electric guitar lessons

Do avatars dream of electric racoons?

2006-01-07T12:38:00.000Z

As part of BBC Newsnight's Geek Week, business correspondent Paul Mason and presenter Jeremy Paxman broadcast TV's first ever face-to-face studio session from inside the computer game Second Life.

read more | digg story

That Vista demo.

2006-01-07T09:00:00.000Z

"Customer's demand for rich engaging ways to explore their digital lifestyle", which is Microsoft speak for the sheer throng of people pounding at their tech support door who simply want to email a few holiday snaps to their friends without getting an esoteric error message every viiv minutes..

read more | digg story

Should Apple buy Adobe as leverage against Microsoft?

2005-12-17T13:08:00.000Z

"If Apple buys Adobe, is the operating system market up for grabs? It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see why. Borrowing heavily from Mr. Cringely's terminology, there are several industry realities and stories, each having its own vector/trajectory that might lead one to seeing the importance of Adobe to Apple's well being."

read more | digg story

Mastering Guitar with Kevin Smith

2005-09-18T03:32:00.000+01:00

Ladles and jelly spoons, this is the first of a more professional looking and longer form videoblog from your old mates Jim and Kev.

Mastering Guitar #1 is pieced together from a conversation I had with Kev about some of the techniques he uses to teach both the acoustic and electric guitar to his long list of students. It represents the basic model on which future incarnations of this blog and videocast will be based.

We are working on a very exciting project which will bring together everything I am doing here, most of which you can't see because it involves my learning about boring web type things such as CSS and so on, and merging it with our ongoing efforts to build a recording studio and independent recording label, known simply as Shush, here in the north east of England.

To cut a long story short, and without giving too much away, Kev and I have been friends for years. Kev's brother Dave is also one of my mates. He's been building a recording studio in his basement for the past 3 to 4 years, and sometime between now and Christmas it will finally be open for business.

One of the first projects I will be producing under the Shush umbrella is a guitar tutorial DVD, featuring both myself and Kev giving you the viewer everything we know about Mastering Guitar. The attached .mov clip (careful dial-uppers, it's almost an 80meg download) represents a few sketched ideas on how some of the information will be given over, in a relaxed and conversational way.

You can help!

If there's anything about your own playing or practicing regime you've always wanted to know, but had no one to ask, here's your chance to get in on the first DVD, which I am aiming to have available by early in the new year - which may seem a long way off, but trust me, there's a LOT to do between now and then.

You can use a new section I've created in the forum, named DVD suggestions, to help us, help you. Simply let me know what areas you think it would be good to focus on and we'll include your ideas in the first DVD.

Here's some of the things I'd like your feedback on:

Something you've never seen in a tutorial DVD before, that you wish you had.
Who is your favorite guitarist? What do they do in particular you wish you could play?
What specific areas of a new technique are you struggling with?
Any other feedback you think would make the learning experience better for you.

Other ways to help

If you have your own website and can point your visitors my way that would be most helpful. A simple link will do, although I am working on providing buttons and banners for you to paste into your HTML to make it even easier to help. You can also help by clicking my Google ads once in a while if you see something you're interested in, which is being advertised. This helps a lot in providing bandwidth to store the videos, which are becoming quite a size - despite my efforts to compress them as much as possible.

What's in this newest clip, Mastering Guitar?

Kev shows us:

Pinched harmonics.
The Spider - A real work out for your fingers to break bad habits and gain greater control and finger independence.
Mastering C Major - how to see the whole fret-board, rather than modes and scales as separate 'boxes'
Pre-bends - How to add more voice to your lead licks.

In the works

We recognise that, at this stage, there are no on-screen guides with things like TAB and so on. THESE ARE COMING - as is more on-line support for TAB in the show notes and on the forum.

We also appreciate the need for more detailed camera angles and cutaways to really slow down and give more information about what's being done and how you can do it.

In short, watch this space and enjoy Mastering Guitar #1!

Yes!

2005-09-14T03:03:00.000+01:00

HAD to share this...

Teaser clip

2005-09-12T12:33:00.000+01:00

Here's a taste of the footage I got of Kev giving us our first lesson with him. It's not all edited together properly yet, but when it is you can be sure i'll pop it right up.

