Here are two more interesting emails I have got lately. I hope you find the emails and my thoughts useful…
Email #1…
“The thing I struggle with is soloing because I hate using someone else’s licks and riffs, but I haven’t figured out which notes to bend to sound musical.
I also have about 10 songs that I’m working on chord melody style that I want to tighten up.
In 2-3 years, I would love to be able to play jazz solos over any jazz standard plus a large portfolio of fingerstyle songs.
Regards”
Frank
Some solid goals there.
In terms of string bends, a lot of people struggle with them.
When I started out, I used to think you just bent a string until it sounded good.
Well, that’s one way of doing it, but if you’re really into solos and bending notes, generally speaking, you want to make sure you bend a string up to the pitch of the next note in the scale.
E.g. in E minor, you can bend the note of B up to C (half step bend) and C up to D (whole step bend).
That’s just a quick tip, but many people neglect this.
As always, use your ear to tell you what sounds good too.
Onto Email #2
Last week I sent an email titled “The real reason why YouTube sucks for guitarists”.
In the email, I talked about how YouTubers who teach guitar often avoid and neglect to teach people HOW to play songs and instead they tend to focus on WHAT notes to play. This is what David said in reply…
“SOME don’t teach it, but I know MANY who do. Generalizations are often unfair. I also have lessons on YouTube, so you are including me in that statement.
If you haven’t watched my lessons, how can you judge them?
Sadly,”
David
I knew when I wrote that email it would resonate with a lot of folks.
I also thought that one or two folks might get their knickers in a twist over it (as the phrase ‘round here goes).
Firstly, I’m not sure why he had to sign off by saying “sadly” – sounds a bit, I don’t know, wimpy, but anyway…
When having an opinion, it’s really hard not to offend someone, but c’mon, in the email, I say “rarely” when talking about YouTube teachers.
I have not watched every single guitar lesson on there, I doubt I’ve even watched 0.000001% of all guitar lessons on there.
In fact, I rarely ever go on there, and when creating new ideas for breakthrough lessons, I find I get far more practical ideas from teaching students and helping members of the DTAA solve their issues than I do from watching other people teach the same old stuff on YouTube.
I’m actually finding watching a few interviews with legends of guitar to be really inspiring too (and that’s something I recommend everyone do).
Okay, enough of that though, to discover a few of my fun lessons which you won’t find on YouTube, you may want to check out my latest eBook on Kindle.
It’s a really short, fun read but has plenty in there and is suitable as a good quick refresher if you’ve been with me a long time (although there will likely be new stuff in there for you too) or if you’re new, it will make a good introduction to my lessons…
Either way, here’s the link to find out more.
The QuickStart 7-Day Guitar Plan
Have a great day practising…
Happily
Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination
P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming, and learning guitar more enjoyable (especially if you are over 40) join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE.
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