My Demo Playlist


Saturday, December 15, 2007

Guitar - Gibson Les Paul Owner - Yuri

This one is a beauty. Its a Gibson Les Paul '59 Historic Reissue, with a Brazillian rosewood fingerboard, serial no. 93145. Gibson Les Paul 59 reissue made in 2003 is the most accurate and sought after Gibson Les Paul historic series since Gibson Custom Shop made them in 1993. Available only in 683 pieces, it is the only Les Paul reissue made with period correct wood and accesories. For example, these guitars are the only ones available with brazillian rosewood fingerboard which has been banned from being used since 1960's.

Nowadays,Gibson only made the 1959 Les Paul with a less accurate fingerboard, the Indian rosewood which again was not used on the original 1959 Les Paul. The pickups are the replicas of the original PAF from the 1950's which was invented by Seth Lover and coincidentally the PAF were also the first humbucker pickups ever invented.

All components of the guitar were made using replicas of the originals from the 1959 guitars. Even the plastic volume and tone knobs were made from the correct plastic material as the originals. The body is made of eastern maple and mahagony which were obtained from the same forest where Gibson used to make the originals 1959.

So my good friend Yuri here is one lucky guy to own this magnificent guitar. I am sure if he were to auction this off it would cost not less than US$14,000 nowadays. The sound and playability of this guitar is really awesome and when you plugged it in direct to a marshall....wow! is the word that i can only describe. And when Yuri plays this Gibson its totally incredible as you can feel the connection between him and this guitar.

There's some more guitars that he owns and that will be added soon. so check this page often. see ya.


Thursday, December 6, 2007

Guitar - Ibanez PGM301 Owner - MiN

Hi guys,

its been a while since i last updated this blog. Well i got a new column to be added and its going to be called " Guitars and Guitar Owners".

So i will be looking to get some pictures of guitars and their proud owners and to start off this section i will be posting one of my guitar which is an Ibanez PGM301. I will post my other guitars soon. So check it out.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Ponco Satrio

Ponco Satrio is one of Indonesia's great guitar player. He plays the guitar with feel and groove and sometimes even shreds when he feels like it. This guy is really a versatile guitar player and can play to alot of different genre. Even Shred Academy has asked him to do some video lessons for them. You can check out more details of him at his official website at www.poncosatrio.com

So now lets get to my interview with him:-

Hi bro Ponch, hows it going? I would like to thank you for answering
a few questions for our Bruguitar blog. I am sure that the Brunei
guitar players would be interested to know more about you.

Ponco Satrio - Hi bro Hazmin, I'm doing pretty good brother !

Lets get started. So bro, when did you first started to play the
guitar? What was your first guitar?

Ponco Satrio - Ok, It all started out when I was about 9 years old, I had no guitar at that time so I always borrowed my brother's acoustic guitar..secretly LOL.Then after a few years I got a Yamaha classical guitar and Ibanez electric guitar.

During those early years, which guitar players heavily influenced
you?

Ponco Satrio - I must say during the early years I heavily listened to group band like the Beatles, Depp Purple,Led Zeppelin, Judast Priest and Rush, so I was not really pay attention to the guitar dudes yet, I want to be a drummer instead 'coz my dad was a drummer in his band. However, I remember that Michael J fox in a movie called Back To The Future who really inspired me to pick up guitar, cause that dude so rockin' all over the place with his old Gibson, yes.. that man really could play guitar! And later on I started listening to Chuck Berry,Wes Montgomerry,Jimi Hendrix,John Lee Hooker, Jeff Beck, Steve Lukather,Paul Gilbert,Ron Thal (Bumblefoot), Mattias IA Eklundh, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai and some other great guitar players...the list will never end lol.

What was your practice regime like back then?

Ponco Satrio - Man I am worst at practise lol.. I mean at first time I had no specific schedule to pick up my guitar and practise. Mostly, I just jammed along with my tape which played my favourite songs and learned some few chops from them. But eventually I managed to practise seriously to learn some technical aspect of playing guitar both in classical and electric guitar perspective.

Have you ever had any formal guitar lessons?

