A huge aspect of guitar mastery is the proper use of dynamics. Dynamics can add a great deal to your ability to move the audience, sometimes literally: play something soft and gentle to draw people in, or play something loud and brash to get people jumping up and down in excitement. The essence of creating [...]
October 9, 2010
What is the most important thing to do when you learn to play something new? The answer is, you break it down into small pieces that you practise individually. That way you can spend a lot of concentrated and focused effort on a small part, which — because it is so small — allows you [...]
October 4, 2010
Last week I talked about several things that children use to learn new skills. I wrote about two things that I observed in my own children that allowed them to pick up the skill of talking. I then took this knowledge and translated it to practising playing the guitar. In this final post I talk [...]
September 27, 2010
In my post last week, I talked about what sets children apart from adults which allows the former to pick up new skills quicker than the latter. In our case we are interested in playing the guitar. I argued that time plays a big — if not the biggest — role. Most children have an [...]
September 24, 2010
I recently submitted a Youtube video to an online Blues contest — called the Blue Noize contest — hosted by one of the heavyweights of the guitar blogosphere, Guitar Noize. The challenge was to create a solo over a blues backing track provided by the organisers and submit it to Youtube to be judged by [...]
October 13, 2010