After the last post on listening and guitar  it’s time to focus upon one of the world’s greatest listeners, Evelyn Glennie, the Scottish virtuoso percussionist who has been profoundly deaf since age 12.

This does not inhibit her ability to perform at the international level. She regularly plays barefoot for both live performances and studio recordings, to better “feel” the music. Glennie contends that deafness is largely misunderstood by the public. She claims to have taught herself to hear with parts of her body other than her ears.

In the photograph at top we can see Evelyn with English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith who uses some highly unusual and  enlightening techniques. Here is Evelyn discussing how to listen with your whole body rather than simply using your ears.

Indeed, this is a highly valuable lecture for any musician and the reason I’ve included it here on the Jamorama guitar blog is because of the highly tactile nature of the guitar – especially the electric guitar – and how the guitar as an instrument makes such a tight connection possible between physical approach (strumming, fretting, vibrato etcetera), the intellectual (musicality) and the emotional. Remember there are no rules and no right or wrong – we all hear differently, we all play differently! Groove to the beat of your own drum.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

It’s small enough to tuck into your bag and whip out on the train, bus, at the office, in front of the TV when you have a moment to spare to work on your guitar techniques. Kitted out with strap knobs it also allows you to warm up when gigging so you’re ready to rock when it’s time to go on.

While it does have tuning pegs, they’re not intended to be used like those on a standard guitar. Instead, you use them to alter the string tension to replicate the feel of your guitar in effect allowing you to practice on your guitar without actually having your guitar with you.

This headstock also doubles as the body of the guitar so you can grip the Shredneck, keeping the neck steady while you practice your licks. As you can tell it’s not your usual guitar but with the first 7 frets of a guitar neck, you’ll have plenty to work with.

You can work on your fingering techniques, from those lightning quick lead runs, chords or just simply warming up in anticipation of playing your ‘real’ guitar. However, it’s not really set up for working on your picking technique as there is no place to pick the strings in the same way you would on a standard sized guitar.

The guys at Shredneck are passionate guitarists and as such don’t make claims as to any medical benefits of using the Shredneck – as other ‘hand exercisers do’. Instead they see it as the closest thing to playing the guitar without actually playing the guitar. With the ability to always have a guitar on hand, you can continually work on your playing techniques to increase your effectiveness when it comes time to play the real thing.

Check out this video to see Sonny Lombardozzi run through some exercises he uses on the Shredneck to stay primed.

Posted by Dan Orr.

An old piano teacher of mine used to record my playing at different times throughout the year. At the end of the term she would give me a tape that contained a selection of pieces that I had played running from work that I had completed early in the year to the things that I was working on at the end of the term. I would take this tape home and I would play it to my friends and family. People listening to the tape would say, “Man, you’re getting good”.

This did two things for me. First of all, it made me go back to my teacher for more lessons, so it was definitely a good move on her part. Secondly, it made me practice more because I could see the benefits of working on something over time. Basically, the progress that I could hear on the tape motivated me to get even better.

I strongly recommend you to start recording your practice sessions for future reference.You will be surprised of what you hear and how much you improve with the past of the time!

Posted by David McKinnon.

After high school had finished the boys played gigs in and around their home town of Pasadena, CA. It was on this circuit that they meet singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony who along with the brothers made up the quartet that would become Van Halen. While playing in a club in L.A., Van Halen was spotted by Gene Simmons. Simmons wanted to produce a demo for the band, but unfortunately the demo flopped and was rejected by all the major studios. However a year later at the same club Van Halen was spotted by a producer from Warner Records. He signed them on the spot and soon after in 1978 Van Halen’s self titled album was released. The band had a string of platinum records until 1985 when rifts in the band forced Roth to leave the band.

However the bands momentum couldn’t be stopped. They quickly signed new singer Sammy Hager and the juggernaut that Van Halen had become, continued.

Hager was with the band for 11 years and this period saw one of the bands albums (5150) go to number one, which was a first for the band. In the late 90′s Hager quit and Roth returned briefly for the release of the bands Best Of album. But time had not healed the wounds and Roth was quickly replaced by Gary Cherone, the former front man for the band Extreme.

