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Showing Tag: "lesson" (Show all posts)

Shred Lesson - Metal Guitar Techniques

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Thursday, December 1, 2011, In : Classical Ideas 
Shred Lesson
Classical ideas



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This is a great alternate picking exercise. Performing the frequent string shifts can be a challenge but if you persist and refuse to give up, you will get them down. Remember to practice slow and with precision. Keep working at a pace where it feels effortless and easy - and speed will follow naturally.


Shred Lesson



"I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you c...

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How to develop your own unique sound, part 2

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Tuesday, February 8, 2011, In : Zen Shredding 
How to develop your own unique sound, part 2


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The amazing tone of the Mongolian swamp ash

When you go shopping for the amp or instrument you want, try your  best to forget about what others say. Really listen and be open. Be honest about what you like and don't like. And if you can't hear or feel the difference from a $200 instrument to a $2000 instrument, then that $2000 instrument can't be for you. And paying for the difference is insanity if you get zero value out of it...

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4 simple ways to become super confident

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Monday, January 24, 2011, In : Zen Shredding 
4 simple ways to become super confident


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How someone with no skills can take away the prize

When I was in high school I participated in a guitar contest. I was, by far, the most skilled guitarist in that school so I was pretty confident that I would win. But my anxiousness caused me to perform at a very low level while another guy with half my skills went completely berserk on stage. He didn't care that he couldn't play very well, he just did everything he could to sou...

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The real reason for stage fright

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Friday, January 14, 2011, In : Zen Shredding 
The real reason for stage fright


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Alone means dead

So why do some people get nervous when they play in front of other people while others become excited? As I stated in my last article the fundamental reason for nervousness is the fear of being rejected. And the fear behind that is the fear of dying. Human beings are dependent upon each other and a thousand years ago, being left by yourself meant being dead. Without other people you couldn't survive. Just like a deer ...

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How to stop being nervous when you play in front of people

Posted by The Wizard Of Shred on Wednesday, January 5, 2011, In : Zen Shredding 
How to stop being nervous when you play in front of people


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How to loose all your skills in a second

Being nervous when you play in front of other people will either make you more intensely present when you play or it will sabotage your playing to some degree. Some people loose a lot of their skills when they go on stage or even when a single person is listening to what they play. I used to drop down to 25 % of my skill capacity when ever I played in front of an audience. I...

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Performing & The Law of Time

Posted by The Wizard on Monday, August 30, 2010, In : Zen Shredding 
Performing and the law of time


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The play-stop-evaluate-correct pattern

How many hours have you spend practicing? Now compare that with how many hours you've been playing with your band members. Chances are that, if you're aspiring to become the ultimate guitar god of this century (Or something a little less extreme) you've probably been practicing a lot more than you've been playing actual music with your mates.

And this is great! The more you practice the better you ...

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Multi String Gilbert Mayhem

Posted by The Wizard on Monday, November 30, 2009, In : Amazing Licks 
Multi String Gilbert Mayhem


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This lick is inspired heavily by one of Paul Gilbert's favorite speed picking licks. It's the old four-notes-up-and-down-much-harder-than-you-think-lick that I've taken across the strings while creating an uneven 3/8 feeling. It's an excellent alternate picking exercise since you get to perform the string shift with both and upstroke and a down stroke. Practice playing the first two bars over and over again before you move on to the third....
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Diminished String Skipping Legato Lick

Posted by The Wizard on Sunday, October 25, 2009, In : Amazing Licks 
Diminished String Skipping Legato Lick


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The main challenge of this Paul Gilbert inspired string skipping lick, is to get the string skipping right. But the secret to getting it right is to make sure that you are using "outside" picking when you do it. When you move from the G to the high E-string you start with a down stroke and end with an upstroke. This will make it very easy not to hit the B-string in between the two. When you go from the high E-string to the G-string ...
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The Reversed Malmsteen Sequence

Posted by The Wizard on Sunday, October 4, 2009, In : Amazing Licks 
The Reversed Malmsteen Sequence