To view the video you'll need the latest version of Quicktime (Version 7). You can subscribe to the feed in iTunes, which is now supported on Windows for H.264 video, so be sure to download the latest version of that too. Or you can right click and Save As.. on this link.

Thanks to Kev for doing this and stay tuned for the final version, coming sometime later this week.

If you want to support what we're trying to get up and running as a fully fledged guitar lessons site you can give some of the google ad's a click now and then, it's appreciated.

Some of you might like to read this...

2005-08-27T17:15:00.000+01:00

On my other blog I've started an article, to be spread over several weeks, covering a project I've been asked to do, making a DVD promo video for a friend's band.

I'll be using nothing more than Apple's iLife '05 and various bits of freeware and open source video editing titles.

It'll be interesting to see if it's possible to produce an entire retail quality DVD using only freely available software and the tools bundled with Mac OS X Tiger.

I'm sure a similar line up of applications to those included with Mac OS X, albeit inferior in usability, stability and cost, are available for Windows, and some of the tips and tricks I hope to share in the articles should hopefully be of help to anyone attempting a similar project on either platform and, of course, Linux.

An open e-mail to members

2005-08-26T16:04:00.000+01:00

Here's an exact copy of the e-mail I sent out to those of you who subscribe to the message forum. You can also download the videocast by clicking the title to this blog entry, it links directly to the Quicktime clip.

Please bare in mind my bandwidth is limited and clicking on my google safe ads is a real help.

Hi there everyone. The more observant of you will have noticed there is another videoblog linked to the latest posting to the main site (electricguitarlessons.blogspot.com).

For some reason, even though I am doing everything I can do on my end of things, the video is not showing up as a videocast in iTunes, so for now the easiest way to see it is to simply click the heading 'A short(ish) video clip', and the .mov quicktime clip is linked from there. This is the correct way to videocast as it is the same method as posting an mp3 for a podcast, but for some unknown reason, and one which I simply don't have the time to investigate, it isn't working as it should in iTunes.

This may lead to my adopting an alternative videocasting aggregator called DTV as the recommended delivery method - who knows what the future will bring? One thing is for sure Kev, my old mate and professional guitar teacher, is up for doing some video lessons in the near future, so let's hope feedburner and iTunes get there stuff together for that.

The video linked to the latest blog posting, 'A short(ish) video clip', is about 6 minutes long and is basically my good self playing though some extensions of the basic shapes I covered in lesson one. Remember how I said everything I 'see' on the fret-board extends out of convoluted and bastardized simple major and minor shapes?

I hope you get something from it and TRUST ME, there will be a proper lesson blog worth subscribing to real soon. Just as soon as I get technical issues resolved.

Thanks for staying with me, take it easy. Jim.

A short(ish) video clip

2005-08-23T03:37:00.000+01:00

The lessons to be given by Kev, who is a professional teacher, will begin recording, all being well, within the next two weeks.

While I would love to be able to put something together more like lesson 1 again, there are LOTS of things happening in the pipe line which it's worth waiting for. The lessons, in other words, will be much better and really worth subscribing too real soon, I promise!

So, for now, I've recorded and edited this short video clip of my licks and tricks. I hope you dig it. By the time you read this, fingers crossed I will have had the time to put some TAB of what I am doing in certain passages of the video here on this page.

If you want to know more about anything you see and hear in the video, use the chat forum.

The video is a Quicktime movie. So, if you subscribe to this blog as an XML feed and your aggregator is iTunes, it will load as a video blog in the same way as if it was an MP3 podcast.

On a potentially controversial technical point, Quicktime for Windows sometimes behaves badly. Why? The short answer is that Windows is an absolute bag of spanners. The long answer is far too boring and nerdy to go into (in other words I don't have a long answer).

Suffice to say I absolutely railed against a bunch of Mac people who where trying to help me understand this known issue with Quicktime for Windows, when I imagined (foolishly) that the error some people have experienced with my other Quicktime clips was an error on the Apple / Mac side of things, in other words the actual coding of the video.

How wrong it seems I was, since in the time between the said rant and about a week ago, I've discovered this web site, which tells you everything you need to know about why this problem sometimes occurs.

