you can have these insta-chords. Experimenting with a new tuning could inspire you to write something you would've never written in standard.

• How To Learn ANY Guitar Song By Ear, Step-by-Step - Want to work on ways to hone your ear? Rick Beato did a livestream this week that gives you a ton of different ways to identify chords, if a song is using a capo, is the song being played by a 12 string guitar, the difference between perfect and relative pitch, and a lot more. Also on Beato’s channel this week, Paul Reed Smith stopped by the studio to explain everything guitar pickups. Paul talks about everything from pickup covers to magnets, hum canceling vs. single coils and a lot more. If you ever wanted to learn about one of the most important components of a guitar, check this one out.