I've decided to create a category with nothing but licks in it. This allows me to offer you some value even when I haven't got much time on my hands. This is a sequence I came up with by reversing a well known Yngwie lick. I haven't included the original lick in this video but if you wonder what it is just reverse today's sequence. It feels extremely awkward to play these notes in the beginning. It's almost like there's something wrong with the lick! But be pers...
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Confusing Names and Symbols

Posted by The Wizard on Thursday, September 24, 2009, In : Easy Music Theory 
Confusing Names And Symbols


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Let's keep the riff raff out

So we know what to call the white keys on the piano. But what about the black ones in between? Well they actually have two names depending on where you're coming from. "There's no reason to keep it simple" the monks said "The more complicated we make it, the easier it is for us to keep the riff raff out." Let's humor these guys from the past and see what they came up with.


The note in between the C and the D is ...
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The Fast Practical Approach To Theory

Posted by The Wizard on Wednesday, September 16, 2009, In : Easy Music Theory 
The Fast Practical Approach To Theory


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Cut the crap and give me a practical approach


When I decided to get serious about my guitar playing I also decided to become an expert on music theory. And so should you. Because music theory is a nothing less than a basic understanding of the mechanics of music. This understanding will help you immensely when you improvise, when you compose or when you want to learn any chord progression or solo simply by listening to it. When y...
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Tone Changers & Trem Tricks

Posted by The Wizard on Tuesday, September 8, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 
Tone Changers & Trem Tricks


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Today I'm going to show you three techniques that you can use to bring some variety into the sounds you produce when you play. Use them all the time until they become a part of you. When this happens you'll find yourself using these techniques intuitively, without thinking about it.

Squealers

The first technique is also one of the most used in the "business". Most people call them "pinch harmonics" and they are really very easy to do with  ...
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Power Blues Phrasiology - Bending

Posted by The Wizard on Wednesday, September 2, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 
Power Blues Phrasiology - Bending


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A keyboard with strings instead of keys

In this article and the next to come, I'll be touching on something essential to blues rock soloing: Phrasing. When I started out, I looked upon the guitar as sort of a keyboard with strings instead of keys. You fretted the note and picked the string and that was that. This attitude also made me focus on cool effects and gimmicks first and on pickups and amp second, but that's another story.

Th...
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3 Notes Per String Blues Freedom

Posted by The Wizard on Saturday, August 15, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 
3 notes per string blues freedom


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The best of Paul Gilbert

Did you try out Paul Gilbert 3-notes-per-string Blues scale patterns? Then perhaps you’ve also found them difficult to use when playing solos. The 3 notes per string blues scale patterns involves weird stretches and unusual fingerings but it's well worth the effort mastering them. These patterns allow you to use all the sequences and licks that you know from the Major / Minor realm, because you have the same...

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The Diminished Blues Sound

Posted by The Wizzard on Wednesday, August 12, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 
The Diminished Blues Sound


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My favorite blues phrasing tool

This is one of my absolute favorites when it comes to blues scale expansion ideas. The concept I'm going to discuss today will make your regular old blues scale sound like a screamin’ demon. I’m talking about the diminished triad which fits very nicely within the blues scale as you can see in the illustration below. Again this is your number one E-blues scales shape with a E-Diminished triad on top of it....

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Sweep Picking Power Blues

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, August 7, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 
Sweep Picking Power Blues


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Dramatic Arpeggios

The blues rock context embodies a whole range of different sounds. You can put almost any scale, arpeggio or lick in there and if you do it right it’ll sound really cool. Today let’s stick an E-minor triad in there and hear how it sounds. I’m going to take a sweep picking approach to this idea. But you can use the notes of the E-Minor triad to produce a lot of interesting sounding slow licks as well. If you’ve been...

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How To Play Melodic Power Blues

Posted by The Wizzard on Wednesday, August 5, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 
How to play melodic power blues


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Mixing the blues scale with the Dorian scale

Today’s  idea requires a little more work than the two previous ones. I’ve written about this before but here it is again: Mixing the blues scale with the Dorian scale. The Dorian scale is, of course, your regular Major scale but with it’s second note as the root note.


