5 Blues Guitar Soloing Mistakes That Crush Your Blues Guitar Solos

I recently worked with the Blues Licks and Solos DVD from Watch and Learn to study some blues guitar solos that sound good. As I study the licks and solos in this course I've come to understand some of the mistakes I make that ruin my blues guitar solos.

So what were the important differences between the licks and solos in this course and my own?

 

Too many Notes

The first difference that struck me is the difference in the number of notes used. In my own licks I'd use nearly all the notes of the pentatonic scale. The licks in the videos tend to use fewer notes.

 

Since working with the course I've spent time training myself to make up and play licks using only two, three or four notes. The notes are repeated during the lick and give it a tighter, more focused feeling.

 

Lack Of Structure

The second major problem I discovered with my solos was a lack of structure. I'd play a series of notes that wandered along but didn't have a real aim. I'd easily get lost and not know exactly where in the 12 bar blues I was at a given moment.

 

The solos in the BLSD course don't suffer from this problem. They are built of three parts of four bars each to fit the 12 bars of the blues progression. Each part has its place and purpose and gives the whole solo a structure that makes it sound as if its going somewhere instead of just randomly wandering as the music plays.

Lack Of Space

With a lack of structure there was never a good place to stop and pause in my solos. Structure and space go together to build a better solo.

 

When your solo has structure there are natural places to pause and give the solo more rhythm, just like full-stops or new paragraphs in writing or speech.

 

Notes Too Often The Same Length

While I was busy trying to fit in every pentatonic scale note and fretboard position I’d get into a pattern of playing all eighth notes. This doesn’t give the solo much rhythmic variation.

 

When you use fewer notes and give your solo some structure it becomes easier to think about its rhythm. You can vary your note lengths and give the solo a more dynamic feeling.

 

Not Enough Vibrato

In the Blues Licks and Solos videos I noticed that Jody Worrell uses a lot of vibrato. Just about any time he rests on a note that note gets vibrato. I'm working on getting into this habit myself.

 

Putting Things Right

I've noticed all of these mistakes in my own blues guitar soloing while working on the example solos in the Blues Licks and Solos DVD. They have made my solos sound poor and they can make yours sound poor too. Now that I know what they are, I'm focused on putting them right.

 

What about you? What blues guitar soloing mistakes have you noticed in your playing? Use the comments link below to let us know.

 

Photo by Guitar.

Two Rock Guitar Chords For Beginner Guitar

Open any book of beginner guitar chords and you’ll invariably find the classic G and C chord positions shown below.

 

But these are not the only way to play these open chords. It took me a while to find out, but when I played with more experienced guitarists they hardly ever used the standard G chord shape.

Instead I use a slight variation shown in the diagram below. I call this variation the G rock chord because it’s so common in rock songs. I’ve become so used to this shape that I almost hardly ever play the classic G chord shape anymore. It has a fuller, richer sound that the classic shape.

 

               

There’s also a variation of the common C chord shape, shown below. The note on the first string played with your fourth finger is coloured light grey because it is optional.

 

It’s not used quite as much as the G chord above, because it modifies the chord’s sound slightly due to the addition of a 9th note from the scale. It still sounds great in a lot of places though, try it out in songs you know and let your ear tell you if it works or not.

 

The really cool thing about these two chords is that it’s so easy to play them together. You only have to move your first and second fingers down one string from G to C and then back up one string from C to G.

 

This combination works wonderfully in the key of G, and you can find it in the song All I Want, by U2, for example (note that you’ll need to add a capo at the first fret if you play along to the original).

 

Go through the songs you know and try them out with one, the other or both of these chord variations. You’ll discover some interesting new sounds to spice up your playing.

Two-Chord Song Lesson - Skip to My Lou

This easy beginner guitar lesson shows you how to play the popular children's song Skip to My Lou. You'll learn the chords and a simple strum pattern to play the song in the key of C. The lesson ends with tips on making your performance a little more polished once you've mastered the basics.

