I just finished reading The Power Of Music by Elena Mannes and I suggest you give it a look too.  Nope, it’s not a dopey new-age thing at all, despite the title.

This is a fantastic book about biology and neurology and how music actually works inside your brain and body.  It’s about how scientists are starting to be able to pinpoint exactly which parts of the brain contribute to music and how those parts of the brain (and body) can actually be CHANGED by music.  It’s stunning stuff.

Why should you as a guitarist bother with it?  In short, brain hacks.  When you understand how your own brain deals with music and learning, you’ll understand how to go about your guitar studies in an easier way.

This book is not definitive by any means.  It can’t be.  This field of study is simply too new.  If you enjoy this one, also be sure to check out anything by Daniel Levitin, who also writes fascinating stuff about the science of music.

If you’ve read The Power of Music, leave me a comment below and let me know what you think about it.

Phil Johnson
http://www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.com

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At times you’ll feel like you’ve reached a plateau in your guitar playing, especially if you’re trying to learn on your own.  But sometimes a little mental tweak or physical detail can help you break through really easily.  Let’s take a look at a couple:

Keep your right hand moving.
Nearly every student I teach has trouble moving from chord to chord smoothly at first.  They will usually strum through the chord they’re on, stop strumming, place, their left hand on the next chord, then continue strumming.  Did you notice how long it even took to read those steps?  It takes just as long to physically go through them.

There’s something in neuroscience called a “Dissonance”.  That means your brain doesn’t like something that’s going on and will do its best to find a solution to the problem.  And your brain loves to have your hands working together.  That means when you stop your right hand strum that actually gives your left hand permission to move slower.  So instead, you’re going to keep your right hand moving the whole time.  This sets up a dissonance that we can use to your advantage.  If the right hand is moving in time, your brain wants your left hand to do the same.  Your left hand will automatically start to move faster towards that next chord.

Will you make some mistakes?  Hell yes, you will.  But that’s ok.  That’s what practice is for.  You’ll mangle that first chord hit 4 or 5 times until all the synapses fire correctly and your left hand learns where it’s supposed to be.  And yes, I said 4 or 5 times, not weeks.  This is the quickest fix I’ve found for chord trouble.  Turn your right hand into a strumming machine that never stops and your left hand will learn how to get in the groove.

Don’t go back to fix mistakes.
It’s human nature to want to fix our mistakes.  And in a lot of cases you should.  But not in music.  Let me be specific here.  If you’re working on a certain chunk of a song and trying to work out your problems on it, definitely fix your mistakes.  Here I’m talking about anytime you’re trying to get through the whole tune, whether on stage in front of thousands or just sitting in your bedroom.

Think of it this way.  Most guitar mistakes are never heard by the audience.  They’re also never heard by the rest of the band.  That means two things… If nobody heard, nobody cares.  And, if the band didn’t hear, they’ll just keep chugging through the song leaving you in the dust while you try to go back and fix a boo-boo.  Don’t do it.  Just keep going.

Since you don’t want to be faced with learning this skill in front of an audience, practice it on your own.  Once you’ve learned a tune, practice playing all the way through it come hell or high water.  If a mistake happens try to let it pass through your brain as undetected as possible and keep going.  There will always be a little mental acknowledgment, but it’ll be a fraction of a second and you just forget about it. If you practice doing this by yourself, you won’t get flustered as easily when others are watching.

Keep your eyes on the music.
There are only two places your eyes should be while you’re playing… on the sheet music or on the thousands of people in front of the stage.  You’ll notice “looking at your guitar” wasn’t one of those options.  If you have the luxury of having sheet music in front of you, that’s where you should be looking.  Otherwise, if you forget where you are in the song you have to 1. look up, 2. find where on the page you were, 3. figure out what comes next, 4 bring your sights back to the guitar.  Again, too much movement, brain power, and time.

Once you’ve practiced a song, the notes on the page simply act as memory triggers.  You won’t have to consciously name them or think about them.  It’s just a visual trigger than sends your fingers to the right spot.  It’s very Pavlovian.

Now, if you’re in a performance situation you may not have sheets in front of you.  In that case you should be making eye contact with the audience and your bandmates.  Making eye contact with the audience while you play will make your performance more engaging.  There’s nothing more boring that watching a dude stare at his shoes for an hour.  And making eye contact with your bandmates will keep the non-verbal communication lines open for last minute adjustments and cues to what you’re playing.