Here’s your number one regular pentatonic / E-Blues shape again:



And here it is with the added E-dorian (Also D-Major...
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The One Minute Major Third Expansion

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, August 1, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 

The one minute major third expansion


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Using every available note on the fretboard

I hope you had fun with the idea and the licks in my last article. Today I’m going to expand a bit on that same simple idea. But before I go on I would like to make this clear: You can use all available notes on the entire fretboard to play over any Blues Rock chord progression, and when you come to the end of these articles, you will! So the point of these article is not to show you...


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Expand The Pentatonic Scale In Two Minutes

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, July 30, 2009, In : Power Blues 101 

How to expand the pentatonic scale in two minutes


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More freedom and choices

I’ve been looking forward to writing this series about how to master the blues rock sound in all it’s different manifestations. This is by far the most used sound in all of rock music so mastering it is crucial. But most people often feel a bit limited by the measly five or six notes that you have at your disposal in the traditional pentatonic blues scale. I use to feel that way for sur...


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Feed The Beast & Make Your Passion A Priority

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, July 27, 2009, In : The Malmsteen Study 

Feed the beast and make your passion a priority


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The final Malmsteen lesson

In this last article in this series, I would like to bring your attention to the obvious. From my perspective Malmsteen has one final lesson to teach us mortals and it revolves around the concept of passion. Most of us start out in life with a lot of hope, enthusiasm and passion. But as the years go by we find ourselves with an increasing amount of responsibilities and “stuff” that clutt...


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Phrasing Fast VS Playing Fast

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, July 21, 2009, In : The Malmsteen Study 
Phrasing fast VS playing fast


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The art of phrasing fast

Is it possible to play a solo that only consists of fast runs, without it getting boring to listen to? Some would say no. But in my experience there's a perpetually long haired swedish male who masters this art to perfection. Whether you like Yngwie Malmsteen's music and style or not, his playing is a treasure chest of ideas and insights that you can use to radically improve your playing, no matter what style or...

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Breaking Free From The Tyranny Of Time

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, July 20, 2009, In : The Malmsteen Study 

Breaking free from the tyranny of time


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A simple but radical idea

This article contains one very important distinction when it comes to soloing. It’s applicable to any style of music and any instrument really. When I figured this one out, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about it anywhere. At the time, I had read my way through a lot of material on music theory and improvising, but nowhere had I come across this simple idea. I promise you this: If you will, no...

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The Secret Malmsteen Rule

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, July 6, 2009, In : The Malmsteen Study 

The secret Malmsteen rule


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If it doesn't feel great, get rid of it!

The second principle that Yngwies brain seems to work by is the concept of “The path of least resistance” Choosing the easiest way around anything sounds like a no-brainer but in this case it isn't. This principle can make or break your success in shredding and when I started applying it to everything I did, I made so much progress in so little time, I couldn't believe it.

When I first began to s...


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How To Shred Like Yngwie Malmsteen

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, June 22, 2009, In : The Malmsteen Study 

How to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen


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If you want to play like the best, you should know how the best became the best. If you know that, you can do the same thing they did, and achieve the same results. In the next series of articles I’m going to give you every little nugget that I’ve picked up in my study of Yngwie Malmsteen. I've found that there are two sides to cover when it comes to this guy. 1. How to play like Yngwie and 2. How to think like him. It's...


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Integrating Major & Diminshed Arpeggios

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, June 16, 2009, In : Sweep Picking Perfection 

Integrating Major & Diminished Arpeggios


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Yesterday I gave you some ideas on how you can integrate sweep picking with economy picking. Today let's look at the Major and Diminished shapes. But before we begin let's repeat the "integration recipe" that I talked about yesterday, here it is again:

1. Come up with a simple lick that uses sweep picking and another picking technique

2. Repeat that lick until it's easy

3. Come up with another lick and repeat the process

New...

