Todays practise

Hello, 

Just thought I'd do a quick post about what I'm practising tonight. Basically I'm running up and down the C major scale in all the different positions on the neck. I don't always start on the C so I end up playing all the different modes.
Here's a tab showing a few of the positions on the neck. The tab just shows the ascending scale normally once I reach the
top I decend back down again.

I also change it up a bit by playing a few different patterns instead of just accending and decending. For example I will ascend 4 notes, decend 3, then ascend 5. Like this:

See you tomorrow!

Superstition Pt.2

Hello!


Finally it's time for the 2nd part of my Superstition by Stevie Wonder lesson.

Today i'll go over the pre-chorus. This part of the song is mostly played by a brass section in the original recording, but when my band plays it the bassist and I try our best to cover it.

  Here's the tab and a video of me playing it.

The video shows me playing through the pre-chorus 4 times, twice at about the speed my band normally plays it and twice at a slower speed.

I think the most difficult part of this section is the small 3-5-7 accending run in the first bar, as per normal I use strick alternate picking. If you're having trouble getting it up to speed it may make easier if you slide from the 5th to the 7th.

This pre-chorus is repeasted 4 times after the verse and before the chorus.

Don't worry if it looks a little hard, once you actually start playing it you'll see it's a pretty simple pattern.



Hopefully some time soon i'll be able to upload a lesson on the 3rd and final part of the song, the chorus.

Thanks!

Set List

I had a few questions about what we played at the gig, here's a list from that section of setlist I have and from what I remember.

Semi Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind

Sunday Morning - Maroon 5

Zebra - John Butler Trio

What I Got - Sublime

Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

Absolutely - Nine Days

American Idiot - Green Day

Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down

Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon

Four Kicks - Kings of Leon

Forget You - CeeLo Green

Crazy - Gnarls BerkleyWonderwall - Oasis

Break on Through - The Doors

Superstitious - Stevie Wonder

Sweet Home Alabama - Lynard Skynard

Sunshine of Your Love - Cream

Black Night - Deep Purple

Free Falling - Tom Petty

Come Together - The Beatles

Seven Nation Army - White Stripes

Rain - Dragon

Santa Monica - Everclear

Someday - The Strokes

Wandering Eye - Fat Freddies Drop

The Middle - Jimmy Eat World

Joker and the thief - Wolfmother

Little sister - QOTSA

Umbrella - Rhianna

Disturbia - Rhianna

Santeria - Sublime

SIAS - Weezer

All My Life - Foo Fighters

I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor - Arctic Monkeys

Wolf Like Me - TV on the Radio

Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Jet

(Molten Universe) - Kyuss

What I Want - The D4

April Sun - Dragon

Highway to Hell - AC/DC

Gig

Hey Everyone,

Sorry for the lack of posts, uni work has gotten intense. Hopefully I'll have some free time this weekend so I can type up a few posts to keep in reserve incase I get busy again.

We played a gig in the weekend, 3 hours at a local bar. I had some equipment troubles during the first set but sorted them out after that and everything went fine for the remaining 2 sets.

Hopefully I'll have some spare time tomorrow to put up the rest of the supersition lesson, untill then thanks for reading.

Hey All!

Sorry for the delay, I've been battling a cold. 


Here's the video for the riff to Superstition. I had to record it with my webcam which didn't come out the best, and I realised afterwards that the angle doesn't really show what's going on.




Hopefully it shows enough for you to be able to understand what's going on. I'll have to try set up my camera so I can take higher quality video. I might even have a live recording of it after this weekends gig!

I'll post the tab for the pre-chorus section of Superstition tomorrow!

Gig Countdown: 7 days to go!

Hey All,

Thought I'd better post a weekend blog. Had a good band practice, sorted out our setlist for the Gig next weekend and put together the new songs we'd been learning.

I've found the cable I need to make a video so hopefully some time tomorrow I can post a video of me playing Superstition, and also the tabs for the prechorus.

Hopefully I can also get some recordings of my band playing and I'll post that up aswell.






 

Superstition Pt.1

Hey Again!

Today I thought I'd go over a song that I'm learning for my band this week. Superstition by Stevie Wonder.

The guitar for this song is made up of 3 main parts; The main riff, pre-chorus and chorus.

Today i'll go over the Main Riff, here's the tab.

 As you can see it's pretty simple. I use alternate picking for the whole riff, but sometimes I will downpick the last note of each bar (7th fret A string) to emphasise the beat.

It's important to get the timing of the muted note (shown by an "X"') correct to get the feel of the riff right.

Once you've got this down, Congrats you've learn the main riff! There's just one more part to add, the lead in: 

These three notes are played at the start of the song and after the chorus to lead into the main riff.

I'll upload a video of me playing it next week, I'm missing a cord a need for my recording set up at the moment.

Busy!

Hey Everyone,

I've been really busy lately with Uni work but i'll try starting some more blogs soon.

Any suggestions of what I should write about?

Back from the weekend

Hey Everyone,

The weekend is over, and I'm back with another exercise. We had a good band practise on Saturday going over the songs we havn't played for a while and learning the new songs for the week.

We've got three gigs coming up which should be good.

Ok, here's the exercise for today. It's a warmup that I use nearly everytime I'm going to play, it gives the picking hand a good warm up. I use alternate picking starting on a downstroke.

 

Usually when I just loop this pattern slowly getting faster.

 

Fretting Hand

Here's an exercise for the fretting hand. I use this one when I need to warm up quickly, it doesn't take long for the fingers to start feeling warmed up.

 It's mostly hammer ons and pull offs, the two different exercises make sure you work out every finger.


I guess I better talk about the practise I did yesterday. After warming up I ran over a few scales for about half an hour, with a metronome trying to build up the speed i've lost while I wasn't practising enough over New Years.



After this I worked on two new songs for my covers band, Cee Lo Green - Forget You, and Incubus - Drive. Once I'd learnt them I went back over the other songs my band plays to make sure I remember how to play them all. (Nothing worse than going to play a song at band practise and coming up with a mind blank).

Warm ups

Today I'm going to talk about warm ups.

Warm ups are very important, I never used to pay much attention to them and ended up with an elbow injury. I had to stop playing for about 6 months and change my technique completly, even now (about 3 years later) I still have to wear an elbow support when I play.

One of the exercises I like is the one tabbed out below, it's very good for warming up your picking hand. Make sure you use strict alternate picking, it may be hard at first as you will feel inclined to use two downstrokes but stick with the alternate picking.

Ok, that's all for now. I'll be back tomorrow or later this evening with another warmup for your fretting hand.