Ponco Satrio - Yes I have, because for some years I only learned autodidactic then I thought that I needed more knowledge and the basic fundamental of guitar playing,that's why I took a classical lesson and then took the electric guitar lesson. And when I was through with my high school I attended the Jakarta Insitute of Art majoring classical guitar and later studied in University of Central Oklahoma, USA which where I got a chance to learn some of jazz stuff.

Oh yeah, btw bro, where do you originate from? Where are you living
now?

Ponco Satrio - I was born in the thickest jungle of Sumatera island part of Indonesia, where animals such as tigers live freely there haha..seriously, one of 'em ate my dog can't you believe it? Right now I live in a small city called Edmond, in Oklahoma, USA since 2004.

Do you have any other favourite Indonesian guitar players?

Ponco Satrio - My first influence came from listening a bunch of Slank album, Pay Siburian, who is the killer guitarist from that band, I learn some cool stuff from his playing, then there's Eet Syahranie from Edane and ex-God Bless he's very cool rock guitar player, Then Dony Suhendra he plays in many famous band in Indonesia, he's really great in fusion jazz rock guitar playing, and DD Crow from Roxx and Power Slave,he's my old good pal, he's super genius, I learn a lot from him. and the others amazing guitarist such as Edy Kemput from Iwan Fals band and Grass Rock, and I Wayan Balawan , he plays double neck guitar with touch technique, his music so adventurous range from music world genre to fusion jazz . Cheers to those great musicians!

I have heard your demos and there are really awesome bro. And i know
that you are currently busy with your recordings and your solo album.
Is it gonna be available on the internet?

Ponco Satrio - Thanks a lot for listening then! Yes, currently I'm doing my upcoming solo album, much more into guitar oriented stuff. I hope it will be available on the internet soon after it's done and I will let you know.

The clips on your official site sounded really cool. Some even have that Steve Vai-ish sound and technique on it. Any comments on that?

Ponco Satrio - Thanks again my friend! Well, probably because Vai influenced me as I said before and I learn some of his music compositions and techniques point of view. So I hope when the CD is launched, people can listen much more specifically and clearly with what's happening on my songs and style. I'm sure they will recognize my signature licks or whaterever lol.

What are your recording equipment you use for your home recording? Can you give us the details?

Ponco Satrio - I use Logic for the recording software, Mac Apple Computer, Toneport from line 6, and some pedals such us AMT Tube Platinum, Zoom 606,Ebow, Cry baby Wah, and George Dennis GD-60 for Vol/Wah. For my guitar part I use my main guitar Musicman Luke ,Dean bass guitar and Talman Acoustic guitar, and I might be use some other equipment and stuff as long it makes the music sounds cooler.

I also know that you are also giving video lessons for Shred Academy and saw your videos on youtube. It must be really exciting to do videos for Shred Academy. What was it like? Did you get under pressure for making the video?

Ponco Satrio -Yeah, I love teaching and sharing my humble musical ideas to those who are interested in. Making the video lessons for Shred Academy is really fun, no pressure at all since what I did it's all what I do and I enjoy playing guitar on shredding style for sometimes..'coz it feels good and healthy for my fingers though lol. Oh yeah in the future I'm planning to make a DVD with Tab guitar lesson that covers basic up to intermediate, I think it will be fun to do since some NICE people out there has sent me some emails feedbacks and requested a serious guitar lesson..oh well.. I'll try my best !

You are also collaborating with other musicians and have some sort of side project right? Can you tell us more about that?

Ponco Satrio -Yes I have some projects going on and also teaching and making music for a party. Currently, I was in recording progress with my friend AubDelane under the name Karma Suit. I think our music more into 60's retro alternative music, it's very fun and fresh! It's such a cool experience to work and create music with him. I hope we will finish our recording soon.

Have you sessioned for any artiste?

Ponco Satrio -Yeah I did some session with artiste when I was in Jakarta, mostly as a recording session player and doing live band. The one that I still remember is when I played music with Ikang Fawzi, he's a legend of rock and pop music in Indonesia. We played for a televison music live show called Blues Night.

What is your current guitar setup?