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Integrating Sweep Picking With Other Techniques

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, June 15, 2009, In : Sweep Picking Perfection 

Integrating sweep picking with other techniques


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Integration is the key

Sweep picking is a one-of-a-kind technique. It's so radically different to perform than alternate and economy picking (Though it is closer to the latter) For a long time I wondered why I wasn't using sweep picking very much when I was soloing. Even though I was very good at it, I didn't use that technique very much. Then I pin pointed the problem and found out that I needed to integrate the techn...

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The Patterns Of Sweep Picking

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, June 12, 2009, In : Sweep Picking Perfection 
The patterns of sweep picking


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7 Arpeggio patterns and you're set

In this article, I'm going to give you the basic sweep picking patterns that I use when I improvise. They are very simple and can be used in any type of music. I'm talking about the Major, Minor and diminished triads. While there are many variations on these basic arpeggios, these are the fundamental three types you really need to master. You can add chord extensions like the 9th the 11th or other add-...

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How To Build Sweep Picking Precision

Posted by Pure Speed on Wednesday, June 10, 2009, In : Sweep Picking Perfection 

How to build sweep picking precision


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One note at a time

The skill of sweep picking offers you very few challenges. I'm not saying that it's easy. I'm saying there aren't that many things to think about when you sweep pick. If you've got the angle of the pick right - and you're using your arm and not your hand to do the sweeping, you're doing great. But there is one little challenge that I would like to address in this article though.

The whole purpose of sweep pickin...

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The 3 Tools Of Sweep Picking

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, June 9, 2009, In : Sweep Picking Perfection 

The 3 tools of sweep picking


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Your arm is the primary tool

If you've read my articles on alternate picking, you know that I recommend moving your arm and hand to fit the string you play - as opposed to letting the hand stay in the same place. Here's a key point to remember: Sweep picking is the only picking technique that is performed by your arm and not your hand! Here's the deal:

Your creator gave you different tools to use for manipulating the world around you. You...

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Learning Sweep Picking Fast

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, June 8, 2009, In : Sweep Picking Perfection 
Learning sweep picking fast


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More distance means less speed

The more distance there is between the notes you play, the harder it becomes to play them using conventional picking techniques. Picking the notes of an arpeggio, using alternate picking, and doing it fast, can be quite a challenge. This didn't keep me from trying back when I was learning the secrets of shredding. I was an alternate picking fanatic and if you used any other technique to produce the notes - y...

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How To Use Your Reticular Cortex

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, June 6, 2009, In : Motivate Yourself To Practice 
How to use your reticular cortex


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The power of a clear goal

There's a mental process which you can go through, that will ensure the achievement of what you want faster than anything else. It's easy to do and it has an amazing effect on your progress. Your brain is a goal seeking organism: 24 hours a day it's occupied with figuring out how to get what you focus on. Notice I didn't write "what you want" - the brain doesn't react to your wants and needs, but to what you...

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The Power Of Absolute Certainty

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, June 4, 2009, In : Motivate Yourself To Practice 
The power of absolute certainty


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Expand your motivation

How would you feel if you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you had the ability to become one of the most skilled guitar players in the world? Absolute certainty drives us. Uncertainty makes us hesitate. When you have a goal that you desire strongly, and you know you have a strategy that will get you there for sure (Read the category "Get more out of practice) and you believe, at a gut level, that the "pain...

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The 3 Traps To Avoid At All Cost

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, June 2, 2009, In : Motivate Yourself To Practice 

The 3 traps to avoid at all cost


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How we learn to stop learning

Have you ever made a decision and then failed to follow up on it? Have you ever decided to do something only to realize that you didn't have the self discipline or the will power to go through with it? Of course you have. Everyone knows the feelings we get when we let ourselves down. When we do this enough times we stop trusting ourselves and every attempt to try something new is quickly followed by scep...

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The Biggest Killer Of Your Progress

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, June 1, 2009, In : Motivate Yourself To Practice 
The biggest killer of your progress


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The enemy of our dreams

There's an element in the human psyche that destroys more dreams than any other single factor. If you're not consciously aware of it, chances are you will become a victim of it. In order to understand the mechanisms behind it, you need to know the following:

For two hundred thousand years, human beings have been 100 % dependant on each other. We don't have a thick fur to protect us from the weather. We can't...

