Guitar Nine Columns: Guitar Technique

Gaining knowledge of all the chords, triads, and arpeggios that are built from the major scale.

Did you know? Professional guitarists may spend at least 30% of their time refining this skill.

Now, Mike mixes up the rhythms when practicing scales to make things that much more interesting.

Remember: your unique intuition is the most important asset you possess.

Building your chops while making practice time more interesting and even, fun.

Consider taking your playing to the next level - and melt some minds.

Altering the sound of the pentatonic scale by plugging in an additional note.

Identifying and accurately defining each of the main guitar types.

Tommaso compares and contrasts CAGED and pentatonic scale systems.

Mike digs a little deeper into the Altered scale, aka Super Locrian.

Simon takes a close look at the use of chords in this popular tuning.

Check out the 12-string guitar, as well as the songs you could practice and learn from using this instrument.

An endless variety of melodic phrases can be derived from the permutation of chord tones.

Mike teaches soloing over chord changes with a track from his album, "The Fire Within".

Avoiding these crippling mistakes will eliminate frustration and lead to satisfying arrangements.

A way of playing your guitar where you can sound full and complete without needing someone else to play with you.

Mike has a new album, "The Fire Within". and breaks down a few of the notable tracks.

Learn the sophisticated, awe inspired, and flat out mind-blowing style of percussive acoustic guitar.

Is learning music theory is the way to go, or, will it drain your potential?

Additional rhythmic variations to practice using the pentatonic scale as the vehicle.

Mike delivers the keys to unlocking specific sounds, such as the Phrygian dominant mode, from the Harmonic Minor scale.

Deepen your knowledge of the Minor Pentatonic scale, free yourself from the “5 boxes slavery”, expand your phrasing vocabulary and stimulate your creativity.

Learning to use musical form will help you "cast" an idea into an entire song.

Deepen your knowledge of the Minor Pentatonic scale, free yourself from the “5 boxes slavery”, expand your phrasing vocabulary and stimulate your creativity.

How to use your 'dead time' tp maximum advantage.

Rosocha teaches permutations - altered scale shapes based on fretboard position.

Gaining fluency with triad arpeggios will help your soloing and rhythm playing.

Play great songs such as “Landslide”, "Dust In The Wind" and "The Boxer".

Tommaso delves into guitar solo harmonies - they are not as hard as they look.

Take you guitar playing to the next level with Tommaso's best advice for the intermediate player.

Slide guitar offers a very cool and unique sound that cannot be emulated any other way.

Anyone (including yourself) can learn to develop creativity by using the proven methods and strategies for reaching this goal.

Mark covers the essential picking styles new guitarists need to learn (or at least be familiar with).

Mike shows you several ways to spice up your riffs, lines and solos with some chromatic passing tones.

A technique that allows you to play both the melody and accompaniment parts of a blues tune at the same time.

Mike teaches you scale sequences (in the Hanon style, adapted from piano) that are great for your dexterity and precision.

These exercises will help you to focus on string crossing with alternate picking, and also to help you develop left/right hand synchronization, speed and stamina.

Mike shows you moveable type patterns for the harmonic minor scale, and some ways you can get some fresh new modern type sounds.

Don't go with what feels easy as opposed to what is right.

If left unquestioned, these kind of thoughts can start to really build up and hurt your progress as a musician.

Here are more true reasons for Vai's world-class guitar playing and the lessons each one holds for you.

An expert knows to practice simpler things.