Ponco Satrio -I mostly use Musicman Luke ,X blender,BB Preamp,Amt Tube Platinum, George Dennis GD-60 and Boss DD 20 delay pedal. It can change at anytime, though it depends on the music style that I play at that time.

Ok bro, we would like you to give a brief comment on some of the guitar players mentioned below :

Joe Satriani

Ponco Satrio - He's the one that what I call as the Maestro.

Wes Montgomery

Ponco Satrio - The man with some nice smooth jazzy vamping riff..very inspiring.

Allan Holdsworth

Ponco Satrio - Amazing Amazing Amazing ..aah OK, I give him another one... AMAZING!

Guthrie Govan

Ponco Satrio - One of the versatile guitarists I've ever heard, he's definitely a virtuoso.

Al De Meola

Ponco Satrio -Genius Composer, cool rhytmical groove and sacred picking technique.

Lastly bro, any advice for our Brunei guitar players who just started out playing the guitar?

Ponco Satrio - Keep playing and do whatever you want with your music and guitar playing!

We would like to thank you for answering these questions for Brunei Guitar Blog. Let's jam together some other time, bro. See ya!

Ponco Satrio -You're very welcome my friend, and yes, let's jam together some time at any convenience...

Here are some video clips of Ponco Satrio




Check out more of his stuffs at youtube.

Guitar Rules!!


Thursday, August 9, 2007

Featured Writer - :Ponco Satrio

Ponco Satrio

Thanks to bro Ponch for submitting this wonderful article for Bruguitar blog. I will be doing an interview with him so check out this blog often. - Pemaingitar

His article :-

Jazz 7th Chord Arpeggios

Hi there, in this humble small article I would like to share about Jazz 7th chord Arpeggios. An arpeggio is a broken chord in which the individual tones are played one after the other. This is a very good way to achieve specific chordal sounds over improvised melodic lines. Arpeggios are usually seen as little motives of three notes basic triad : (root) 1 , (third) 3, (fifth) 5, but
sometimes people add some extras notes like 7 , 9, 11 and 13.

So here we go, let us start playing the 7th Arpeggio patterns :

1. The Major 7th arpeggio. Mostly in two-string patterns and also a more diagonal approach, best for playing sweeping technique.


Please click on picture for bigger view

2.The Minor 7th arpeggio. Try this simple configurations of minor 7th arpeggios in which I have found very simple and effective.

3.The Dominant 7th arpeggio. My favourite patterns to play over dominant 7th chords, I think these configurations very memorable.

Note : Practise those patterns always in slow tempo first ! yes I know it's little bit tricky.. so there's no need to rush.

You can play the notes in order from low to high or vice versa, but it there are some other configurations of sequence patterns that you can use. So try some of these configurations first:

1 3 5 7 , 1 3 7 5 , 1 5 7 3 , 1 5 3 7

3 1 5 7, 3 1 7 5 , 3 7 1 5 , 3 7 5 1

5 1 3 7, 5 1 7 3 , 5 7 1 3 , 5 7 3 1

7 3 1 5, 7 3 5 1, 7 1 5 3 , 7 1 3 5

Note : Feel free to come up with your own configurations patterns ideas :)

I hope you can get some ideas from this cool 7th arpeggios stuff , till then.. enjoy it !

-Ponco Satrio

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Michael Angelo


Michael Angelo Batio is one of the world’s foremost guitar shredder. In my opinion he is one of the best alternate pickers out there.

As he mentioned in his website “I am left handed so my right or "picking" hand was overall, the weakest part of my playing. I worked for 2 years in my early teens to master alternate picking while simultaneously working on tapping. Basically, anything and everything I could to strengthen my right hand. I started out being a purely legato player. You would never know that now. I concentrated on my 2 weakest areas- Alternate picking and tapping and perfected those. I am a firm believer in working on something you are deficient in. Once you master a technique that gives you "trouble", other areas of your playing improve dramatically.”

He is also famous for his double guitar playing with his right and left hand and also his ‘piano-technique’ which he sometimes incoporate during his shows.

I was lucky enough to watch his guitar clinic and watch him play his famous song called ‘ No Bounderies ‘


Guitar Rules!!