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How To Become Unstoppable

Posted by Pure Speed on Sunday, May 31, 2009, In : Motivate Yourself To Practice 
How to become unstoppable


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Magical shredding super powers

Imagine your favorite guitar player on stage. See and hear how cool it sounds when he or she is playing. Feel the emotions you would feel if you where there right now. How would your face look? How much fun would you have? Then imagine taking his place. Switch parts with your favorite shredder and imagine that you are on stage, playing with the skills of a guitar super hero. Imagine everyones amazement. See t...


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The Practice Motivation Formula

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 30, 2009, In : Motivate Yourself To Practice 

The practice motivation formula


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The second requirement of mastery

You basically need two things in order to become a world class shredder:

1. A strategy that will get you there
2. The motivation to implement that strategy

You must know how to acquire the skills you want. And the more efficient your strategy, the faster you'll arrive at your destination. I’ve described the strategies I used to build my skills in the articles in the category “Get more out of pract...


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How To Visualize Every Note On The Fretboard

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, May 28, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

How to visualize every note on the fretboard


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Master one key first

When I started this series of articles I promised you that if you stayed in the key of A-Minor/C-Major long enough, I would teach you to name any note on the fretboard in as little as a day. Well here's the simplest and easiest way to do this. But it will only work as well as your ability to visualize the A-Minor/C-Major scale. If you don't feel very confident at this yet, be sure to stay in that key ...

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How To Use All This Now, Now, Now!

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 26, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 
How to use all this now, now, now!


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A second way of navigating

I'm an impatient guy. I like to be able to use what I learn very fast. This article as about the strategy that I have used to go from playing the standard blues scale pattern, to using all of the fretboard and all of the available scales and arpeggios. It's simple, easy and fun to work with. But first I would like to expand a bit on my last article. Yesterday I showed you how I navigate around the fretboa...

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How To Always Know What Scales To Use

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, May 25, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

How to always know what scales to use


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How to make the right choice fast

In this article I'm going to give you a quick, easy tool you can use to instantly know what scale to play over any rock, pop or metal chord progression. I'm not going to go into the deeper realms of music theory, I'm just going to give you a simple and very effective tool.

So let's say you have to figure out which one of the three scale tools you can use to play a solo. Here are the two things y...

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How To Create The Malmsteen Sound

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 23, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

How to create the Malmsteen sound


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Change one note and everything changes

The last tool you need to be able to improvise over any rock, pop or metal chord progression, is the Harmonic minor scale. This scale is our old friend the Minor / Major scale with a slight change and a new name. You take your natural A-Minor scale but change the 7th step and push it up one fret. Here's our well known A-Minor / C-Major pattern:



Now let's push the 7th step up one fret (The G not...


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How To Master The Minor And Major Scales

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, May 21, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 
How to master the Minor and Major scales


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The same scale used in a different context

Let's get one thing straight: The "Natural Minor scale" is just your old Minor / Major scale, used over a Minor chord progression. In the last article I covered blues rock and how to mix the "Dorian" scale (Which is still the old Minor / Major scale with a new name!) with the blues scale. To play over chord progressions in a regular Minor key we'll do almost the same thing. We won't ...

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How To Master Blues Rock Scales

Posted by Pure Speed on Wednesday, May 20, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

How to master blues rock scales



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The Blues scale and the Dorian mode

When ever you play solos in a Blues/Rock context you can use the blues scale and mix it with the "Dorian" minor scale. The Dorian scale is just your old regular Minor/Major scale that we've been focusing on in the last couple of articles. But every step in the Major scale has a name of it's own. IF you start on a C and play 7 notes up and down, you'll hear what we call the C-Major scale.

This scale...

