Don’t be a Guitar Center doodle-wanker! A short tasty phrase is worth 10,000 notes.Did you ever think maybe you loved soloing too much? Sure it’s great to be able to whip out some impressive lead chops, but if this comes at the expense of the rest of your playing, you might want to reevaluate your practice regimen.

There are many more elements to great guitar playing than just shear speed; for any doubters: take a listen to some David Gilmour-era Pink Floyd; if you don’t get it now, I give up.

Rhythm is a key element to expressive soloing; so, practice rhythmic playing. This goes beyond just figuring out tricky syncopations and sequences for scales and arpeggios. Any kind of rhythm playing -especially studying songs in genres you are unfamiliar with - will enhance your lead skills.

Think you got chops? Can you play a Bossa? Swing like Bird?

The more music you explore, the better your playing will be. I encourage all my students to study one book: The Berklee Modern Guitar Method. This book forces you to understand music, and how to “see” it on your fretboard. It isn’t easy. Neither is getting good at guitar.

Phrasing is another oft neglected element. This is what people often call “soul”. There are infinite ways to play a note, explore them. Practice your vibrato: short and fast, deep and slow… A bend is where one note is pushed into another; don’t settle for out of tune bends!

To practice bends:

• Play the note you are going to bend, play the note you are going to bend to, bend the note, and then check it again against the fretted note. They need to match, perfectly!
• Repeat until you can accurately bend to your target note every time.
• Practice bending to different intervals: half-step up, whole-step, one and a half steps…
• Practice sliding into and out of notes; Steve Vai is a master of this.
• Practice bending notes with your tremolo; use the same method as with bends to make sure you are in tune.

Don’t be a Guitar Center doodle-wanker! A short tasty phrase is worth 10,000 notes.

Most people begin taking guitar lessons with two expectations: that they want to learn to play guitar, and that they’ll never really be that great at it. I suspect people approach most things in their life like this; after all, how can we be experts at everything? I guess that’s the definition of a hobby: something that we’re interested in but that we except we will never excel at.

People also take lessons, or put their children in lessons, because they expect it to be fun. The enjoyment of playing the guitar, or of learning anything, is the satisfaction that arises from mastery.

The path to mastery is difficult and usually would not be defined as fun. Mastery doesn’t necessarily mean being able to jam like Stevie Ray Vaughan; it’s too daunting a task to hold yourself accountable to that level of excellence, at least in the beginning. But mastery can come in smaller pieces: like learning to play a song from beginning to end, flawlessly, or learning to play a scale without mistakes. Again, the work necessary to get to this point isn’t always fun, but the satisfaction upon completion is very rewarding.

The problem with teaching is that most people don’t feel this way about education. Most parents want to find something for their children to do, and then are unwilling to push them to give their lessons adequate effort; they expect the teacher to wave his/her magic wand, and presto! Their child will know how to play guitar.

I suppose it is the teacher’s job to motivate, but I’ve always felt that what could be more motivating than listening to Van Halen? (or whatever it is that excites you about the guitar) All the teacher can (and should do) is present their own excellence on their instrument and share with the student the music they love. Look at all the Asian child prodigies.

Are Asians more inherently talented than the rest of us? No, but their parents understand the need to push their children to work hard and try to excel.

Practice, practice, practice!

So where am I going with all this? Well, if you are going to take guitar lessons, or have your child take lessons, be prepared to work! This shouldn’t be a big deal because you love the guitar, that’s why you want to study it, right? If you just answered “no”, then why are you taking guitar lessons? If your kid likes Hip-Hop, why did you sign him up for guitar? My teacher, Lorn Leber, used to tell me, “You only have so much time, why study something if you don’t love it?”

If you approach everything in your life with this philosophy, I can guarantee you a satisfying life! Again, this doesn’t mean everything has to be fun, but if you work hard to pursue the things you love, the satisfaction it provides will offer contentment and happiness.

When I was studying with Satriani, I never (or hardly ever) left a lesson without feeling terrible.

Teach

This was no fault of his; it was my own fault, because I felt lousy about not having prepared well enough and was disappointed about looking like a mediocre jerk. This didn’t stop me from taking lessons. What kept me going was an unending desire to get good at the guitar; if you feel bad about your lessons, or your kid does, don’t worry about it, use it as motivation!

Make it a point to set clear goals, so you know what you are trying to achieve. Above all else: don’t blame anyone else for your failure, you are responsible for yourself. If you are working hard and are not happy with your teacher, try someone else. If you are not happy with your teacher because you are not having fun, it’s time for a gut check.

Good luck!

