Learn Electric Guitar

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“Matt: A lot of our readers have spent hours watching, and rewatching, your instructional videos in order to gain insight into how you approach the guitar. Is there any one exercise that you’ve got in your practice routine that you find is really helping your playing that you could share with us?

Paul: My practice routine is mostly just learning songs. I try to learn songs like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Every song I like, I just cram into my head. For example, Bach piano, violin, and cello pieces, are great for learning how to apply scales and arpeggios in a very musical way.

60’s and 70’s pop is great for learning chords and gaining an intuition for good melody writing. Blues is great for developing vibrato and developing a sense of “speaking” through your guitar. There is so much music out there. I just try to find what I like and play it. From Paganini to the The Partridge Family. I like it all.”

- an excerpt from a the recent Guitar International magazine interview with Paul Gilbert.

There might be a lot of  you out there who don’t recognise the name “Paul Gilbert”, but you’ve probably heard him play.  An American guitarist who started his career in 1981 when, at age 15, he contacted Mike Varney of Shrapnel Records and asked him for a gig with Ozzy Osbourne, he is probably best known for his work with Mr. Big, where his guitar work featured on many of the band’s hits, including the well-played ballad “To be with you”.

Paul Gilbert is one of the most technically proficient virtuoso guitarists of all time.  His prodigious ability has seen him featured in Guitar World’s “50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time”, and he has toured on the G3 tour, an annual concert featuring the top shred guitarists around.  Not just possessing an astounding ability to play fast and precise, he is also able to rip out blues and rock music, and play radio-friendly pop as well.  If you add to this his ability to sing while he is playing then you have what make’s for one of the greatest guitarists of his generation – or for that matter, of any generation.

This interview is a great read for Paul Gilbert fans, but anybody who is learning guitar can probably take something from it.  It’s really cool to see the attitude he has to making music – a player who has seen and done so much over the decades yet still has enormous excitement and enthusiasm for the next project around the corner.

Click here to read the full text of the Guitar International magazine interview with Paul Gilbert

Technorati Tags: guitar international, mr. big, paul gilbert, racer x

Many of the sounds that are now typically associated with electric guitars, such as huge overdriven chords that sustain into harmonic feedback, screaming legato leads interspersed with tapping arpeggios, echoing delays, swooshing phasers, and enormous whammy dives, were not even dreamt of when the instrument was first invented.  Guitarists only wanted to be just a little bit louder.  However, electric guitars were not the only instruments invented to help guitarists play louder.

The gut stringed instruments that had served so well for centuries had begun to become inaudible in the new musical environment of the early twentieth century.  The small, intimate concerts of the mid-nineteenth century had given way to performances in larger public spaces.  The invention of steel string guitars went some way towards making guitars louder.  But guitarists seeking to play new and exciting styles of music, such as jazz, often found themselves in ensembles with horn players and with drum kits.  Next to these loud instruments, the louder steel string guitars could barely be heard.

New microphone technology went some way to helping make guitars louder.  But, as any sound guy will tell you, there is only so much volume you can add to a quiet instrument by using a microphone, before the microphone starts to pick up the sound coming from out of the speaker, causing uncontrollable feedback.  And with the surrounding instruments being so loud, microphones often picked up more of the drums or the horns than of the guitar.  The used of dynamic microphones placed very close to the sound hole would also create a muffled, boomy sort of tone with little harmonic detail, which many people found unpleasant.

The invention of the resonator guitar also helped to help guitarists play louder.  Guitar makers like Dobro and National responded to the need for guitarists to be heard by making guitars that featured a metal resonating cone instead of a sound hole.  This cone is attached to the bridge, and the vibrations of the string are then transferred to the cone, which then produces a great deal of sound, much like the speaker cone inside your stereo.  Because the cone is right behind the strings, the strings then resonate in sympathy with the sound that the cone produces, further amplifying the guitar.  This made resonator guitars some of the loudest instruments available in their day.  Resonator guitars tend to have a very bright, raucous and metallic sound that has made them popular in blues, bluegrass and hawaiian music.  They are still often used for these styles today.  Many of them were made with a square neck, to be played with a slide.

