Guitarist Chuck D’Aloia has recently released an instructional lesson set titled Blues with Brains. Unlike other blues lessons that try to teach you basic pentatonic blues licks, Blues with Brains teaches you how to add a different element to your blues playing.
While you do not need to know music theory in order to benefit from the lessons D’Aloia provides, I think you’d get the most benefit from the lessons if you have a basic knowledge of blues progessions (I-IV-V) and a basic knowledge of the pentatonic scales. This is the foundation that D’Aloia starts with, and he then shows you how to take it in a different, slightly jazzier direction.
He starts off with a basic blues progression in A minor and discusses how the notes work over the chords. Some notes work better than others, and D’Aloia discusses which ones work and which ones don’t. After going over examples slowly, he then plays over a jam track to illustrate his ideas. Not only is it helpful to see Chuck play the examples, it’s just fun to hear Chuck play.
After explaining how to work with pentatonic scales, Chuck talks about dominant 7 blues and the diminished scale. Throughout all of the lessons, Chuck’s teaching style is warm and infectious. It’s clear that Chuck enjoys the music he’s playing and that he enjoys teaching it to others.
There’s a LOT of information packed into the 1:15 of Blues with Brains. I think it’ll take a number of run-throughs of the lessons in order to fully grasp the concepts Chuck is teaching, but I’ve already got some new ideas to explore.
In addition to Blues with Brains, Chuck has recently released a CD of jazz/fusion music titled Circle 7. Chuck’s playing is very tasteful and illustrates many of the concepts he goes through in Blues with Brains.
You can purchase Blues with Brains directly from Chuck as either a DVD or a download. Here’s a video sample of Blues with Brains.
Guitar Center recently posted to YouTube some videos from Joe Bonamassa’s recent guitar clinic in Hollywood, CA. In the clinic, Joe discussed a variety of topics, including his influences, his time with Danny Gatton, his signature Gibson Les Paul, his amps, his slide playing, and his chosen style of music.
One of the things that I respect about Joe Bonamassa is the fact that he’s willing to share his knowledge and experience with others. Through his 20 years as a professional musician, Joe has seen a lot and learned a lot, and he’s got a lot of information to share.
One of my favorite clips from the clinic is his discussion of his slide technique and how he really got interested in slide when he heard Ry Cooder’s playing in the movie Crossroads. That was a somewhat cheesy movie, but the guitar playing was top notch. Check out Joe discussing his slide technique:
I always want to squeeze the optimum tone out of each note. Guitarists often say that your sound comes from your technique, your guitar or your rig. That’s true to a certain degree, but in my opinion, the finger you fret with and the string you use will also drastically affect your tone. I like all the notes in my lines to have a certain cohesiveness of texture. To that extent, I constantly work out my fingerings, using any and all permutations I can to play my lines. If necessary, I will skip around the strings in order for a passage to maintain tonal consistency; that’s why I might make some fingering choices that seem odd, illogical or simply more difficult to the average guitarist.
The article provides some insight into Johnson’s approach to fret fingering with some nice examples.
While at his recent tour stop in Milwaukee, Joe Bonamassa gave an impromptu guitar lesson to young guitar prodigy Tallan “T-Man” Latz, who you might remember was recently banned from playing in bars around Wisconsin. In the lesson, Joe gives Tallan some good advice about being able to play anywhere on the fretboard.
Later that night, Tallan got to sit in with Joe at the show. What a day for Tallan!
There is no short cut to becoming a good player. Being constant in your practice is perhaps the main secret. This reminds me of Aesop’s fable about the Tortoise and the Hare. Some talented young players did not reach their potential as guitarists because they were getting by on talent and didn’t put in the daily work. Others have surprised us and reached much farther than we would have expected because they have put in the continued work.
So the only short cut is to practice every day, be constant. With tenacity and perseverance you will be able to make beautiful music on the guitar.
How you ever wanted to learn how to play slide guitar? I was searching YouTube a couple of months ago and came across some educational slide guitar videos by John Tuggle, who is a guitar teacher in Athens, GA and owner of Learning Guitar Now. John sells several blues guitar instructional videos on the site, including four that are focused on helping you learn how to play slide guitar. Specifically, John focuses on slide guitar topics in the style of Duane Allman, Warren Haynes, and Derek Trucks.
I was impressed with the YouTube videos, so I checked out John’s first video in the slide guitar series: Open E Tuning. The video features 80 minutes of instructional material, plus a PDF file containing tablature of the lessons and backing tracks that you can use to play over.
After watching the video, I like John’s instructional style. It’s clear he’s an experienced teacher. He starts off teaching the basics, including the basics of the Open E tuning. He goes over right and left hand technique in quite a bit of detail. If you’ve ever played slide guitar before, you know that it’s important to get the basic technique down right or you’ll never sound good. I like the fact that John doesn’t rush through the technique part of the video. In fact, he stresses multiple times how important it is to get the technique down before moving on.
