I’ve spent a lot of time lately going back to blues playing - and not only lead stuff, but really working on new chord shapes I might have missed, or at least never learned the name of. Chords like 13’s and 9’s, and really pushing myself to understand the theory behind each chord, what substitutions work, and how my lead playing can improve my knowing all these important target notes (like the 3rd and 7th).

I’ve been playing for over 20 years at this point, and I’ve said it, and I’ll say it again, focused practice has been my best friend when it comes to making any progress on guitar. There were years where I just enjoyed playing to songs, and not making any real progress - and before you email me, that’s fine too! Everyone has their own reasons for guitar.

I guess the biggest point I’m trying to get across is that I’m glad we converge around this email every weekend, because I’m learning right beside everyone else. It’s always cool to hear a reply here or in our Discord chat about what lessons are connecting, and how other people learn. I hope you get something helpful out of this email each week. Alright, let’s get into this week’s links!

(4K) SRV - Hideaway/Rude Mood (Montreux '82) - I thought I’d start off this week’s issue with another great restoration of classic blues done by Anthony Stauffer. This time he’s cleaned up SRV’s performance of Hideaway and Rude Mood from his gig at Montreux in ’82. The playing is classic Stevie, and visually it looks great.
Freak Audio Lab - Freak Of The Week (Playthrough) - On the total opposite spectrum of the guitar playing world, we have Mattias Eklundh giving us a play through of Freak Kitchen’s “Freak of the Week”. The song comes from the band’s ‘Cooking With Pagans’ album. I always love seeing Mattias play his signature AppleHorn guitar from Caparison. Mattias is always putting up awesome lessons on his channel. If you want to get into odd time signatures, his channel is a treasure trove of great videos.
Dave Grohl on Foo Fighters’ “Everlong” - Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters have written so many hit songs. As sort of an antithesis to what I wrote about theory in the opening of this email, I had to include this video of Dave talking about FF’s “Everlong”. The best part of this video? Grohl claiming he didn’t know much theory while writing a song like this, how he sees guitar parts as drum parts sometimes, emotions in songwriting and so much more. Later in the week, Guitar World did 9 guitar tricks you can learn from the Foos.
Why you NEED to learn your scales...Beautiful guitar parts in an instant! - Ok, let’s go back to the “know your theory camp” for a while. Ry Naylor shows us that knowing your scales can help us make beautiful guitar parts. He uses the major scale as an example, and makes it really simple to create cool, key-centric parts quickly.
Cory Wong Chords - And why you should check them out... - Rhythm playing makes up so much of our guitar playing, it just makes sense to get good at different rhythms and chords. One of the recent masters of funk guitar is Cory Wong. In this video Johnathan Cordy shows us what Cory Wong is doing while playing in Vulfpeck.
The BB King Box & Beyond - Blues Lead Guitar Lesson - It’s helpful to watch B.B. King and see how much he did with the “BB Box” scale pattern. In this new SwiftLessons video, they break down what the box pattern is, how you can use other scales and chords to go even further, and make your playing over a 1-4-5 sound great.
5 Must Have Guitars For Every Player - There have been SO many of these types of videos, but I really enjoyed this one from Rhett Shull. I also agree with every single one of his picks. How many of these 5 do you have in your collection?
HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN LICKS & VOCABULARY | Tom Quayle | LESSON - Tom Quayle goes over three concepts to develop your own licks. Like many of Quayle’s lessons, the initial concepts might be tough, but if you really work on them, you’ll make great strides in your playing. Quayle’s Solo app partner David Beebee also put out a great video this week about how to break out of scale boxes that’s super helpful. Check it out here.
Learn Jazz Guitar - 10 Major ii-V-I Licks For Blue Bossa - Levi Clay is back this week with some cool licks you can play over a major ii-V-1 jazz progression. The lesson includes animated tab too!
5 Styles of Rhythm Guitar over Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix) - Speaking of Levi Clay, he provided tab for Martin Miller’s new video. Miller takes a Hendrix classic, “Little Wing”, and shows us 5 different stylistic ways to play it - using rock, voice leading, folk and more.
Mark Lettieri Thinks Alligators Are House Pets | Feedback Loop- Mark Lettieri is one of the most creative guitarists out there. In this mini interview PRS throws him music and guitar questions, and even tries to find out who’s mind he’d like to invade.
Larry Carlton & His 335s - I loved this throwback rig rundown where legendary session musician Larry Carlton talks about why he loves Gibson 335’s so much.
Steve Lukather's 12-Tone Secrets - Speaking of studio legends, this week Guitar Player put out a lesson covering Steve Lukather’s use of chromatic licks.
5 Whammy bar tricks you should know - McRocklin is a student of the Vai way of playing guitar, so naturally he knows a lot about the whammy bar. In his latest video he shows us 5 fun whammy bar tricks - everything from flutters to “the chord introducer” (I love the way this sounds)
Steve Vai launching Patreon in April - Steve Vai is launching a Patreon which will feature his Alien Guitar Secrets livestreams, gear giveaways, and more exclusives. By the time you’re reading this email, it should already be live!
All The April Fool’s Guitar Jokes - Usually these things are dumb, but it was a good year for April Fool’s guitar jokes. I really loved the Chibson Wild Whammies and Atkin’s the Eighty-Five (I’m really hoping this isn’t a joke, I’d totally play this guitar!) Speaking of shred, check out this “Perpetual Burn” lesson, with old tabs from Jason Becker himself.
Yvette Young on today’s guitar players: “We are becoming more focused on textures and musicality rather than virtuosity”- I enjoyed reading Yvette Young’s take on the current generation of guitar players. She’s stating that “we’re becoming more focused on textures and musicality rather than virtuosity”. I think there’s a strong subset of the community who still is focused on virtuosity, but I’d like to know your take. Let me know what you think by replying to this email or hitting me up on Twitter.