Hi Friend, So the weather’s heating up. Seems like it was just winter and now we’re heading into summer soon. And, well… like they: “Summertime’s here, need something to keep you cool” That’s a line out of “Ice Cream Man”, the classic blues song covered famously by Van Halen. So, guess what: I HAVE something …
Continuing our discussion about the Lydian mode, let’s stay in the key of E Lydian. A simple trick to making the Lydian sound come out is skip the 2nd note of the mode, and just play around with the root, 3rd, fourth, and fifth notes of the mode… With special focus on the 4th note. …
Hi Friend, Did you check out my last email? About that cool Lydian chord? If you didn’t read it, check it out… OHHH, and by the way, please make sure you’re getting all my emails. I have another cool lesson for you on the Lydian mode, but first do me a favor and check your …
If you’ve been playing guitar for more than a day, you’ve probably heard about scales and “modes”. Although they can sound mysterious, they’re really nothing more than inversions of a scale. If you have C major scale, you have the notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Then you also have: C Ionian …
Hi Friend, If you’ve been playing guitar for more than a day, you’ve probably heard about scales and “modes”. Although they can sound mysterious, they’re really nothing more than inversions of a scale. If you have C major scale, you have the notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Then you also have: …
Here’s a nice little pentatonic lick in the key of B. Make sure to pay attention to the upstrokes, downstrokes and hammerons/pulloffs. Start on an upstroke with your pick. Check it out: [audio:https://www.claudejohnson.com/blog/audio/may2011-ex1.mp3] Hey hey, if you haven’t seen our catalog yet of fine courses and products, please check it out. CLICK HERE TO SEE …
Hi Friend, I’ve got a lot of fish frying in a lot of pans. Meaning, I’ve got a lot of good guitar goodies I’m cooking up for you as usual. But since I don’t have any big dishes to serve today, I thought I’d give you just a little somethin somethin just to tide you …
Hi Friend, Wow… believe it or not, an email just came in from none other than Dweezil Zappa… regarding Derryl Gablel’s fusion guitar secrets instructional DVDs. (For those not familiar, he is the son of the late, great Frank Zappa, and an incredible guitarist in his own right) And he writes: *** “Hi Derryl, I …
Hi Friend, Here’s another neat little guitar exercise you can to improve your chops. It’s an 8-note repeating pattern using alternate picking. Kind of like the one I sent in the last email, but different. It’s cool becaues its a good one to alternate between an “up , down and back” lick and a straight …
In our last blog post, we looked at a cool picking exercise that really works our pinky. Now let’s look at another 8-note repeating pattern that uses alternate picking. Here’s the lick: In this one, the left had is not as difficult, but the picking is much more challenging. Again, I’m going to demonstrate this …