Technorati Tags: dobro, Electric Guitar history, feedback, microphones, national, playing loud, resonator guitar

Charles Edward Anderson “Chuck” Berry is an american singer/guitarist and songwriter.  He is one of the originators of Rock and Roll.

Chuck has a degree in cosmetology.

Check Berry started to learn guitar while in high school, but he did not start performing until he was 26.  He was 29 when he first started recording with Chess Records.  Because his music was being marketed to a largely teenage audience, Chess Records decided to speed the tape up on some of his recordings, to make him “sound younger”.  This has led many guitarists to learn some Chuck Berry songs in a higher key than Chuck himself plays them.

Chuck Berry owns several restaurants in St Louis, Missouri.

Chuck Berry has been referred to as the “Prime Minister” of Rock and Roll.  The King of Rock and Roll, of course, is Elvis Presley.  (In countries with a constitutional monarchy, the king is the titular head of state while the Prime Minister is the person that actually exercises executive power).

Check was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, the year that it opened.

Chuck Berry has had several brushes with the law.  He was once arrested for the theft of an automobile.  In 1944, while still a teenager, he served 3 years in prison for armed robbery.  He was also once imprisoned for 3 years, in 1962, for offences under the Mann Act.  Throughout much of his career, he has insisted on being paid in cash.  This led to a jail sentence of 4 months and community sentence, for tax evasion.

Jerry Lee Lewis’s mother once told him “You and Elvis are pretty good, but you’re no Chuck Berry.”

Chuck Berry tours just with his guitar.  He expects the promoter to provide the band and his guitar amplifiers.  He has it specified in his contract that he is to be provided with a Fender Bassman amplifier – if any other amplifier is provided then the promoter is fined.  He also specifies that he is to be provided with a Lincoln Town Car at the airport, which he drives himself.  If any other sort of car is provided then there is a fine for that too.

Chuck Berry is from St Louis, Missouri, in the American Midwest. He is the only one of Rock and Roll’s originators to not grow up in the South.

A copy of Chuck Berry’s hit song Johnny B. Goode is on the Voyager space craft.

Technorati Tags: Chuck Berry, rock guitar

Yngwie Malmsteen is a swedish guitar player credited with inventing neoclassical shred guitar.

Yngwie once recorded a cover of “Gimme Gimme Gimme”, a song originally by swedish pop band Abba.  In the chorus the lyrics were changed from “Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight” to “Gimme gimme gimme your love after midnight”, presumably in deference to vocalist Mark Boals, who sang on the track.

Yngwie Malmsteen plays heavily customised Fender Stratocaster guitars.  He has the fretboards on his guitars scalloped, and uses large fret wire, making for a metallic tone with lasting sustain.  He also has the pickups changed for his own signature hum cancelling pickups.

Yngwie was first brought over to the USA in 1982 by Mike Varney, the CEO of Shrapnel Records.  He has since remained a swedish expatriate in the United States.

Yngwie Malmsteen lives in Florida, and has a recording studio in his home.

He was once married to swedish pop singer Erika Norberg.  The marriage lasted less than a year.  Following this, he married Amber Dawn Landen, who since separated and now works as a dominatrix under the name “Mistress Seven”.

Yngwie is a noted car enthusiast, with a particular passion for Ferrari sports cars.  He has owned a 1985 Ferrari 308 GTS, and a 1983 Ferrari 308 GTS QV.  When the DOD guitar pedal company reissued an Yngie Malmsteen signature version of the DOD 250 overdrive pedal that he uses, he named it the DOD 308 overdrive after the Ferraris.  He now owns a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.

His most famous guitar is a 1971 blonde Fender Stratocaster, nicknamed “The Duck” because of its yellow colour, and the Donald Duck stickers on the body.

Yngwie was born as Lars Johann Yngve Lannerback.  When his parents split when he was 10, he took his mother’s name “Malmsten” and took the name Yngve as his first name.  He anglicised the spelling of this as “Yngwie Malmsteen”.  He is sometimes billed as “Yngwie J. Malmsteen”.  The fictional character David St. Hubbins of the parody rock band Spinal Tap once said “I like it how Yngwie Malmsteen puts a J. in his name to distinguish him from all the other Yngwie Malmsteens in the music business”

Yngwie Malmsteen uses 27 quad boxes in his live setup – 12 on each side and 3 underneath the drum riser.