After teaching right- and left-hand technique, John discusses the 12-bar blues progression and the major chords involved. Next, John introduces some licks from the major chords and teaches you how to play them. After you get familiar with the major chords, John goes over the minor pentatonic scale and how it can be used with slide guitar. Along the way, he provides examples and gives some helpful tips for how to use the scales in your playing. The scales part of the video is followed by some more technique exercises to help you get familiar with playing the scales.
Once you’ve got the scales down, John shows you 10 licks based on the scales you learned previously in the video. As with all the exercises, tablature is provided for each lick, which is very helpful.
Finally, John ties the lessons together in a sample slide solo. Again, tablature is provided for the solo, which should keep you busy for a little while. I like the fact that John has provided a sample solo to help you get started. Additionally, as I mentioned above, backing tracks are provided so you have some music to play over, which is a nice addition.
Learning Guitar Now’sOpen E Tuning slide guitar video is only $19.99, which is a great value considering the quality of the content you get. Nowadays, guitar lessons cost $20-25 per half hour, so you get almost three times the instruction for less than the price of one lesson. Plus, you can rewind and replay parts to help you master it. I think John’s videos are a great value and would recommend them if you’re looking to get started playing slide guitar. Check out a sample video:
Fret12 has recently released Mark Tremonti: The Sound and the Story, an instructional DVD featuring former Creed and current Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti. Thanks to Fret12, I’ve been watching the DVD over the past few weeks and highly recommend it.
Overview
The DVD is divided into three parts covering three hours of content. The first part is called “The Story” and features mostly background information about Tremonti, including a tour of his guitar rig. The second part features guitar instruction by Tremonti. The third part features guest lessons by some tremendous shredders. The DVD also comes with a 30+ page tab booklet, a Morley sticker, and a pick, which is a nice touch.
The Story
I’m somewhat of a biography buff, so I enjoyed this part. It was interesting to find out that Tremonti was only the second artist to receive a PRS signature guitar. Santana was the only other artist with a PRS signature guitar when Tremonti received his. It was also interesting to hear others speak about how much he plays the guitar; it sounds like if he’s awake, he’s playing guitar, which is probably one reason why he’s such a great guitar player. And, he is a great guitar player.
Even though he’s won numerous guitar magazine awards, in my opinion, Tremonti’s an underrated guitar player. This is partly because Tremonti was often overshadowed in Creed by frontman Scott Stapp’s numerous antics. Regarding Creed, there’s virtually no mention of his time in Creed. I understand that Tremonti has moved on past Creed, but given that Creed is a big part of Tremonti’s musical past, it would have been nice to have heard a little bit about how we wrote some of the music in Creed. However, it was interesting to get a backstage look at how Tremonti warms up as well as writes songs.
The Lessons
Tremonti’s lessons are divided into two parts: solos and techniques. The solos section covers eight of Tremonti’s solos from Alter Bridge’s latest album, Blackbird. I like the approach that is taken with this section. The solos are played full speed and then played slowly. The tab booklet includes tab for all of the solos, so you can follow along. There’s also some live footage of Tremonti playing the solos with Alter Bridge.
While I enjoyed the solos section, I am getting more out of the techniques section. There are some great technique exercises on the DVD; these alone are worth the price of the DVD, in my opinion! Tremonti demonstrates exercises for fingerstyle/alternate tunings, legato, vibrato, picking, and rhythm. Like the solos section, Tremonti first plays the exercises at full speed, and then plays many of them slowly so that you can really get a feel for them. Additionally, the tab book includes tab for many of the exercises.
The fingerstyle/alternate tunings exercises are very interesting and are quite nice. In the exercises, Tremonti demonstrates his approach to alternate tunings on an acoustic guitar. He mentions how sometimes if he gets writer’s block, he’ll use an alternate tuning to help break free of the block. For each alternate tuning, he includes what I would call etudes demonstrating how to play in the tuning. The etudes are very nice pieces in and of themselves.
The legato exercises are brutal! He displays a technique he learned from Rusty Cooley (who is one of the guest artists on the DVD) that helps improve finger strength and finger independence. I can already tell a difference, and I thought my fingers were pretty strong already! I suspect that I’ll be working on these exercises for some time to come.
The picking section covers techniques such as alternate picking and string sweeping. I’m still working through these exercises, but I can say that they really help you focus on picking. I found it interesting that Tremonti first fully warms up his left hand before working on his picking hand, which helps him ensure that any picking problems are actually a result of his right hand and not his left hand. This is an interesting approach that makes sense when you think about it.