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How To Nail This Challenge In Two Months

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 19, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

How to nail this challenge in two months


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If you fail to plan - you plan to fail

This article will show you ways to master all the things I've talked about.  And the first and most essential thing is the concept of planning. This doesn't have to take more than a couple of minutes but it's essential to your success. Planning is deciding what you will do and for how long you will do it. Here's what happens when we don't plan:

  1. We decide on something we'd like to maste...

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A Massive Chunk of Shredding Freedom

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, May 18, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

A Massive Chunk of Shredding Freedom


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The simplest and most effective strategy

When dealing with large amounts of information we must do two things in order to get the most out of our brain.

1. We must group things into manageable chunks
2. We must look for easy patterns to remember
3. Then we must put those chunks of information together like a jigsaw puzzle

Any four notes per string scale pattern consist of one easy pattern, repeated three times across the strings.

H...


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Develop Automated Pattern Recognition

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 16, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

Develop automated pattern recognition


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An effective strategy

When you've given yourself sufficient time to learn to play all the notes on the top two strings, it's time to move on. But remember, the top two strings should feel like home now. You should be able to clearly visualize all the notes on this set of strings quickly and effortlessly. If you still feel a little slow at this, here's another strategy you can use:

Place your guitar besides your TV-set in an upr...


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Breaking Out Of Limiting Scale Patterns

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, May 15, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

Breaking out of limiting scale patterns


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The secret to memorizing a map

The fretboard can be compared to a city with it's roads and locations: If you try to find your way around the whole city at once, you have to refer to the map at every crossing and corner. But if you live in one part of the city for a couple of months, you get to know that neighborhood so well, that you can find your way in the dark. And if you then move to another part of the city, the sam...


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A Totally New Way Of Thinking

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, May 14, 2009, In : Instant Fretboard Vision 

A totally new way of thinking


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Instant Fretboard Vision

In this series of articles, I'm going to give you, what I consider to be, the fastest and easiest way to "fretboard vision": The ability play over the entire fretboard like it was the easiest thing in the world. If you apply every element in my strategy and really go for it, you will not believe what will happen to your skills in this area. This subject is such an amazing example of how much progress yo...


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Celebrating Your Victory

Posted by Pure Speed on Wednesday, May 13, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Celebrating your victory


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A powerful experiment

I'd like to add a little note to yesterdays article. Most people that I have introduced these two methods to, has been very sceptical to whether they would really work or not. If you feel the same way, here's my recommendation:

Pick a one or two string lick that you would like to master. Then practice playing it to the point where you can do it without referring to the tablature. Then use the methods I described in th...


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Two Strategies That Will Triple Your Results

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Two strategies that will triple your results


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How to improve your chops when you are away from your instrument

In this article I'm going to give you two methods that you can use to practice when you don't have a guitar. With these two strategies, you can practice everywhere. Depending on what you do for a living, you might add as much as 6 to 8 hours of valuable practice time to your daily shedule. When you use them enough, they become automatic and you'll start to...


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Turbo Charge Your Practice Sessions

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, May 11, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Turbo charge your practice sessions


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How to program your mind to achieve extraordinary results

Greetings fellow shredder. This article will give you a vital strategy that you can use to improve your results dramatically. It's a little long but reading it is well worth your effort. By now you should have laid down a plan for the ten days. You have scheduled every possible 30 minute session during this period and should be clear about the rules of the game. Now it's t...


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Essential Rules of Engagement

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 9, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Essential Rules of Engagement


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Now that you've laid down a plan for the next ten days, let's talk about the rules of the game. The first thing to be very conscious of, is what kind of practice routine you are preparing for. It's important to distinguish between these two kinds of practice:

1. Technique
2. Integration

Practicing technique

Improving your technical skills requires repeating a certain pattern of movement until it's embedded in the brain. When you engage...


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Expand Your Practice Regimen Explosively

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, May 8, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

Expand Your Practice Regimen Explosively


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Select three dream licks

Let's begin the planning part of your ten day challenge. The first thing you must do is to find three licks that you would really, really like to master. Don't aim too low when you select them: They have to be so far away from your current skill level that they really inspire you. Ideally, the thought of "acquiring" them should make you feel like a little kid before Christmas eve.

Also the three lic...