Before embarking on his solo career, Yngwie briefly played in the band Alcatrazz.  He was replaced by Steve Vai.

Yngwie decided to learn guitar at the age of 7, when he saw on the news that Jimi Hendrix had died.

Yngwie Malmsteen has written symphonies for electric guitar and orchestra.  He has performed them with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.

Technorati Tags: Fender Stratocaster, Shred, Yngwie Malmsteen

David Jon Gilmour is the guitarist of the english psychedelic/progressive rock band Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour was good friends with science fiction and humour author Douglas Adams, until the author’s death in 2001.

He used to work as a model before joining Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour owns a 1954 Fender Stratocaster marked with the serial number #0001.  Although it is marked with this serial number, it is not the first Stratocaster ever made.  It has a white body and gold hardware.

Outside of playing and collecting guitars, Gilmour maintains many other interests, including car racing, flying airplanes and collecting vintage aircrafts.

Gilmour started to learn guitar during lunch breaks while attending The Perse School in Cambridge.  He first met Pink Floyd founding bandleader Syd Barrett at this school.  The Pink Floyd bassist and vocalist Roger Waters attended the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys which was located just down the road.

David Gilmour stands 6 foot (183 centimetres) tall.

David Gilmour uses many different amplifiers, but his main sound comes from Hiwatt DR 103 heads plugged into cabinets loaded with Fane Crescendo speakers.

The Fender Custom Shop makes two different versions of a David Gilmour Signature Stratocaster.  Both of them are based on his famous “black strat”, a 1969 3-colour Sunburst Fender Stratocaster painted over with black and with a black pickguard and white pickup covers and knobs.  The David Gilmour Relic Stratocaster is a repica of this guitar that includes a close copy of all the wear on the original.  The slightly cheaper David Gilmour NOS Stratocaster is a pristine, unworn version of the same guitar.

David Gilmour, despite being consistently rated as one of the greatest lead guitar players of all time, is modest about his technical ability.  He is known to have said: “My technique is laughable at times. I have developed a style of my own, I suppose, which creeps around. I don’t have to have too much technique for it. I’ve developed the parts of my technique that are useful to me. I’ll never be a very fast guitar player. I don’t really know what to say about my style. There’s always a melodic intent in there.”

David Gilmour never actually replaced Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett as the band’s guitarist.  He first joined to fill in for Syd, and for a brief time they were both in the band.  He became the band’s sole lead guitarist after the band decided one day to just not pick Syd Barrett up for a gig, because of his crazy behaviour.

David Gilmour is a Companion of the Order of the British Empire.

Technorati Tags: David Gilmour, Fender Stratocaster, Pink Floyd

Slash, the lead guitarist for 1980s hard rockers Guns ‘N Roses, was born as Saul Hudson, in London, England.  The son of an english father and american mother, he moved to Los Angeles with his mother when he was 11.  He is a naturalized citizen of the USA.

The nickname “Slash” is self-bestowed – he says it comes from his constant restlessness.

Slash’s mother once worked as a fashion designer for singer David Bowie.

Although Slash played on the Guns ‘N Roses album Appetite For Destruction, he is not actually the original lead guitarist for the band.  Guns ‘N Roses was first formed by Axl Rose, from the band Hollywood Rose, and by Tracii Guns, of the band LA Guns.  Tracii Guns once said in an interview that he left the band because it was too heavily involved in the LA drug scene, and he just couldn’t handle it.

Slash once auditioned for the LA glam metal band Poison.

In 1996 Marshall released a signature Slash guitar amp series, a reissue of the JCM 2555 Silver Jubilee Anniversary amplifier that the company made in 1987, and which he used in Guns ‘N Roses.

Slash is the first guitarist that Marshall ever created a signature amplifier for, and is reputedly only the second artist that they ever gave an amplifier to for free.  The first guitarist to receive an amplifier as a gift from Marshall was Jimi Hendrix, although that amplifier was only meant to be a loan.  The band’s debut album Appetite For Destruction was recorded with a rented Marshall Superlead from the 1960s and modified by Tim Caswell of SIR studios.

