How’s it going guys. My name is John McClennan
and I’m here with guitarcontrol.com, bringing you
this video lesson. I want to talk about how to get
just an overall better sound from your playing and
from your hands.
One of the things that happened to me just over
the years of playing is I had a studio set up in
my house and I’d have my amp and the amp was in
an iso booth and it was mic’ed up and for me to
just plug in and play I had to turn on my computer,
I had to turn on the amp, I had to turn on the
speakers, I had to turn on the studio monitors,
the pedalboard and the micro pre and everything.
So there were just so many steps just to sit down
and play.
What happened is I found myself just playing so
much just like this… You can barely hear it,
just electric — my electric guitar not plugged
in, just acoustically.
Remember the notes that we’re playing and everything,
it’s the same, but what’s so important about having
a good, clean amp is just the ability to hear the
the sound coming from your fingers and working on your
tone. So I went out and bought a small, little practice
amp, a Fender Princeton, and that’s my practice amp.
It’s just as easy as, oh, I want to play. I plug one
cable in and I flick a switch and I’m playing.
So that’s set-up.
And then just listen to the sound that your fingers make.
You want to try and find the right spot on the fret.
So if I’m going to play this note right here, what I
want to do is I don’t want to be back here where it’s
buzzy. I want to get right up close next to the fret,
but not on the fret, because if I play on the fret it’s
muted. You need to start to set your default for every
single note, whether it’s in a chord or a lick or you’re
soloing, whatever, to optimal tone. Fingers on the tips
and playing right up close next to the frets.
Work on your sound constantly and make sure that you’re
plugging into an amp and you can just have a good,
clean tone. Forget playing with tons of effects.
Work on your sound in your hands. Guitar players
have a saying. They say tones in the hands. You could
give Eric Clapton a Squire guitar and he’s going to
make it sound amazing. You could give some random kid
on the street, who doesn’t play guitar, Eric Clapton’s
model guitar and he’s not going to make it sound like
Eric Clapton. It’s not going to sound amazing.
It’s because of the tone is in the hands.
Click the link below and we’ll see you in the next video.
