Pentatonic Guitar Lessons

Guitar Lesson: Learn from Olympic Athletes.

2005-04-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

I was thinking this morning about how there is so much that guitar players like ourselves can learn from Olympic Althletes...especially gold medal winners. For example, have a quick think about these questions...

Can you imagine a gold medal winner without an INTENSE desire to improve and better themselves?
Can you imagine someone winning a gold medal without having clearly defined goals?
Can you imagine someone winning a gold medal without having clearly defined plans of action to achieve those goals?
Can you imagine a gold medal winner missing training on a day because they "didn't have time"?
Can you imagine a gold medal winner not being totally committed to making improvements on a daily basis?
Can you imagine a gold medal winner making excuses?
Can you imagine a gold medal winner giving up when things get tough?

I guess the point is that gold medal winners and other peak performers don't just stumble their way to success.

Food for thought...

Hmmm...I think I better go do some guitar practice :)

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Linear Pentatonics 3.
This free online guitar lesson will help you improve your pentatonic string skipping...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/pentatonic-guitar.html

Hybrid Picking Pentatonics 1.
Seven free guitar exercises to help you improve your guitar hybrid picking...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/hybrid-picking.html

Have Fun!

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Melodic Permutations for Guitar Soloing...

2005-04-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

What are melodic permutations? To put it simply, they are all the possible combinations of a group of notes. Let's have a look at an example...

Let's say we had a four note guitar lick that had the notes A C D and E. How many ways could we shuffle up these notes? An easy way to work it out is to do 4 x 3 x 2 x 1...which if you were paying attention in maths class equals 24 combinations. Check them out below...

A B C D
A B D C
A C B D
A C D B
A D B C
A D C B

B A C D
B A D C
B C A D
B C D A
B D A C
B D C A

C A B D
C A D B
C B A D
C B D A
C D A B
C D B A

D A B C
D A C B
D B A C
D B C A
D C A B
D C B A

I find that working out the different melodic permutations of a lick is an awesome way of coming up with new ideas. It's also a fantastic way to develop your technique and improvisational vocabulary.

To leave you with something...work out all the melodic permuations for a guitar lick that contains the following notes...

E G A B D

Have fun!
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And here are a couple of guitar lessons to to help you improve your guitar soloing...

Linear Pentatonics 3.
This guitar lesson will help you with your pentatonic string skipping...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/pentatonic-guitar.html

Hybrid Picking Pentatonics 1.
This guitar tuition lesson helps you to develop your hybrid picking technique...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/hybrid-picking.html

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Guitar Lesson: The Principle of Effortlessness.

2005-04-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

When you look at the masters of guitar as they play, what do you notice? Don't they make it look easy? Effortless? Yup! They sure do! Which brings us to today's topic...

The Principle of Effortlessness.

Here's a few applications of the Principle of Effortlessness...

1. Guitar Practice.
A lot of people when they do their guitar practice look like they are fighting with their guitar.They make mistake after mistake and often look very tense. Usually this is because they practice things way too fast and don't have any real awareness of the excess muscle tension in their bodies. How do you think this will affect their ability to master what they are practicing?

Let's contrast this with someone who practices in a relaxed, slow, methodical and effortless way. You just know by watching them they will eventually nail that fast lick or guitar song that they are learning.

Basically, if you practice in a relaxed and effortless way, this will be your end result. You'll be able to play the guitar and make it look effortless.

2. Improvisation.
Have you ever had a situation where you really wanted to improvise a great guitar solo, but the harder you tried to play well, the worse you sounded. After every bum note you tried harder and harder to "save" the solo. I think we've all been there...the gig from hell :( So what was the problem? Why didn't you play better, when you tried harder?

The answer is that you were using effort. You were thinking too much. It is impossible to improvise if you use your conscious mind too much.

Try this. Start saying something...it could be anything. Not hard was it? Now try saying the same thing while thinking of the spelling of the each word that you say. I don't know about you, but I find this hard!

So what's the cure? Improvise without trying. Hey, if you hit a few bad notes so what! You'll probably still sound better than when you're trying too hard.