Slash first heard the band Aerosmith when he was fourteen years old.  This band was one of the formative influences on his style of electric guitar.

He stands 5 foot 10 inches tall (178 centimetres).

Slash has not spoken to Guns ‘N Roses lead singer Axl Rose since leaving the band in 1996.

In an interview he once said that he’d drank a bottle of Jack Daniel’s every day for five years. He followed this by saying: “You have really bad breath in the morning -you know, you can`t have sex in the morning till you`ve brushed your teeth, which is a real drag.”

The last job that Slash had was at a music shop, from which he got fired.  Another job that he had, he never even showed up to, because Mötley Crüe were recording in LA and he wanted to go and hang out outside the studio.

Slash’s favourite book is “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson.

Slash wrote an autobiography, published in 2007, which mostly focusses on his years in Guns ‘N Roses.

Slash is known to use Seymour Duncan “Alnico Pro II” pickups.

Slash’s first guitar was a beaten-up flamenco guitar with only one string left on it, given to him by his grandmother.

Technorati Tags: Guns N Roses, rock guitar, Slash, Slash's Snakepit, Velvet Revolver

Tony Iommi, born as Frank Anthony Iommi, is the guitarist and bandleader of heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath.

Tony Iommi is the only Black Sabbath member who appears on every single Black Sabbath album.

Like the other original members of Black Sabbath, he hails from Birmingham, England.  He is the son of italian immigrants.

In the year 2000 he married Maria Sjöholm, vocalist of the Swedish band Drain STH, which has since disbanded.

Iommi is a supporter of Aston Villa F.C.

Tony Iommi was a Fender Stratocaster player for much of his early career.  When recording the band’s debut self-titled album, he brought in a Gibson SG as a backup.  In the middle of tracking the first song, his Stratocaster broke, leaving him to play the SG for the rest of the sessions.  He came to like the sound and feel of the SG so much that he ended up playing that style of guitar for the rest of his career.

Tony Iommi used P90 pickups on much of the seminal early Black Sabbath recordings.  He has since switched to using humbucker pickups, and now has his own signature range of Iommi humbuckers.

Tony went to school with future Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne.  But rather than becoming fast friends with Ozzy, Tony used to beat him up in the schoolyard.

Tony Iommi plays guitar as a left-hander, and stands 6 feet 2 inches (188 centimetres) tall.

Tony started learning guitar as a young teen.  At the age of 17 he had an industrial accident on his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, where he lost the tips of the fingers on his right hand.  As a left-handed guitarist, this right hand was the one he used to sound notes on the fretboard.  The doctor told him that he could never play guitar again.  Iommi was considering abondoning the instrument, before discovering the work of the french Gypsy Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who had his fingering hand horrifically disfigured in a fire at a similarly young, and rehabilitated himself to become one of the great players of his era.  Iommi then fashioned artificial plastic fingertips to cover the two damaged fingers, and switched to using light strings.  It was these light strings, and his later move to play one and a half step down in the key of C sharp, that helped shape the Black Sabbath guitar tone.

Tony reformed the Mob Rules era line-up of Black Sabbath in 2006, as Heaven and Hell.  This band disbanded when singer Ronnie James Dio died in 2010. On Dio’s passing, Tony said of him “I’ve been in total shock I just can’t believe he’s gone. Ronnie was one of the nicest people you could ever meet, we had some fantastic times together. Ronnie loved what he did, making music and performing on stage. He loved his fans so much. He was a kind man and would put himself out to help others. I can honestly say it’s truly been an honor to play at his side for all these years, his music will live on forever.”

In the 80s Tony Iommi was briefly engaged to former Runaway and heavy metal solo artist Lita Ford.

Technorati Tags: black sabbath, left handed guitarists, tony iommi

Keith Richards, often known as “Keef”, is the guitarist and backup singer from the Rolling Stones.  He first sung lead vocals on the album Let it Bleed in 1969.

