Wait. Jimi who? Wasn’t he the guy with the big hair who held his guitar the wrong way round? Jimi Hendrix was a guitarist who — to many people — is considered to be among the greatest guitarists ever to have graced our ears. His style is easily recognisable – raw, melodic, rhythmic and with [...]
August 17, 2010
In my previous post I talked about the source of improvisation, your inner jukebox. Your inner jukebox fuels your ability to improvise, it is your inspiration, it is the tool by which you express yourself as an individual. If you can tune into your inner jukebox, tap into the musical ideas that it generates, and [...]
August 16, 2010
I believe that true guitar mastery can be directly judged by a player’s ability to improvise. You can learn all the technique you want, know all the theory, be able to play any song beautifully -no matter how technically difficult- with all its dynamic subtleties, and to me you’d be merely good. But to be [...]
August 13, 2010
Many times I will have a certain musical idea in my head, for example, a phrase that just popped into my mind. Or perhaps it’s part of a solo that I heard on the radio earlier. I want to be able to play it on the guitar but I am having a hard time figuring [...]
August 9, 2010
Many years ago I saw this programme on tv. It was about a boy aged 10 who played the drums, and he was going to meet his favourite percussionist. The percussionist was renowned back in his native India for these amazing enthralling rhythms he played on this fairly unorthodox drumkit. He travelled the world to [...]
August 9, 2010
One of the hardest things every musician faces is judging their own playing. When are you satisfied with how you play a certain song? Does that fill/solo/melody/harmony really sound good? It is really difficult, especially for beginning players, to listen to yourself and play simultaneously. One of the skills that a great player should possess [...]
August 9, 2010
One of the key factors to playing fast is relaxation, as I discussed in my post, “Building finger speed: Relaxation”. Your fingers, wrists and arms need to be loose. Tense muscles are rigid, and rigid muscles are hard to move, let alone move fast. But relaxation alone is not going to enable you to play [...]
August 22, 2010