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Helo Ivan
I have been working on my bending and vibrato lately and i was trying out the first section of your canon blues lesson , could you have a look at my take and suggest any improvements
Thanks
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Good job on your practice, here's some tips:

You can bend the string on the pitch correctly, just need to practice to do it quicker. Don't rush, you're on the right track, just take it slow, and increase the tempo of bending by small increments.

As for vibrato, the first vibrato is bend vibrato, where we go from E to F#. When on F#, you must vibrate only the F# note up and down a little in an even manner. Don't let the string pull back to E again in any case.

Cheers

ok ivan i'll work on that thanks alot

No problem m8, I'm here to help

Hello Ivan! I am sorry if this is kind of a silly request for you, but I was wondering if you could let me know what type of chords you use in the Eric Clapton style lesson, as I want to learn how to play the backing track first. Thanks a lot!

Aaah I see, it's not a silly request at all mate.

THe chords are: G7 (I), C7 (IV), D7 (V).



Infact, I'll do a lesson about blues rhythm! You gave me a great idea!

That would be great Ivan! I have been searching and there is not such a lesson at GMC, so it would be great if you did a blues rythm lesson! Thanks my friend!

No problem man, I'm writing it down

Hello again Ivan. In your funk skunk 101 lesson in video 2 you use your thumb to mute the low strings alot. when i try and do that it sounds alot messier than if i just use my 1st finger to mute all the strings and just play the notes with my other fingers for example when you play the A and B notes i prefer to mute the strings with my first finger and play the notes with my second and fourth finger. is this an acceptable way to do it or should i try to learn it your way?
thanks

If it works best for you, then yes man, I would say do it like that, why not. Whatever gives you the best sound go for it.

ok thanks ivan. by the way what tempo and key is the song?

Tempo is 130bpm and you can use B minor pentatonic scale. (the chord being used is B dominant)

ok thanks alot Ivan.gna go practise it now

No problem mate, glad to help

Hi Ivan.

I have recently joined and had picked your lessons first to improve on. I have chosen the Pentatonic Workshop and been having some good practice. My ultimate goal is be a shredder but understand it will take time and dedication to this.

Although I am at only level 2, I do have a question, or maybe more like advise on how to hit those 16th note triplets?

My speed and accuracy seems to be stumbling over each other if that makes sense?

More like my picking hand is going faster than my fretting hand. This may seem like an easy problem to overcome but I have been working on it for a few days. Rather than getting discouraged, I moved on to lesson 2 today. I figure the speed will eventually come the more I practice.

Just was wondering if you had any advice or good tips to improve this aspect of playing?

Thanks!

Dan

Hey man,

Glad to see that my lessons could of use to you.

Here's what I recommend on practicing those triplets:

When you start on slower tempos, you should pick the note and hold it fretted, to the next click right? So this little pause that occurs when you transfer from one note to another must be as even and minimal as possible. I hope this makes sense. For example:

you play Aminor box, and play A note on low E, and then C note, be careful to always try to minimize that small amount of time needed to transfer from A to C. Why is this important? Well, when you go up the speed, those pauses usually stand the same if you're not careful, and note values always go shorter and shorter. This will lead to the part where you can barely play the note you want, because that pause will eat too much precious space in between the notes. You brain will automatically remember to play the part more precise, because you practice with small pauses on slow tempos. WHen you go up the speed, your brain will remember that you practiced with small pauses and try to play more precise.

Other than that, I think it is a wise decision to take a break from this lesson and carry on with the next one. These series consist only from exercises, and we all know exercises can be boring a bit. Try to combine these series with other lessons, and to give your sessions a bit more dimension. When you hit the upper tempo limit on lesson2, go back to lesson 1 and try that tip with pauses I told you. Play it as clean as possible on smaller tempos, be very focused. You will see that when you go up the speed, hands will start be more relaxed and everything will start to sound more fluid all of a sudden.

Also advancing takes time, as you know mate. Just take it easy, and be aware at all times that practice doesn't end with physical practice. Your brain needs time to settle that techniques, so even when you're "offline" so to speak, your brain is constantly engraving that stuff into subconscious, so if you practiced hard the next time you pick up a guitar, you will always move by a notch.

Hope this helps mate, if you have anything more to ask, feel free to do it, and I'll try to help if I can. Cheer

Thats some great advice Ivan. I will try that tonight when I get home from work. I have also noticed last night my fingers tend to raise to far above the fret at times. I will try to work on that as well.

Your'e right about excercising can be boring at times but its a necessay evil we all must go through. Unfortunately I wish I had done this 20 years ago. I feel I can play pretty decently but I always had in the back of my head that I can accomplish way more if I knew the "basics". I never had a plan in place but am grateful I have finally found a place that focuses on this stuff. Taking guitar lessons around where I live at $30 a half hour pales in comparions what GMC has to offer.