Sunday, July 22, 2007

Addy Rasidi a.k.a Addy Cradle - ( Ex-guitarist for Teacher's Pet / Cradle )


Addy Rasidi is one of Singapore's most established and respected guitar player. Formerly the guitarist for the band Teacher's Pet which was really famous for their song " Warisan Wanita Terakhir" during the 90s. This guy is a scary player who can shred and at the same time can also play some really wonderful tunes. He is not only a guitar player but also a songwriter, lyricist and producer.

Here is my interview with Addy :

Hi bro Addy. Thanks for having the time to answer a few questions for our blog. I know you are very busy as a guitarist and musician so i will get right to the questions.

Addy : No worries. My pleasure. Sorry took awhile to get back to you coz of my schedule.

So bro, this is a typical question but i have to ask you this, when did you start playing the guitar? How old were you then?

Addy : I started when I was 10 yrs old, 1985.

What was your first guitar?

Addy: Ibanez Roadstar

And your first band?

Addy: Just a band from school

During the early years, who were your main influence?

Addy: Hilarry Ang from Search, Kid from Gersang, Akira Takasaki from Loudness, Jason Becker, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, Richie Kotzen

How was your practice regime like during those years?

Addy: I practice before school, after school and before I sleep at night, one to 2 hours each.

And do you still practice as much today?

Addy: Slightly lesser time. With my 2 kids around me, it’s a luxury to have time for practice!

I first heard of you when you were with Teacher’s Pet. How old were you when you joined the band?

Addy: I was 15 years old.

I was impressed with your guitar works especially on “ Eh Keras Tu” it reminds me of Richie Kotzen. Was it inspired by Richie Kotzen or any other guitar players?

Addy: Yes it was inspired by Richie Kotzen. He was my main influence besides Akira and Vai.

Although i am a Bruneian, but i do know that people call you Addy “Gilbert”. Maybe because of the Paul Gilbert influence? But for me i would call you Addy Kotzen because your playing “shredding” sounded more like him. Correct me if i’m wrong.

Addy: Yes, hahaha. Actually I got the name Gilbert because I was playing Paul Gilbert’s guitar for 2 years. When people started calling me Gilbert, I sold the guitar because I wanted my own identity.

After Teacher’s Pet, you then joined Cradle and hence the name people call you Addy Cradle. What was it like between Teacher’s Pet and Cradle? Did your musical path changed?

Addy: Yes. In Cradle, I have more control of the songs, in fact I wrote most of the songs. I started singing in Cradle.

Tell us more about your solo album. What inspired you to do the album “ Rahsia”?

Addy: I just wanted to explore my vocal capabilities

Are you planning to do an all-out instrumental guitar album? If so do you plan to feature other guitar players as well?

Addy: Yes I am planning. In fact I have a few songs already. Not planning to feature other guitar players. Tabla? Sitha?

Lets talk about guitar technique. Whats your most favourite guitar technique? The ones that you usually incorporate in your playing. Alternate Picking? Legato? Etc...

Addy: Nothing in particular actually.

Can you give us an insight on your current guitar setup?

Addy: I’m playing Ibanez J Custom with DiMarzio pickups breeds, tonezone, air norton and virtual vintage solo pro. D’addario 10/46 strings. Guitar effects GT8. Jim Dunlop 535 Wah. DiMarzio cables. Ibanez Thermion Tube Amps.

Ok bro can you please give a brief comment on some of the guitar players i’m about to mention.

· Yngwie Malmsteen

Addy :Neo classical genius


· Paul Gilbert

Addy: Funny but scary player


· Andy Timmons

Addy: He’s great


· Steve Vai

Addy: He’s my hero


· Richie Kotzen

Addy: He’s my hero


· Guthrie Govan

Addy: Fusion, Rock, Jazz, Country – this guy can play anything


· Eddie Van Halen

Addy: He’s a legend


· Buckethead

Addy: Is he the KFC guy?

Lastly bro, any advice for all those aspiring guitar players out there especially in Brunei who just started out playing the guitar?

Addy: Just keep on practising and always practice something new – scales, mode, anything

I would like to thank you bro Addy for answering these questions that will provide us more information about the guitar in general and especially for your fans here in Brunei. Maybe we can jam together sometime when i visit Singapore. Till then bro keep in touch.