3. Picking up Chicks.
Mmmm...best leave this one for now. I'll tell you some time over the couple of beers ;)
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Here are two guitar lessons for you to learn...

Linear Pentatonics 1.
This guitar lesson helps you to bust out of those box patterns that a lot of guitar players are trapped in...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/pentatonic-guitar-scales.html

Linear Pentatonics 2.
The follow up to the lesson above. This is a VERY cool approach to pentatonic scales...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/pentatonic-soloing.html

Guitarists...give yourself a reality check.

2005-04-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

I've noticed over the years in teaching that one of the most common causes of frustration for guitar players is expectations that are out of alignment with action. What do I mean by this?

It is simply expecting more of yourself than your level of action will allow. For example, if someone wants to alternate pick as fast as Yngwie Malmsteen but doesn't practice any picking exercises they are kidding themselves. Their level of action just won't bring them the results. They will either have to lower their expectations or step up to the plate and work harder.

Here's a few short exercises to check whether or not your expectations and action are aligned...

Exercise One:
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the best), how good do you want to get?

Exercise Two:
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the shortest amount of time), how long do you want it to take?

Exercise Three:
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being one hour a day, and 10 being ten hours a day) how much do you currently practice?

I did these exercises with a guitar student of mine last week, and the results were 10, 10 and 1. They wanted to get really good. They wanted to do it quickly. But...they weren't taking MASSIVE action. Interesting, isn't it? Their learning strategy almost guarantees frustration!

So what were your results? Do you feel that the amount you are practicing is in alignment with your expectations? If it is, that's awesome! You're one of the few guitar players out there walking their talk.

If your action isn't in alignment, what are some of your choices? Here are a few...
1. You can lower your expectations of how good you want to get.
2. You can increase the length of time you expect it to take.
3. You can practice more.

My preference would be number 3 :)

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Here are a couple of cool guitar lessons that you might enjoy learning...

Ear Training Pentatonics 1.
The aim of this guitar lesson is to help you learn how to internalize the sound of the minor pentatonic scale...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/ear-training.html

Developing a Well-rounded Technique Using Pentatonics 1.
This guitar lesson shows you how to play exercises using a variety of different guitar techniques...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/guitar-technique.html

Enjoy these lessons!

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Guitar Lesson: The Power of Weekly Guitar Goals.

2005-04-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a question for you...

How many guitar chords do you know?

I've lost count of the number of times I've asked my guitar students this question. So what's it got to do with weekly guitar goals? Good question! Let's have a closer look.But before I explain weekly guitar goals further, here's a quick exercise...

Exercise:

Step 1. Write down approximately how many chords that you know. Note that a bar chord only counts as ONE chord. Yes I know, you can play bar chords at every fret. But don't cheat! If you know 7 different bar chord shapes this counts as seven chords.

Step 2. Write down approximately how many years that you have played guitar for.

Step 3. Divide the answer for Step 1 by the answer for Step 2. This gives you how many new chords on average you learn every year.

For most people, this figure is shockingly low!!! Here's an example of the results that one of my guitar students came up with...

Step 1: They worked out that they knew about 70 different chord shapes.

Step 2: They had played for 17 years.

Step 3: This means that on average they learnt just over 4 new chords a year.

When they worked out this number they were absolutely shocked! It showed them exactly how ineffective their present strategy for learning guitar chords was. So what did we do about it?

We immediately set a weekly goal for guitar chord memorization. This student decided that learning 5 new chords a week would be a great goal. I agreed...it's both totally achievable and will help their playing immensely. In fact, in one year, just by achieving that small goal every week they will learn 260 new chords! Pretty cool huh?

So what would be some good weekly goals for you? Here are a few ideas...

Try setting weekly goals for...

How you minutes you practice a technique.
How many new scale fingerings you master.
How many minutes you spend transcribing music by ear.
How many new licks you learn.

The possibilities are endless. I can guarantee that starting to set weekly goals will help you accelerate your progress on a massive scale.

Have fun with this stuff!