Again thanks for taking the time out of your day to answer.

Dan

I think I also have problems sub-dividing a metronome beat. I am able to max out my metronome at 240 BPM without issue running these excercises.

This is great man, if you can go to 240bpm and play these exercises, I think you are really progressing! Well done

You can also post video or audio of you playing it, I would like to see/hear how it sounds on 240bpm. Possibly give some advice if needed etc.

Hey Ivan, im currently doing your Acoustic Delta Blues Lesson 1. In the second video where you play the bass note E, and the Bb with the A grace note in the melody, im not sure how to play it. The grace note comes before the beat so i do i play the grace note then hit the bass note the moment i hammer on, or i do i play the bass note at the same time as the grace note?

Hope this makes sense.

Matt

Hey mate, sorry for not answering you sooner, I was out of town giggin.

This question has perfect sense. You have to pick the A grace note with the E note on the low E string, and then move on to Bb. In fact that grace not is practically just a fast hammer on. The way you can practice it is to first very slowly pick both E and A open strings and then just hammer on the Bb. As soon as you speed it up it will sound like a grace note.

I hope this helps mate. Ask freely if you have any more troubles, I'm here to help. Cheers.

Hey,

Thx for all the great lessons. I trying for the first time to record some songs (i finally managed to install cubase and Ezdrummer on my computer).

My goal is to make some (trash)metal songs but i decided to take step by step. I'm practicing your songwriting (songwriting lessons link)
lessons with the scale and chords you use and try with different also with chords and scale. It works great and i'm starting to get some songs.

Are there other chord progressions I can use? I now a few blues progressions but are there common rock or metal progressions?

If you find the time: a other songwritinglesson (with the background information) would be great

Thx Pio Jr.

Hey man, thanks for kind words, I 'm very glad my lesson could help you in any way.

Regarding chord progressions, there are various combinations that you can use. Since you play metal, you might wanna keep things simple, by not playing the third in the chord, instead just play all power chords. For example in songwriting lesson, instead of doing whole chords, you can only fret root and fifth. I think the good way to learn chord progressions is to analyze the songs you like. Look on the internet some song, find out what chords are being used and figure out the key the song is in. Then you can see what chord has what roman numeral, as I teach in the lesson. You can basically take the roman numbers from a lesson and write them down on a paper like this:

I - V - V - VI - II - V - V - IV
I - III - IV - V - II - III - IV - V

or ANY kind of pattern you can think of, there are a lot of combinations. Then you play then on guitar and see if they sound good. If they sound good, then you got yourself a good progression to base your song on.

If you do find some progression and you aren't quite sure how what theory lies behind it, you can post it here and I will try to help as much as I can mate.
CHeers

Hey Ivan,

first of all thanks for all the great lessons, they are extremely useful and I'm learning mindblowing fast.

I've got one question though: How do you make the little noise for example before a large bend? Do you palm mute it with your right hand or do you use your left hand? Pavel explained it a bit but I still didn't get it right. Just a matter of practice?

Thanks in Advance!

Hey man, thanks for kind words, I'm glad the lessons can help you in any way

Regarding that lesson, it's a raking noise, where I simply strumm the strings above the fretted one, and mute them. I use both right and left hand, depending on the situation and position, you can try both ways really.

Hi Ivan,

I'm currently working with Slow Blues Solo in B minor. I'm still practicing, but I already know the hardest part (for me that is). In the riff near the end (video 7) there is a jump between 2 positions: from d note on the B-string with the index finger to fis note on the E-string with the ring finger.

I just can't get that done "full speed". Is there any way to practice this effectively? Or another way to play it that might be easier?

Super solo by the way! Did you compose this one yourself?

Regards,
Peter.

Here's a video response to your question, sorry for the bad english here and there

Hi Ivan,

Many thanks for the video response. Really super material.

I'm practicing your exercises and I'm on the right way, I think. Getting the speed right will take some effort though. I'm now first trying on lower positions, as these are easier for me. I'll keep you posted.

Peter.

That's cool man, just keep the precision, and speed will come very fast. Also don't be concerned if you can't play the whole piece in full speed. I can't play a lot of things full speed and with precision, but with the right kind of feel, and if you play it smart, it will sound good. Many times when I can't play some part exactly, I tried to change it a bit, so it is easier to play, I don't find this like cheating, just don't wanna loose motivation to play the piece that's all. So if you ever find yourself in a similar position, try to do the same, regardless of the piece.

Hey Ivan!

After digging through your Blues Groove Library Part 1 my blues playing really improved and I'm really happy with that. But I just can't get ex. 7 right. Would you mind loading up a little video explaining it? Because I'm afraid I wouldn't understand it just by getting told how to do to it.

Thanks in Advance!

Sure mate, will do it by the end of a weekend. Will notify you via PM when it's done. Cheers!