Addy: Sure!

Here are some video link of Addy Rasidi. I would recommend you guys to check out more of his stuffs or better yet his albums with Teacher's Pet, Cradle and his solo album.

Guitar Rules!!





Sunday, July 15, 2007

Recommended Song : “ Technical Difficulties “

This is one of my all time favourite song by Racer-x called “ Technical Difficulties played by Paul Gilbert.

This song was first featured in his 3rd Instructional video call Terrifying Guitar Trip and later a full version of the song came out in their album also entitled “ Technical Difficulties”. You might want to check that album out.

Indeed a very technically challenging song and difficult to play and if you practice to play this song it will undoubtedly improve your alternate picking as well as your fingering.

Try this one out and have fun.

Guitar Rules!!


Thursday, June 28, 2007

Guitar Picks (Plectrum)

I guess every guitar player knows what a pick is right? Well maybe not all.

Maybe those that have just started out playing the guitar may want to know what a pick is. Well, it is a kind of tool or thing? that you hold between you fingers that are used to “pick” the strings of the guitar.

Ahhh….just look at the pictures below and you will understand.



Here is a picture of me holding a pick between my fingers.



Got it? That is what we call a ‘Pick’

Ok….there are many types of picks out there. Different guitar players will use different guitar picks to suit their needs or should I say their playing. Normally it varies in thickness and usually categorized as ‘Thin’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Hard’.

The thickness of the pick will produce different sound character when used to play on the guitar. Some people like to use the ‘Thin' pick to strum when playing chords. Others like to use ‘Hard’ picks to play solos on the guitar especially guitar shredders.



For me I have tried a lot of different picks over the years and have collected a lot of them. But since nearly a decade ago I began to use only my favourite signature “Paul Gilbert Picks”. It’s not really hard. I guess it’s about 1mm in thickness and it’s really good for playing both chords and solos.

It is small/medium size and very light. It has also got humorous picture drawn on it on one side and a Paul Gilbert signature on the other. I guess the graphics are the work of Mr. Gilbert himself.

Many people ask me how to hold a pick. Which is the correct way to hold a pick?

Well, this is very subjective and depends on the person themselves. How do you hold a pencil? Is there any correct way of holding it? In my opinion, it doest matter how you hold a pencil as long as you feel comfortable and can use it to write or draw or whatever purpose it may give you. That is the same for picks as well. It doesn’t matter how you hold it as long as you feel comfortable and can use it to play the guitar for playing chords, solos or whatever you want. Just make sure that you try different ways or positions of holding the pick until you get the best one that you feel easy and comfortable with.

Now go and grab that pick!!

Guitar Rules!!


Monday, June 11, 2007

Arpeggios

One of the most used techniques played on the guitar is the arpeggios. Arpeggio is a musical term and technique not only used by guitar players but also used by other musicians on different instruments.

When played on the guitar, it produces a very unique sound and shredders tend to use this technique a lot. Arpeggios are normally associated with sweep picking technique because you tend to sweep the notes when playing arpeggios. But arpeggios can also be played using alternate picking technique which is a little bit harder than the sweep picking.

Arpeggios can played on several strings and can be played on two, three, four, five and six strings. The easiest would be playing an arpeggio with just two strings and as you go further with using more strings on the guitar the technique becomes harder.

For beginners I would advice to try out two or three strings arpeggios. There are a few examples of three strings arpeggios and I recommend you guys to try out the three string diminished arpeggio that Yngwie Malmsteen often uses. The three string diminished arpeggio is not that difficult and it is commonly used by players around the world. I even see a lot of our local guitar players use that three string diminished arpeggio in their playing. It gets kinda cliché at times but for beginners to intermediate level its okay I guess.