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Here are a couple of guitar lessons that you may find useful. You could even set weekly goals for them :)

Pentatonic String Skipping 1.
This guitar lesson will test both your left hand strength and your stretching ability. Be careful with this stuff...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/shred-guitar.html

Pentatonic String Skipping 2.
This is a fun guitar lesson. You'll get to use string skipping, tapping and moving up and down the neck really quickly. Great for impressing friends, neighbours and relatives...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/shred-guitar-exercises.html

All the best,

Craig Bassett
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Guitar Lesson: How to overcome that feeling of overwhelm.

2005-04-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how music is VAST. There are literally more things out there than you could possibly learn in several lifetimes. This is both very cool...and sometimes overwhelming!

A common feeling that I think MANY guitar players feel is one of overwhelm.You know... that feeling of "how the heck am I going to find the time to practice all this stuff?". I don't about you, but when I feel overwhelmed I don't feel like practicing at all!

So what can we do about it? Here are a few practical things that you can do right now...

1. Understand the end result that you are after.
What are the most important skills that you need to development to play how you REALLY want to play. Write them down now.

You'd be amazed at how many guitar players don't think about this. For example, I had a once had a new guitar student start lessons with me who wanted to become an awesome fingerstyle guitarist. When I asked him what he was currently practicing, guess what he said? Sweep picking! Now, don't get me wrong, sweep picking is awesome...but is it going to help him reach his goal? Nope!

2. Become a practice item Nazi.
Often we can practice things that we feel we "should practice" rather than things that we passionately "want to practice". An example in my own life was sightreading music. For years I practiced sightreading because I felt "it was the right thing to do". But then one day I realised...hey! I have no desire to become an awesome sightreader, I want to be an awesome improvisor. So I immediately stopped practicing sightreading and focussed more time on skills that would improve my improvising. Best move of my life :)

Moral of the story? Stop practicing things that don't significantly help you reach your goals. It's a complete and utter waste of time!

3. Become laser focussed.
There is more information out there than you can possibly learn. It's vital to learn to focus on the things that will help you reach your goals. Here's an example...

Let's say you've just bought a book on guitar technique. It contains about a kadillion exercises on alternate picking. What do you do? Here's what I would do...

I'd read the whole book once. As I go through it, I'd take note of the exercises that I think would help my playing the most. I'd then write a list of no more than 5 exercises, with the most important exercise at the top and the least important exercise at the bottom.I'd finally introduce the most important exercise into my practice routine. Once that one has been mastered, I'd move onto the second one on the list.Once all five have been mastered, I'd then read through the whole book again to choose 5 more exercises.

4. Practice more or change your expectations.
Learn to be brutally honest with yourself. If your goal is to become an awesome guitarist in just a few years, and yet you only practice an hour a day you will need to adjust either your goals or how much you practice.An hour a day is fine for a hobby musician, but if you are serious about getting good you will need to do more...a lot more :) So what's this got to do with reducing overwhem?

If you want to become a great guitarist, you probably know that you will have to develop a LOT of skills to a high level.But what if you have only set an hour each day to practice. What do you think will happen? Yep...you WILL feel overwhelmed. It's just not possible to achieve your goal with the time you have allocated.(There's a good reason why guitar virtuosos have at some stage in their life done hours and hours of practice every day).

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Just in case you don't have enough to practice already, here are a couple of guitar lessons that you might find helpful :)

Tapping Pentatonics 3.
This guitar lesson shows you how to approach tapping pentatonics in a linear way...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/tapping-pentatonics.html

Pentatonic Sequences 1.
Sequencing pentatonics is one of the most powerful ways to develop guitar speed. Here's a guitar lesson that will be a lot of fun...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/guitar-speed.html

Enjoy!

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert).
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

The Point of Discipline.

2005-04-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

Have you ever started learning a lick or exercise and stopped practicing it before you had mastered it? Now I don't know you, but my guess the answer to the question is yes! Why is that? Why did you stop, when it was something that you REALLY wanted to learn?

There are quite a few reasons for it, but the one I would like to mention now is what I call the "point of discipline". This is when the initial enthusiasm of learning that new lick/exercise wears off. It is no longer so new and exciting. This is the time when you will have to use your self-discipline to complete the task at hand.