Related Posts:

The Mental Game – Preparing Yourself to be a First-Rate Guitarist
Learning the Modes, Non-Scientifically
To Read or Not to Read, That is the Question – Why Guitarists Should Learn to Read Music

Recently my wife turned me on to an author: Malcolm Gladwell. All his books are fascinating, but I think “Outliers” is his best work, at least as far as offering up a new and original philosophy. He presents three main ideas:

• No one is so innately talented that they excel beyond everyone else just because of their God-given talent
• Mastery of anything requires 10,000 hours of work, which, on average, takes about ten years time.
• If you look at any remarkably successful person, they were given a unique opportunity which allowed them to accrue these 10,000 hours faster than their competition.

Great book!

His musical example of this is The Beatles. He points out that they were given a unique opportunity in which they were able to play long stints (five to eight weeks) at a German strip club, where they often played for as long as eight hours at a time. Sure they were talented and unique, but this opportunity to play for so many hours together is what fused them into the force that they became, and to master their art at such a young age.

Another interesting fact: the average time that a successful band has been together is seven years before they finally “make it”.

The point is this: the more time you put into your playing, the faster you’ll get good. This should be obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people think that this is less important than: who your teacher is, what kind of gear you use, etc.  If you want to get good at the guitar, you will need to practice. The more you practice, the faster you will get good. There is no way around this.

Gladwell’s point is this: the people that knock out these hours fastest enjoy the most success, and that it takes some luck to be given the opportunity to have the time to spend so much time on becoming excellent. (Most of us are busy mowing the lawn… )

I’m not sure I’m doing this subject justice, but I have a student who appreciated the 10,000 hour rule. He just started going to college, with the goal of getting a degree in music. When I told him about the rule he upped his practice to six hours a day, which means that in about four years (I’ll give him credit for practice time already accrued) he’ll be kicking some real guitar butt!

I’m sure I’ve put in my 10,000 hours, but which is more exciting: a 40-year-old guitar ace or a 17-year-old? As always, the answer is the same: get to work!

Related Posts:

What to Expect from Guitar Lessons
So You Want To Be A Rockstar?
Lifting Weights – Structuring Your Guitar Practice Regimine

It seems like whenever people decide to get more serious about their guitar playing “The Modes” inevitably come up. There are countless books and videos on the subject and yet I rarely have students come to me really understanding them, either how to accurately define them or recognize them. Understanding the Modes from a theoretical point of view is essential to anyone who wants to use them in their playing, but that will be covered somewhere else. What I want to share here is how I teach my students to hear and recognize the modes.

I do this by giving examples of songs that use them. By having an audio example to dwell on it is very easy to hear what a mode sounds like, what its essence is. So without further ado, here is a list of some songs you are hopefully familiar with, and their corresponding modes.

• Major (Ionian): “La Bamba”, Ritchie Valens; “Walking on Sunshine”, Katrina and the Waves; “Always with Me, Always with You”, Joe Satriani.
• Dorian: “Oye Como Va”, Carlos Santana (no, he didn’t write it but you know his version best); “Fire Woman”, The Cult.
• Phrygian: “Sober”, Tool; “Meeting of the Spirits”, Mahavishnu Orchestra; “Symphony of Destruction”, Megadeth
• Lydian: “Flying in a Blue Dream”, Satriani (intro: C Lydian); “Come Original”, 311 (intro: D Lydian); “The Riddle”, Steve Vai
• Mixolydian: “Summer Song”, Satriani; “Down”, 311
• Natural Minor (Aeolian): “The Thrill is Gone”, B.B. King; “Nothing Else Matters”, Metallica
• Locrian: “Theme from South Park”, Primus
• Harmonic Minor: “Still Got the Blues”, Gary Moore; anything by Yngwie Malmsteen
• Phrygian Dominant: “Hordes of Locusts”, Satriani; “Come out and Play”, The Offspring (that Arabian sounding hook that got caught in your head; you know it did!); anything else by Yngwie
• Melodic Minor: “Summertime”, George Gershwin
• Aeolian Dominant: “Sleepwalk”, the Farina siblings (my fav version is Danny Gatton’s)

Some notes on the above:

There are a lot of tunes listed from Joe Satriani and that’s because his music is usually modal in nature, and thus a good example of a specific mode. Even though I make jokes about Yngwie it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate him as a player. I do, but everyone makes jokes about Yngwie, don’t they? Harmonic Minor and Phrygian Dominant are more or less the same thing, as are Melodic Minor and Aeolian Dominant. This is a slippery slope, as there are people who would say the same about the modes of the Major scale. Let’s not worry about this. This article is not supposed to be overly technical.

Take a listen to the above tunes and see if you can hear the characteristic sounds of their modes. Better yet, learn how to play them!

Related Posts:

What to Expect From  Guitar Lessons
10,000 Hours – How to be a Great Guitarist