The rhythm section also focuses a lot on picking technique. One thing he recommends during this section is “playing to failure.” I think this is a great recommendation. The only way to strengthen your hands and fingers is to build them up, and that requires working them to failure. Too often, I quit working on a technique when it gets hard, but in order to truly see results, I need to work to failure. This is some advice that I put to immediate use and can see results.
Aside from Kennedy, who is the lead singer for Alter Bridge (and is a very good guitarist in his own right), the guest artists are some of the most elite shredders in the world. Batio is very well known for being a great shredder, as is Cooley. And, Stetina’s Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar is one of the most influential instructional books for metal guitarists.
Each guest has their own section and feature their own techniques. And, each guest lesson is high quality (although Cooley’s is a little lower quality due to the fact that he couldn’t make it to the studio to record his section). I think the guest lessons are a nice touch and help bring a little variety to the DVD.
Conclusion
As I said earlier, after watching this DVD for the past few weeks, I highly recommend it. Not surprisingly, much of the information focuses on metal or shred guitar, but many of the techniques displayed will help you improve in any style of music. Tremonti is a great guitarist and a great teacher, and this DVD proves both. The lessons are top-notch, as are the guest appearances. If you’ve never really been into guitar instructional DVDs, this is a great introduction to the genre.
Additionally, the Fret12 Web site is a nice companion to the DVD. There’s a lot of information on the site, as well as community forums.
The following is a trailer for the DVD, which is available from Fret12.com:
Over the past few years, there have been a number of new entries into the online video guitar lessons business. There’s nothing that compares to having a live, one-on-one teacher, but online videos can serve as a nice supplement, or, in some cases, a good alternative when no local teachers are accessible.
Infinite Guitar is one of the more recent entries in the online guitar video sites, launching this past March. Founded by Sean Conklin, Infinite Guitar currently provides video lessons by Conklin, Rick Graham, Richard Lundmark, Mike Edwin, Pavel Denisjuk, and Robert Mussatti. Lessons are divided up into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced lessons, or you can access lessons by style. Many styles are covered, including Rock, Metal, Blues, Jazz, Classical, Funk, Fusion, and even Country. You can sample the site by signing up to get 10 free lessons and if you like what you see, site membership is available from $8.25 to $10.95 per month. Membership gives you access to all 587 lessons, as well as premium member forums and direct access to the instructors.
My first reaction when looking at the Infinite Guitar Web site is that it doesn’t look quite as polished as some of the other online video guitar lesson sites that launched several years ago. However, when looking for online guitar lessons, I’m more interested in the content than the presentation, so the lack of a more polished feel wasn’t all that much of a concern for me. That being said, the Infinite Guitar site looks professional and is easy to navigate. On to the content!
An online video guitar lesson site lives or dies by the quality of the lessons, and this is where Infinite Guitar does a very good job. The videos are high quality and well thought out. Lessons are shown in both full-speed and slow-speed versions allowing the viewer to hear how the music should sound in full speed and then work their way up to that. Close-up video is shot of the instructor’s hands during the lesson, so you really get to see what the instructors are showing you. Tablature is available for each lesson, which you can print out and refer to later.
In addition to teaching individual styles, Infinite Guitar offers lessons on Music Theory, including scales and chords. There is also a Chord Finder available on the site, which you can use to view and hear chord shapes.
Although the site boasts a number of different styles, there are currently more metal and rock lessons available than other styles. I believe that there is something to be learned from all styles of music, so I wasn’t bothered by the bias towards rock and metal. However, if you’re looking for a large number of classical guitar lessons, you might be somewhat disappointed in Infinite Guitar’s selection. Conklin did let me know that they are just getting started with the site, so expect many new lessons and instructors added to the site in the future.
Some of the lessons on the site are for songs written by the instructors. For example, Sean Conklin has a number of lessons featuring songs that he has written. Backing tracks are available for the songs, which you can use when learning the song. Currently, the backing tracks do not appear to be downloadable. I understand why Infinite Guitar might not want the backing tracks to be downloadable, but it would be nice to be able to refer to the backing tracks later, even if I were no longer a member. However, the fact that there are backing tracks available is a nice touch.
Overall, I was very impressed with the quality of both the videos and instruction available on Infinite Guitar. And, they are currently one of the cheapest online video guitar sites on the Internet, so you get a great value for the money. If you’re looking at online guitar video lessons, I recommend you take a look at Infinite Guitar and see if what they offer is what you’re looking for. Here’s a sampling of what Infinite Guitar offers:
Hello, and welcome to Guitar Lifestyle! My name is Josh, and I thank you for visiting this site. I am a 30-something guitar player based in Nashville, TN, aka Music City, USA. More »