A lot of guitar players will tell you at this point…"Hey man, guitar's supposed to be all about fun! If I have to use my self-discipline, I'll no longer enjoy it." If anyone ever says that to you, have a look at their playing. Most of the time they are not very good :) They have not reached a virtuoso level of playing, so why listen to them!

The point of discipline is when most guitar players quit. Rather than using their self-discipline to TRULY master the lick or exercise, they stop practicing it and move onto something new. It's tempting isn't it? We've ALL done this at some point in our development as a guitarist. But what's the cost of doing this?
Some of the negative consequences of quitting at the point of discipline include...

1. You'll never reach the virtuoso levels of guitar playing. Can you imagine virtuosos like Yngwie Malmsteen, Rusty Cooley, Michael Angelo etc, quitting before they have mastered what they are working on? I don't think so! They didn't become so incredible by being quitters. They have learned to tap into their self-discipline.

2. You'll never have that feeling of pride that comes with truly mastering something.

3. You won't learn to confront your present technical limitations and overcome them. This will mean that you'll learn a lot of new things but your overall level of playing won't become elevated.

4. You'll know about 1007 bits of songs, but if someone asks you to play ONE song from start to finish, you can't.

Not a pretty picture is it? So what are some things that you can do about it? Here are a few ideas…

1. When learning a new lick or exercise, set a speed goal. Keep practicing the lick/exercise until the speed goal has been reached. Realise that this can sometimes take weeks, months (or even years!).

2. Learn to enjoy using your self-discipline. Feel proud about yourself every time you follow through and master something.

3. Use visualization. See yourself in your mind's eye becoming a guitar virtuoso. This will help keep you motivated and enthusiastic!

4. Make a commitment to completion. With everything you learn, refuse to quit. Keep working on it until it has been mastered.

I guarantee that if you learn to tap into your self-discipline your guitar playing will improve at an accelerated rate! Of course, if you want to sit on the couch watching TV and eating bags of potato chips,dreaming about one day becoming an awesome guitarist, that's cool also!

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Here are two lessons that will help you improve your tapping...

Tapping Pentatonics 1.
This guitar lesson helps you learn how to play a tapping sequence in five different fingerings of the C minor pentatonic scale.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/lead-guitar-lesson.html

Tapping Pentatonics 2.
This guitar lesson expands upon the first lesson. In this one you'll have to use string skipping as well as tapping.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/pentatonic-tapping.html

Have fun with these two guitar lessons.

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Increase your guitar speed with speed goals.

2005-04-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

A mistake that I made with my practicing when I was younger was that I never set speed goals. This meant that I would never know if I had mastered a lick/exercise up to an adequate level. :(

So, what's a speed goal? Let's look at an example...

Let's say that you're working on a guitar exercise to help your alternate picking. Here's how you would use speed goals...

1. Decide on a speed that you would eventually like to play the exercise at. An example might be four notes per click of your metronome at 160bpm.

2. Practice the exercise for about 10-15 minutes on a daily basis until the speed goal has been reached. This might take you a week or it could take years depending on your goal.

Simple huh?

There's one really important point I need to make...

Don't set a deadline! Unlike traditional goal setting where you set deadline, you don't do that with speed goals. Your technique must be allowed to grow and develop at it's own rate. Often if people set deadlines with speed goals, they increase the speed of the metronome too much and too often. This often causes people to practice with excess muscle tension, which is the greatest enemy of fast playing.

The key is to practice the exercise patiently on a daily basis until you have reached the speed goal. Who cares how long it takes?

Here are some exercises that you might want to learn to apply this concept of speed goals...

Sweep Picking Pentatonics 1.
This guitar lesson teaches you a really useful sweep picking mechanic. This mechanic is then applied to five different fingerings of the G minor pentatonic scale.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/sweep-picking.html

Sweep Picking Pentatonics 2.
This guitar lesson is a lot of fun! You'll learn how to sweep pick using a linear approach.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/guitar-soloing.html

Enjoy!

All the best,

Craig Bassett
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Guitarists: Are you a victim?

2005-04-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

I was just thinking today about THE most dangerous enemy of musical progress...The victim mentality. What do I mean by this?

