Hot Rod Your Fender Amp

I just caught up on some news of a free giveaway contest that should interest you if you’re a Fender amp fan.

 

Voyageur Press is giving away five copies of its book How to Hot Rod Your Fender Amp, which shows you details of various modifications to get the best sound possible out of your amp.

 

The book is written by Jeffrey Falla, a man who knows a thing or two about guitar amps. Jeffrey modified his first amp at the age of 13 and soon after built his first amp from parts he salvaged from old jukeboxes. Today he builds ToneTron amps for a small clientele and spends most of his time experimenting with sound in his Minneapolis workshop.

 

In this practical guide book you’ll discover essential amp tuning tips:

 

• Selecting tubes, capacitors, pots, and other electronic equipment
• Biasing and setting up your amp
• Great hot-rodding enhancements to give you the tone of the pros at your fingertips
• Making one channel into an overdrive channel
• Modifying tone controls
• Building splitter boxes to run two amps simultaneously
• Building the perfect gig amp (something light and portable, but with big sound)
• And more…

 

You have until midnight on January 30th to enter, so hurry over to the Voyageur Press Contest Blog to enter.

An Easy Way To Arrange Songs For Two Guitars

What do you do when you sit down to play guitar with another guitar player?

 

If you're new to it then you'll probably do what most of us did, play the same thing together. There's nothing really wrong about this. Indeed, if you do actually manage to play together then that's already a good achievement.

 

But it is quite easy to learn easy ways to arrange your favourite songs so that each guitarist plays a slightly different part, giving each player an increased challenge and enjoyment. And it also makes for a more interesting arrangement to listen to.

 

Chord Inversions

An easy way to create interesting arrangements for two guitars is to use chord inversions.

 

You might already know that a basic chord is made up of three notes known as the 1st (or root), 3rd and 5th. The first inversion of this chord uses the notes in that order: 1st (lowest), 3rd (in the middle), 5th (highest). An example of a first inversion is the open A major chord shape shown below.

 

A chord inversion places the three notes in a different order. It lets you move the chord to a different place on the fretboard and gives the chord a slightly different sound.

 

We can take the A major chord from above and rearrange the notes. We can use the top three notes of the open E chord form at the fifth fret to make the chord's 3rd the lowest note. Or we can use the top three notes of an open D chord at the ninth fret to make the 5th the lowest note.

 

You can shift these inversions up or down the neck to play any major chord. Simply find the fret along the respective strings where the root note of the desired chord occurs. You can find three different ways to play each chord so you can separate your sound from another guitarist's.

 

Two-Part Arrangements

Let's take a look at a couple of examples to show how this works. The following chord progressions can be played by one guitar using open chords, you could record yourself playing them to practice with or trade places with a friend. The example guitar parts for the second guitar show the same chord progression using three note chord inversions of the A, D and E forms described above.

 

Example on D G A chord progression

This first example uses a D G A D chord progression over four bars. The chord inversions are played higher up the neck with a simple rhythm pattern of one strum per beat.

 

The D chord is played with the E shape, the root note is at the tenth fret of the first string. The G chord uses an A shape, its root is on the third string, twelfth fret. The A chord uses a D shape with its root at the tenth fret of the second string.

 

Example on A D E chord progression

Here's an example four bar chord progression in the key of A, A D E A. This time the second guitar part uses a mix of arpeggios and strums to create an interesting sound.

 

In this example the A chord is played with an E shape at the fifth fret. The D chord uses an A shape, the root D note is on the seventh fret of the third string. Finally, the E chord is played with a D shape, shifted up two frets to its root note at the fifth fret of the second string.

 

Conclusion

Use these chord inversions to create an interesting guitar arrangement the next time you play with another guitarist.

 

When you first start to experiment with them it might take you some time to work out where to play them for each chord. But with a little practice you'll start to learn the positions by heart and be able to pick them out on the fly.

 

Did you enjoy this lesson? Then click here to enjoy more Rhythm Guitar Lessons from Not Playing Guitar.