To master playing arpeggio will take a lot of practice. I see a lot of our local guitar players trying to incorporate arpeggios in their playing and I also see a lot have not mastered the technique yet. Of course it’s easy to play the three string arpeggios but when they tried to play five or six string arpeggios they often get it to sound sloppy. You can’t clearly hear the notes they are playing because they can’t place their fingers properly to make it sound clean and clear. The goal of playing arpeggio is that the listeners can listen to every note of the arpeggios clean and clearly. Most guitar players tend to just try and play five or six string arpeggios to look cool and flashy on the fingers and ignore the importance of the clarity of notes when playing arpeggios. What’s the point of playing a six string arpeggio when you can only hear the first note he hits and the last note he hits? Where are all the notes in the middle?

Therefore playing arpeggio is not a technique to be taken lightly. I have seen a lot of guitar players who often tried to look cool playing the arpeggios when they don’t realise that their playing is actually lintang-pukang nya orang brunei. Its either they fail to understand the importance of playing arpeggios clearly or they are just being ignorant. What’s important to them is how flashy the fingers look when playing the arpeggios and what sound comes from playing it is of no importance.

That being said, I have also seen and met a few local guitar players who can really play the arpeggio that well. They really make it an important issue to play arpeggios as clean and clear as possible and they have achieved that goal.

It is very enjoyable to watch people play arpeggios with their flashy fingers and at the same time you can hear the clarity of every note they play.

So for you guys out there who are trying to learn on how to play arpeggios, I really recommend you guys to try and play it as clean and clear as possible so that the purpose of playing arpeggio would be used to the fullest effect.

See Ya

Guitar Rules!!



Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Featured Writer

I am thinking of asking one of my good friend to write something in this blog. I will put it under "Featured Writer" and hopefully it will be more interesting for all of us. I will also invite a few others who can submit to me good articles about guitars in general.

Guitar Rules!!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Practice Routine

Let’s talk about your practice routine. How do you practice?

Well, different people have different practice routine and it’s hard to say which one is the correct one.

For me, I started out the wrong way I guess. I have no one to teach me the basic fundamentals of playing the guitar. During the early years of my playing, I only used to learn from the chord book. But I guess learning to play the chords first is the basics of guitar playing. Almost everyone I know started out by learning to play the chords.

There are a lot of different chords that you can play on the guitar, but for a beginner maybe the basic chord shape would suffice. I remember when I was starting out; I never had the knowledge of how to play solos.

I learned to play solos from Malay rock songs and didn’t even know what scales are. During my early teens in the early 90s, I listened mostly to rock songs and tried to play the solos only by ear. I must admit that my ability to copy solos by listening is not 100% accurate, but at least it was a part of ear training which is invaluable until today. During those years there were no GuitarPro or Powertab because there were no internet for us to look for transcriptions and resources. All we had were just guitar magazines with some transcription in it.

When I was in school, I had a good friend who plays the guitar with me. He is still my good friend until today and for me he is one of the best rhythm and chord melody player locally. His knowledge on the instrument and music theory is one of the best in Brunei.

We often played together during those years and it’s was like a competition for me personally because his playing was that good. I had to work on my solos so that I would not be left behind. But until today my rhythm and chord melody playing is way far behind him and I think I need to catch up on that....haha!! It was good times during the school days and I remembered we even brought our amps and Ibanez guitar to school to jam together.

There was one local guitar player who to me was one of the best in Brunei. He was in a band called ‘Potensi’ and they had their album came out during the early 90s. This guitar player was only a kid during that time, I guess he was about 16 yrs old and was the youngest member in that band which comprises of musicians and their late 20s and early 30s. When their album came out I remember I bought a cassette. I didn’t have money to buy their CD!! When I played the album I was shocked and inspired. The guitar playing of this kid was sooooooooo good that it was really melodic, mature and inspiring. I was then motivated to practice harder and almost everyday play their songs on my “Hi-Fi”. I think I learned to play all their songs in that album and until today I think I can still remember every part of the guitar solos on that album. Maybe the new generation of today never heard of ‘Potensi’ but if you ever had the chance to get hold of that album, I recommend you guys to have a listen to the guitar playing of then a 16 yrs old kid and buckle up your seats as you might be blown away. He is one of my good guitar friend today and still one of my favourite local guitar player.