My fix for the problem is to use a proper operating system. If you can't justify the cost (lower than you think) for a new Apple Mac, ridding yourself once and for all of the evil Windows, or you can't quite bring yourself round to the torment that is installing a Linux partition, consider the above mentioned web site before blaming Quicktime, Mac, Apple or indeed anything I can't do anything about before you post a comment in the chat forum.

As Homer would say, "WooHoo!"

2005-08-15T21:37:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the good people at www.axesrus.com my new Floyd Rose whammy system arrived this morning and, as you can see in the insert opposite (which is clickable for a larger view) I fitted it with little trouble in a matter of an hour or less.

Some minor annoyances with replacing the entire system, rather than just the part which had cracked, where that the replacement pole's which sit in the body, which govern the action hight of the bridge, couldn't be used, since they where a none standard (or different to the Charvel standard at least).

I had worried this would mean than an old foible of my particular guitar would rise again, that being a knocking sound which ever so slightly came through the pick-ups as a low end vibration.

Much to my glee the old poles where not the cause of this problem as I had suspected and the replacement block actually springs and bounces (Satriani-esque) much neater than it did before, and the guitar is much improved overall.

I opted for the chrome finish rather than black, which would have more closely matched the rest of the hardware. I'm glad to say the guitar rather suits this shiny touch and I hope to replace the volume knobs and other bits with chrome parts in the near future.

Thanks once again to forum member lespaulrock for putting me onto the supplier. The resurrection of the Charvel naturally means that the podcast lessons can resume in the next few days, and with much greater frequency than they have thus far!

I plan on celebrating the mini re-launch of the project by making the video section much better than before.

Stay iTuned, see you all in the next few days. Jim.

Books for sale

2005-08-09T21:59:00.000+01:00

I am selling some books on eBay which may be of interest and are recommended to beginners. You can view the sale by clicking here.

A big thanks for your patience

2005-08-09T00:32:00.000+01:00

A huge thanks to member lespaulsrock who pointed me towards a website which sells new Floyd Rose whammy bar systems by mailing me at the official notice board page for electricguitarlessons.blogspot.com, which is the best way to get in touch with me.

I can now repair my guitar and continue with this project in a few days. Wish me luck installing the new tremolo system!

Listening to music.

2005-07-21T22:59:00.000+01:00

Still no go, but let's go!

Despite efforts to secure a useable guitar for the purpose of finally getting lessons 2 and 3, which are written but as yet unrecorded, finally out there - for you who have been kind enough to propel this start-up project to 59 in the iTunes top 100 podcasts; I am still, unfortunately, unable to either repair my second guitar or synchronise my diary to that of Kev Smith's, who's contribution to this site's future was further cemented this week over a lite ale in our local drinking establishment.

So, rather than leave it any longer, or try and march on with examples played on an acoustic guitar, I thought, by way of making sure you all know I am still out there and working towards resolving the above issues and improving this project's reach and effectiveness as a learning tool, that it would be useful to put together a suggested listening list. I think this will also work to establish where we are in terms of how this podcast and blog came to be and how future plans for the collective to grow requires your help, but more on that last point later.

Listening to music

One of the greatest challenges for any music teacher is how to instill the importance in the student an understanding for music which is outside of their record collection's current scope. After-all, it's harder than it ever was these days to become exposed to music who's creator's and publisher's endeavors to feed the pop zeitgeist come second to their ego-less desire to simply push creative boundaries for the love of music alone.

Younger learners, who's peer group often dictates what music it is "cool" to listen to, and older learners who's pre-conceived ideas of what music is about are dyed-in-the wool, is something that this honestly motivated teacher does not seek to challenge lightly, far from it. To question anyone's musical tastes inevitably leads down a road of having to justify or give extra gravity to something which simply works on it's own merits to those who get it, without it having to be explained. The danger is that such an explanation to anyone who is not interested in it, or it's history, artificially inflates its importance or worse still, interrupts the natural order to which the student would ordinarily have become aware of it, or not, as the case may be.