9 Ways To Make Up New Guitar Licks

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." – Proverb

 

Learn a new guitar lick from a book, video or teacher, and you feed yourself for a day. But learn to turn each lick you learn into many new licks and you'll have an endless flow of new licks to play every day.

 

Here is a set of lick changes that will let you turn every lick, every exercise, you learn into an abundant supply of many new licks to practice. Apply as many, or as few, of them as you like to create endless new licks and avoid the pitfall of playing the same things over and over.

 

 

 

1. Change Octaves

An easy change to practice is to play exactly the same lick an octave (or two) higher or lower. You'll develop your knowledge of the fretboard and of different scale positions as well as exercise your fingers with different fingering patterns.

 

2. Change Key

Simply move a lick up or down the fretboard and you change its key. This is another great way to build your familiarity with the guitar fretboard.

 

3. Change The Rhythm Pattern

Keep the original lick's note pitches but make some changes to the rhythm pattern. Rewrite the lick and replace some note durations with different values. Your new licks don't have to remain the same length as the original but if they do then they can be easily interchanged.

 

4. Change A Few Notes

You can also start to play around with the notes of the lick. Add an ascending movement instead of a descent, or vice versa, or try out larger or smaller intervals between notes. You can change as few or as many notes as you like.

 

5. Change Playing Effects

Experiment with effects to shift the emphasis and weight of notes around. Add, remove or change playing effects such as bends, slides, hammers and vibrato. You can also add chromatic movements to lead into notes from a half step (or more) below or above.

 

6. Reverse The Lick

This is a change that's quite simple to do, but might not be so easy to play. Put the lick into reverse order and play it backwards from the last note to the first note.

 

7. Shuffle the lick

Shuffle a lick by taking parts of it and changing their order, for example, reverse bars one and two of a two bar lick. You can shuffle beats within bars too.

 

8. Call And Response

Another good way to create new licks is to play the lick as a question and make up answers in call and response style.

 

Just play the original lick and then follow it up with whatever it inspires in you. In reality you will use many of the techniques described above when you do this, but the difference is that you learn to do it spontaneously. Remember to write down the licks you make up this way for future reference.

 

9. Change The Tempo

Here's a change that has to be included for completeness. It's a very simple change, and easy to overlook, but often the whole character of a lick will change, not to mention the technical challenge it presents...

 

Now you know nine ways to make up new guitar licks and exercises to practice. You can make up a lot of licks if you change only one thing at a time, if you combine two or more changes you'll create a huge number of new possibilities.

 

Put these tips into practice to grow your guitar lick vocabulary and create personalized licks of your own inspired by those of your heroes. You can apply these techniques to the licks you pick up from books and magazines, or teachers you follow. Multiply the benefits of all these sources by learning how to easily create dozens of new licks from every one that you learn from them.

Can You Practice Guitar In 5 Minutes?

You can practice guitar in 5 minutes. I do it all the time. Here's how you do it:

1. Know what you'll work on without having to look it up or think about it
2. Make sure your guitar is handy at all times
3. Make sure any sheet music or other materials you need are ready at all times
4. Don't worry about being perfect
5. Don't be complete, just do whatever fits in the five minutes

With a little organization you can be ready to exploit any five spare minutes you get to improve your guitar playing.

In my experience, a bunch of those little five minutes can add up to a lot of useful practice, practice that I wouldn't have got if I waited for more time to do it.

This is based on something Michael Martine mentioned in his post on how to write a blog post in 5 minutes.

Photo by blue2likeyou.

What’s Your Favourite Beatles Riff?

A I was preparing to eat lunch today I looked for a little music to accompany my meal. After a quick shuffle through my CD collection I settled on The Beatles’ 1962-1966 Red Album, disc II. 

 

As the hits played away I was amazed, as always, at how modern these songs sound almost fifty years after they were recorded.

 

I never listened to The Beatles growing up, they were an “old” group for kids of my generation then. But later as I learned to play guitar, I was introduced to their songs and music by friends I played and learned with.