Often we can let our personal circumstances dictate our progress. For example, someone may let their guitar practice slide because they were really busy at work. This person may start making excuses such as "I didn't have time". This is victim mentality. It is believing that your musical progress is only possible when external circumstances allow it.

What they are really affirming to themselves is that their musical dreams and goals are not as important as paying a few lousy bills.

Here's a few practical things that you can do to stop yourself becoming a victim...

1. Stop making excuses. I can guarantee that for every excuse you can make there is someone out there who has overcome that obstacle. Just force yourself to stop using excuses.

2. Watch your language. For example, rather than saying "I couldn't find the time" say "I don't have the inner strength or dedication to deserve to become a great guitarist". Because that statement is pretty painful to say, you'll soon stop making excuses :)

3. Think of solutions. For every excuse you make, think of solutions. For example, if you are constantly use your work as a reason why you can't practice, ask yourself questions like...

"How can I get paid more but work less hours?"
"How can I get paid when I sleep?"

If you ask enough questions, on a regular enough basis, you'll find a solution eventually.

4. Think of your role models. Everytime you start to make an excuse, ask yourself "Would ______ make this excuse?". For example, one of my favourite guitarists is Steve Vai. I could NEVER imagine him making excuses for not practicing!

Food for thought...

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Oh yeah...here's a couple of lessons that you might find useful...

Types of Pentatonics.
This guitar lessons helps you learn a lot of new and interesting sounding pentatonic scales...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/music-theory.html

2-3 Fingerings for Pentatonic Scales.
This guitar lesson shows you a really interesting method of fingering pentatonic scales.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/fingerings.html

Memorizing the Guitar Fretboard.

2005-04-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hello!

It always shocks me how few guitar players TOTALLY learn the notes on the fretboard. I know most players can work out the notes--which usually means taking 10-30 seconds to work out the name of a note. But in my humble opinion that's too slow. You should be able to instantly know what a note's name is.

Here's an article I wrote a while ago. It will help you get a good idea whether or not your note knowledge needs improving...
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Knowing the notes on your guitar fretboard is an essential skill. Here are a FEW of the benefits that you'll gain if you have a fantastic guitar fretboard knowledge…

1. You'll learn how to apply music theory to the guitar much more quickly. In my opinion there's no point learning music theory if you can't PLAY it!

2. Your creativity will increase. You'll be able to think of new and unique ways of playing chords and scales. If you don't know the notes on the guitar fretboard, you'll be stuck playing the same chord and scale fingerings that everyone uses.

3. You'll become a better musician. Great musicians don't just think in terms of chord shapes or scale fingerings. They think in terms of NOTES.

4. You'll save yourself hundreds (if not thousands!) of hours of frustration. By knowing the notes on the fretboard you'll be able to understand, learn and memorize things faster.

Pretty powerful benefits right?

So…how do we know if our note knowledge is good enough? Here's a great way of finding out…

Note Knowledge Test:

Step 1:Please turn on your metronome and set it to 120 beats-per-minute.

Step 2:Decide on a note that you will work on.

Step 3:Find that note on the thickest string in all possible locations. (One note location per click of the metronome).

Step 4:Without pausing, repeat the process on all the other strings.

Step 5:Repeat steps 2-4 for all the other notes.

How did you go? Did you find it hard or easy?

If you couldn't do it easily, then you have some work to do. I would recommend setting aside 10 minutes a day to work on memorizing the notes of the fretboard. Within a few short weeks, you should have it nailed. Good luck!
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If you're serious about improving your note knowledge, here's something that may be of interest...

Fretboard Mastery One
This 47 page special report helps you master the guitar fretboard.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/note-mastery.html

Have a great day!

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert).
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Guitar Lesson: Develop a balanced practice diet.

2005-04-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Hope your having a good day!

Here's another article that I wrote a few months ago. I think it's a useful article because it teaches you how to develop a well-balanced practice routine.

[As a side note, I got an email today from someone who let me know someone had used this article for their website without giving me credit for writing it. It blows my mind that there are people out there who have absolutely no respect for other peoples' Intellectual Property. I guess they must have the creativity of a sun-dried tomato, otherwise they wouldn't have to rip-off stuff from other people].