Such paradigms are for the teacher to worry about more than the learner because the teacher can easily assume that a certain pathway, or conversational thread of understanding, communication or instinct has achieved the same results in the learner as it did in them once the information is given, and huge swathes of understanding, which are unspoken among the enlightened, remain abstract and distant in their relevance to the learner if he or she is not ready to surrender to the teacher some degree of control over what is worthy and what is unworthy of being adhered to, in terms of practical exercises and practicing disciplines.

That said then, my simple advise, for the purpose of this exercise, is to forget for a moment that you have any particularly strong musical persuasions of your own - be they jazz leaning or heavy metal in their orientation, and simply use the given examples as a way of understanding your own musical ideas and how these suggested listening tips might light a path towards bringing into your own playing something which previously might have seemed obscure or even unattainable.

Zappa

The pretext for this exercise could become quiet an abstract and overly confusing venture in itself where it not for the fact that the first piece of music I have chosen deals with just such a dichotomy very well.
Frank Zappa's body of over 100 self produced, distributed, composed and performed albums is awesome, by any standards. While this is not intended to be a self contained lecture on Zappa, it might be useful to fill-in the uninitiated on some of the details which make up the 20th century's greatest American composer by suggesting the following web sites as further reading. wiki.killuglyradio.com
www.hotshotdigital.com and http://www.zappa.com

Imaginary guitar solos

Joe's Garage's 'Outside Now', is a close a definition of what I often to refer to as truly free music as you could hope to find. Not only does it flow and ebb to a rhythm of it's own but it sees Frank searching and dreaming of a world where the greatest guitar solo you ever played sounds the way it does in your head to everyone listening.

If there is anything I can add to what Frank so aptly and efficiently summarizes in this one piece of music it would be that searching is it's own reward, and that the search is itself, ultimately, more rewarding than actually finding any mere riff or scale pattern which you can later adapt and superimpose upon any given chord structure to use in a solo, naively telling yourself and your listeners that you arrived at it in a truly improvisational, inventive manner.

Allan Holdsworth

Allan is by far the greatest (for want of a better word) jazz guitarist there has ever been. I hesitate to use the term 'jazz guitarist' because, call me a little old school, but it's a term which always seems to conjure images of bearded balding men in bad pull-overs gurning to the dulcet tones of a hollow body Gibson with brass pick-ups rather than the monster of rock fusion which Allan's impressive back catalogue of work encompasses.

Of particular note are his 1980's recordings, when magazines such as Guitar for the practicing musician and Guitar World bolstered his listenership to sufficient levels that on one hand forced him to deliver almost mainstream albums, while on the other hand afforded him a wider audience than he might have ordinarily reached in the metal and heavy rock mellay of the decade, hence the conflict of direction versus desire, necessary for all great musicians to find their true voice, was present.

During this period, and into the early 1990's Holdsworth's 'Atavachron', 'Secrets' and 'Metal Fatigue' recordings contained some truly awesome moments in the history of the electric guitar; certainly as important in global terms as Weather Report's '8:30', Hendrix's 'Axis: Bold as love', Prince's 'Parade', Joni Mitchell's 'Hejira' and Santana's 'Moonflower'.

The fluidity of his so-called legato style of left hand hammer on pull-off runs and arpeggios are such that anyone who uses them in their own playing, however well executed they might be, can only ever merely shadow Holdsworth's efficiency of motion.

Robert Fripp

King Crimson are one of the most challenging and creative musical ensembles of all time. Although the line-up has changed over the years Robert has remained constant in his expectations of them and his listeners, nothing less than pure discipline is required to both get it and give it. For to be a listener of King Crimson is to be a part of the music in a way no other (awful term) "art rock" band has demanded of you before or since.

The group allows both individual freedom for each of the players present and joint support for the framework of the composition which is arguably more complex and demanding in it's musical augmentation than even free jazz requires the musician to act as a channel for. For this reason, and no doubt his advancing years and other interests outside that of performing publicly and recording, King Crimson rarely give anything other than stella performances, in both the studio and on stage. To paraphrase the man himself, when they are together they are working, when they are no longer together there is no real certainty they will ever play together again, only the wish that such a thing might be possible at some point in the future.

