Guitar Lessons: Finger Independance

This exercise is very similar to the alternate picking exercise, in that it is alternate picked and kinda chromatic (although it doesn’t have to be). The big difference here, however, is that the shape requires you to change strings- which, with practice, will help your fingers become more independent and agile. Click here if you [...]

January 28, 2010 at 2:31 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | No comments

Guitar Lessons: Bending and Vibrato

I think this video has confused alot of people with how it starts. To be fair, I don’t start by playing any bending or vibrato, nor do I do the usual “hey, this is Rob from Chainsaw Guitar Tuition” introduction. I, in fact, start off by shredding (if you can call it that, I’m not [...]

January 27, 2010 at 1:56 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | No comments

Guitar Lessons: Legato

Continuing this weeks series on the guitar exercises from the website, this post is about legato technique. If you don’t know what legato is, it’s what’s commonly referred to in “guitar slang” as “hammer-ons and pull-offs”- a name that should give you an idea of how this technique is performed. The Italian word “legato” means [...]

January 26, 2010 at 1:09 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | No comments

Guitar Lessons: Alternate Picking

This post is going to be the first in a series of blog posts about my YouTube videos. As a teacher, I have found that some things are better explained in a visual form, and some are explained better when written down. Which is which is different for different people, and therefore I thought it [...]

January 25, 2010 at 6:02 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | 4 comments

Guitar Lessons: How to Solo

This post is about this lesson, where I talk about how to improvise. No, I’m not talking about “what scale should I use over this?” or “what mode am I in?”! I’m talking about actual “improvisation”. Basically: How to make stuff up. If you’ve already seen the above lesson then this post probably isn’t for [...]

January 20, 2010 at 1:17 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, How to | No comments

Playing in the Dark

Playing in the dark will actually improve your sight-reading. Let me guess, you don’t believe me? Well true, practicing sight-reading itself, with all the lights out is going to be no use at all! Unless, of course, you’ve taken to wearing a set of night vision goggles as a fashion accessory. I want to show [...]

January 19, 2010 at 3:33 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, Practicing and Practice Routine | No comments

Is Your Guitar Hero Your Guitar Hero?

As a guitar teacher, I’m constantly hearing comparisons between “Guitar Hero” (the game where you hit buttons on a guitar shaped controller in response to lights) and actual guitar technique. There are a few similarities, but also many differences and I thought it would be useful to make a list. This should benefit those of [...]

January 18, 2010 at 2:35 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, Music News and Opinions | 2 comments

What is Anchoring, and Why is it Bad?

This is one of those subjects that you’re either highly knowledgeable in, or have no idea about. I would have put myself in the latter category until recently and although my own picking technique was good I noticed this problem occurring in the technique of others quite frequently. So I decided it was worthy of [...]

January 15, 2010 at 3:16 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | 10 comments

Crazy Hand Stretches (part 2)

OK, hopefully you’ve read the last post, and there’s been an (almost annoying) amount of finger tapping going on. Remember, the motion comes from the fingers, not the arm! That’s not to say your arm is totally still, because it is connected. In order for this next section to make sense, you might want to [...]

January 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | No comments

Crazy Hand Stretches

Following on from a post I wrote a while ago called Wide Interval Stretches, I thought I would explain a bit more about how to develop the right hand position (or should that be the right left hand position?!) for huge stretches and chords. After saying, in the afore mentioned article, that you need to [...]

January 11, 2010 at 5:00 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises | 5 comments

« Previous Page — Next Page »