Keith wears a silver skull ring, a gift to him from a friend in 1979, and a bracelet that resembles a pair of handcuffs.  The ring is said to represent the fact that “beauty is only skin deep” and that we are all the same underneath the surface, while the bracelet is because he never wants to be arrested again.

Keith Richards is unsure how many guitars he owns.  Some of the ones he was given as a gift have never been played.

He is known for profligate drug use.  He is reputed to have once stayed awake for 9 days straight in the 1970s, finally falling asleep while standing up and falling face first into his guitar amp, breaking his nose.  When his bandmate Ronnie Wood swore off drug use, Keith became so annoyed with his clean living that he ended up kicking him on stage.

The actor Johnny Depp, when playing the role of Jack Sparrow in the movie Pirates of the Carribean, said he based most of his portrayal of the character on Keith Richards, including the voice, the mannerisms, much of the personality and some parts of his appearance.  When asked about being a rock star that an actor portrayed as a pirate, he remarked that “Both are ways to make a good dishonest living”. Keef made a cameo appearance as Captain Teague, Jack Sparrow’s father in the sequel movie Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End.

He stands 5 foot 9 inches tall (175 centimetres).

He started to learn guitar at the age of 15, when his mother bought him a Rosetti acoustic.

Keef sang as a boy soprano in the Dartmouth Technical School choir, once performing in front of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey.

Keith married his wife Patti Hansen in 1983, and had two daughters with her, Theodora and Alexandra.  Keith’s daughter Alexandra has reported that Keith likes to wear his wife’s clothes.

He once stole his former bandmate’s girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, with whom he stayed together with for a decade.  When arrested for cocaine possession, he farewelled Anita with the words “See you in seven years”.  He had three children with Anita – his son Marlon, daughter Angela, and son Tara, who died just a few months after childbirth.

Keef is an avid reader and maintains a large library.  He has an extensive interest in history.

In 2006 he delayed a Rolling Stones tour by six weeks, after suffering a head injury when falling out of a tree in Fiji.

Technorati Tags: electric guitar, Keith Richards, Rolling Stones

While it’s certainly possible to tune your guitar by ear, most guitarists will find having an electronic tuner to be convenient and helpful.  Compared to tuning by ear, using an electronic tuner is a much simpler process.  It won’t do anything to develop your ear, so you should still learn to tune without one, but in performance and rehearsal situations they are invaluable, especially when you want to get tuned up as quick as possible because you are in between songs and an audience is waiting, or on stages where you might not be able to hear yourself that well, because you’ve got to tune up while another band is finishing their set or another instrument is being soundchecked.

What kinds of electronic tuners are there?

There are a few different basic types of electronic tuner:

Handheld Tuner

The most basic and often most inexpensive types of tuner are a handheld tuner.  They often have built-in microphones, so that they can be used with acoustic guitars without a pickup.  With an electric guitar it is better to just plug it in, especially if there is ambient noise.

Pedal tuners

A pedal tuner, also called a floor tuner, is made to sit by your feet with one cable taking the signal from your guitar to the tuner and another going from the tuner to your effects or amplifier.  You step on it to turn on the tuner and stop the signal from going to your amplifier, and then step on it again.  It allows for fast and silent tuning, which is handy during performances and rehearsals.

Rack tuners

A rack tuner is made to fit in a rack case.  For people that use rack amplifiers and rack effects these can be very handy.  This is not something that many beginner guitarists will need to consider.

Software tuners

There are also tuners available in software form.  They will need some sort of audio interface to bring the signal into the computer.  These are useful if you are recording onto your computer.

Using an electronic tuner

As when tuning by ear, it’s better to tune a string up from slightly below pitch, and then tune it up, than it is to tune it from above, because if you just tune down from above then the string can get a little bit “caught” at the nut, only to slip later as it’s played, causing the string to be slightly flat.  Play each string one at a time.

Don’t be too reliant on an electronic tuner

Developing your ear is a key step in learning guitar, and should be tackled early.  Apart from that, there are times when your electronic tuner will, break or you’ll realise you just forgot to take it with you!  You don’t want to be helpless in these situations, so develop your ear as well.

Technorati Tags: electric guitar, electronic tuner, pedal tuners, tuning, tuning your guitar