 

Since then I got myself a couple of discs and I always find something interesting to learn in their music: interesting chord progressions, powerful vocal harmonies, unusual instrumentations, great sounding arrangements…

 

I find it surprising that in those far off days with no digital recording studios, no Internet and far fewer TV and radio programmes these recordings incorporate so many diverse ingredients.

 

The music is also full of plenty of great guitar riffs too. Always used to support the songs with great taste. A couple of my own favourites are the deceptively simple, yet distinctive and catchy riffs of Day Tripper and In My Life.

 

What about you, use a comment to tell us your favourite Beatles' guitar riff…?

Practice Guitar Effectively In 15 Minutes Per Day

 

Can you really practice guitar in only 15 minutes? The other day I argued that if you practice just 15 minutes a day then you can learn and progress as a guitar player. But to do so you'll need to build a well organized practice routine. Ideally you should spend some time to prepare in advance so that you know exactly what to do when you sit down with your guitar.

 

To help you along the way here is a simple practice routine that you can fit into only 15 minutes. As you'll see, there is actually room for quite a lot of work in that time if you put your mind to it.

 

2 Minutes Scale Exercises

As you probably know the major scale contains seven notes. This means that at a steady 60 bpm you can play the scale over eight times in only a minute.

 

The sliding blues scale up and down the neck contains 15 notes, you can play up and down the pattern two times in only one minute at 60 bpm.

 

5 Minutes Chord Progressions

Keeping a relatively slow 60 bpm tempo you can play 75 four-beat bars in five minutes. That gives you the opportunity to practice plenty of chord changes.

 

You could play almost 20 four-bar progressions, one chord to a bar. That covers a lot of the progressions commonly used in major or minor scales. Or you could practice only two progressions, repeating them 10 times each.

 

If you have a large chord vocabulary then you could simply work through 75 chord changes going through a whole series of different progressions in these five minutes.

 

4 Minutes Guitar Licks

As well as basic scales and chords you probably want to spend some time working on guitar licks. Whether it's rhythm or solo licks, four minutes is an opportunity to get in a lot of work.

 

A typical guitar lick lasts between one and four bars, so doesn't take much time to play. At our reference tempo of 60 bpm you can cover between 4 and 15 licks each minute. In fact, if you're not used to playing licks you might have trouble finding enough licks to fill four long minutes.

 

4 Minutes Song Practice

Finally, give yourself room each day to play a complete song. Most songs last less than four minutes so this is adequate time to play through a song at least once.

 

There you have an easy outline for a rapid practice routine that actually lets you get a lot done. The essential thing is to spend time up front so you know exactly what you will do with each of your precious practice minutes. Don't waste any of them wondering what to play next, or playing something you already master just because you don't know what else to do.

 

If you give it a try you might find that 15 minutes of intense practice does a lot of good for your guitar playing. There's no room for time wasting, and it's easy to keep focused on doing a maximum of exercises in the minimum of time. Why not try it over the next week to see what results you get?

Photo by Keo 101.

Can You Learn How To Play Guitar In 15 Minutes A Day?

A lot of people I come into contact with say they would like to learn to play guitar. But many of them are put off by the amount of time they think has to be invested.

 

It's true that learning to play guitar requires regular practice. It's not the kind of thing you can just go out and do one Saturday a month when you feel like it. But do you really have to spend hours every day to become good at it? Could you learn to play or improve if you have only a very small amount of time, say 15 minutes per day?

 

I believe that you can, if you follow three simple rules.

 

Rule #1 Don't play the same things over again

I'd hate to count the number of hours I have spent during the years playing the same pieces over and over again. Sometimes I've done this to try and perfect something. Other times I've done it just out of boredom, lack of attention, or just not deciding what to do next.

 

The trouble is, when you do the same things you get only the same results. That time spent perfecting an exercise is rarely time well spent, beyond a certain point you don't get much better at playing it.

 

However, if I move on and play some other exercises for a while, then come back to it, I'm often amazed how much better I got while doing something else.

 

If you want to improve your playing then don't keep repeating the same exercises until they're completely perfect. Work them until they're good enough and then move on to a new challenge to push your comfort zone.

