For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing. The music is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument. -Jerry Garcia Is it possible to be too focused and too obsessed about the guitar? Well it quite possibly could be a reality. When you [...]

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Having trouble figuring out where the best venues to play at in your state are? Tired of spending all your time trying to find contact information for booking agents, studios, managers, production companies, promoters, and owners? Want to make a badass website for you or your band but don’t know what the hell html or [...]

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Brian Kramer Workshops & Festival in South Africa Just returned from almost three weeks in South Africa (Sept. 16th till Oct. 4th ) for a tour & series of workshops and my head is swimming! So many amazing experiences and connections in just a short span of time… Conducted a two day workshop in the [...]

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The three most vital attributes you must have or acquire if you are even serious about becoming a great guitar player. Here is a video guitar lesson clip from Zakk Wylde’s Pentatonic Speedballer Lesson for you guys to enjoy this weekend. One of the things I personally enjoy about Zakk is that even though he [...]

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Here’s just a few beginner tips on how to enhance your left-hand/left-hand techniques and eventually becoming a more fluid player.

This may sound strange but i’ve actually found that this works: You may have already tried practicing on an acoustic or bass guitar before going back to your electric, but try this out. Get atleast 1 rubber band (you shouldn’t need anymore) and wrap it however you’d like around your left-hand (except for thumb) and try playing some scales/arpeggios, even chords. The restriction will get your fingers tougher for some ultra-shredding madness. Just to get a little more advanced, try playing your diatonic scales with all 4 fingers, this will also help you expand your fretboard knowledge and find new shapes to use your phrases in, other than just regular box pattern ideas.

As for your right-hand: a lot of guitarists tend to fall into the trap of playing the ‘three-note-per-string’ method up and down the fretboard. try mixing it up and use odd-meter patterns like 5′s or 7′s. The most important thing is that you don’t get bogged down in a particular picking pattern that’ll limit your right-hand versatility. for example try this B blues scale(alternate-picking):
e 10 12 13 14 10 13 12 10
b 10 12 12 10 12 10
g 7 11 10 9 7 97 7 9 10 11 11109 7
d 79 97 9 9~
a 5 789
e 5 7

then try this Ab lydian excercise with some passing tones thrown in:

e 8910 11108
b 8911 111098
g 5678 78910 1087 875
d 568 6810 10987 8765
a 5678 865
e468 8765/

another good trick to make sure you stay fluid is to practice your scales (whatever it is you’re playing) starting on a down-pick and also starting on an up-stroke. Do it both ways with a metronome preferably.

That’s all i’ve got for the moment, more advanced stuff will be on the way-keep checking it out!
-Carl R.

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