New albums from Vai and Gales, how to collect pedals, what to use over blues progressions

Plus big news about this newsletter!

I told you I’d have cool stuff coming for Chasing Sound in 2022, and the first announcement is that I’m moving this newsletter to Substack (you’re reading it now)! I’ve only switched e-mail providers one other time, so this is a big deal for me. What’s that mean for you, the reader? Not much will change, other than a little formatting if you’re on the free subscription. But, if you’d like to support what I do, now you have the option of paying monthly or yearly for a subscription to Six String Sunday Club.

This newsletter will continue to go out every Sunday, just like it has for years, to all you great subscribers. I’m taking Chasing Sound a bunch more seriously this year and giving it a lot more time - giving you guys the ability to support what I do makes that more of a reality.

Coming this spring I’ll be adding more perks for paid subs! Keep an eye out as I have so much cool stuff planned. Whether you stick around and enjoy the weekly newsletter for free, or you help in other ways (sharing the newsletter, etc.) I appreciate you very much. Alright, let’s get into this week’s links.

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• UNLEASH the Frilly Shirt FURY!!! Weekend Wankshop 320 w/Ben Eller - First up we have a great lesson from Ben Eller, who’s bringing the shred (puffy shirt, and all) with his Yngwie-esque harmonic minor licks. He also gives us some great alternate picking exercises to help get these exercises up to speed. Also this week, he put out another video from Sweetwater, where Nick Bowcott and Ben sare some of their favorite Pantera riffs.

• Steve Vai release ‘Inviolate’ - I’ve been playing Vai’s new album ‘Inviolate’ all weekend, and absolutely loving it. It’s one of his shortest albums at around 47 minutes, but each song packs a punch. Recently Vai caught up with The Captain at Andertons to talk the new album, recording, his new Ibanez Hydra, and much more.

• Eric Gales releases ‘Crown’ - I’ve been waiting for this album for a long, long time! Produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith, who are heavy hitters in their own right, ‘Crown’ sees Eric Gales take his guitar playing, songwriting and overall production to a whole new level. There’s Hendrix-y and SRV style blues rock, there’s funk, gospel and more. I’m going to be listening to this album a lot over the next few weeks. And if you’re in the market for a cool Strat style guitar, check out Gales’ Magneto signature.

• How To Adjust Pickups For Better Balance | Guitar Tech Tips | Ep. 91 | Thomann - Some people shy away from fixing or setting up their guitars, but it’s actually easier than you think. Stop by our Discord channel if you have any questions! In this video, Thomann guitars shows us how to adjust humbucker and single coil pickups, so they’re more even in their output volume.

• How To Tighten Loose Guitar Knobs and Controls - Want to keep going with fixing your guitar? One of Gibson’s master luthiers shows us how to tigthen jacks, knobs, pots and more.

• Mike Ness 1976 Les Paul Deluxe - Speaking of Gibson, I had to share this awesome 1976 Les Paul Deluxe, Mike Ness signature model, that’s Murphy aged to boot. Mike is the guitarist and frontman, for the iconic punk band Social Distortion. I love looking at guitars like this, but that $9000 price tag is a bit out of my league.

• My 7 Best Jazz Licks with Only Four Notes - I love short lessons like this one from Jens Larsen, which give us a bunch of 4 note jazz licks to add to our vocabulary. If you’re just getting into jazz soloing, this a nice lesson to add into your warmup.

• How To Collect Pedals - Josh from JHS has a lot…a LOT of guitar pedals in his collection. I really enjoyed watching this video from the Patreon vault, where he discusses his thoughts on how to start collecting pedals.

• Guthrie Govan’s INCREDIBLE ‘Circus Funk’ Technique | Reaction with Mitch Laddie - Mitch Laddie looks back on Guthrie Govan’s “circus funk” video, where he displays his incredible right hand technique. I had to agree with Mitch, that we’re very fortunate to have Guthrie’s lessons all over YouTube.

• How to get a Guitar Job in 2022 | with Guillaume Chenin | Guitar Stories Live #61 - This year has to see a real return to live music, right? Guillaume Chenin sits down with the guys over at TheGuitarGeek channel to discuss how you can get a job in the guitar world in 2022. Whether it be teaching, gigging, or starting your own channel, there’s lots of ways to make some money with guitar.

• What Makes An Intermediate Guitarist? - I feel like so many guitarists I talk to are at that stage where they’ve got most of the basics down, and they want to “level up”, but they don’t know what to practice. In this vid, Rhett Shull breaks down what he thinks makes an intermediate guitar player - and not only is the lesson good, but the comments section has lots of helpful tips too.

• Why would anyone need SO MANY pedals?! - Brian Wampler answers the meme question, “why would anyone need so many pedals?” and other questions from non-musicians.

• Why The Blues Scale Sucks - Ross Campbell shows us what scales to play over dominant blues chords. Spoiler…it’s not the blues scale!

• Learn 5 Rockabilly Guitar Intros in 5 Minutes - Chet, Perkins, Setzer and Moore! - Chet Atkins, Brian Setzer, and Johnny Cash all had some killer countrified/rockabilly intros to their songs. Adrian Whyte shows us how to play 5 cool intros in under 6 minutes.

• 3 Ways to Use Chromatic in Your Rock Solos. WS Ep 86 - Many of the guys we talk about week in and week out on this newsletter use chromatic notes in their lead playing. Guys like Thornley, Petrucci, Morse and more. Andy Wood breaks down how we can use chromatic notes in our own playing. If it seems like I’m linking to Andy a lot lately, it’s because his lessons have been on fire the past couple of weeks.

• 10 ICONIC GUITAR SOLOS (everyone should know) - Paul Davids put together a list of 10 iconic solos that everyone should learn. Older classics like the solo to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” to newer songs like John Mayer’s “Gravity”. Start getting these solos under your fingers, and you’ll be surprised at just how much new stuff you learn from them.

• 15 AWESOME Guitar Exercises That Are Actually Useful - Want to get better at technique, without playing boring exercises? Check out these 15 examples from Cam Cooper, who’s using a blindingly neon yellow Charvel. Cooper pulled these exercises from some awesome players like Gus G., Wylde, Satchel and more to come up with these fun to play licks.

• Sick of writing boring chord progressions? - If you’re tired of playing traditional cowboy or even barre chords, you should check out Johnathan Cordy’s new vid. In it, he shows us 7 interesting chords to play over a C root note. Including even 1–2 of these from time to time will ‘level up’ your sound.

• Dumble Amps: 10 Guitarists on the Late Legend’s Designs - Last week I mentioned that we lost a legend in the amp world, Howard Dumble. This week, Premier Guitar put together 10 players like Bonamassa, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robben Ford and more to talk about why he was so prolific.

• Chasing Sound Live! Episode 15 - On yesterday’s livestream I talked about all the new changes coming to the newsletter, and what that means for subscribers. I also shared my thoughts on the new Vai and Gales albums, talked about some great new lessons from this week’s newsletter, and took a look at new offerings from Fender and their brands.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for being subbed to Six String Sunday, I appreciate you reading!

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