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.
It’s cliche, but everyone has a mini recording studio in their pocket with them at all times. Not only is it stupidly simple to record your audio ideas, you can record yourself via video as well and see everything you were working on at the time, to truly pinpoint issues in your playing. But that’s not the only reason you should record.
Let's dive into three ways guitarists can use recording to see huge improvements in their playing.
When researching great apps in the App Store, I try and look for them to meet at least two criteria. First, the app has to have some real functionality to me, and not just take up space on the phone or tablet's internal drive. Secondly, I look for great design. If an app passes the first test and it's something I use on a daily basis, having it look good is icing on the cake.
With Thomas Grapperon's Chord! he covers both bases.
I've been known to geek out about guitar and apps in the past. When developer Chris Ladd, known for making the incredible note taking app Better Notes contacted me about an app that combines a simple text editor and a place to store lyrics, chords and tabs, I was excited to check it out.
Find out what makes TabBank such an essential songwriters tool.