It is through the band Van Halen that the musical genius of Eddie Van Halen has been exposed. His wild style electrified audiences and created a legion of guitarists keen to mimic his playing. The most commonly referenced song when people talk about Eddie Van Halen is Eruption. Eruption is well known for its distinctive introduction which includes the most well known example of double handed tapping. This technique involved Eddie using both his right and left had to fret the guitar, and using a tapping motion to make the guitar sound out.

This technique was not new, some players had experimented in the 1950′s but Eddie Van Halen redefined the technique. He added speed, accuracy, distortion and a box full of various effects to the mix creating a style that would become an essential tool of rock guitarists for years to come. Also the popularity of Van Halen’s guitar based, solo laden rock caused many other bands to copy their style. It caused a period in music where nearly all popular rock music displayed some degree of virtuoso soloing. This musical trend has been heavily influenced by Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing.

And here is a more recent live version of “Eruption” (Seattle, 2007); published by Youtube user TeamDZ:

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Posted by Moses Robbins

To simply define it; playing is when you are out on stage or in the studio by yourself or with a band. Practicing is when you are in a room by yourself or with your band getting ready to play a gig or record some music.

Practicing is important. If you never practice you will never reach a high level of skill and you will not get a tight sound with your band. When you practice you should concentrate on playing correctly and in time. These principals should be followed whether you are playing with a group or in your room by yourself.

Though you should try and be as accurate as possible when you are practicing, when it comes to playing you should feel free. Meaning that when playing live you should be in the moment and ignore mistakes.

It is important to remember the distinction between practicing and playing. You should always be trying to improve with practice, but when you are on stage playing you shouldn’t be worrying about playing perfectly. You should be worried about putting on an energetic performance, playing hard.

Some times musicians can fall into the trap of over-practicing. You do this when you spend too much time practicing and not enough time devoted to getting yourself out there and playing your songs.

Many musicians are perfectionists and they feel that they can never be ready to perform. You need to ignore the little problems when you are deciding whether or not to play a gig. Work had to fix any problems but don’t stress out about them.

In conclusion get out there and play your instrument in front of people. You can iron out problems as they come up but don’t forget to keep motivated and play hard.

Posted by Dan Orr

But now, playing this technique is a completely different thing. If you are having problems with it, this is what you can do:

The main problem with alternate picking comes when you are picking a note in the opposite direction of the next string that you’re going to play. For instance, if your last note was a down stroke on the G string, and your next note is an upstroke on the D string, then your pick has to travel a more complicated path than if you are picking up on G and down on D. What to do?

Some people just refuse to let their picking hand do the more difficult move, by trying to put a hammer on or a pull off to time the direction of the pick to a more favorable direction. Others might just be using the pick to start the string in motion, but are doing all hammer or pull offs other than the first note on a string.

But let’s concentrate on what to do if you are using the versatile alternate picking method. Since we don’t want to limit the note choices, or string choices, in any way, we have to just get good at dealing with the problem.

Practice going back and forth between two strings picking in the opposite direction. For example, play a C on the 3rd string (5th fret) with a downstroke followed by an E on the 4th string (2nd fret)with an upstroke. Repeat the C and E one more time.

Next, bring the C down to a B (1 fret) on the 3rd string with a downstroke, followed by the same E on the 4th with an upstroke. Repeat the B and E. Just to make a slightly musical pattern, do the same thing, but change the B down to an A, doing the same pattern. To make the pattern symmetrical, return the A back up to a B and play B,E,B,E, just like the second pattern.

It will take a lot less time to play this than to read about it, so try to muddle through this explanation to get to the actual notes, it’s not hard to play this as long as you don’t try to play it too fast.

As with all exercises, do it slowly and as accurately as possible at first. Doing this exercise addresses one of the most important points about practicing and improvements.

If you have some free time, check out this video which is an extract from Paul Gilbert´s instructional DVD “Get Out Of My Yard” – It is insane what you can do when getting this technique right! Check it out:

Good luck with your practice. See you next week!

Posted by Moses Robbins.

When you play the guitar you can put a lot of strain on your hands, fingers and forearms. It is important to warm up your fingers before you start playing. The reason this is important is that it can prevent overuse injuries, which will hurt your playing.

