Croatian guitarist Ivan Mihaljević officially hits the international guitar scene with the release of his CD Sandcastle. Joined by band mates Majkl Jagunic (bass) and Craig Devine (drums), Sandcastle is a solid collection of guitar rock that will send many guitarists back to the woodshed to reprioritize their practicing.
In this instalment I’ll present the five shapes required for the most extreme uses of the pentatonic scale. The lesson will provide you with the techniques you need to create long, flowing pentatonic lines in a fluid, legato fashion.
This article is intended to be an extension of the ideas we looked at in the two-hand tapping article (see link below), but also to help you use the techniques you already know in a more creative manner. Bidexteral tapping is a term I credit to Derryl Gabel for creating. It’s a technique, which as the name suggests, involves using fingers on both hands to execute fluid tapping ideas. You can find tapping of this nature a lot in the work of Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, and in the chorus to “Sevens” by Guthrie Govan, to name a few examples.
Australian guitar aficianado, Tommy Emmanuel, must be one of the hardest working and most likable musicians on the planet. His touring schedule of over 300 concerts a year, strikes awe in many of his fellow musicians and his infectious personality brightens up even the most dismal of days.
Cheat the Gallows is the fourth release by rock band Bigelf since their debut in 1991, though it’s their first on Linda Perry’s Custard Records. Cheat the Gallows is the answer to those music lover’s that are looking for something fresh and original, trying to escape much of modern music’s mundane monotony. How’s that for literal alliteration?
Hello, and welcome to the first in a series of lessons I’ll be writing for Guitar International Magazine. It is a real pleasure to write for the site, and I hope you will enjoy reading and spreading the word as much as I will enjoy sharing some of the concepts I have learned or come up with over the years.
There are so many good things about the self-titled debut record from the band OHMphrey. First, just thinking about the incredible quality of musicianship that could come from taking three members from Chicago’s jam-band Umphrey’s McGee and two members from Chris Poland’s OHM and blending them into a musical compound is overwhelming and almost unbearable. All too often when members from various bands decide to get together to collaborate on a side project, regardless and sometimes adversely measurable by the individuals’ virtuosity, the outcome is mediocre at best. To remain politically correct, no examples of this will be given, however, one wouldn’t have to think too hard or even perhaps search their CD or MP3 stock to find several releases that fit into this category. This is absolutely not the case with OHMphrey.
My Very Life is a collection of original compositions by Brazilian native Paulinho Garcia which reflect the wide-range of musical styles found in Brazil.
Brian Hulse’s album Pseudosynthesis is a collection of original compositions for solo piano, guitar and violin duo, flute and piano duo, and small chamber ensemble. On this album there are moments of singing melody, flamenco rhythms, discontinuities, syncopated rhythms, virtuosity; borrowing both form the classical tradition and twentieth century, making this music some of the most interesting and fresh twenty-first century chamber music recently recorded.
The Hot Club of Detroit’s album Night Town is a tour de force that is full of hard-swinging, toe-tapping arrangements of gypsy jazz standards and original compositions penned by members of the ensemble.