 

Skip to My Lou is widely known as a children's song, but it's origins are older as a dance for young and old alike. It can make a great party song to liven up a children's party or a warm up a cold winter evening.

 

Chords Used In The Song

This song is played with two chords known as the I (one) chord and V (five) chord. The song is shown here in the key of C, so the I chord is C major and the V chord is G. If you find these chords too difficult you could substitute them for D and A (key of D major), or A and E chords (key of E major).

 

The fingerings for the C and G chords are shown below.

     

 

Strum Pattern

For this dance tune a lively strum pattern is needed. But as you'll also need to play quite fast the pattern is going to be fairly simple. The series of down and up strums is indicated below

 

D  D-U  D-U  D  |  D  D  D-U  D

 

The Song

Here are the words and chords to the song for you to sing and play along with. Note that only the first verse is shown completely because the three lines are repeated each time with the same chord pattern: C, then G, then C again.

 

C

Lost my partner, what’ll I do

G

Lost my partner, what’ll I do

C

Lost my partner, what’ll I do

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

C

Gone again, skip to my Lou (3x)

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

C

I'll get another one, prettier ‘n new (3x)

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

C

Little red wagon painted blue (3x)

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

C

Flies in the buttermilk, two by two (3x)

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

C

Flies in the sugar bowl, shoo shoo shoo (3x)

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

C

Lots more verses but there’s a lotta do (3x)

G                   C

Skip to my Lou my darling

 

Performance Tips

To embellish the song with a little extra polish here are a couple of tips. When you've mastered the basic version why not give them a try.

 

Hand clapping. A a lively song like this lends itself to some audience participation with a bit of hand clapping. Get your audience clapping along on the off-beats.

 

Palm muting. This is also a good song to experiment with some palm muting. What's palm muting? It's a strumming hand technique used to mute the strings from time to time to create a rhythm effect. When you strum down let the side of your palm come to rest across the guitar’s strings to create a percussive chuck sound.

Music Notes Guitar Guru Review

Guitar Guru is a free software program from Music Notes that allows you to learn and play your favourite guitar songs without reading music or tab. It's animated fretboard shows you the notes to finger and makes it easy to follow along and learn how to play new songs. I recently tried out Guitar Guru and here is my review of the software.

 

What Is Guitar Guru?

Music Notes is a web site that sells sheet music for over 110,000 song titles to download and print. Guitar players can now also learn songs with no sheet music or tab to read thanks to the Guitar Guru interactive music player.

 

Guitar Guru uses an animated guitar fretboard to show you the notes to fret and chords to pick on your PC or Mac screen. The software took just a few moments to download from the web site and installed without any problems on my Windows Vista PC.

 

Guitar Guru Song Playback

Guitar Guru presents you with a picture of a fretboard and displays the notes to play on it as coloured dots. The coloured dots are animated in real time as the track you choose is played via MIDI or in synch with the CD or mp3 of the song.

 

The animated dots are clear and easy to see as the song plays, and the software also displays the chord names near the top of the screen. You can customize the display of the neck by altering its size or changing the picture. By default mine had a Les Paul style fingerboard displayed but you can also download skins for Stratocaster and acoustic style necks.

 

Each song can contain several tracks – one for each guitar part. Each track is broken down into sections like verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2, intro, etc. You can play each section on its own to work through the songs in small chunks. You can also position a start and end cursor anywhere in the song to choose specific sections to work on.

 

Learning Songs

Guitar Guru includes a few useful features besides showing the fingerings to help you to learn songs.

 

• You can change the tempo of any track without modifying the pitch. This makes it easy to slow down tricky passages or simply take it slowly as you learn and memorize the parts.

 

• You can play any section of the music in a loop by placing a start and end cursor on the track’s timeline.

 

• You can view the sheet music and tab while Guitar Guru plays the tracks. The notes are highlighted in colour as they are played and you can select which instruments or instrument are played.

 

Conclusion

I found Guitar Guru to be a very easy to use program and it made learning songs much easier and quicker than working with tab files. Another good point is that the music you download is all legal.

