Author: admin
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Half Steps and Whole Steps
Half steps and whole steps are the most basic building blocks in music, and the first step in understanding how music theory is applied to guitar. Most people are generally aware of these intervals, but how many of you have really taken the time to figure out how they occur on the guitar neck, and…
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Brazilian Jazz Guitar Analysis: Mastering Nelson Faria’s Style
If you’ve spent any time digging into contemporary Brazilian music, the name Nelson Faria starts showing up everywhere. As a master of the MPB scene (Brazilian popular music) and the author of the essential Brazilian Guitar Book, Faria’s playing is a masterclass in rhythm and harmonic sophistication. In this lesson, we are breaking down his…
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Partido Alto Samba with João Bosco
When I saw João Bosco would be performing at the Birdland jazz club in Manhattan in 2017, my wife and I had a flight booked from Milwaukee to New York that same day! It was a rare chance to see a master of Partido Alto Samba in person. João Bosco is a former civil engineer…
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Master the “Stairway Lick”: Jimmy Page’s Essential Pentatonic Phrase
This lick, it’s variations and closely related phrases make up a significant chunk of blues and rock pentatonic vocabulary. Virtually every player has a version of it in their bag of tricks and uses it to great effect.
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Synchronization
Even if you wouldn’t describe yourself as the ‘shreddy type,’ we all secretly dream of our hands flying over the neck. However, many people take off only to sputter and stall. What is missing is an important step in getting your technique off the ground: guitar hand synchronization. This might sound obvious, but very few…