What about eyes closed playing?  It’s ok sometimes.  If you’re in the middle of a ripping guitar solo and you need to be in your own little world for a few bars, cool.  But don’t spend the whole show with your eyes closed.  Again, you want to be engaging to the audience and the eyes are the windows to the soul.

Don’t try to learn the whole song at once.
If you’re practicing guitar correctly then you’re constantly challenging yourself with new material that’s slightly above your playing level.  The hardest way to learn that new piece is by trying to play it top to bottom every time.  It’s too much information for your brain to take in all at once.  Remember, you’re creating muscle memories and connecting new neurons in your brain every time you learn something new.  That takes time and repetition.  Trying to force too much to happen at once slows down the process.

So, take just a small section of the tune.  2 bars, 4 bars, whatever seems comfortable to you.  I’ve had piece I can learn 8 bars at a time and others that I had to study 2 beats at a time.  Take that small section and play it until you can play it 5 times in a row without a mistake.  If you get to 4 and blow, start your count at 1 again.  You may have to play a part 25-30 times to get that 4 times in a row.  But it’s a lot faster in the long run.

Once you’ve got a couple of chunks learned that way, say 2 bar sections, start to sew them together in larger 4 bar sections.  Go through that same process.  You’ll always lose a little bit of what you learned when you start putting the pieces together, but most of it will stay in your head.  Build the song gradually and you’ll end up learning it in way less time than trying to bang out the whole song at once.  This is the way professionals practice whether it’s a rock band or an orchestra.

Ok, start putting these tips into play this week during your practice and you’ll see a lot of improvement in your guitar playing quickly.

Phil Johnson
http://www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.com  <- Get your free practice tips report for more great tips like these!

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Here’s a little bit of inspiration today for you shred fanatics.  John Taylor from Aravada, CO (not the guy from Duran Duran) whipped out Flight of the Bumblebee at 600 bpm!  600!

It looks like they just sped the video up, but watch the clock next to him.  The changing time shows that he actually did it.  Amazing stuff.

Now John’s record is according to RecordSetter.com.  The Guinness World Record is currently held by Tiego Della Vega at 320pm.  I think Mr. Taylor needs to get in touch with the Guinness people asap!

If you’re feeling the need for speed you definitely need to check out Guitar Burning Speed.  It’s a great course to get you burning up the fretboard in record time.  Maybe YOU can be the next World’s Fastest Guitarist!

And here’s my three best tips for gaining speed:
1. Use a metronome – Speed is no good if you can’t hold a rhythm.
2. Start slow – You’ll even notice in the video that he doesn’t start blowing away at 600 bpm right off the bat.  Take the lick you’re working on and start it slow on your metronome.  As you get comfortable at each speed, bump your metronome up one notch at a time.
3. Watch your left hand position -  If your left hand isn’t correctly positioned you’ll end up having to turn your wrist more which slows things down.  Remember: thumb in the back, roughly pointed towards the ceiling.

Got a video of you shredding the heck out of your guitar?  Post a link to it in the comments section below!

Don’t forget your free practice tips report…
www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.cominspiration today for you shred fanatics.  John Taylor from Aravada, CO (not the guy from Duran Duran) whipped out Flight of the Bumblebee at 600 bpm!  600!

It looks like they just sped the video up, but watch the clock next to him.  The changing time shows that he actually did it.  Amazing stuff.

Now John’s record is according to RecordSetter.com.  The Guinness World Record is currently held by Tiego Della Vega at 320pm.  I think Mr. Taylor needs to get in touch with the Guinness people asap!

If you’re feeling the need for speed you definitely need to check out Guitar Burning Speed.  It’s a great course to get you burning up the fretboard in record time.  Maybe YOU can be the next World’s Fastest Guitarist!

And here’s my three best tips for gaining speed:
1. Use a metronome – Speed is no good if you can’t hold a rhythm.
2. Start slow – You’ll even notice in the video that he doesn’t start blowing away at 600 bpm right off the bat.  Take the lick you’re working on and start it slow on your metronome.  As you get comfortable at each speed, bump your metronome up one notch at a time.
3. Watch your left hand position -  If your left hand isn’t correctly positioned you’ll end up having to turn your wrist more which slows things down.  Remember: thumb in the back, roughly pointed towards the ceiling.