OK...enough bitching...here's the article :)
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Do you have a wide variety of things that you practice. Or do you like to binge? (You know...the type of player whopractices sweep picking for a kazillion hours a day but only know three chords)!

Having a balanced practice routine is essential if you want to become a versatile guitarist. If you just practice one ortwo things, sure you'll get great at those things...but you'll be weak in other key areas.

In this lesson you'll learn how to create a practice routine that is well-balanced and will help you work towards your ultimate vision of how you would like to play.

I generally categorise what I practice into one of seven areas:
1. Technique.
2. Repertoire (Covers).
3. Composition.
4. Improvisation.
5. Ear Training.
6. Theory.
7. Music Reading.

Everything that you practice will fit into one or more of the above areas. For example,if you are learning a very challenging cover tune by transcribing it off the CD you areessentially working on your technique, repertoire and ear training at the same time. Ifyou also write down the song in standard notation, you will also be developing yourmusic reading skills.

Now…do you have to practice things in all seven areas?

I believe that you don't have to if your vision doesn't require it. For example, if someone wants to become an awesome classical guitarist and has no desire to improvise, then I believe that they don't need to practice things relating to improvisation. We all have limited time available for practice, so it's a waste of time working on things that don't specifically help you reach your goals.

Let's go through a few exercises…

Exercise One:
Think about the vision that you have for your playing for a few minutes.How would you like to playin ten years time. Make it exact!

Once you've done that, brainstorm as many things that you need to practice in order to play likeyour vision. What specific things do you need to learn, develop and practice? Write them down now.

Exercise Two:
Next to each of the things written down for Exercise One, write down a category next to it. For example, if you wrote "I need to be able to play faster" then write technique next to it. If you feel that something you wrote belongs to more than one category, then writedown all the categories it could belong to.

Exercise Three:
Look at your answers for the previous two exercises. Once you've done that prioritisethe categories shown below. For example, if you feel that technique is the mostimportant thing you need to work on to reach your vision then put a 1 next to it.

Practice Area Priority Level (1-7) [Note: 1 is the highest priority].
Technique
Repertoire (covers)
Composition
Improvisation
Ear Training
Theory
Music Reading

Now here's the important point. You should spend the most time practising your number one priority. I know it's pretty obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many people don't do this! I know a few guitar players who would like to be able to play incredibly fast, yet they don't do a lot of technical practice. Talk about setting yourselfup to fail!

Exercise Four:
Decide how much time every day you will spend on each category. Write it down below.

Practice Area Time Invested Daily
Technique
Repertoire (covers)
Composition
Improvisation
Ear Training
Theory
Music Reading

All done? Great!

So what’s the next step?

The next step is to decide on a specific activity for each practice area.Make sure to write them down.Here are a couple of examples of what someone might put down...

Technique: I will invest 10 minutes a day on alternate picking exercise one. I willstart with the metronome at 80 beats per minute (bpm) and increase it by 4 bpm daily(as long as I can play it perfectly).

Ear Training: I will invest 10 minutes daily a day on A minor pentatonic ear training exercise one.
Got the idea? You would have one specific activity for every practice area. If youhave a lot of time to practice you could set more than one activity per practice area.
Give this method a try. I'll think you'll be more than happy with the results!
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Hope you liked the article!

Here are a few guitar lessons that you may find helpful...

Pentatonic Vocabulary 1.
This guitar lesson helps you develop speed using repeating style pentatonic licks....
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/free-guitar-licks.html

Pentatonic Vocabulary 2.
This guitar lesson expands upon the first lesson...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/free-guitar-lead-lesson.html

Have fun!

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Guitar Lesson: Developing Vision

2005-04-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hey there!

Here's an article that I wrote a while ago. Enjoy!
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Have you ever done any of the following?

1. Made excuses for not practicing because you "didn't have time"?
2. Practiced the same licks and exercises that you did last year?
3. Felt like you had hit a brick wall in your progress?
4. Felt unsure as to what to practice?

Unless your name is Steve Vai, chances are you've done at least one of the above!

They are all symptoms of having a lack of vision.