 

There is one small thing that could make Guitar Guru even better, the possibility to transpose the songs to another key, but this doesn’t seem possible at the moment.

 

If you want to try Guitar Guru for yourself you can download it from the Music Notes web site for free. The software download includes 40 free samples that you can use to get a feel for what it could do for you. There are many titles available in Guitar Guru format, here are the top 5 downloads at the time of writing:

 

1. Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin
2. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
3. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd
4. Hotel California, The Eagles
5. Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley

What Will The Guitar Of The Future Be Like?

There was a time when guitar magazines and websites were all about guitars. But recently things have been changed, I sometimes think I've accidentally opened a computer magazine by mistake as come across ever more pictures of iPhone products for guitar.

It seems you can hardly browse a guitar site or open a guitar magazine without discovering some new electronic wizardry. This all got me wondering where our beloved instrument might be heading. Electronics and tiny computers find their way into more and more of the everyday objects around us and the guitar will surely not escape.

 

Products such as Gibson's Robot Guitar and Dusk Tiger or the Ibanez Montage have already started to indicate the way. But I think that automatic tuning and equalization settings are only the beginning of the story. Here are a few ideas for other features that might come next...

 

A Sound Machine

Products such as AmpliTube's iRig show that you can fit quality amp modelling and effects into a box the size of an iPhone.

 

But why not put the effects and controls into the instrument itself? No more little boxes dangling off wires, you'll simply plug your earphones into the guitar and jam away with a wealth of sound effects and modelling technology.

 

Your guitar will be capable of delivering electric, acoustic and hybrid sounds, and you'll be able to tweak them all via touch-screen controls like those used in the latest smart phones.

 

Say Goodbye To Cables

Your guitar's on-board computer will also be fully networked with wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. This opens up lots of fun possibilities. You'll be able to exchange sounds, licks and even whole songs with other guitarists as well as upload your latest creations to your Facebook page or create a virtual jam with band members who might be anywhere.

 

Wireless technology will also allow you to "plug-in" to any nearby amp with no cable too. You could even send your signal to several different amps simultaneously.

 

Built-in Learning Tools

With the right electronics and software your instrument can become your very own personal teacher and trainer. Here are a few of the learning and practice tools your guitar might offer.

 

• Play backing tracks, rhythm patterns or chord progressions to practice or jam with (Ovation's (XXX link) mp3 guitar showed us part of this idea in action already). Your guitar’s network connection will let you download just what you need.
• Loop backing tracks and rhythm patterns at different tempos.
• Increase backing tempos progressively to develop your guitar speed. The guitar could even decide itself when to increase or reduce speed according to how well you play a passage.
• Ear training - your guitar could play you notes, chords, melodies for you to repeat. It could even check what you played and show you where you get things right or wrong.
• The guitar could detect wrong notes or poorly placed fingers to show you where you need to improve.
• Record everything you play. Not only will this let you check your results as you learn but it can also let songwriters capture every musical idea they play.

 

Conclusion

The electric guitar is a product associated with rebellious and revolutionary music, but ironically the sales message is often strongly tied with nostalgia and tradition. How many guitar players do you know who swear by genuine 50s gear and vintage tube amps?

 

But a younger generation of players weaned on video games, Guitar Hero, and Internet everywhere will wonder how us old guys ever managed to play without features like these.

 

What About You?

The digital guitar can surely offer us a lot of benefits, and I've only scratched the surface of a few possible features here. So tell me, what do you think? What is the future for "robot" guitars? What wild and crazy features will we see from them tomorrow? Please share your thoughts in the comments...

 

Photo by davidajnered.

How To Play Acoustic Guitar Slaps

Percussive techniques such as slapping the strings are an excellent way to develop your acoustic guitar sound. You can spruce up simple open chord songs with a whole assortment of sounds. Combine chord slapping and other percussion techniques with strumming or finger picking guitar styles and take your sound to a new level.

 

Slaps and other percussive techniques can be played with normal open chords, so they are a great way for a beginner to develop a more interesting sound. Here are a couple of different ways you can play slapping techniques.