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The 10 Day Breakthrough Strategy

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, May 7, 2009, In : The Ten Day Break Through Strategy 

The 10 day breakthrough strategy


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I'm very excited about this particular subject. This ten day strategy has meant more to the development of my skills than any other single thing. You will not believe what will happen to your skills when you use this strategy on a regular basis. This is the way to crush your challenges in the fastest way possible.

Here's the basic mistake that we all tend to make:

When ever we are confronted with a challenge of any kind, we estimat...


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The Secret Picking Method...

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

The Secret Picking Method...


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The most effective and versatile technique


Today I'm going to introduce you to a simple but radical picking technique: It's the "Pick-the-notes-in-the-easiest-way-possible-technique" It's the most versatile and effective way to pick, that I know of. Alternate picking has a vital advantage. It doesn't care much about how many notes you play on each string. It's based on such a simple mathematical up and down process that you can use it ...
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The Magic of Mastery

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, May 4, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

The Magic of Mastery


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Making economy picking more versatile

If economy picking is the only picking style you master, you have to be very careful with how you structure your licks. You have to have an uneven number of notes on each string in order to be able to make the string shifts happen. Also there are a few things that are practically impossible to play with economy picking only, because of this mathematical limitation. But there's a quick and easy way around thi...
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How to make super fast picking easy

Posted by Pure Speed on Sunday, May 3, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

How to make super fast picking easy


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Guaranteeing success

As with alternate picking, the hardest lick to play is a full three-notes-per-string scale pattern over all six strings. That's why it's so essential to start with very few string shifts and build from there. If you do that, you virtually guarantee that you'll progress faster than most people around you, and you'll create those little successes - that will motivate you to go for more. In the last article we we...
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The hidden key to learning economy picking fast

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, May 2, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

The hidden key to learning economy picking fast


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A radically different process

Practicing economy picking is a radically different process than practicing alternate picking. And the reason is this: Because economy picking involves a sweeping motion, you have to use two different practice routines to get the best results fast:

1. Playing the metronome game
2. Chunking several movements into one
3. Integrate immediately

1. Playing the metronome game

If you are unfamili...


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How to pick like a Swedish virtuoso

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, May 1, 2009, In : Economy Picking Revealed 

How to pick like a Swedish virtuoso


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Play with flow and ease

If you want to play like the wind and the water, economy picking is for you. Alternate picking feels and sounds like a machine gun, where as economy picking flows like a river. Once you have it down, economy picking feels easy in comparison to alternate picking. It feels completely effortless and that frees up a lot of energy to focus on other things. As a consequence, I always use economy picking unless I...


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My best alternate alternate picking exercises

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, April 30, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 
My best alternate alternate picking exercises

Six notes up and down

Before I end this series on alternate picking I want to give you some of the "exercises" that I have used to build my picking speed. Please pick the ones that you are most comfortable with. The first two are super simple but also very fundamental. I use these licks all the time and you will too once you have them down. You can take these two licks and use them to go all the way up and down the neck. Try going all the way up an ...
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How to pimp your axe for maximum speed

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, April 28, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

How to pimp your axe for maximum speed


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Creating the ultimate shred machine

Years ago, I thought that any skilled guitar player should be able to play fast on any guitar. Even though I loved playing on a guitar that had all the qualities that I'm going to discuss in this article, I still did nothing to make my own instrument more playable. "Playing on an impossible instrument will just harden me and make me better in the end" I thought. but I missed the point. ...


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The killer strategy for mastering string shifts

Posted by Pure Speed on Monday, April 27, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

The killer strategy for mastering string shifts


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The two headed monster
 

Every technique has its challenges. When it comes to alternate picking, shifting strings is definitely one of them. What most people aren’t aware of is that this is a two headed monster. There are two different string shifts that you can make:

1. Outside shifting

2. Inside shifting

Outside shifting is when you go from picking down on, let’s say the B-string, and then picking up on the high ...


