Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Making Guitar Fun for Beginners - Guitar Bots

I admit unless your really driven and determined learning guitar can be frustrating especially in the beginning.
Growing up it was the sheer desire to sound like Ace Frehley, Jimi Hendrix, Kirk Hammett or Randy Rhoads that kept me practicing guitar for countless hours. For fans of Guitar Hero there is now a fun way to utilize the same gaming style learning from that game but with a real guitar. It is called Guitar Bots. Initially you'll only get a few free minutes to play but you can earn more by referring players. If you would like to try out this guitar learning site you can sign up with my referral link - which will allow me to gain some extra free time on the site as well. If you are under 18 please get parental permission before joining. I am not endorsed  or affiliated with Guitar Bots  and make no representations about the service or site. As with all links or products use at your own risk and discretion. I just thought that  the free version was personally interesting. Here is the referral link: https://guitarbots.com/invite/Vwwn81Ws

I've only explored the early levels of the site. It goes through basic chords and some notes in the open positions on the guitar.  There are also a selection of songs with various levels of difficulty. I've used an electric guitar plugged into my computer but I believe you can mic an acoustic guitar as well. I hope this site an similar ones catch on because it does hold you attention and keep you playing which is really important especially when you are beginning guitar.

I'd love to see more advanced arrangements of popular songs in the future. My only reservation about site like this is it can occupy too much visual learning. Once you get the note sequence down really listen to the timing. Don't get too distracted by the colors and shapes but focus on using your ears to hear when chords and notes should change and keep in time with the backing music.

Thanks to www.makeuseof.com where I read about this site.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Legato Guitar Lick - Grouping in 7's

Today I wanted to play around with my newest guitar app the Amplitube Slash App on the ipod. In the last guitar jam video I posted there was a legato run I kept messing around with that I thought sounded cool so I went back a tried to tab out the guitar lick. Not sure if this is exactly the same guitar lick as the jam video but concept and vibe to it is pretty close.

The guitar lick starts off with some legato licks played with seven note groupings. The best example ever of these are on the live Ozzy album "Tribute" which features some jaw dropping and legendary playing by the late Randy Rhoads. R.I.P.  If you do not own this album go out today and buy it. Get it on CD, cassette and vinyl ( it is record store day after all) and never stop playing it. I've listened to this album 1000's of times and love every second of it. Anyway Randy's playing is chalked full of awesome legato guitar runs and you can learn a lot by studying his guitar playing.

Technique wise I find if you are having trouble stretching to the seventh fret with the freting hand adopt a more classical style hand placement where the thumb rests towards the center of the neck. This allows for great control and reach and makes it easier to achieve a strong even legato tone. imho.

If you'd like to play along I am tuned down a half step. I've played over the track I'm writing called 'Narrow Road'. The intro is tabbed out in earlier posts if you would like to check it out. Comments, questions feedback always welcomed. Have a safe weekend!




Monday, April 1, 2013

Just Jammin over the last chord progression

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Just a little jam today over the last progression. I'll probably tab out the guitar for the legato run over the G Chord that pops up a couple times in the video. If anything else catches your ears let me know and I can tab it out. Cheers.