Got a video of you shredding the heck out of your guitar?  Post a link to it in the comments section below!

Don’t forget your free practice tips report…
www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.com

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I’m constantly amazed at the things a smartphone can do these days.  Joe Satriani mentioned in a recent interview in Guitar World that he demoed all the tracks for his latest album on his iPhone in his hotel rooms on tour.

I’ve done some digging and come up with 11 of the coolest and most useful smartphone guitar apps out there.  We’ve all seen the apps that let you strum a little guitar on your phone.  But since you have a real guitar, we’ll concentrate on apps that really help your guitar training and productivity.

Gibson Learn and Master Guitar – This guitar app, from the fantastic Learn and Master Guitar guys, is similar to UGT above.  The metronome includes a tap tempo, but the chord library is a little smaller.  It’s also comes with video lessons from the Learn and Master Guitar series, which are very good.  Best of all… It’s free.  Available for iPhone and Android

Theory Apps
Guitar Web App – This very blandly named app is actually very useful.  Not only is it a chord dictionary, but it also explains the relationships between the chords, chord substitutions, and good chord choices for particular melody notes.  Useful when you’re trying to harmonize a melody.  $0.99 and available for iPhone

Guitar Fretboard Addict – Using various exercises and games you’ll learn the fretboard inside and out, plus it helps you with ear training, sight reading, and theory.  Ask me how much I paid to learn all that stuff in college.  A bunch more than $4.99, I’ll tell you that much.  Available for iPhone

Star Scales Pro – This is a good pick for a scale trainer phone app, which most of the tool kits kind of miss.  It’s got tons of blues, rock, and jazz scales that you’ll be able to learn in multpile patterns all over the neck.  Also gives options for lefty and 7-string players.  $5.99 and available for iPhone.

Tab Apps
Ultimate Guitar Tabs – Once again, from the guys at Ultimate-Guitar.com.  You’ll get access to all the tabs on their site and tools to make them very useable on your phone screen.  All the same great features from their website.  I like the “now playing” function that will look up the tab for a song you’re listening to.  $2.99 and available for iPhone

Guitar Pro – This is the fantastic tabbing software from Guitar Pro.  You can display, playback, and write tabs (and standard notation).  Great for getting those flashes of brilliance down written out before you forget them. $7.99 and available for iPhone and  Android

Amplitube – effects/amps – This is the big daddy for amp and effect modeling. It works for guitar and bass and includes recording capabilities.  11 stompboxes, 5 amps, 5 speaker cabs, and 2 mics.  You can import and export tracks and change their tempos.  Also includes a vocal/lead guitar remover.  This is a must-have.  $19.99.  They also have an LE version (2.99) and a free version.  Also requires iRig to plug your guitar into the phone.  $39.99  Available for iPhone.

Everyday Looper – One of the best ways to practice your leads is by looping a chunk of music to play over.  This app does the job admirally. $5.99 and available for iPhone

Recording
4 Track – A great little 4-track recording app with a ton of functions.  Great for demoing your songs on the run.  Requires the Guitar Jack from Sonoma Wireworks to plug your guitar into the phone.  $5.99 and available for iPhone.  Guitar Jack is $149

Of course, nothing will ever take the place of a great amp and a full blown recording set up.  Nothing yet anyway.  So you may not experience the most beautiful sound quality from some of these tools, they are fantastic for on the go fun, practice, and learning.

Got a favorite smartphone guitar app?  Tell me about it in the comments!

And be sure to get your free report on the world’s greatest guitar practice tips at www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.com

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You can read Understanding Guitar Scales Part I here.

You can read Understanding Guitar Scales Part II here.

You can read Understanding Guitar Scales Part III here.

Let’s continue our discussion of understanding guitar scales today by getting into some stranger and more esoteric scales, the modes of the harmonic and melodic minors. Major scales were covered in Part I, minor scales in Part II, and Pentatonic and Modal scales in part III. If you have any questions along the way, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to explain further.

Harmonic and Melodic Minor Modal Guitar Scales

Now you’re thinking, “If we can create modes with a major scale, what happens if we do it with a harmonic or melodic minor scale?” The answer: Cool things.