As for the husband of Toyah Wilcox and King Crimson founding member's actual guitar playing, it has to be experienced with the mind of an inquisitive child. Don't dare to expect anything you recognise as being rock guitar or blues guitar or even guitar at all. Don't preempt Robert's abilities to stun you from across the physical void which stands between you as a listener and wherever he is now in time, or where he was when he recorded what ever you are listening to. His almost precognitive ability to reach you when you least expect it is a mark of a truly enlightened teacher and will remain to be his greatest gift to us long after mere pretenders to the throne of open space guitar players are dust.

To recommend any one particular recording from the sheer masterworks of beautiful music in Robert Fripp's vast back catalogue would be extremely difficult, but if you had to start somewhere - assuming you had never heard any before as good a place to start as any would be the albums 'Red', 'Discipline' and 'Three of a perfect pair'.

Mahavishnu John McLaughlin

Mahavishnu is the aspect of Vishnu, the Absolute which is beyond human comprehension and is beyond all attributes. Fitting then that John McLaughlin's style and intensity should be as vital to understanding the electric guitar as thermonuclear dynamics are to magnetospheric plasma perturbances in the Sun.

In short, McLaughlin is the guitarist. His 1970's group, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, defined the era of post psychedelic heavy blues, funk, and jazz and simply named it fusion, from whence the likes of many a long since forgotten progressive rock band hath sprung.

A musician can rate his or her scope as a listening, learning, actively searching player by whether or not they have been exposed to 'Birds of fire', 'The inner mounting flame' and 'Visions of the Emerald beyond' - Mahavishnu titles as influential to modern, electronic, information age musicians as they are the often sighted source of inspiration to the likes of Steve Vai, Phil Collins and Mark King.

Mahavishnu Orchestra also had it's fair share of virtuoso keyboard players, drummers and other solo instrumentalists; Jan Hammer, Billy Cobham, Jean Luc Ponty and Narada Michael Walden to name but a few.

Prince Rogers Nelson

Forget 'Purple rain', forget he changed his name to an unpronouncable symbol (which if you must know was done to basically take the proverbial urine out of his domineering and unprofessional record company), in short forget everything you think you know about the man from Minneapolis and consider for a moment the following recordings.

Live in Las Vegas DVD. - The definitive example of slick, funky, hot, live music - bar none. A none stop master class in professionalism which, more than any of his other live performance recordings, shows his instinct for performance and showmanship is not only crafted in the old school but earned and deserved in the new.
Parade. - If there was only one thing going for it, the simple fact that every music critic in the world professed to hating this album, before doing an about turn in the face of the public's love for it, would be enough to virtually guarantee it a place in the heart of anyone who enjoys seeing music journalists fall on their face when trying to define the work of a true genius. Anyone who truly listens to Parade would agree it's a must listen for any aspiring song writer, no matter what style of music that writer aspires to work within.

News Update

2005-07-13T23:23:00.000+01:00

I was changing the strings on my trusty old Charvel Jackson today, in preparation for recording the second lesson, and I managed to crack the Floyd Rose floating trem (wang bar) and it looks like it's dead. So the second lesson will be performed on the acoustic guitar again.

I'm working to get my back-up guitar re-wired, due to a reoccurring wiring problem preventing it from passing a signal to the amp, at the moment. As soon as that is done, hopefully in time for lesson three, that will be the main guitar used until I can replace the Charvel.

Lesson 2 will be up here as soon as I can re-arrange some of the examples I had prepared so I can play them on the acoustic guitar, for now, until I can get a replacement electric guitar sorted out.

Thanks for all the positive feedback, talk soon. Jim.

End music: Mahavishnu Orchestra - Faith

Lesson One Supplemental

2005-07-05T15:31:00.000+01:00

I used to 'worry', for want of a better word, that my names and shapes for the different note groups, or fret board patterns which I see in my mind's eye of the guitar fret board highlighted a flaw in my understanding of theory because I have my own names for them. I now understand it to simply mean I don't necessarily use the according-to-hoyle, 'correct' language of, say, the jazz musician or, in fact, any other kind of player who is taught "by the book" because not only am I self taught, but what is probably more relevant, is that I don't really study anyone else's playing either, from TAB or otherwise.

