Category Archives: guitar zen

Eddie Van Halen

January 18, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Eddie Van Halen was born in the Netherlands in 1957, his brother Alex was born two years earlier in 1955. They, along with their family emigrated to The United States in 1965. They belonged to a musical family and both were trained to become concert pianists. However growing up in California exposed the Van Halen brothers to popular music and soon they wanted to become rock stars. Initially Eddie wanted to play the drums and Alex the guitar; however Eddie’s paper route interfered with his practice and his brother quickly became better on the drums. With his older firmly ahead of him in drumming ability Eddie chose to learn the guitar.

newsletter28 inspiration vanhalen Eddie Van Halen

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!

moses Eddie Van Halen

Posted by Moses Robbins

Posted in Artists, Rock | Tagged , ,

Practicing Vs. Playing

January 18, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Today we are going to have a look at practicing versus playing. You may be wondering what this means exactly.

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.

ab4e2097d32a3cfb2d407817c82c42dd Practicing Vs. Playing

Posted by Dan Orr

Posted in learning, music, Uncategorized | Tagged , ,

Alternate Picking

January 18, 2012 — 1 Comment

Let´s start, for those of you who do not know what Alternate Picking is…
It is a guitar playing technique that employs strictly alternating downward and upward picking strokes in a continuous run, it is just as simple as that. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

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.

Posted in acoustic guitars, Artists, Electric Guitars, guitar strings, learning, Uncategorized | Tagged , ,

To Warm up or not to Warm up, that’s the question!

November 24, 2011 — 1 Comment

If you have ever played any sports you will know about the importance of warming up. It is important to stretch your muscles and ligaments before you take part in any strenuous exercise. Playing the guitar is no exception to this rule.warmingup 106x300 To Warm up or not to Warm up, thats the question!

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

Posted in learning, music, Uncategorized | Tagged , , ,

What Is Pick Sliding?

November 10, 2011 — 1 Comment

newsletter17 how to pick sliding 266x300 What Is Pick Sliding?Pick Sliding is a guitar technique most often used in the rock, punk or metal music genres. The technique is executed by holding the edge of the pick against any of the three or four wound strings and moving it along the string. Simple isn’t it?

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

Posted in learning, Rock | Tagged , ,
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