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Just a quick heads up to let you know that a number of the Jamplay guitar backing tracks are now available free. The site where the tracks are posted have included a number of tracks and grouped them by the scales you can use to solo over them. Scales include the major and minor scales as well as the dorian and mixolydian scales. There’s also a section devoted to blues backing tracks to practice your blues playing over as well as a few metal and jazz backings too. Jamplay is one of the big ones in terms of online paid guitar courses to it’s good to get a bit of a look at the some of the content.
Well, I’ve been starting to think about getting some more guitars. I have about 5 guitars at the moment, but as I’m sure many readers would understand, a guitarist always needs a few more guitars.
I’ve been doing a bit of research around the web and have been looking a fair bit at some of the models mentioned on GuitarSite.com in their posts on the best electric guitar brands and the best acoustic guitar.
My current acoustic is a Yamaha FGX-413SC which I am pretty happy with. I really would like some more electric guitars though. I have an old vintage jazz-box, but it would need a bit of work to make it play well again, and apart from that, my other electric guitars are really budget guitars.
I guess the models I have concluded I would really like are a Fender American Standard Strat and a Gibson ES-335.
Being into blues, both of these guitars are very commonly used in the blues. Also, being a semi-hollow body, the ES-335 would also make a good jazz guitar.
If I got the fender, I might replace the bridge pickup with something like a Seymour Duncan SHR-1 Hot Rails Stacked Single-Coil or a DiMarzio DP188 Pro Track Pickup. These pickups fit into a single coil size but are as hot as a humbucker.
I think a hotter pickup on the bridge would make the Fender more useful for heavier rock and metal, while the other 2 single coils will still mean its a great blues guitar.
Given the price tags, the fender will be a lot more likely in the foreseeable future than a Gibson, but we can always dream…
Jamorama review verdict: Leading guitar course aimed at beginner to intermediate players. Read the rest of this entry…
This lesson is designed to give a basic introduction to blues guitar. I am assuming you have a beginner level of experience on guitar, including a few chords, an ability to read tab and you are comfortable playing some single note material. The lesson is broken down into the basics of blues rhythm guitar and blues lead guitar.
So, your pulling off your sequences at semi-quavers at 140bpm (alternate picked), and that’s slow next to your slurring. Not bad. You’ve memorized entire songs of lead guitar note for note (that was satch for me in the old days). Now its time for the real stuff. NUANCE IS KING!!! Read the rest of this entry…
Ok, well maybe don’t actually throw it out, but you know what I mean. Tab can be great to learn a new song. Especially if you want to fast track the process. But if you want to learn your material in a way that will accelerate your development as a player the most, you need to be sitting down with the audio and figuring it out.
Learning songs when your learning the guitar is very important, but something I think is far more important as you progress a bit is to start to make it all up yourself.
Something I think is very important as you learn guitar is to regularly record you playing and listen back yourself. Additionally, while learning to improvise it is of great benefit to practice this improvisation over a backing track, in order to learn how your improv sounds in the context of the underlying chords.
So you’re getting fluent with your chords. You have your open chords down pat, a good range of bar chords, and power chords are pretty simple now days. The way to really make your rhythm guitar come to life is to start focusing on your right hand (or you’re left if you’re a lefty).