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Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 19 2012, 08:04 PM

Hi riddler!! Welcome to your Gab's Army thread!!

Could you please tell me a bit about you, your musical tastes, influences, strengths and weaknesses? I would need some videos of you playing rhythm and solo guitar, so please post your best material here. If you have some music or ideas of your own, also post them here. Also let me know how you think that I can help you and what are your expectations for our job. You can check the other Army's thread to discover the different approaches of this project.


The principles of our Army are:

+ Improve your technique
+ Make music and solos
+ Have fun
+ Destroy the enemy (hahaha not realy just kidding... )


Let me copy your message:

"I like to join your army and enhance my guitar playing. I've been playing since I was 13, but stopped for around 12 years and just got back on track again last year at the age of 31. I'm now 32 and would love to take my playing to the next level and I think learning from you would be the best step since I like your style and most of your lessons.

So far, I consider myself as an intermediate player but with very little knowledge on theory especially scales and improvisation. I also developed an unorthodox playing technique and would love to correct it. I think also need to work on my hand synchronization and picking accuracy. Other than that, I think my playing is decent enough.

Here is a sample of my playing with Jonathan Burgos' The Tasty Etude
http://soundcloud.com/orly-arcelao/the-tasty-etude-1st-take

Looking forward to learn with you."

Posted by: riddler Oct 20 2012, 05:19 PM

Hi Gab,

Thanks for accepting me in.

Just a quick background, I grew up listening to 90's music. Slash was my childhood hero and was the main reason why I picked up a guitar. I loved metal, grunge and hard rock music. Started playing around 1993 (self taught) and abruptly stopped around 1999, studies took over and other priorities in life.

After around 12 years of hiatus, I decided to go back to the hobby and pick up where I left of. Most of the skills I gained from playing before have nearly been gone though so I'm planning to have a fresh start. I started playing again last year, but I lost my focus due to lack of direction on my learning journey. Hopefully, you will be able to guide me on how to take my guitar playing to the next level.

Nowadays, I love listening to blues (John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, Hendrix etc). I also listen to metal from time to time but I guess I lack the dexterity to play those fast music.

Here are the things I want to focus and improve:
- Have a solid grasp on theories. I really have a poor understanding of scales and modes.
- Improvisation, which I think is related to theories.
- Picking consistency and accuracy. Left and right hand synchronization too.

Regarding videos, I'll try to put up some videos of me playing, but for the meantime, I only have the soundcloud link I gave as sample of my playing.

Hopefully, you could help me out with my concerns. Looking forward to working with you Gab.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 22 2012, 06:25 PM

Ok mate, this sounds good for me. Please let me know what you already know about chords, triads, arpeggios and scales. Let me know which of these things you can play in your guitar and also what you know about theory.

Regarding your picking technique... could you please post a sound cloud link jamming over a backing to show me your current level for alternate picking and fast licks?

Posted by: riddler Oct 24 2012, 01:39 PM

Hmmm.. let's just say that my knowledge in theory is pretty much negligible. Let's consider myself as a beginner on this area. I do know chords but don't know the theory behind it. Zero knowledge too on triads and arpeggios too.

Regarding scales, I'm a little bit familiar with minor pentatonic and blues scales but lacks deep understanding on how to properly use it in improvisation.

For alternate picking and fast licks, best I can get accurately get without losing timing and and synchronizations is around 80-90 bpm triplets. Anything faster than that is a total mess. Will record and post a sample later.

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 24 2012, 03:40 PM

Ok, let's start with theory and improvisation and then I will also give you some technique exercises or lessons to work on.

Theory: We will use this GMC book as reference:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=33779

Please start reading it since you will clarify all the basic and also more advanced concepts.

The first thing that you have to learn in your guitar is how to play a minor chord and arpeggio in 5 positions. Learn it from this two guitar pro files, connect it and practice it over any A minor backing in track... try to create melodies and musical ideas using it.

 01._A_minor_chord.gp5 ( 2.14K ) : 97

 02._A_minor_arpeggios.gp5 ( 1.94K ) : 100