I remembered the first instructional videos I bought were a Richie Kotzen Rock Chops video. Oh man this guy was just incredible. His guitar playing was just flawless and it made me wonder when I can play like that. But then I was just only around 14 yrs old when I bought that video lesson. After that I bought some more video lessons from other guitar players and I guess during which time I was more into the shredding stuffs. I listen to a lot of Yngwie Malmsteen....alot!!

I guess Yngwie Malmsteen was one guitar player who really inspired me to be more interested in the guitar shredding. I listened and tried to play like him but I was unable to because I did not have the right basics and scale knowledge to be able to shred. I only knew how to play the simple basic shred stuffs like the 3 note arpeggio and some Yngwie pedal tones, and other than that I just tried to play solos as fast as I can.

Then I was introduced to Paul Gilbert and began to listen and watch his instructional videos. Paul Gilbert was the one guitar player who can really teach the right way of guitar shredding and I really progressed alot by watching his instructional video. I also began to understand the correct way of picking and scale playing and was much more systematic in my practice routine.

I began to use the metronome and it did help alot for accuracy especially when you are practicing alternate picking. Until today if I ever wanted to nail a particular lick I often used a metronome to get it right.

So my practice routine nowadays is just playing scales up and down the neck. I have not got much practice time due to other responsibilities. So just to keep my fingers warm I will play for maybe half an hour just noodling on my guitar to just keep in shape (I mean my fingers).

My practice routine has evolved and now I concentrate not so much on physical training of the fingers due to time restraint and alot of other responsibilities, but much more to listening to music and analysing the theory behind it which is something that you can do whilst driving and listening to music or just anywhere you go where you hear music.

There is so much more to learn on the guitar and it’s a never ending process no matter how good you are. I guess I better go get my guitar now and try to figure out that Gilbert lick for my next practice routine.

See Ya

Guitar Rules!!

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

The Shred Era

What is shred?

I guess it could be termed as playing the guitar with a lot of notes at a high speed. Technical proficiency is needed to shred and if you have not got the right technique you may not be able to shred.

The term shred came about during the 80s guitar era where playing a lot of notes is considered the epitomy of guitar playing. It was an interesting era for guitar playing as guitar players began to push the limits and bounderies of technical proficiencies.

Eddie Van Halen set the standards of guitar playing when his all time great ‘Eruption’ solo came out in 1978. Everyone during that time tried to emulate him and the ‘Tapping’ technique became a worldwide phenomenon.

But then another young guitarist named Yngwie Malmsteen changed the whole guitar scene of the 80s when he pioneered the neo-classical movement. It was Yngwie who made famous the neo-classical style of guitar playing and he pushed the technical bounderies up a notch after Eddie Van Halen. It was during this era that produced some of the world’s great guitar players until today.

It was also during the 80s that Mike Varney of the Shrapnel Records recruited alot of aspiring young guitar players who later became legends in their own right. Players like Paul Gilbert (Racer-x), Richie Kotzen, Marty Friedman and Jason Becker (Cacophony), Gerg Howe, Tony MacAlpine, Vinnie Moore and others are just a few of those Shrapnel Army of guitar shredders during the 80s.

The guitar players of the 80s deserves alot of respect because without them there would not be guitarists like John Petrucci, Kiko Loureiro, Rusty Cooley, Guthrie Govan, Buckethead, Michael Romeo and many others who were heavily influenced by the greats of the 80s.

In my opinion, for those of you who wants to be technically proficient in guitar playing you should at least listen to some of the players mentioned above because most of them are the pioneers of guitar shredding. Although technical playing is not a must to become a great guitar player but it is an advantage to have a good technical skill than those without the technical abilities. This is because your musical ideas will not be limited by your lack of technical abilities.

I will link some videos of these great guitar players and you can learn alot from them. See you in my next post.

Guitar Rules!!





Sunday, May 6, 2007

Beginner Lesson Part 1


Ok,

For the first lesson, we should first look at the anatomy of the guitar.

Before we start to learn playing the basics, we should at least know our instrument and then learn how to play it. I surf through the internet and found plenty of pictures of guitar anatomy and i took some of it and attached it here. Hope they dont mind.

This is an electric guitar anatomy.

See you in the next lesson.

Guitar Rules!!

Chat


 
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