The best guitar lessons to start your year
Packed with warm ups, pentatonic ideas, and much more
Tuning Up
I have an absolutely insane amount of great links to share with you this week. I’ll keep my commentary short so you can go through each one, and see what you’re looking to get into this weekend!
For me, I just started reading two books - Dylan’s “The Philosophy of Modern Song” and the recent Eddie Van Halen Book “Eruption” by Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill (both legends of the guitar writing scene). So far they’ve been interesting - I’ll check back here when I’m done with both of them to let you know if they’re worth picking up.
Over the next few newsletters stay tuned to this space, because I’ll be letting you know all the great things coming to Chasing Sound, whether that be right here in the weekly newsletter, on YouTube, on the blog or elsewhere. It’s going to be a fun year. Alright, let’s get into this week’s links!
This Week’s Links!
- This WILL Improve Your Picking! Practice THIS! - Ben Eller might have just come up with the perfect picking exercise for your practice schedule. Whether you want to learn any style of picking, everything from alternate to economy and more, this lick is very adaptable. I'm going to slot this in to my warm ups next week.
- Challenging alternate picking with 4 notes - Animated Licks of Mika Tyyskä Ep35 - But that's not it when it comes to picking! This week, Mika Tyyska (aka Mr. Fastfinger) shows us a cool Mixo alternate picking exercise. Combine this with Ben Eller's, and you’ll be a picking master in no time.
- You NEED This Pentatonic Twisty Lick - PERFECT Warm Up! - Want one more lick that you can throw into your practice schedule? Check out this fun pentatonic run from John Cordy.
- What I Practice When I Haven't Practiced - What about if you've taken a break from guitar for a little while? Leon Todd covers what he works on after he's taken some time off from playing.
- Ernie Ball String Theory ft. Tim Henson of Polyphia - Tim Henson has been on a roll lately with Polyphia, a number of signature model guitars, and running up his fanbase on social. He just sat down with Ernie Ball, for an episode of their String Theory show. Tim talks about starting on guitar, his approach to songwriting, and more.
- 5 WAYS TO SOLO WITH PENTATONIC SCALES on GUITAR - Ben Eunson is one of the greatest teachers on YouTube, especially when it comes to jazz and blues. You have to see his mind blowing speed on some of these jazz standards. In his latest lesson, he shows us 5 ways to solo with our friend, the pentatonic scale.
- The Hidden Beauty of Johnny Cash's HURT - Paul Davids breaks down why Johnny Cash's version of “Hurt" is so powerful.
- These 3 Legendary Guitar Amps Made Rock n' Roll - If you had to think of 3 amps that have defined rock and roll, which 3 would you pick? Rhett Shull gives his take on the topic in one of his recent videos. I love that Rhett had Zac Childs in the video too, who knows a thing or two about vintage gear. Later in the week, Rhett talks about a fantastic guitarist who's making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram. You can check that video out here. What do you think of this killer slide player?
- * The Great Oz Noy | On-Stage Interview & Gear Rundown - Michael Palmisano sits down with one of my all time favorite jazz musicians, Oz Noy. Oz is a master of tasteful outside playing, using effects, and basically throwing a wrench into traditional jazz. If you're inspired after watching him talk to Michael, check out his great instructional books here.
- Michael Jackson's Beat It: the full story of the groundbreaking hit that united two of rock's best guitarists, and the 30-second solo that changed the world - From Steve Lukather to Van Halen, Guitar World goes inside the story behind Michael Jackson's classic, “Beat It”. There was a detail or two in this one that I hadn't heard about before....studio monitors on fire?!
- The Collection: Brad Whitford of Aerosmith - Legendary Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford sat down with Gibson's Mark Agnesi to show off some his guitar collection. If you're into some drool worthy Les Pauls, check this video out.
- How to target chord tones with string bends and make your solos sing - If there's anything you should be focusing on this year, it's targeting chord tones. Who better to teach us but Andy Timmons, who breaks down targeting notes with bends, making the lead lines super expressive.
- Nita Strauss: “Any time you’re playing guitar, you’re improving, no matter what it is – whether you’re playing power chords or technical metal” - GW recently sat down with Alice Cooper and now Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss. Nita has been busy playing live shows, working on her solo material, and signature guitars. She talks about it all in the interview. But my favorite part is the title quote to the post, which talks about making progress each and every time you sit down with the guitar.
- Wolfgang Van Halen looks back on his mammoth year: “I’m not a guitarist of the year – I’m just a dude” - GW also sat down with another guitarist of the year, Wolfgang Van Halen, who's been making waves with Mammoth WVH (I listened to their debut album a ton in 2022). GW talks to Wolf about who his favorite guitarist of the year is, the passing of his father, goals for the band's upcoming album, and more.
- Lessons you can learn from Slash‘s blues guitar solos - Whether it be mixing major and minor, using triads or more, Slash has always created some of the best blues rock lines in history. Guitar Techniques shows us a few techniques to make our lines more memorable and bluesier.
- Jared James Nichols’ Top Ten Tips for Guitarists - Speaking of great blues rock guitar players, Jared James Nichols talked to Guitar Player about his top 10 tips for guitar players. A lot of these tips have to do with personal identity - like playing what you love, and realizing that guitar isn't a competition. If you want a guitar related pick me up to start off your year, take a quick looks at JJN's tips.
- Six Simple Ways to Become a Better Guitarist - Want even more goodness in the form of a list? GP talks about 6 straightforward tips to become a better guitarist each day.
- 25 Golden Rules for Guitarists - And to round out "list season”, Guitar Player also posted the 25 golden rules for guitar players. I'm not going to lie, I laughed at the first one, but it's absolutely true. As the description says, many of these are not only guitar golden rules, but life rules. What was your favorite?
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!
So much great information and now I have to go to work. Brian, I don't know how you even have time to find all this great information. I look forward to and dread reading your posts each week, because I am so busy already. So I guess my Golden Rule has to be to make time to play every day. I love the 25 rules. The one I like the most, and loads of people I have played with don't do, is number 5, Listen. Sometimes I will go to a jam with people who just want to show off all their chops, take their turn in the limelight with a solo. It's like everyone is so into themselves, that its hard to actually jam. Some of the best jams I had when I was a teenager, was living at an urban commune, in summer, we would light a fire and have anything from 5 to 30 musicians turn up and we would jam all afternoon and into the early hours of the morning. Most of these people were really good semi pro musicians, and people would come and go. There were no egos. People were always keen to show off new chords, new techniques and share tips and tricks.