 

Rule #2 Organize Your Practice Time

If you want to avoid playing the same things over because you don't know what to do next then you need to invest time to organize your guitar practice.

 

Your aim should be to always have some useful new exercises and songs to practice. By useful, I mean songs and exercises that give you some challenge that keeps you on a path to improvement.

 

If you're lucky enough to have a good teacher then they can provide you with this. But if you're learning on your own then please set aside some time to organize things for yourself. You can follow a structured plan via a book or video course or you can work out some exercises for yourself when you have enough knowledge. Hint: take an exercise from a book or video and alter it to make up a new one.

 

Rule #3 Keep The Long Term In Mind

If you practice 15 minutes per day then you will probably not see spectacular results on a day to day, or even week to week, basis. It's easy to become discouraged.

 

But if you can maintain your motivation and practice regularly then you'll be a whole different kind of guitar player after a period of months or years.

Learn Guitar In Only 15 Minutes A Day

My experience has shown me that it really is possible to learn guitar and improve with only a small amount of daily practice. Apply these three rules as you learn guitar and you could progress more than you imagine in only 15 minutes a day.

 

• Rule #1 Don't play the same things over again
• Rule #2 Organize Your Practice Time
• Rule #3 Keep The Long Term In Mind

Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When You Practice Guitar?

Regular practice is key to making progress as you learn to play guitar. I'm sure you've heard or read that in lots of places before. But what if you practice regularly but still don't seem to make the kind of progress you expect?

 

There could be plenty of different reasons. Maybe some of these common guitar practice mistakes could be part of your problem? Check out the descriptions below to discover if they apply to you and how you can avoid them. 

 

1. Are You Challenged?

One of the easiest practice mistakes to fall into is not giving yourself enough challenge. It's easy to spend lots of practice time simply picking up your guitar and playing through the same old exercises or songs out of habit.

 

To avoid this pitfall you need to spend some thought to prepare a challenging practice routine that keeps raising the bar a little each week and each month.

 

2. Do You Know Where You're Going?

If you set out to drive to the supermarket, the chances are you'll get there. You'd find it pretty ridiculous to get into your car to drive without deciding first where you want to go.

 

Yet many times when we pick up our guitar to practice we forget to make this basic decision. What exactly do we want to achieve in this practice session? What is the destination we're aiming at?

 

Get clear about the learning or improvement objective of each practice session and you'll get more out of it.

 

3. Know Your Limits

If you don't set limits in terms of time or repetitions spent on an exercise or objective it's easy to cruise along and spend too much time on it.

 

Fix some kind of limit so you know when to stop and move on to something else. If you spend all of your practice time on only one thing it will cause you another problem, lack of balance in your practice.

 

4. Are You In Balance?

You should cover a variety of different areas of work as you practice. If you always work on the same thing you weaken your playing and increase the chances of tiring yourself.

 

To avoid this ensure your practice plan contains a balance of technique or physical skills, mental skills, and repertoire.

 

5. Playing Sloppily

If you practice guitar often then it's easy to get into a routine where you don't think too much about what you're doing. That's when sloppy habits can sneak in: poor posture, not keeping technique straight, and so on.

 

But if you practice sloppy then you'll play sloppy.

 

Treat your practice it with as much importance as a sell-out concert in front of 50 000 people. Focus on what you're doing (switch off that TV) and pay attention to your posture, position and accuracy.

 

6. Not Keeping In Time

A form of sloppy playing, not keeping in time is a very common error.

 

It is hard and discouraging at first to have a metronome telling you that your playing is out of time.

 

But work with your metronome or rhythm machine and it will help you to develop this vital playing skill.

 

7. Watch Your Position

I spent almost all of my practice time as I learned guitar sitting down. But guess what, when I started to play with other musicians eight times out of ten there is no place to sit.

 

This might depend on the style of music you want to play but think about the kind of conditions you will play in. Then make sure you practice in similar conditions. It does make a difference.

 

Did you recognize any of these mistakes? Don't feel bad about if you do, I've made all of these mistakes at some time or another and I still make some of them now.