Remember, a “mode” simply means we’re using our regular scale, but starting and ending on a different note. That note becomes the root of the modal scale.

Example:

A Harmonic Minor: A B C D E F G# A

E Phrygian Dominant: E F G# A B C D E

We can play through the modes of the Harmonic scales and here’s what we get:

1st Mode – Harmonic Minor

2nd Mode – Locrian #6

3rd Mode – Ionian #5

4th Mode – Dorian #4

5th Mode – Phrygian Major, aka the Spanish Scale, aka Phrygian Dominant

6th Mode – Lydian #2

7th Mode – Alt Dominant bb7

The names of these modes aren’t standardized, so you may see others. But the construction of them is the same. Take your harmonic minor scale and simply try using each note as the root of the scale.

Some consider the modes of the Melodic Minor to be more useful than those of the Harmonic. I’ll leave that up to you to decide for yourself. Here’s what we get:

1st Mode: Melodic Minor

2nd Mode: Dorian b2

3rd Mode: Lydian #5

4th Mode: Lydian Dominant

5th Mode: Myxolydian b6

6th Mode: Locrian #2

7th Mode: Super Locrian (This scale should wear a cape and it’s underwear on the outside.)

Again the names will fluctuate, but the method for finding them is always the same.

So, from our lowly major scale we were able to derive some pretty off the wall stuff. And without a lot of memorizing. Remember, get the basic 5 scales down first in at least 3 positions before jumping into the advanced modal scales. They’ll be much easier to learn if you have the basics first.

What I hope you get out of this is realizing that you don’t have to learn a ton of different scale patterns. Having just a few good ones and then being able to follow the system and derive the other sounds you want is a much easier way to go.

Having a bunch of scales in your arsenal will not make you a great guitar player. Millions of beautiful licks have been played with the lowly minor pentatonic or major scales. Don’t get too bogged down in the eccentric stuff and forget to be musical.

Be sure to leave a comment if you have any questions!

For more in depth guitar scale training, check out Guitar Scale Mastery.

Also check out the best all-around guitar training course I know, Learn and Master Guitar.

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You can read Understanding Guitar Scales Part I here.
You can read Understanding Guitar Scales Part II here.

Let’s continue our discussion of understanding guitar scales today by getting into pentatonic and modal scales.  Major scales were covered in Part I and minor scales in Part II. If you have any questions along the way, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to explain further.

Pentatonic Scales For Guitar

Now we’re going to shrink our scales a bit.  Pentatonic means “five tone”.  All we have to do is eliminate a couple of notes from our regular major scale and we’ll have a major pentatonic.

C Major: C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C
C Major Pent.:  C  D  E    G  A   C

We’re simply leaving out the 4th and 6th scale degrees and that gives you a major pentatonic scale.

Remember our relative major and minor from before.?  We can do the same thing to find our minor pentatonic scale here.  Start from the 6th note of the MAJOR (not pentatonic) scale and that’s the starting note of your minor pentatonic.  Play the same notes as your major pentatonic and voila!

C Major Pent:  C  D  E  G  A  C
A Minor Pent:  A  C  D  E  G  A

Same notes!

Review Memorization Points: Which scale degrees are left out of a major to make a major pentatonic?
Which scale degree of the major scale do you start on to find the relative minor pentatonic?

For tips on using pentatonic scales in strange ways, check out this post.

I hope you’re starting to see how these guitar scales relate to one another.  We’re still mostly using the same set of 7 notes.  The only difference is the root starting on 1 or 6.  And those couple little alterations for the harmonic and melodic minors.  And of course, once you have the patterns under your fingers, they’re easy to transpose to any other key by just moving them up and down the neck.

At this point you should be able to play each of these five scales in the same one position.  Work on that until you have it down and can play some fluid melodies with it.  Your next step is to find two more positions (one at a time) to learn those scales in.  Again, check out this post to learn how to find new fretboard positions for your scales.

Once you’ve achieved that we can move on to some slightly more advanced ideas.  The further we get into these, the less common they are.  But feel free to play around with them.

Modal Scales For Guitar

Yes, they have mysterious Lord of the Rings type names like Mixolydian and Locrian.  Sounds more like Dungeons and Dragons characters than music scales.  But they’re much easier to deal with than it sounds.