 

Thumb Slaps

Use the side of your thumb to slap down on the strings from the bass end towards the high strings. You should aim to slap the strings with your thumb and drag it across two, three or four of them simultaneously in a downward movement.

 

Finger Slaps

Another slapping technique is to curl your finger tips and thumb in towards your palm and slap down onto the strings with the knuckles of your fingers and your nails. Your hand should be in a loose fist shape, kind of similar to when you hold a pen.

 

You can use different parts of the fingers to get different sounds out of the guitar as you slap. Experiment to find the part of your hand that is comfortable and makes the sound you want.

 

A Video Demonstration

These techniques and a few others are demonstrated in the intermediate acoustic guitar lesson video below (click here to view the video on the site if you’re reading this in an email).

 

As well as rhythmic slapping techniques you’ll also see how to do tap harmonics, finger strumming and chord pull offs. All with easy open Em Asus2 Cmaj7 chords.

 

 

Thanks to Next Level Guitar for this video.

iGTR Pocket Guitar Practice Amplifier

Here at Not Playing Guitar I'm always on the lookout for interesting accessories to help make it easier and faster to start guitar practice. It's simple, the easier and faster you can start guitar practice, the more you'll do.

I recently came across the iGTR Personal Guitar Processor that fits right into this category. Here is a short introduction that tells you what this handy guitar practice tool can do.


iGTR is a pocket sized amplifier for electric guitar with headphone outputs. The interesting thing about this pocket amplifier are the sound controls it offers and the ability to plug two instruments together to practice or jam with a friend.

Sound Controls

The iGTR offers three controls you can use to shape your guitar sound.

1. Amp type - you can choose a bright, normal, or warm sound. An associated gain control lets you choose between a clean sound or add as much distortion as you want.

2. A modulation effect control that lets you choose between a phaser, tremolo or auto-wah. Again, a simple dial lets you dose the amount of the effect.

3. An ambience control with its by now familiar dial lets you blend some reverb, delay, or chorus to your sound.

By all accounts the iGTR seems to have a good sound quality for a small practice amp. You can find some demos and reviews on YouTube to check this for yourself.

Playing Together

The iGTR has the usual audio input jack so you can plug in an mp3 or CD player.

What sets the iGTR apart is the two headphone outputs it offers. These are designed so you that two guitar players can each send one of their audio outputs into the other’s audio input, then jam away with each other all within their headphones. I think this is a really good idea.

Conclusion

Overall the iGTR looks like a very interesting accessory if you're looking for a small and portable headphone practice amp. And it's low price certainly makes it a good contender.

If you’re looking for a portable practice amplifier it’s certainly worth testing the iGTR. You might also like to compare it to the Vox AmPlug models.

Click here to visit the iGTR product page and get more info.

Blues Licks And Solos DVD Review

Here is a review of the Blues Licks and Solos DVD by Jody Worrell from from Watch & Learn. I’ve been using this for a little over two weeks now and I’ve had lots of fun. In the first part of the review I’ll describe what’s in the product, then in the second part I’ll let you know what I liked about it so far.

 

In A Nutshell

The course contains 3 hours of videos and an accompanying book that teach and demonstrate twelve blues guitar solos on six different songs. The solos are aimed at beginner-intermediate guitarists and beyond and demonstrates the use of different scales.

 

Each solo is based on a different scale and demonstrates its use to create three blues licks that are played over a 12 bar blues chorus. The main benefits of the course are that you learn 12 model solos you can reproduce and at the same time you get to see how to create licks from the scales and assemble them to make a solo.

 

Songs, Scales and Solos

The course contains 6 blues songs styled on famous blues tunes. Two solos are presented for each song, usually each using a different scale. The various solos demonstrate use of the minor pentatonic, minor blues, harmonic minor, hybrid blues, mixolydian and major pentatonic scales.

