Guitar Nine Columns

An Edge Rock Instrumental Band

Guitar Nine's February-March 2014 newsletter.

Tom Hess helps you to find band members with the same drive and ambition that you have.

Mike Campese is back with exercises to help you improve your picking, dexterity, and overall technique.

Wrapping your mind around the old "cowboy chords" but have no idea where to go from there? Here is a simple concept helping you break free and stimulating creativity.

Indie marketing guru Tim Sweeney reminds us to think outside the box.

Music industry guru Christopher Knab offers simple basics on graphic considerations when designing album artwork.

Dominants should be the arpeggios you study first since they are used regularly in Blues/Rock progressions and songs.

In order to enhance your musical expression and clearly communicate your ideas, you must understand how to think creatively when you play guitar.

Two-Handed Instrumental Fusion

Greatest Unsigned Rock Band

Mad Sammarinese Instrumentalist

Double The Jazz Guitar Fun

A lot of people don`t realize that the guitar is a great melodic instrument, and can easily take the job of a singer. You can take a vocal melody, play it on a guitar and make it just as expressive or more so.

I play instrumental blues and rock. Freddie King`s instrumental records really had an impact on me. I can`t sing but those records showed me there`s still a lot you could say without vocals.

Guitar Nine's April-May 2014 newsletter.

Mike Campese returns with a second set of exercises to help you improve your picking, dexterity, and overall technique.

Tom Hess discusses what it takes to achieve success as a pro musician.

Knowing all the notes on your fretboard is more useful and simpler than you think. Read here how.

Music industry guru Christopher Knab speaks about the appetite for perfection. A need to be not just good enough but great.

Go ahead and `burn` your fretboard with these Major 7th arpeggios.

The most frequent fears possessed by most guitarists and what you must do to overcome them and reach your musical goals.

My latest album was self-released and to be honest I completely forgot that there was even an option of being on a label. I never attempted to send a disc anywhere asking to join a label.

My first CD with my name on it was self-released. They recorded me for free so I would have a product out but it is a live CD, recorded in a club on a night I didn`t know I was to be recorded.

In general, my newest compositions are always my favorites. Creating is what it is all about for me. I rarely go back and revisit old pieces. My current material is always representative of where my head is at musically at any particular point in time.

I recently posted a couple of tracks on Soundcloud and my track "Atomic Shadow" went bananas with over 50,000 listens within a couple of weeks. That was the largest single networking event I`ve experienced.

It is true that instrumental rock appeals to a specialized audience compared to classic rock. Last year, I formed the band Reign Over Obscurity, which is progressive metal. There are vocals in this project so it will probably reach a wider audience.

Texas Shuffles To Classic Rock

Turning It Up, Letting Go

Up Tempo, Chops-Heavy Jazz

Infectious Gypsy Swing Guitarist

Guitar Nine's June-July 2014 newsletter.

It`s having different layers on songs - melodies and different time signatures under melodies - that makes songs interesting. It´s cool when you are able to find new things from songs after listening several times.

Tom Hess takes on your teaching business, helping you avoid mistakes that may be costing you big money.

Mike Campese delivers patterns that foster some of the fastest, most accurate picking you can imagine.

See how one of the least exciting concepts in music theory can actually help you create awesome licks.

Indie marketing guru Tim Sweeney offers up positive approaches to negative circumstances

Try these cool runs which be very beneficial, get take you out of trouble.

Music industry guru Christopher Knab talks about the money flow.

Tom Hess` ideas for creating massive positive change in your ability to improvise rock guitar solos.

Although social media can be great to connect with fans, who knows when Facebook or Twitter will disintegrate? My advice to other musicians would be to not put all your eggs in one basket, especially if you don`t own that basket!

The upside of the democratization of music production is that anyone can create and market their own music. The downside of the democratization of music production is that anyone can create and market their own music.