What do I mean by vision? Vision in this context is having a clearly defined picture in your mind's eye of how you would like to play. It must be a crystal clear, exciting and inspiring picture!

Without an absolutely clear picture of what you would ideally like to sound like, you will not know what you need to practice in order to realise that vision. You will also probably lose the drive and motivation to practice daily for many years until you can play like your vision. You may even start using the loser's mantra which is "I don't have time to practice".

Here are a few exercises that will help you develop your vision...

Exercise One:
Think about how you would like to play in 10 years time. Close your eyes and try to see yourself playing exactly how you would like to play. Write down what you see now.Make sure that it is detailed. What techniques are you a master of? What songs can you play? What bands are you in? How many students do you teach? How does it feel when you play like you do?

Exercise Two:
Now write down what areas of your playing you will need to start working on in order to reach your vision. What techniques do you need to start practising? What chords do you need to learn? What music theory do you need to start learning about? Do you need to start doing ear training? What books, teachers, CDs and other tools will help you realise your vision? How much time every day do you think you will need to practise in order to play like you want to play?

Exercise Three:
Spend 10 minutes a day for the next 30 days imagining yourself playing exactly how you would like to play. Do this with your eyes shut. Don't worry, it won't make you want to start eating tofu or go around the neighborhood hugging trees!At the end of every time you do this, write down one small new detail about your vision. By the end of 30 days you should be feeling so excited that you'll want to practice 24/7!
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Here are a few pages on my site that you may find useful. (Especially for the things that you came up with in Exercise Two...

This lesson is on ear training pentatonics...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/ear-training.html

This lesson will help you to develop speed when using pentatonics...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/free-guitar-licks.html

All the best,

Craig Bassett
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com

Pentatonic Tapping

2005-04-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for some information about pentatonic tapping on guitar, here are a few lessons that you might find useful.

Pentatonic Tapping 1:

This guitar lesson shows you how to tap a sequence through five different fingerings of the C minor pentatonic scale.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/lead-guitar-lesson.html

Pentatonic Tapping 2:

In this guitar lesson you'll learn to combine pentatonic tapping with string skipping.
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/pentatonic-tapping.html

Pentatonic Tapping 3:

This lesson is fun! You'll learn how to tap pentatonics in a linear way. Rather than moving across the fretboard you'll be moving up and down the neck. It's fun to play and it looks way cool!

Enjoy these lessons!

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Free Guitar Licks

2005-04-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

Just to let you know that I've just finished a new lesson at my website.

This guitar lesson is about building speed using pentatonics. Here's the link to the lesson...

http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/free-guitar-licks.html

If you're into this sort of thing (speed), here are a couple of lessons that might be of interest. (They're both on string skipping pentatonics)...

http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/shred-guitar.html

http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/shred-guitar-exercises.html

Have fun with free online guitar lessons!

All the best,

Craig Bassett.
(The Guitar Solutions Expert).
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com

Welcome to the Pentatonic Guitar Lessons blog!

2005-03-29T12:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome!

If you've just stumbled across this blog, you're in luck. You'll get to find out exactly how YOU can improve your guitar soloing. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself...

My name's Craig Bassett and I'm a professional guitarist, guitar tutor and author living in Auckland, New Zealand. (Yeah...the place with about a Kazillion sheep!). About six months ago I set up a website called Master Pentatonic Technique. This site's whole purpose is to help you learn to master pentatonic scales...

At this time there are 18 free online guitar lessons. These cover different aspects of pentatonic technique including:

Sweep Picking Pentatonics
Tapping Pentatonics
Pentatonic Sequences
Linear Pentatonics
Hybrid Picking Pentatonics

You can find the free online guitar lessons here...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/online-guitar-lessons.html

There's also a place where you can sign up for a free monthly guitar lesson. You can find more information about that here...
http://www.pentatonic-guitar-lessons.com/free-guitar-lesson.html

On this blog I'll let you know about any new lessons that are put on my site. I'll also give you some extra tips to help you improve your guitar playing even faster.

Look forward to seeing you at Master Pentatonic Technique!

All the best,

Craig Bassett (The Guitar Solutions Expert)
www.Pentatonic-Guitar-Lessons.com