Saturday, June 22, 2013

Theme and Variation Drop B Metal Riff

So I discovered today that the Evil Twin himself Nick Cantanese has a guitar lesson at jamplay on how to play 'Funeral Bell' by Black Label Society. I was psyched to learn this so I grabbed my guitar and tuned down to match Nick with Drop B tuning down a half step. The tuning is monstrously heavy so I thought I'd take a minute and record a lick using the same tuning. Basically you tune down a half step and then drop your low E string to Bb. I recorded the guitar lick following the tab then threw in a couple variations for fun.
Hope you dig it.




Sunday, June 16, 2013

Guitar Lick - Shifting Pentatonic Triplets

I've been on a bit of a jazz /  fusion kick lately. So I outfitted the strat with some jazz strings and tried to come up with something different than my usual ultra distorted wah infused guitar licks. Although this lick is still pentatonic based it is a bit different than a traditional blues based rock use of the pentatonic scale. Although having said that Slash has tons of cool pentatonic runs that move vertically up the scale.

This is a triplet based lick that shifts from the D Minor Pentatonic ( with an added second the E note) scale to a C# Minor Pentatonic scale. Basically the whole pattern repeats twice then moves down a half step. The only difference is I don't slide into the second note for the C# Minor section. The guitar lick is based on a triplet pattern that has a bit of string skipping.  Hope you dig this. On a side note two guitarists I've been amazed by lately are Bryan Baker and the late Shawn Lane I'd highly recommend checking them out.





Sunday, June 2, 2013

Jazz Guitar Improvisation

The jazz guitar improvisation course I was taking through coursea.org has just wrapped up. It was a very informative 5 weeks. A big thanks to Gary Burton, Coursea and Berklee College of Music for putting it on. I've always been amazed by high caliber jazz musicians and it was a real treat to have someone with Mr. Burton's credentials and experience provide some insight on starting to improvise.

Although the course material covered 5 weeks it will take much longer, for me at least, to begin to really digest and incorporate the material into my guitar playing. The class discussions on the forum have been very helpful too and hearing a lot of great players on Soundcloud cover the material was great.

For anyone whose also taken the course or people with some tolerance for mistakes here are my last two assignments. Thanks for listening.