 

Each lesson follows the same practical format:

1. Learn, or review, the scale used

2. Learn 3 licks from the scale

3. Assemble the licks to play the solo

 

Each step is shown in detail in the videos. Jody’s explanations are clear and the split left-hand/right-hand view makes it easy to see what both the fretting and picking hand are doing.

 

Techniques

Although the main focus of the course is the licks I was pleasantly surprised by the section that presents the blues guitar techniques used in the solos. In particular I picked up some useful tips on bends, vibrato and slide techniques.

 

- A tip on bends shows how to mute surrounding strings with the first finger.

- Some good vibrato tips with close up of Jody’s vibrato technique.

- Use of the thumb as an anchor when performing slides.

 

The Book

It’s quite possible to learn to play all the licks and solos from the video only. But there is also an accompanying 57 page book that shows all the scales, licks and solos in the course in tab and standard notation. It also includes some notes on what’s going on in the licks. You’ll also find sections with chord charts for the six songs on the audio CD, tuning notes and the blues guitar techniques used in the course.

 

Audio Jam Tracks

Full-length backing tracks of the six songs at both normal and slow tempo accompany the course on an audio CD (or in mp3 format in the downloadable version). The tracks are professionally recorded to very high quality and are great fun to play along with.

 

Conclusion

Blues Licks And Solos is a fun product and is packed with useful information. I still have plenty more solos to learn and lots to study applying the ideas shown to creating solos of my own to play over the audio jam tracks.

 

The main lessons I have picked up so far apart from the licks I’ve learned are:

 

1. Thinking in terms of three four-bar licks is a great tool, it makes it easier to keep track of where I am in the progression as I solo.

2. Don’t mix in too many ideas at once. The licks shown focus on just one scale, and they sound great.

3. Some helpful tips on bend, vibrato and slide techniques.

 

I didn’t find anything to dislike in this product, it’s very well thought out and put together. Overall I think it is great value for money and would be useful for any blues guitar player learning to solo or more advanced players looking for some ideas to steal.

 

Product Details

Blues Licks And Solos DVD or video download (this review refers to the video download version), Jody Worrell, Watch & Learn, $19.95. For details visit the product page at http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/books/BLS.html, you can also watch a sample video and see sample pages from the book.

The Best Songs To Learn On An Acoustic Guitar

What are the best songs to learn on an acoustic guitar? This is not an easy question to answer, it depends mainly on your personal tastes in music and your level of playing.

 

But I think there are a few tips that can help you to choose the best acoustic guitar songs for you to learn.

 

There’s Lots Of Choice

There is a huge choice of songs to learn and play on an acoustic guitar. Not all of them are acoustic guitar songs in their original form. Almost any three or four chord rock and pop song can sound great when played on an acoustic guitar, although it won’t sound exactly the same as electric full-band versions.

 

Simplicity is often the best approach when adapting a song to the acoustic guitar. Don’t get put off if you find complicated tab for your favourite band’s songs. Learn to identify the chords and simply play them as open chords on your acoustic guitar. You can often find simple chord versions in song books or tab sites.

 

Use the strengths of the acoustic guitar sound, in particular open chords to turn your favourite rock hits into great acoustic guitar songs.

 

Fingerpicking Songs

If you’re looking for something more challenging to play then there are plenty of great finger-picking arrangements. Here are a few examples that I’ve enjoyed learning and playing, there are many many more...

 

• Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
• Blackbird by The Beatles
• Strong Enough by Sheryl Crow
• Questions by Jack Johnson
• Road Trippin' by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers

 

You can also take your open-chord arrangements and introduce a few new techniques. For example, use some chords up the neck instead of playing the same open chords all the time.

 

Change The Rhythm

Rhythms make a great playground to create arrangements for acoustic guitar songs. Two of my favourite ways to transform a song are to change the rhythm to a reggae style and to introduce some chord slapping.

 

Reggae rhythms breathe some life and joy into many rock songs, giving them a more funky, syncopated feel. Try this out on some songs you know.

 

On the acoustic guitar, chord slapping is a wonderful technique that adds a rough and funky edge to your accompaniments. You can combine chord slapping with strum patterns or with finger picking. It sounds great with either.

