If you’re just learning guitar, getting started with playing solos might seem daunting. It’s a big change to go from strumming chords to your favorite songs, to playing lead lines. The best thing is to start out easy, but not too easy. The more you challenge yourself, the better a guitarist you’ll become. Just remember to take everything in bite size chunks as you’re learning. To help you get started with solos, I’m recommending a couple that I’d learn if I was just getting started - one from three different genres. The feeling of learning and playing lead is amazing. Let’s get into it.
I’ve observed hundreds of guitarists over the years from all different skill levels, and the ones who are making a lot of progress often share a lot of the same traits - they have a plan when they sit down to practice, they know the people to go to when they’re facing a hurdle in their playing, and they’re endlessly curious about guitar and music in general.
But outside of all of that, there’s one habit I’ve seen that all of my favorite guitarists have - they practice active listening.
If you’ve been playing guitar for a couple of years and finally feel like you’re moving into a more intermediate level, you’ll often hit a plateau. It’s common to not know what to work on next, or to even have some gaps in your knowledge. Here are 3 books that’ll help you progress as an intermediate guitarist.
YouTube is a treasure trove of information for guitarists, but like having a good guitar teacher, it helps to know where to spend your time, so you can get the most out of binging guitar content.
The three guitarists below have inspired my own playing, teaching and YouTube channel.
One of the number one things I like to do is be a hype man for my students. After teaching for a couple of decades, I’ve seen people go from not being able to play a simple G chord, to writing their own songs. The only reason I have so much confidence in telling them they can learn anything they want, is because I’ve witnessed myself in my own playing and in others time and time again.
Every once in a while I’ll get overwhelmed at work, and one of my colleagues will have to remind me that “we’re not saving lives here”. It’s a quick phrase that puts everything into perspective, and oftentimes brings me back down to earth.
I was thinking about this phrase when it comes to Guitar Pro and some of my students. Guitar Pro is a fantastic notation app, geared towards guitarists. I’ve been using it for years, and it’s been one of my most indispensable tools as a musician and teacher.
Students will open the app, see the sidebar with all sorts of notation elements, and quickly get discouraged. Here’s what I tell them to do - rather than get nervous when opening an app like this, instead develop a curious mindset, a playful mindset.
We’re not saving lives here, and no one will fault you for messing things up in the app. This sort of expermentation is half of the fun of being a musician in the first place. I recommend going into the app, writing some notes and seeing what works. What you’ll quickly find out, is you learn to see patterns. The human mind is a pattern recognization machine!
Transcribing someone’s licks or writing down your own ideas will make you a better musician. Once you start understanding notes and rhythm, then you can mess with the fun stuff, like bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, legato, and more.
If you’re still a little too overwhelmed with getting started, I recommend downloading someone else’s Guitar Pro file. See how other transcriptionists lay out their songs, and then bring those ideas into your own transcriptions.
And of course, if you ever need help, that’s what I’m here for. Send me your questions!