The problem of communicating ideas to other musicians, inherent in being a none sight reader is something I am learning to circumlocute by means of simply going ahead and playing, rather than attempting to change my understand over again simply to find it easier to use traditional methods of notation and chord charts - which where never perfect anyway, hence the myriad of sight readers who play badly and / or without emotion, despite having paper proof, in terms of academic grades, that they are educated in the ways of reading and writing the dots.

I don't discount the value of a traditional training in music theory, and I am fully prepared to accept that at an earlier age an understanding of it would have been an advantage to my musical development - and on that point I don't rule out learning more about it at a later stage. But, I don't see it as vital to my development as a musician for as long as I am able to continue exploring the guitar without it. When it becomes a problem in terms of it being the only thing in the way of my working as a musician or being able to work with other players, I'll get a job in an office.

However, the problem exists that in this kind of setting my advice may become confused with either another teachers jargon, developed from his understanding and interpretation of his own music, or become overly complex simply through having to explain my thought processes and methods of arriving at a solution before actually addressing the exercise to hand.

So, where possible I will simply give TAB for what I see as being the fundamental, or core of a pattern and leave you to use your ears and, where appropriate, make reference to video clips, so that you can fill in the blanks for yourself and in doing so find your own way.

In short, there is no right way to do it - least of all mine. So this lesson series can only ever be a loose guide, no matter how detailed a journal it is of my own particular methods for arriving at a satisfactory method for making a musical idea come into being for the guitar.

With that in mind, here are some, what you might call, fundamental seeds; that the more elaborate of my fret board patterns grow out from.

Sweep One:

E-|-----------------2--3--2-----------------
B-|--------------3-----------3--------------
G-|-----------4-----------------4-----------
D-|--------5-----------------------5--------
A-|-----5-----------------------------5-----
E-|--3-----------------------------------3--

Sweep Two: *12th fret is tapped.

E-|------------------7--10--12--10--7------------------
B-|---------------8--------------------8---------------
G-|------------7--------------------------7------------
D-|--------10--------------------------------10--------
A-|--0--7----------------------------------------7--0--
E-|----------------------------------------------------

E Major scale:

E-|--12--11--9-------|-----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
B-|-------------12---|--10--9----------|-----------------|-----------------|
G-|------------------|---------11--9---|--8--------------|-----------------|
D-|------------------|-----------------|-----11--9-------|-----------------|
A-|------------------|-----------------|------------12---|--11--9----------|
E-|------------------|-----------------|-----------------|---------12------|

Tapping Eddie: *12th fret notes are again tapped.

E-|--5--7--8--12--8--7--5---------------------------------|----------------------------------------
B-|------------------------12--8--7--5--------------------|----------------------------------------
G-|-------------------------------------12--8--7--5-------|----------------------------------------
D-|--------------------------------------------------12---|--8--7--5-------------------------------
A-|-------------------------------------------------------|-----------12--8--7--5------------------
E-|-------------------------------------------------------|------------------------12--8--7--5--0--

Click here to download a text file of the above TAB in case your browser has messed up the layout.

Lesson One - AUIDIO NOW OFF-LINE. VIDEO IS WORKING AGAIN.

2005-07-04T18:01:00.000+01:00

This first lesson touches upon some basics, such as the basic major scale pattern, which I use as a 'seed' for lots of my patterns. I also demonstrate what I consider to be 'my' first arpeggio sweep shape and how I use that with hammer-on pull-off 'tapping'. There's also a little on harmonics.

Subscribe to the podcast feed using the link in the side panel. iTunes version 4.9 or better is recommended as your podcast player as you can simply drag and drop the link into the Podcast playlist directly from your browser.

Follow the audio examples using the TAB and video clip. Quicktime version 7 or better is recommended for the video clips. If you are using an older version of Quicktime, upgrade here. The download is free for Mac and PC. Linux users. I once thought of trying a couple of solutions for playing quicktime video on Linux and they mostly worked, but I had a fair trawl to find them and decide on which one was best. I finally decided to just buy a Mac. So if you know of any, please let me and everyone else know about it by using the discussion forum linked opposite. It's just not possible for me to use any other video format than quicktime at present because a) It works. b) It's easy to export clips from iMovie and c) It makes smaller, clearer files than any other codec. I know it doesn't like Windows all that much but hey, neither do I!