 

Conclusion

No matter how much new electronic wizardry is produced in the guitar market - robot guitars, modelling amplifiers, iPhone guitar apps, … - there's still nothing that beats the sound of a good song strummed or picked on an acoustic guitar.

 

There are many many songs that work well, and the best ones depend on you. Here are my tips for creating your own best acoustic guitar songs.

 

1. Choose your own favourite songs

2. Make simple open chord arrangements of them

3. Experiment with rhythms and finger picking patterns to spice them up

 

Photo by Sean Rogers 1.

Today’s Guitar Practice Tip: Schedule Your Practice

How many time have you fallen short of your guitar practice plan?

 

Plenty, if you’re like me. I’d tell myself I'd practice five times this week, or every day this week. But I didn’t really decide just when I'd do this.

And guess what happened? On the first day I’d start a few chores. When I got finished it was too late for guitar practice. The next day there’d be something irresistible on the TV.

Two days from the end of the week I’d still have five practice sessions left to do. I’d cram in a couple of sessions before the end of the week but not cover everything I planned - too busy this week, next week will be better...

 

But then I got wise. I learned that you have to schedule your guitar practice.

Choose Your Time

I’ve found that deciding upon the exact days and times when I’ll practice guitar is essential if I want to make any progress.

 

Now I'm not suggesting you have to plan your every minute of your day and week and follow your plans with military precision. But you do have to get specific about when you will practice, and respect that engagement with yourself like you would a business meeting.

 

Decide on your practice times and write an appointment in your calendar or set an appointment in your smartphone.

 

Don’t Use A Calendar?

If you don’t habitually use a calendar then set your practice time at a specific, unambiguous moment of your day. For example, when you get home from work, right after dinner, after your morning shower, or after you've walked the dog. Whatever works for you, as long as it is specific.

However you choose to schedule your practice session, do it precisely. “In the evening” is not precise enough. It leaves room for other things to creep in and take the place of your guitar practice. Before you know it the evening has gone by, you’re tired and it’s time for bed, and your guitar remains untouched.

 

You don't have to schedule a practice session every day either. Be realistic. If you practice only three times per week then schedule your guitar practice on three specific days and times when you will do it.

Schedule It. Do It

Schedule your guitar practice, and commit to your schedule, and you’ll get your guitar practice plan done more often. If you can apply this tip then you’ll banish those wasted weeks forever.

4 Step Process to Develop Creative Lead Lines

Here’s a follow up post to my list of blues guitar solo techniques to improve. I got a great encouragement email from reader John Russell who added a suggestion about using chord voicings to create licks.

“Learn several 7th chord voicings, learn how to apply them and pull them apart to create licks.  This will help you with your note choices.  Yes, your idea of learning a solo and remembering the individual licks is a good thing.  Not enough people do this and sound boring.”

I’ve heard suggestions like this before, people talking about using chords to create licks and solos rather than scales. But I admit that although I tried using some chord shapes for notes I didn’t really “get it” completely.

 

John suggested a video posted in YouTube’s “Riff of the week” channel that showed a 4 step process to develop licks and lead lines that uses chords as the base of these lines. This video shows a 4 step process that uses chord shapes and takes them apart to build lead lines.

 

 

John was also kind enough to record a video lesson showing a bunch of ideas for using 7th chord shapes to play blues guitar solos. In his own words:

“The video assumes much, that you know all the pentatonic patterns, the 7th chord shapes I am using, 7th chord formulae, your note locations by name, picking technique, and some typical blues licks using hammers, pulls, bends, slides....  a beginner watching this will be lost, I don't really take my time to teach what I'm playing, rather just to give some ideas, whip through some examples and show you my thought process as I'm playing.  An experienced player will get this.  I'm assuming you have a fairly good knowledge.”

 

 

There’s a lot going on in these two videos. I’m saving them here to come back to when I’ve finished working with the Blues Licks and Solos videos I started on last week.