Fun Diversion

Computer woes are ongoing but fingers crossed will be resolved before the next millennia. Found a very cool site for creating music that I wanted to share. Here is a link to a little piece I created now try and create your own.
Earslap

Changing Guitar Chords with just one note.

I've always been fascinated by the guitar. To me the guitar offers an endless variety of note patterns and sequences. The fingerboard's variety is a lot like the complexity of a chess board. Today's tinylick demonstrates how you can go through a chord progression while changing only one note in the pattern at a time on the guitar. I was inspired by the cool intro to the Kiss song "Rock Bottom" for this example. You can also find this used a lot by the Red Hot Chili Peppers especially on the album "Californication".

The first part begins with a G#Minor chord then followed by what I think of as a B chord with no root and a major 7th. Then a B chord no root with a 6th. The progression ends with an E Maj7 chord.

Computer Blues and a tinylick - guitar lick

Bad News my computer is officially dead. No more recording or music until I get my new one. Good News - my new computer is on its way and hopefully will be here in the coming week. You would think without a computer that works for more than five minutes at a time I'd play more guitar but I've become so accustomed to playing with music and backing tracks and online guitar lessons I really miss my computer when I want to jam or practice guitar. Today's tiny lick guitar lick is based around the E Minor Pentatonic scale. It is a descending triplet run that has been used by everyone from Jimmy Page to Kirk Hammett. Although this lick has reached cliché status you can still find variations of it in lots of songs. Try doubling up notes and using chunks of it within your solos and improvisations. A great way to use licks like this is chromatically. Move parts of the shape up the fretboard horizontally to build up to your next lick. Randy Rhoads does this to great effect with a lot of his live pentatonic based guitar licks. For a more advanced variation of this type of lick check out the solo in "Readymade" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Frusciante really tears up the fretboard with a fast repeating lick.
Ok so here is the basic lick - triplet rhythm.

Guitar Lick: Seven Note Groupings

Today's guitar lick is based on the E Major Scale. It uses two repeating patterns of odd note groupings with seven notes per pattern. I find this makes a good alternate picking exercise because to me at least it feels unnatural starting the repeating pattern and picking the same note that the pattern ended on. You can follow along with the tab and slower example in the video. Happy Pickin!

An Irish Guitar Lick for St. Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! I thought I'd share a little Celtic guitar lick I came up with. I always think of Irish/ Celtic traditional music as kinda an early incarnation of "Lamb of God" because they use a lot of triplet based rhythms. I love traditional Irish music but honestly couldn't tell you a jig from a reel so I'm sure there are lots of "errors" in this example but I kinda like it and hope other people do too. I slowed down the example in the video and also gave you a right hand picking view as well. I'm tuned down a half step for this is you want to play along. Enjoy the rest of St. Patrick's day. I'm gonna celebrate by learning Metallica's cover of Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey in the the Jar".

Wah Guitar Week Lick #7

Our final guitar lick for wah guitar week is a repeating lick that uses muted strings and a D 9th chord. The rhythm is 16th notes. Try this at a moderate tempo with a metronome to start and strive for an even and consistent down up strumming with the right hand. Experiment with the wah pedal and try accenting different beats and combinations of muted and non muted notes. Once you get this guitar lick under your fingers try to create  your own variations using different chords, rhythmic accents and rests.

Wah Guitar Week Lick#6

Today's guitar lick looks at using the wah to add some depth to a legato lick. This guitar lick is played with the left hand only using pull offs and a hammer on from nowhere for the first note.I synced the video and the audio for the backing track separately in case you find a slight delay with the tracks.
Drums courtesy of Sonoma WireWorks Riffworks Instant Drummer.