-Lesson One Podcast notes-

TAB Example One, G Major

E-|---------------|---------------|--
B-|---------------|---------------|--
G-|---------------|---------------|--
D-|---------------|-----2--4--5---|--
A-|--------2--3---|--5------------|--
E-|--3--5---------|---------------|--

Remember that note one is a picked down stroke and note two is an up stroke and so on.

TAB Example Two, C Major

E-|----------------|-----------------|-----------------|----------------|--
B-|----------------|-----------------|-----------------|----------------|--
G-|----------------|-----------------|-----------------|----------------|--
D-|----------------|------7--9--10---|--10--9--7-------|----------------|--
A-|---------7--8---|--10-------------|------------10---|--8--7----------|--
E-|--8--10---------|-----------------|-----------------|--------10--8---|--

Hammer on's (tapping) and harmonics and "Efficiency of motion" arpeggio (BelowTAB) shown in this video clip.

E-|--------5--8---|--12--8--5------|----------7---|--10--15--10--7---|----------
B-|-----6---------|------------6---|-------8------|------------------|--8-------
G-|--5------------|----------------|--5/7---------|------------------|-----7\5--
D-|---------------|----------------|--------------|------------------|----------
A-|---------------|----------------|--------------|------------------|----------
E-|---------------|----------------|--------------|------------------|----------

TAB Key:
/ Denotes a slide. Notes on the 12th and 15th frets are tapped or hammered on with the right hand.

If you have any questions or would like to see something demonstrated further please sign up to the free discussion forum, using the link to the right.

Welcome and general information.

2005-07-02T03:52:00.000+01:00

Welcome to electric guitar playing lessons.

My name is Jim Gardner and together with my friend and teacher Kev Smith I'll be running this site and providing the majority of the available content. I'll also be your main point of contact for day-to-day information and the general upkeep of the site and responding to message comments, as well as recording and editing the weekly podcast.

I've been playing guitar since I was 4 years old and up until around 2 months ago I was making a healthy living as lead guitarist in a cover versions group up here in the north east of England.

Kev and I have been friends for most of my adult life, and I am 31 now so we know each other well. He's known me since I was at the stage with my own playing most of you who consider yourselves to be past the painful early years, heading into the "So, where do I go next?" phase, will recognise. In that time Kev's own playing has continued to grow, and considering that when we met he was already at a very high level of ability that's no mean feat!

So, the people who will benefit the most from electricguitarplaying.blogspot.com are near beginners to intermediate self taught players, right through to working musicians who need a new challenge. If you've ever wanted to get your fingers into something new that you might never have thought you could play before, this is the place to come. You can chat amongst yourselves, or directly to myself either by e-mail or by using the comments button you'll find at the foot of each page (for signed in free members), so don't be afraid to ask.

I provide all of this information for free because, basically, I comment on so many web sites and newsgroups and chat forums to do with guitar where I find myself repeating the same information. So, from now on, it will (hopefully) be easier - for certain things at least, for me to simply refer people to this site. It's also a personal passion of mine to become more involved in the growing podcasting scene, and giving guitar playing advice seems to be something I can contribute which is valid and little bit different.

All I ask in return is that you click some of my adverts, don't worry they are google safe so you won't get spammed or have any nasty surprises. So, say for example, once you are ready to leave the site please consider clicking one of the ads dotted around the various pages before you go. Every time you click I make a small amount of money which will guarantee I can keep this thing going for as long as you are interested in sticking around.

How best to use this site.

The easiest way to stay up to date with the latest updates is to subscribe to the podcast by cutting and pasting this link into your favorite podcast player. I recommend iTunes version 4.9 (or later). If you already have iTunes installed you can drag and drop the above link into the podcasts placeholder, on the left hand side window of the iTunes main window, and when new podcast lessons become available iTunes will automatically download them, update your playlist and sync them to your iPod.

Once you're tuned into the podcast this site will carry TAB and performance notes for each area covered and additional tips and information mentioned in the podcast.

If you need to know more about podcasting, RSS, iTunes or anything else you can't find out by searching google don't hesitate to contact me.

Well, that's the preamble over with.