 

The point of the article is not to bash yourself up because you made mistakes. The point is to be aware of them and do something to change your practice routine so you avoid or stop making them.

 

Successful guitar practice takes plenty of thought and concentration. Click here to read more articles about developing effective guitar practice routines for yourself.

Photo by Cameron Cassan.

Acoustic Guitar Amp Review - Marshall AS50D vs. Vox AGA 70

I was recently looking for an acoustic guitar amplifier and tested several at my local music shop. I quickly settled on a choice between a Marshall AS50D and a Vox AGA 70. Both had a very nice acoustic guitar sound and enough power for my needs, it was difficult to choose between them. Before returning to the shop for a second test I started to write this review to help me make up my mind which amplifier was right for me.

I'm not going to list all the features of each amp, you can find those easily on the product sites I've listed at the end of the review.

Marshall AS50D

The Marshall AS50D is a 50W, two-channel amplifier with a smart, slightly retro appearance. It produces very high quality sound from its two 8" speakers and dome tweeter. I found the sound of an acoustic guitar is very naturally reproduced. Some reviews complain that there are only two controls for equalization but I found them quite sufficient to tune in a good sound with more or less bass or treble depending on your taste and needs.

The adjustable reverb sounds very nice and its amount can be varied for each channel via a mix control. The adjustable chorus can be used to obtain a nice subtle level of chorus (I don't like too strong chorus myself). Chorus can be switched on or off for each channel.

The amplifier is quite loud and would be sufficient for small rooms and many types of bands. One good feature is a built-in limiter so you can turn the volume right up to use the amplifier's full power without distortion.

What About The Marshall's Weak Points?

Not really a weakness, but it is more bulky and heavier than the Vox. Not that it's really heavy, but if you want to walk far with it or use public transport then the Vox will be much easier to carry.

Although I was very impressed with the sound of the AS50D at first, it was the small size that tempted me towards the AGA 70.

Vox AGA 70

The AGA 70 acoustic guitar amp is a recent comer from the Vox, another legend best known for its electric guitar amplifiers. Like the AS50D it features 2 separate channels with jack or XLR inputs. One of the channels sports a tube pre-amp that boosts the sound and makes it rounder and warmer.

I was initially attracted by this amps small size, but when I tested it the sound quality was also excellent. With its 70 watts it is a little louder than the AS50D. I found it suffered a little in comparison to the Marshall though in the transparency of the acoustic sound.

Don't get me wrong, the sound is very pleasant, particularly from the tube, and the four equalizer controls for bass, middle, treble and colour offer a broad range of sounds. It will certainly please a lot of players.

But for me, it didn't do quite such a good job of rendering my acoustic guitar's natural sound. I think this is probably largely due to the difference in speakers. The Vox has only a single 6.5" speaker, coupled with the smaller cabinet size the sound seems a little trapped compared to the range of the Marshall.

In addition to the four equalization controls the AGA also offers very effective adjustable reverb for each channel. It also has separate auxiliary line inputs that can be used in parallel with the instrument channels, but there is no level control for the inputs.

The weaknesses of the AGA, in addition to the sound, are the chorus and the control knobs. Each channel has a switchable chorus that gives no control over the effect which was too strong for my taste. This made it more or less useless.

The control knobs have a rather flimsy appearance that didn't appeal to me. Some of you may like them though.

In Conclusion

Both amps have very good feature sets for acoustic guitar players. While they both offer very pleasing sound, I find that the Marshall has a more transparent and natural sound with broader range.

The best results from both amps were obtained with the bass level turned well down. The sound was also improved by placing the amps on a stand off the floor.

After a second visit to the shop to compare the two amps again I finally settled on the Marshall. I would have been very pleased to take the smaller and lighter Vox amplifier, but not at the expense of missing out on the superior sound of the AS50D.

Resources

Marshall AS50D, http://www.marshallamps.com/product.asp?productId=43.

Marshall AS50D Acoustic Amp at Amazon.com.

Vox AGA 70, http://www.voxamps.com/aga/.

VOX AGA70 Acoustic Guitar Amplifier at Amazon.com.

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