Guitarist Toolkit - 7 Priceless Guides for Free

Mastering Stubborn Barre Chords

By Chris Liepe, in association with JamPlay, LLC

For you rookies out there who haven't had the pleasure of trying one yet, a barre chord is a chord in which you use your index finger, or first finger, to hold down multiple strings across the fretboard. This generally constitutes your first finger pressing down five or six strings, there are of course variations but we will not worry about these for now. The main advantage from playing barre chords is derived from the ability to move the chord shape up and down the neck, without worrying about the open strings.

It is highly likely that if this is your first time playing barre chords your first finger will either be hurting, not properly holding down all of the strings or causing an awful lot of either unwanted buzzing or unwanted muting. Don't worry, these things are normal!

A Guide To Learning Songs By Ear

By Chris Liepe, in association with JamPlay, LLC

If you have recently picked up guitar, you have probably noticed the vast supply of song tabs and charts available to you with just a few clicks of your mouse. Searching through tabs and songs can become an all day event as you identify a song you want to learn, and wade through all the advertisements and incomplete attempts at teaching you a song. You start to realize that a lot of 'free' tablature isn't that accurate. Pretty soon, you have spent hours NOT playing your guitar and frustration starts to set in.

You might also be at a level where the basics are becoming commonplace, and you are ready to start applying what you know. There is no better way to enhance your creativity and improve your musical sense than regularly attempting to figure out songs by ear. You may not be 100% accurate, but the process that your brain and hands go through when you are using your ears in this way is priceless education, doesn't take hours upon hours, and... it is free!

Ending Mode Confusion - A Practical Guide

By Chris Liepe, in association with JamPlay, LLC

If you are reading this, you have probably heard other musicians talking about these weird scales that seem to all end in "ian" (Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian). You might have heard several things about them and are a bit (or completely) confused. The problem with the modal subject is that there are many ways to approach it. Mastering modes implies that you have mastered a series of simple musical concepts.

Modes are not that confusing, but do demand from the apprentice to have all these smaller musical concepts assimilated. Your confusion most likely comes from the fact that you have gathered a bunch of pieces of information from different sources. The purpose of this article is to organize these concepts with method in order to give you a global good understanding of what modes are and most importantly how to use them in your own playing.

Playing Over JamTracks - A Roadmap

By Chris Liepe, in association with JamPlay, LLC

One of the best tools I have ever used in my ongoing guitar learning experience has been backing tracks. Playing over well designed backing tracks has helped every aspect of my playing in amazing ways. In this article, I will share with you a few ideas I use to make the most of your practice.

The first step you should take when getting ready to work with a backing track is to write down all the information you know about the track on a sheet of paper. This will be used as a guideline when playing. It will help you focus on the important sections of the track while focusing on making music. Depending on the track you are working with, your guide will be more or less complex. Following are the categories you should try to include in your guide.

A Guide to Phrasing

By Chris Liepe, in association with JamPlay, LLC

Do you remember the first time you were aware of your attraction to music? What made music so special to you that you would dedicate countless hours practicing? Perhaps you wanted to be recognized for your work? Or maybe you needed an artistic element in your life to bring out things that could not come out otherwise? Or was it possibly just that you were just born that way?

Whatever reasons that brought you to being a musician, I believe we all have in common a deep desire to express yourself. In that matter, music is a language in itself. Music can make the toughest man cry. It can also lift spirits like few other things can. Being a musician is far more than practicing scales and technique. Being a musician involves studying the language and learning how to use sound to speak to the listener and touch his soul without the use of a single word.

A Guide to Proper Alernate Picking

By Chris Liepe, in association with JamPlay, LLC

Many guitar players rely on picking each note that they play to blaze through the fretboard. The most important thing to keep in mind while practicing the following techniques is to be as precise as possible. Many guitar players can pick fast, but picking with precision demands much more dedication. This section is designed to help you develop a strong consistent picking technique no matter how long you have been playing.

Remember that cleanness is the most important aspect of picking. Practicing at a very comfortable speed is the only way to learn correct finger placement and precise playing. Be patient and don't give up.

Improve Scale Practice with Sequencing

By Nick Kellie, in association with JamPlay, LLC

I wanted to do an article on scale sequencing as I feel a lot of players are not sure how to go about practicing a scale. There is more to playing a scale than just trotting up and down... not only does this get boring and uninspiring, but it is also very limiting and can make our playing start to sound very predictable and dull.

When playing music, we don't always hear notes going up and down in an even and straight line, we sometime use different interval gaps to make things sound different. If we just go up a scale in the order of the notes then we know what is coming next. One way to spice this up is to skip intervals so that the notes become more spread out and less predictable.

So that is all! Look for more holiday bonuses in the next few days from our staff... and remember, whenever you want to rock out, or improve your playing, we are always here and ready to help.

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