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Improve Your Solos With One Tone Bends

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There are a few different kinds of bends but today we’re talking about one tone bends. It’s best if you relate your bends to the scale you’re playing in, because you want to go FROM one position in your scale TO another one.

We’re going to use the A pentatonic minor scale for this, and we’re going to stretch the 7th fret, 3rd string, up a whole tone to the same pitch as the note on the 5th fret, 2nd string.

Chuck Berry used stretches as part of his rhythm riffs, but players all have their own interpretations and favorite ways of using string stretches.

We’ll also look at a one tone stretch on the second string, going from the 8th fret, 2nd string, up a full tone to the E on the 5th fret, 1st string. While we’re up there, we’ll also stretch the first string up a tone as well.

Inside the Riff Ninja Guitar School, you’ll find a whole series of lessons on Essential Techniques for soloing, each one designed to give more expression to your solos. Checkout the 3-day free trial here.


Spice Up Your Solos With Thirds!

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Using intervals in your solos is a terrific way to add more melody and character. They can be applied in so many different ways, and of course, there are many different intervals to consider too.

Today we’re looking at thirds, specifically. Even more specifically, we’re looking at thirds that can be produced using the 2nd and 3rd strings on your guitar. We’re in the key of F# minor / A major.

If you’re looking for a way to truly turbocharge your solos, you might want to checkout Ultimate Blues Solos

Let’s dig in!

Source: Spice Up Your Solos With Thirds!
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The Most Widely Used Bar Chords

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As part of our “Riff Ninja Answers” series, one of the questions that came up had to do with which bar chords were the most widely used. That turned into a perfect springboard for a little bar chord lesson, which is what we’ve got right here.

We’ll start with the 6th string, looking at the E major and E minor shapes. When you’re using bar chords, it is very important to know where your root note is – both on the fretboard, and in the chord shape you’re using. With just these two shapes you can literally play every single major and minor chord in every key!

Then we’ll move to the 5th string, and look at major and minor shapes coming from that string too. These ones are based off the open A major and A minor shapes that you’re probably familiar with. Again, using just these two shapes, barred, you can play every major and minor chord.

Once you combine the options available to you on the 6th and 5th strings, all of a sudden the whole fretboard starts opening up!

If you have a hard time with these bar chords, you might like another lesson I did, where we cover common stumbling blocks to playing bar chords.

If you’ve been struggling to make your guitar playing sound like the music that you want to be playing – checkout Electric Blues for Beginners. We dig in and start rockin’ out right away, on some really easy tunes, but very quickly and methodically we start adding building blocks that will take your playing step by step, higher and higher. You’ll get the basics of chords, rhythm, theory and even some riffs and soloing! You can learn more about it here.

Source: The Most Widely Used Bar Chords
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How To Stand Up And Play Guitar

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If you want to stand up and play guitar, it's a bit different than when you're sitting down. In this guitar lesson, we'll cover some important things that aren't talked about a whole lot, but that can really help your playing, as well as your comfort and endurance while you're playing. 

The main thing to keep in mind is that your guitar should be close to your body, in a position that allows easy comfortable access to what you need to do. Some guys like to play their guitars really really low, and while they may think this looks cool, the reality is, it can lead to wrist and tendon problems because your body has to compensate a lot. So, worry about comfort first, then look second. 

If any part of your body is feeling strained while you're standing up and playing, that's a good indicator you may need to re-assess your standing position.

Standing up and playing guitar can feel quite different than sitting down and playing guitar, so it is a good idea to practice both. The last thing you want is to practice only while sitting down, then one day be called on to do a performance while standing, and discover that everything feels different!

One thing that is different is your visibility of the fretboard tends to be a bit better when you're sitting down, probably because it's easier to hunch over the guitar a bit. All the more reason to practice playing guitar while standing up too!

If you're a beginner, or you've played guitar for a while but found yourself stuck, I recommend checking out my course, Electric Guitar For Beginners. It's loads of fun, and we'll get you rockin' right off the bat, making music while learning step by step. 

Source: How To Stand Up And Play Guitar
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String Slides on Guitar

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Today we’re looking at string slides, and we’re going to be working with the pentatonic minor scale, as well as the three position pentatonic minor.

The trick with getting a good slide is to hold down the pressure on the string, so that you get good contact while you’re sliding that note up.

There are different ways of sliding notes on the guitar. Sometimes you want to slide into a note, in which case you’ll be picking a point one or more frets above or below the note you want, and immediately as soon as you pick, slide that note.

Other times, you may be sliding in between notes. In these cases, pick the note, allow it to ring out a bit, then keeping your finger firmly on the string, slide to the note you want. Make sure you don’t overshoot though, because that doesn’t sound very good!

Source: String Slides on Guitar
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Learning Guitar Notes Made Easy

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If you want to learn the notes on your guitar, it helps to know a few shortcuts. (If you're completely unfamiliar with the notes on the fretboard, you may want to start here first) There's a group of notes called the perfect harmonies - we're going to use these to help us figure out the guitar notes quicker than we could with straight memorization. 

The perfect harmony notes are the I, the IV, and the V. We'll look at the key of A, where A is the I. If you start on the A on the 6th string, 5th fret, then you just go straight across to the 5th fret of the adjacent string, the 5th string, and you have D, which is the IV. From there, two frets further up the fretboard you'll find the V, which is E. 

A = I = root note
D = IV = the fourth
E = V = the fifth
A = VIII = the octave

We can apply this same pattern anywhere you find an A. Take the 12th fret, 5th string for instance. That's your A, one string down you find the IV, and two frets up, you find the V. 

Now, you can use a pattern to find the octave of the A too. For that, we go down two strings, and up two frets. The exception to this is when the 2nd string is involved. If your pattern lands on or crosses that B string, then you need to add one more fret. So the new pattern becomes two strings down, three frets up. 