If your hands start to hurt then it is time to stop playing. Stop playing and identify the pain and assess how serious you think it is. If you have a severe aching pain in your hands or wrists you should take some time off and rest your hands. And next time you play remember to WARM UP PROPERLY.

The most common way that people warm up is by playing scales. The best way to do this is pick a simple scale and run up and down it a few times. You should do this slowly at first and build up to full speed. It is also a good idea to warm up with some slow chord changes before you get into playing as hard as you can. Try and slowly build up your repertoire of warm up chord changes.

This is not totally related to warming up but when you are playing or warming up try and maintain good hand and body position. This will make a big difference to your playing and reduce the chance of you having any problems with pain from playing.

Warm up and practice hard and enjoy your playing but play safe.

Posted by Ben Edwards

It is so simple that many guitarists use to add variety to their music. It is especially common in metal guitar to emphasize a change or add a little spice. First take a loud heavily distorted guitar, then get your pick and press it down on the bottom E string (thickest), and whilst maintaining pressure on the string slide it up the neck.

Try experimenting with different speeds and pressure until you get a good sound. This technique may not sound that crash hot by itself but if you use it to transition different parts of a song.

Go try it, I am sure you will get it right very quick.

Here is a video from Youtube user retn858 on how to do it and how it sounds, check it out!

Good luck with your practice.

Posted by Moses Robbins

Because a lot of your practice will be away from your teacher you need to develop strategies for maintaining a good work ethic. Here are seven habits that will help you in your journey learning your instrument.

1) Don’t procrastinate. There are always a set number of tasks you have to do when you are practicing. It is easy to put off playing until tomorrow, but you shouldn’t do this. Practice is important; you should get into it as soon as possible.

2) Keep in touch with other musicians. If you are constantly in contact with your friends who also play then you will boun off and motivate each other.

3) Keep moving. Don’t get stuck in a rut, it is important to keep on learning new skills and developing your playing.

4) Use your time properly. Without a regular practice time it becomes difficult to maintain consistency. You should make a regular time to practice so you can fully develop as a musician.

5) Practice in a good work environment. It is important to have a good place for you to practice. You need an environment that is clean and quite so you can fully concentrate on what you are doing.

6) Be comprehensive. You should always be trying to become a complete musician. For this reason, it can be a good idea to keep a list of all the things you need to do to become a complete musician.

7) Know your own work habits. Each person has their own individual way of learning. For this reason it is important to adjust your practice so you can maintain it.

We hope these tips help you with your practice. Keeping your self discipline is a matter of good planning and goal setting.

Posted by Moses Robbins

Which is the right way to learn?

With the explosion of the internet and the vast cornucopia of you tube videos, tablature sites and other resources available online it’s easy to forget that one of the key skills for any musician is the ability to listen. Before the internet came along most of us learnt from records – through attempts to emulate or approximate the playing of artists we enjoyed listening to. Not from the internet but through learning songs from records and playing along with them.

Eric Clapton, no fool when it comes selecting his musical sources, has consistently reiterated that he listened and learnt his trade from artists such as Freddie, B.B. and Albert King for example. He didn’t use tabs – he learned by listening. Nuances come across in listening: listening cannot be written down; and while tablature can be a fast shortcut to playing a piece of music there is an invaluable experiential quality to be gained from using your ears.

Because listening is exactly what you`ll be doing when you’re playing along with a group or in the studio it’s a very highly valuable exercise for any guitarist. The particular qualities of any high calibre guitarist cannot be expressed in tablature form. What makes a guitarist exceptional is the  combination of technique, timing, phrasing and tonal quality that they bring to their playing – facets that your ear alone can pick up.

It takes a long time but its worth taking the time to train your ear through replicating the sounds that you hear on records. To begin with you`ll struggle and find it difficult, but over time the process will become easier.

Being an imitator is the first step along the road to becoming a creator but there are ways of imitation. Looking up the tab on the internet is the fast easy way, but if you really want to develop then use your ears as well. Remember though the sound you`re really looking to find is the sound of yourself.

Remember if you have purchased Jamorama you’ll also have the GUITEARIT ear training software specifically designed for guitarists and it’s a great place to start training your ear in preparation for rocking out to your favourite songs and records. Groovy.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards