What makes Zakk Wylde so awesome?
Plus, a wild amp-modeling robot!
I have a shorter than usual issue for you this weekend, and that’s for two reasons. The boring one is that because of “life stuff”, I’m writing this on Saturday (fwiw I usually write the majority of the newsletter on Thursday and then wrap it up Saturday with any last minute news/videos). The fun one, is that I’m headed to see Chicago tonight, along with Earth, Wind and Fire. I’m going to try and have some photos of that for next week’s newsletter. So let’s jump right into this week’s links! If I missed anything awesome, please let me know.
This week’s guitar links!
A Zakk Wylde Primer - This series from Premier Guitar just hit my radar this week. Nick and Jason talk about a guitarist each week that PG thinks you should know about. This week's episode is about Zakk Wylde. The great thing about this episode is that they cover more than just his work with Ozzy - they get into his solo albums Black Label Society and more. I'm going to dip into the rest of these episodes, as they've already covered Vernon Reid, Brian May, Andy Summers, David Gilmour and others.
Andy Timmons: Approaching a solo as a mini composition - This is the accompanying video from Andy Timmons' Oct '24 Guitar World column. I don't always link to these, but I thought this one was interesting. Timmons talks about how solos can be songs inside of songs. He uses a song he recently called “All For Me”, where he spent a lot of time really composing the solo, rather than straight improvising. I enjoyed this lesson a lot, and now I'm looking to give the entire album a spin.
Paul Gilbert – The Process of Translation | AMS Interview - Paul Gilbert is one of my all time favorite guitarists - he always seems to be doing something new and exciting, and his love for all things music is inspiring. He recently sat down with the guys at American Musical Supply, where they talk about how he puts all sorts of musical ideas onto the fretboard, how the guitar "keeps him out of trouble", making cool Ibanez guitars, and a lot more.
Chordplay - The Chords Of John Mayall - We recently lost John Mayall, but thankfully we have tons of great music from his career to learn from. This week, David at Late Night Lessons teaches us 3 ideas from the Clapton/Green/Taylor years. This was one of my favorite lessons of the week.
Deep Dive: Scale Sequencing - Practicing scales up and down is extremely boring. I never recommend practicing them in this way. I do like what Chris Sherland is talking about in his latest video - where he talks all about scale sequences. This helps to break up the monotony of boring up and down patterns. After you start learning a scale this way, you should try and play it over a backing track as soon as possible.
How To Play "Down" with Nick Hexum of 311 - If you were a kid in the 90’s, it's likely you were into 311. At least, I know I was. 311's song "Down" was all over radio and MTV constantly. I've followed the band since that album, and they've put out a ton of great music. In this video, Nick Hexum (who plays guitar and is the lead vocalist in the band) teaches us the riff to “Down". Not only is the riff fun, Nick breaks out two beautiful Gibson guitars in the video, including one with an old favorite piece of gear that I used to use, the sustainer.
John Mayer plans to play Dead & Company shows with just three fingers after injuring his fretting hand index finger - File under: the show must go on. What happens when you slam one of your most important fingers in a truck door? If you're John Mayer, you continue playing the Dead and Co. tour with your other 3 digits.
Neural DSP’s new TINA robot uses machine-learning to model amps with “unparalleled precision” - I'm a #FractalGuy but I'm always interested in new and exciting modelling in the guitar world. Just this week, Neural DSP announced a pretty wild “data collection robot" that models all sorts of amps with incredible accuracy. You have to check out the post for Neural DSP's launch video. Needless to say, we've come a long way since the early modelers, and I can't wait to hear what happens next!