With this octave pattern you can very quickly figure out notes in the middle of the fretboard that you may be less familiar with. Most people learn the notes on the 6th and 5th strings first, because of bar chords. Well, the 1st string is identical to the 6th string, and that just leaves the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings. If we use the octave pattern, starting from the strings we know, we can cover those remaining strings, no problem. 

Knowing the perfect harmony box of I, IV, V, VIII can help you in many ways, from finding chords located nearby, to giving you ideas in your solos, and also for bass players too! 

Learning all the guitar notes is great, but you don't have to use straight memorization. Using a pattern like this can really help cut down on the brainpower needed to remember where all the notes on the guitar are, and it takes some of the pressure off too. 

Now, go learn some notes! 

Source: Learning Guitar Notes Made Easy
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The Most Popular Strumming Pattern In The World

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Is this the most popular strumming pattern in the world? I’ll leave that up to you to decide, but it’s been used in many, many songs.

We’re in 4/4 time, and the strumming is based on 8th notes. Remember that the downstroke is a stronger strum, and upstrokes should use a little less force. This helps build some subtle variation and dynamics into your rhythm playing.

You can use this strumming pattern for fast songs or slow songs, and you can also change it up a little bit with the variations that we discuss in the video.

Here’s a short list of songs that you could use one or both of these strums on – keep in mind they’re all different tempos so you have to match up accordingly:

  • Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)

  • Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan version)

  • Last Kiss (Pearl Jam version)

  • Let It Be (Beatles)

  • Me and Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin or Waylon Jennings versions)

  • Simple Man (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

  • Love Me Do (Beatles)

  • 8 Days A Week (Beatles)

  • Yellow Submarine (Beatles)

  • With or Without You (U2)

  • Angel of Harlem (U2)

If you found this short lesson helpful, you might like to checkout my Essentials of Strumming & Rhythm course, because there's a lot more where this came from!

Let me know in the comments below if you recognize this strum pattern from other songs!

Source: The Most Popular Strumming Pattern In The World
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Improve Your Rhythm – How to Practice With a Metronome

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Wondering how you can improve your rhythm on the guitar? Wanna learn how to practice with a metronome and make your timing a lot better? Well, here’s a lesson on that. This is applied to playing scales.

The metronome being used is a digital one. Avoid using the pendulum ones because if you put them down on a surface that isn’t completely flat, your beat will vary. Digital metronomes will work at any angle, in any place. The digital metronome goes from 0 – 200 beats per minute. The scale being used in this lesson today is the E pentatonic minor scale – pentatonic means five notes.

Why would you want to use a metronome to practice your scales? Timing and accuracy. There is nobody that is so great with their timing that they wouldn’t benefit from a little time logged with a metronome.

The E pentatonic minor scale should only be played with the fingering shown in this lesson.

The metronome really helps your pick hand, the right hand. No matter how fast the left hand can dazzle people on the fretboard, it’s the right hand that connects to the strings and makes the difference.

Play your notes as long as you can – let them ring out for the full duration of the beat. Choose a tempo that you are comfortable with. You can increase the tempo the faster you get. The tempo should be challenging, but not fast enough to make you stumble a lot.

Why practice scales? Well, if you want to play some riffs, solos, or walking bass lines, you need to know your scales. The scale is the foundation of your solos. If you don’t want to do that, then it will at least increase your ability with your right hand. Your picking for scales should be down up down up – alternate picking will improve your right hand.

If you like this lesson, there’s a great new beginners course out called the Definitive Beginner’s Guide to the Acoustic Guitar.

Have fun with this scale, and practice hard!

Source: Improve Your Rhythm – How to Practice With a Metronome
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Use These 4 Chords… PLAY IN ANY KEY!

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If you can master these four bar chord shapes, you will be able to play the six primary chords in ANY KEY you need to. This is a very powerful trick that can come in very handy. 

The first shape is based on a root 6 E major chord, which we can show like this: 022100. The numbers indicate the frets, and the first number is the lowest, 6th string. 

The second shape is based on the root 6 E minor chord, which we can show like this: 022000.

We call these two chords "root 6" chords, because the root note for the chord shape is on the 6th string. This is really important because that root note is the key to moving this shape elsewhere on the fretboard, to create different chords. 

If we keep the entire pattern intact, we can move the root note up to the 5th fret, which is an A note, and then we can get either an A major chord (577655) or an A minor chord (577555). Do you see how the shapes remain the same, except that now we've added the barring finger? 

The other two shapes you'll need are root 5 chords, meaning the root note is on the 5th string. They're based off the open A major shape (x02220) and open A minor shape (x02210). The x indicates you don't play that note, which in this case is the 6th string. 

Again, if you move those shapes to a different location on the fretboard, you'll produce a chord with the new root note you choose, and depending on which of those two shapes you choose, you'll get either a major or a minor sound.

So, if we went to the 7th fret, we'd have an E major (x79997) or an E minor (x79987). 

Source: Use These 4 Chords… PLAY IN ANY KEY!
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Acoustic Beginner 1 – Your First 3 Chords

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When you’re first getting started learning to play the acoustic guitar, don’t allow yourself to become overwhelmed trying to learn tons of chords.

You just don’t need that many to be able to start making music!

In this lesson, we’re going to cover three of the first ones you should learn: G major, C major, and D major. They’re probably the most important chords you’ll ever learn. Hundreds and hundreds of hit songs have been written using just these three chords.

If you want to get serious about learning how to play your acoustic guitar, checkout my Definitive Beginner’s Guide to Acoustic Guitar!

Source: Acoustic Beginner 1 – Your First 3 Chords
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