Guitar Treats

Keeping up with the best guitar lessons, contests, stories, and more!

Prince Guitar Lesson, How to Practice Licks, ZZ Top

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Prince has been known to be protective of his material when it comes to Youtube. So even though Ben Eller goes out of his way not to mention it, I’ll let you know that this video lesson features the opening guitar lick from When Doves Cry. It’s a fast distorted lick that will turn heads.

One way to get to know a lick and your fretboard is to try moving the lick around. Robert Renman goes further in depth on this concept and shows you how to work this concept into your practice routine. You can also take a similar concept and apply to it rhythm guitar and different chord shapes around the neck. Check out our Moveable Blues lesson for more on that.

Jody Worrell has a new lesson out on learning a rocking blues lick in the style of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. The lick is played of a backing track of G-F in 12/8 time. We’ll use the minor pentatonic scale while still stating the chord changes of the backing track with our note selection.

How to Practice New Chord Progressions & Strum Patterns

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As you continue to learn new songs on your guitar, you’ll encounter chords or strum patterns you’ve never played before. In these videos, you’ll find Peter Vogl’s game plan for efficiently practicing new chord progressions. We use a basic strum and chords in these songs, but these exercises can be applied to any new song or advanced technique that you’re learning.

em-b7-chordsFor our first session, we’re going to use Em and B7 as our chords in this example. We’ll start by learning how to play each chord correctly. Next, Peter will show you how to practice changing between these chords. Finally, we’ll start slow and gradually speed up the pace as you practice making the change along with Peter.
em-b7-strum-patternIn the second session, we’ll learn a strum pattern to play over the same chords. We’ll start by focusing on just playing the pattern correctly and ignoring the left hand. Once we have that down, we’ll practice the pattern along with the chords at increasing speeds

 

By isolating the chords, changes, and pattern, you can really focus on your technique and make sure you’re playing everything correctly. Trying to jump into each piece of music at full speed can cause you to develop bad habits. This type of focused and detailed practice will allow you to identify trouble areas to work on and improve as a guitarist.

Stevie Wonder Lesson | Classical and Bluegrass Exercises

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Stevie Wonder’s Master Blaster (Jammin’) has always been a personal favorite of mine. Stevie’s take on reggae has a combination of great horn parts over an unforgettable groove. Justin Sandercoe has created a guitar arrangement for the song that becomes a really fun lesson to play around with.

Bluegrass Speed: Learn how to utilize crosspicking to play up tempo flatpicking licks. Jake Stephens will show you how to pick through chord shapes using a down-down-up or alternate picking pattern.

Classical Guitar Exercises: Our first practice session on playing tremolos will teach the basics of this essential technique. By playing a note three times in a row on the same string, you can create a shimmering sound.  In our follow up video, we’ll use a planting technique to develop more speed and control with tremolos.

Let us know if you saw any other great lessons around the web this week.

Uptown Funk & Classic R&B Guitar Lessons

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During the early part of 2015, no song may have been bigger than Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk. The song is a throwback to the early 80’s funk scene and features guitar riffs similar to Prince and other artists from the era. In the video below, Andy Crowley will walk you through the collection of small guitar parts that combine to create this dance classic. You can check out our funk lessons for more on playing rhythm. If you’re looking for an easier interpretation of Uptown Funk that you can sing along with, try out the Guitar Goddess’ lesson.

 

Our own new free lesson features Jody Worrell teaching you a Robert Cray Style Lick. This is an upbeat and expressive lick that features some exact techniques to create it’s tone. Learn the lick using the on-screen tab and then trade it back and forth with Jody against the jam track. If you like it, learn an entire Cray style solo and more with our Master of Blues lesson package.

Modal Theory, Choosing Tonewoods, and a Warm Up Drill

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joe-satrianiModal Theory: Modes and Music Theory—two terms that can make the uneducated cringe, while those in-the-know smirk with their powerful knowledge.

It’s not really that mystifying, especially once you understand how it all works. A “mode” is just a name for a scale. However many notes are in a given scale—that’s how many modes there are. For example, if you take the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, (C), you have seven notes that make up this scale. If you start in a different place, and follow the pattern D, E, F, G, A, B, C, (D), then you’re still playing the same notes but a different “mode.”

Head over to Guitar World to learn from the modal master, Joe Satriani, and expand your chops!

TonewoodChoosing Tonewoods: When selecting or building an acoustic guitar, our first focus for wood may be the top, as it’s the soundboard, but the back and sides need not be neglected. There’s several points to consider when selecting tonewoods:

  • Cosmetics
  • Structure
  • Durability

These are three key factors that play a huge role in the craftsmanship of a guitar. You check out the specifics over at Premier Guitar.

Warm Up Drill: We have two new practice sessions that will get you comfortable using different positions of the Am Pentatonic Scale. Lesson 1 will teach you the exercise and Peter will play along with you at two different speeds. In Lesson 2 we’ll try using a triplet rhythm and speeding things up a bit.