Having a working knowledge and understanding of the guitar fretboard is absolutely essential if you want to be able to solo, improvise, or compose on the guitar. Learning riffs and licks to your favorite pop songs can only take you so far. You might know how to play these from tab or even by ear, but do you really know what you are playing and how it all connects together?
This months lesson is based on using minor 11th, Maj 11, and minor 9 arpeggios.
To open the lesson I have transcribed an example of a “practical” use for the tapping techniques discussed thus far. Here for your delight is my version of “Flight of the Bumblebee” using multiple finger tapping. Have fun with this example before moving on to the second sets of examples, “Bumblefoot.”
Allan Holdsworth has long been known as one of the most exciting and technically facile jazz-fusion guitarists in the world.
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.
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.
Imagine you’re looking for a piece of art to hang in your home. You have an idea of a certain style you are looking for, the size and colors you think might look nice. You might even have specific details in mind regarding the pieces subject matter. At some point you decide to go the route of a facsimile from a home supply store and, though it isn’t an original, it ends up being not all that cheap.
