Blog
How to work out the key of a song by ear
Have you ever wondered how to work out the key of songs with your guitar? Today I want to share my method and show you how easy it is to find the key of songs by ear. I was inspired to write this because I was on Youtube recently and I happened
The myth of the self-taught rock musician
Myth (noun): A widely held but false belief or idea; A misrepresentation of the truth; An exaggerated or idealised conception of a person or thing. Today we’re going to explore the popular belief that most rock musicians were self taught on their instruments. Is it true? Here is a classic
Why Youtube song tutorials don’t work
Type in the name of just about any song into Youtube and you can find a video of somebody explaining how to play it on guitar. Say you want to learn something like the Sweet Child o Mine solo. What’s stopping you? Just go on Youtube and find the video. Obviously you’ll
Learning watching from the masters
I don’t know about you, but I watch as much live footage of my guitar heroes as I possibly can. It gets me inspired and fired up to practice, and it reminds me why I play guitar and how far I still have to go. As a music fan it’s
Stop practicing this exercise
It’s time to talk Guitar Technique. Everyone who learns electric guitar will sooner or later encounter this exercise: There are many possible variations on the basic idea, like these: You might hear people refer to them to as warm up exercises, or the “Finger Gym” exercises, or “Technique” or “Speed Building” exercises.
I bet you CAN’T play Smoke On The Water
Several years ago I started seeing this comment appear regularly under guitar videos on Youtube: “Nice, but can you play Smoke On The Water?” In case you haven’t seen the comment before, let me try to explain. It’s posted after someone has played something, usually something technical, and it’s an