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Author Archive for Eugene W

The Secret Guitarist Weapon For Guitar Mastery

by Eugene W

Join us as we take a look at what guitarists around the world are using as their secret weapon to mastery of their instrument. Come and learn what you can use as a method to help perfect and master a variety of important guitar techniques and skills.

Every single individual who plays guitar and is serious about his craft and tries to master the instrument. They spend countless hours in practice entirely devoted to refining their skills and growth. The more serious of these students are always looking for a new trick, a new or the secret weapon they need to bring their skills to another level and take them one step closer to become a master. Ultimately, the little known secret weapon for guitarists are guitar backing tracks.

So what are guitar backing tracks? These are tracks recorded without the lead guitar but recorded with the drums, bass, keyboards and all other instruments present in the original song. Some tracks do have the rhythm guitar while others leave room for rhythm playing. Guitar backing tracks allow guitarists to jam at the comfort of their own home at their own speed. They are the secret to unlocking the potential inside the hearts, minds, and fingers of every guitarist who desires to take their skills to the next level.

This is because these backing tracks can help you to learn and master new skills by providing you with an entire band to back you up!

Guitar backing tracks can help you to grow in your ability to improvise solo and lead work on stage. By having a rhythm section behind you, with all the spots open for you to solo, you can practice and work on experimenting with improvisation and creating face-melting solos. Improvisation is an extremely important technique for a guitarist to learn, and it takes a lot of practice. But guitar backing tracks can help you to get the most out of your practice time as well as make it more fun.

Another great aspect of using guitar backing tracks is to improve your timing and rhythm. These backing tracks provide solid, in tempo backup from a real band that knows how to play. Playing along and practicing with these tracks can help you to perfect your timing skills and help you to strengthen your sense of rhythm. To maximize the use of backing tracks, do ensure that a professional guitar backing track is used and not cheap midi files. Professional tracks can be purchased at Planet of Rock or custom recorded by your own band.

Playing over backing tracks with the guitar is the best way to train and improve your skills and is ideal for putting all the knowledge that you have been learning in practice. The use of backing tracks gives guitarists an advantage over people who do not use them as it helps them learn to perfect the skills playing in a band. You can also use these backing tracks at a live gig performance, and this will help you gain experience of playing live. It is one of the most important areas in developing your skills as a musician.

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Hybrid Picking and Legato - Guitar Techniques Simplified

by Eugene W

Guitar and Rock music are inseparable and probably one of the main reasons that most rock numbers or compositions have short or prolonger lead guitar solos. The lead guitar solos can be mastered by using different scales and guitar improvisation techniques like hybrid picking and legato technique.

There’s such a huge variety of guitar improvisation techniques available. One such guitar improvisation technique is called hybrid picking./B>. Hybrid picking can add an absolutely new dimension to the sound that is rendered by your lead guitar. This is a type of guitar improvisation method that is most commonly used by guitarists in music genres or styles like blues, rock, country, bluegrass, and even jazz. Among guitar legends who has used hybrid picking very effectively is Stevie Ray Vaughan. He used it for rendering a solo in Lenny

Hybrid picking is a guitar improvisation technique where you pick the guitar strings or chords using the fingers as well as the pick at the same time. The advantage is that you will be able to use your plectrum to play lead guitar that normally requires the fingerstyle mode of playing.

You will also be able to make wide string leaps like you can leap from the 5th string right to the 1st string, which can be quite a difficult exercise otherwise. To effectively use the hybrid picking guitar improvisation technique, you will need to your pick between your forefinger and thumb.

Legato Technique

The legato technique is another effective guitar improvisation technique that renders slurred notes quite similar to the notes rendered through hammer-on’s and pull-offs.

Legato guitar improvisation technique has been effectively used for solo performance by the likes of Joe Satriani, Alan Holdsworth, and Steve Vai. The above notes that form the legato technique will require you to hammer the notes without picking. You should ideally play this at 60bpm.

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Using the Tremolo Technique with Backing Tracks

by Eugene W

Life couldn’t be easier than this: You get guitar backing tracks for almost all the top rock, metal, blues and progressive music tracks. All you need to do is learn to focus and learn to play along with the guitar backing tracks.The guitar backing tracks are essential for practice because you can play just about anything or any type of lead. You can even conjure your own piece of work.

>For example: if you have guitar backing tracks for the Blood and tears by Steve Vai then you don’t have to necessarily play the same lead that Vai has played. You can use all the different advanced guitar techniques using the tremolo and do your original stuff. It’s much more fun that way.

The tremolo technique for playing the lead guitar comes in handy especially when you’re practicing for a live gig. Of course the guitar backing tracks have to be there but then you need to understand how to play around and improvise with the tremolo. While playing a tremolo all you have to do is play the string with an up and down motion with the help of your pick. It is something that was made famous by the legendary guitarist Pete Townshend.

You can use a tremolo on guitar backing tracks at very high speeds as well as slow speeds. More often than not, a tremolo is played rapidly. If this is your first time then all you need to do is get the right guitar backing tracks and start playing the tremolo at a slow speed and then move a step ahead and try to play it faster. The stronger your grip on the tremolo, the faster you should play it. The truth is that there is no fun playing the tremolo slow. Here is a tip: try to play thin picks on the tremolos as they are easier to play. Here is an example of a basic tremolo track:

E|–0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0–| B|———————–| G|———————–| D|———————–| A|———————–| E|———————–| |–d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u–|

Always remember that when you’re playing the tremolo with guitar backing tracks, you need to pick down on whatever string you are playing and then immediately pick up that particular string. It should never be two motions - it should always look like just one motion. Here is another example of a simple tremolo that you’ll be able to practice with guitar backing tracks:

E|–0-0-2-2-4-4-2-2-0-0–| B|———————–| G|———————–| D|———————–| A|———————–| E|———————–| |–d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u–|

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