1) Tales from the gig. Monthly feature with a lesson we can all learn from.

2) Readers questions. Answers to your questions concerning guitar related issues.

Tales From The Gig

The Top Ten Things You Hear At A Gig.

10. Turn down, you're too loud!
9. Heard at a sports bar-Wait until after the game to start.
8. Will you guys take 100 bucks less and quit early?
7. You're pretty good but my cousin(uncle, brother, etc) plays guitar, you should hear him.
6. I play guitar, can I sit in?
5. Can you play something we can dance to?
4. How long are you guys going to be on break? You've been off for 10 minutes now.
3. What kind of guitar is that?
2. You sound just like ________. (Fill in the blank)

And the number one thing that you hear on a gig,

1. Freebird!

I hope you found these to be amusing. The lesson for me in all this is to always try to have a good sense of humor about things, not to take myself too seriously and remember why I play guitar in the first place.....because I love it!

Happy Holidays and may the New Year bring you all nothing but the best!

Reader Questions

Thanks...Kenny

In the last issue we started a discussion on playing lead guitar and how to develop a theme and variations. If you haven't read the last newsletter take a moment to do so now and come back here. Click here to see issue 7. In this months newsletter I would like to expand upon the ideas presented last time and present a couple of new ideas to help you play lead guitar.

One of the best ways to increase your skill level is to learn licks or solos by your favorite players. This adds to your vocabulary of ideas you can draw from. I don't think you have to try to sound like your favorite players, just copy the licks to see how they are applying scales, arpeggios, etc to their playing and find ways to apply it to yours.

Let's look at a couple of real life examples.

Ex.1

This lick is borrowed from Jimmy Page. It's very similar to the opening lick from the Stairway To Heaven solo. I left off the opening bend and changed the last note so that all off the notes would be in the pentatonic scale.

--5------------------------------------------------------
-----8--5-----------------------------------------------
-------------7--5------7--5---------------------------
---------------------7---------7--5--7----------------
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------

Ex 2.

This example is based on a lick from Metallica that can be heard on "Ride The Lightning." I changed the key and shortened the actual lick but the notes are in the same order that they were played in the original solo.

----------------------5----------5--8--5------5-------
------5--8--5-----------8--5-------------8-----------
--7--------------7--------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------

After learning these you now have two more ideas from the pentatonic scale to add to your own solos. To add even more, and this is where the fun starts, combine parts of each lick to see what you can come up with. Here are a couple of mine.

Ex. 3

This example use the first 4 notes of example 2 and all of example 1 but the last 2 notes.

------------------5-------------------------------------
------5--8--5-------8--5-----------------------------
--7--------------------------7--5------7--5----------
-------------------------------------7----------7------
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------

Ex. 4

See if you can figure out how I put them together in this lick.

-----------------------------------------5----------
---5-------------------------5--8--5-------8------
-------7--5------7--5--7-------------7--------------
---------------7----------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------

Get these under your fingers and incorporate them into your playing immediately. Create some more variations with these ideas and other licks that you already know. Have fun and experiment. Next month we will continue to explore ways to help you continue to grow as a lead guitarist.

Best Wishes,

Bob

NLP allows you to uncover the structure of your own and someone else's internal thought processes. By understanding the structure of how another person is able to accomplish something, whether it's how to spell, speed reading, writing a book, etc, you can model that and produce a similar result yourself. One of the main uses of NLP has been developing accelerated learning strageties.

I recently came across a book that uses the principals of NLP to help you learn guitar. This is not another book full of scales, chords, etc, but a book about how to use your brain to help you streamline the way you learn guitar. The information in this book, if put to use, will be an effective aid in helping you to learn to play the guitar. You can check it out here.

Turn that knowledge and passion into an income stream on the internet. Even if you know nothining about programming, html, meta tags, etc, its possible to be successful at making money on the net. To see how others are doing exactly that and what tools they are using go here.

I really appreciate any comments both good and bad that you might have.

If you have any comments at all let me have it right between the eyes.

To your guitar playing success.

Best wishes,

Bob