|
Includes over 150 Guitar Lessons. Order today and learn Right! |
|
||
View
Cart Play
Along CD Join
Free Members
Login |
Welcome to Guitar Secrets
Guitar Lessons that work!
A Visual Learning Experience, Lead
Guitar Made Easy.
Instructional CD ROM. It's time to Learn Right!
Sound Advice
A little about me. I've been playing the guitar for over 20 years. As a teenager growing up in Jersey, I jumped on a subway with guitar in hand and headed for the New York School of Music.
While I was at the school I met up with a great music teacher. He said he was just opening his new school down the street from my place. I said no more trains, cabs and crap. Anyway I learned a little from that place and moved on.
I've played professionally and the last band I was in opened for Dokken, and a few other big name bands at the time. I shared the guitar duties with Roger German, the best guitarist I ever heard. We kicked ass, harmonizing leads and the works. Roger passed away a couple years ago and is missed by many of us.
A friend of mine once brought me over to Garry Tallent's home, the bass player for Bruce Springsteen. Ricky Dee, my friend was going to get his chance to make it big, he was friends with Bruce, Garry and the band. Bruce had just made Time Magazine and Garry wanted to produce Ricky. Ricky played guitar and Barbara, his wife, was going to sing.
Ricky put a few songs together and invited me to come over to listen to them. I thought the songs were decent, but Garry was the one to decide. While over Ricky's, I played a couple of my songs, which he really liked.
He liked them so much that he invited me to come with him to Garry's house. Once there, Garry listened to the music, he really liked what was going on. But, he had a funny look in his eye and said, you know, Barb should brush up a bit on those vocals. Maybe she should take some lessons. The vocals were a bit out of key. Shit, ever listen to the stuff out now? Any way, Ricky was pissed and that all went up in smoke. The moral of the story is, you better be ready when the time comes. It will come, but you better have the basics down.
When we first start out as guitarists, everything sounds good. Even the guitar that is not properly tuned. This is because the average person doesn't know what sounds to expect to come from the guitar. Our ears haven't been trained yet. However, there are a few out there that have great tone perception.
Billy and his friends rock on, not even thinking if the guitar is tuned properly, the volume is set at the correct level, or if the song is being playing in time. We have all done it and we will all continue to do it, this is how we learn.
There's a major learning curve and eventually we hit the wall. A wall we can't get over, or can we? We pick up bad habits along the way and practice them over and over until we can stand it anymore. Why can't I get any better? Why can't I sound like Joe, or Jimmy or that dude down at the local club?
That's a lot of bull shit, if you want to play the guitar then you need to get serious. If you want to just kick back and strum a tune around the camp fire, fine. But if you want to be a professional guitar player, then you need to get serious about it. Don't waste valuable time, time is worth more than anything.
I've learned you have to believe in yourself. I never did. My friends and other musicians thought I had what it took. But I was so self conscious and just kept playing and playing and playing. What a waste of time. It's not a waste of time to play, but it's a waste of time to play and not let others enjoy it. I listen to the radio today and hear some sorry guitar players making it. Well they may be sorry guitar players to me, but obviously they're not to others. They had the COURAGE to step out of their comfort zone and let the world hear them.
Once you learn the basics, tuning, scales, chords, progressions, get your ass out there and play. Find a drummer and a singer. Better yet, take some vocal lessons while playing the guitar. Get yourself a 4 track recorder at the minimum. You have to have a drum machine to come up with original music, without the drumming pounding on the drums.
You need to isolate yourself and continuously think of a cool verse or chorus. Once you begin to think this way, your sub conscious will take over. But, you better have a cheap tape recorder at your bedside. Believe me, you will not remember that dream for very long. If you have a tape recorder handy, it is really easy to strum the guitar or sing the melody, words or what ever. Everything I say is from experience, I lost a great song once. I woke up grabbed my guitar and played one of the best songs I have ever heard, it even had vocals. I sang it at work and couldn't wait to go home and play it again. Well, I forgot how it went and to this day I can't remember one note.
Once you can play the Am pentatonic scale, lay down a chord progression and play to it. Play over a 1, 6, 7 progressions in Am. Am, F and G. Play the Am scale in every position on the guitar.
Lay down just the Am chord on the tape recorder and play the Am pentatonic scale, A blues, the A Aeolian scale, the A Dorian scale, the A Phrygian scale, the A melodic minor scale, the A harmonic scale over this chord.
Do the same with the F chord. Play the F major scale, the F major pentatonic scale, the Dm pentatonic scale, F Mixolydian scale, F Lydian scale.
Do the same with the G chord. Play the G major, G major pentatonic, G Mixolydian, G Locrian, Lydian, Em pentatonic.
Good luck,
From the Jam Room
Copyright ©
1998-2007
Guitar Secrets Inc. All rights reserved
Lead Guitar Made Easy, A Visual Learning Experience
Email us Information Privacy Disclaimer
Customer Service
No part of this work may be reproduced without the permission in writing from the publisher.