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How to break through the speed barrier

Posted by Pure Speed on Sunday, April 26, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

How to break through the speed barrier



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The strategy described in this article could increase your speed instantly! (Seriously)

I assume that you are using the methods described in the category “Get more out of praticing”. If you are not, you are going to experience a lot more challenges than I describe in these articles. But even though you do everything right, at some point, you are going to hit the wall. You are going to reach a level of speed that you cannot ...
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How to increase picking speed by 500 %

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, April 25, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

How to increase picking speed by 500 %


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A crucial factor in alternate picking

The engine in a car is a complex piece of machinery where everything has to fit together to produce the power needed to drive the car. Imagine if some part of the engine suddenly started to loose it's place. If the explosions in one cylinder suddenly misfired and worked against the rest of the engine, then what would happen? The way to ensure that our alternate picking engine works perfect...


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How to make alternate picking easy

Posted by Pure Speed on Friday, April 24, 2009, In : The Ultimate Guide To Alternate Picking 

How to make alternate picking easy


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Beware of this or you'll sabotage your self

The hardest lick to play with alternate picking is just going up or down the scale, shifting strings for every third note you play. Why? Because there’s an element of alternate picking that we rarely see or focus on. But before I reveal it to you, let’s make a quick list of the challenges involved in alternate picking:

1. Picking rhythmically up and down
(Accenting every third or fourt...


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The one key that makes all the difference

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, April 21, 2009, In : Get More Out of Practice 

The one key that determines whether or not you will become a master


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You now have all the tools you need to practice effectively and get the most out of what you put in. But what’s going to make you practice? Why would anyone spend hours performing very small and repetitive movements with their fingers? Why do we bother? Well, it’s really quite simple right? We’re doing it to get something. It’s not a new car we want and it’s not a thing really, it’...


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8 things that keep us from getting better, Part 1

Posted by Pure Speed on Saturday, April 18, 2009, In : Get More Out of Practice 

8 things that keep us from getting better, Part 1


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Mistake number one:
Biting of more than you can chew

Because we humans are impatient by nature, we tend to bite of more than we can chew. This is quite normal, but it is not an effective strategy. We suddenly decide to loose weight and since it has to happen now rather than later, we go for a 20 mile run. Then one of two things happen: Etiher we actually run the 20 miles, but because or body isn't ready for that kin...


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The ultimate speed building strategy

Posted by Pure Speed on Thursday, April 16, 2009, In : Get More Out of Practice 



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The ultimate speed building strategy

In this blog I'm going to show you exactly how I went from playing like a turtel to shredding like a lamborghini. This is the most effective way, I know, to build incredible technique. It will not only make sure that you progress as fast as possible, it will also give you amazing precision in what you do. I call it The Metronome Game (Tadaaa). And it is truly a game. Besides making your practice sessions many times more effecti...


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How to nail that new lick in minutes instead of days

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, April 14, 2009, In : Get More Out of Practice 



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How to nail that new lick in minutes instead of days

I once heard of a guy who ate his bicycle... Really! He sawed it into little pill sized peices and swallowed them one by one. You can do anything if you eat your challenges one bite at a time, but if you don't, nothing is possible...

3. Challenge Isolation

Rule number three: Never take on more than one challenge at a time!

The third principle is the principle of challenge isolation. It’s about how much informatio...


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Get faster, faster and with less effort

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, April 14, 2009, In : Get More Out of Practice 
Get faster, faster - and with less effort


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To shred, thou must learn when to not shred

In this blog, I’m going to cover the second principle of effective practice. Learning a new lick to the point where it becomes easy and effortless to do, is all about the right kind of communication between your brain and you. Basically we want to send this message to the brain: “Put this lick in the part of the brain where I’ll never forget it and where it becomes automatic...
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How to develop insane shredding skills

Posted by Pure Speed on Tuesday, April 14, 2009, In : Get More Out of Practice 

How to develop insane shredding skills


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4 keys to getting better fast!

In this blog, and in the next to come, I’m going to show you specific ways in which you can speed up your learning curve. I will take you through each and everyone of the principles I developed and used to build my own level of playing skill. I’m also going to show you a way to predict the future. Let me explain: When ever people are super motivated to practice, it's because they have a clear...


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