Here’s the basic idea: If we can play C to C and call it major, and play A to A and call it minor, why can’t we play D to D or F to F?  We can.

Go back to your regular major scale pattern.  Instead of starting on C, start on D and play through to the next D.  Do the same for E, F, G, and B.

1st Mode (ie. C to C or Major) – Ionian – Exactly the same as major, just it’s modal name.
2nd Mode (ie. D to D) – Dorian
3rd Mode – (E to E) – Phrygian
4th Mode – Lydian
5th Mode – Myxolydian
6th Mode – Aeolian – Exactly the same as natural minor
7th Mode – Locrian

You can play all of those scales using exactly the same major scale pattern you learned before.  Just start on the appropriate note for the root.

Without getting too deep into the muck of which chords to use specific modes over, simplify it this way… Play each scale and decide whether is sounds “major-ish” or “minor-ish”.  That will give you a good idea of which kinds of chords to play the scale over.

Click Here to read Understanding Guitar Scales Part IV.

For more in depth guitar scale training, check out Guitar Scale Mastery.
Also check out the best all-around guitar training course I know, Learn and Master Guitar.

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You can read Understanding Guitar Scales Part I here.

Let’s continue our discussion of understanding guitar scales today by getting into minor scales.  Major scales were covered in the previous post. If you have any questions along the way, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to explain further.

Natural Minor Scale For Guitar

If you understand your major scale, then you already know your natural minor scale.  Awesome, right?  Here’s why… If you take any major scale and start from the 6th note instead of the 1st, you’ll end up with a natural minor scale.

Go back to your C major pattern that you learned.  Instead of starting on C, start on A (the 6th note) and play to the next A.  That’s A Natural Minor.  C Major and A Minor are called relative scales.  That means they share the same notes (and key signature), but have different roots.

See if you can figure out the relative minor to each of these major keys: G Major, D Major, Bb Major, F# Major.

Answers: E Minor, B Minor, G Minor, D# Minor

Review Memorization Point: Which degree of a major scale do you start on to find the relative Natural Minor?

Harmonic Minor Scale For Guitar

When we build chords on top of each of the A natural minor notes (by stacking every other letter) we get Am  Bdim  C  Dm  Em  F  G  Am.

The powers that be who were figuring out all this music stuff hundreds of years ago decided that they didn’t like that minor V chord (the Em) because it didn’t yield the same tension-release pull that the major V does in a major scale.  So they decided to just make it major.

To make it major they changed the note G in the Em chord to a G#.  And if we do it to the chord we have to do it to the scale.  So we end with this scale:

A  B  C  D  E  F  G#  A – This is A Harmonic Minor

To create the harmonic minor you simply sharp the 7th note of your natural minor.  Try that now with the natural minor pattern you learned in the last section.  Be sure to practice moving these patterns around the neck to different keys.

Review Memorization Point: Which scale degree of the natural minor gets raised to create harmonic minor?

For more tips on using the Harmonic Minor see this post.

Melodic Minor Scale For Guitar

In playing the harmonic minor, I’m sure you noticed the odd sounding interval between the 6th and 7th notes.  It’s the defining sound of that scale.  Once again, back to the powers that be, they decided that big leap was a little too jagged sounding.

To smooth it out, they decided to raise the 6th scale degree as well, giving us this scale:

A  B  C  D  E  F#  G#  A – This is A Melodic Minor

To create the melodic minor you sharp the 6th and 7th notes of the natural minor.  However, a true melodic minor is only used if your melody is ascending like D  E  F#  G#  A.  A descending melody should revert to the natural minor to avoid the surprising lowered third at the end.

Sound a little difficult to use in real life?  Jazz guys thought so too.  When you’re improvising a zillion notes a minute you don’t have time to decide which direction the melody is going.  So there’s a variation on the melodic minor called Jazz Minor that uses the #6 and #7 in both directions.

Review Memorization Point: Which scale degrees of the natural minor get raised to create melodic minor?

For more tips on using the Melodic Minor see this post.

Understanding Guitar Scales Part III is here.

For more in depth guitar scale training, check out Guitar Scale Mastery.
Also check out the best all-around guitar training course I know, Learn and Master Guitar.

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Understanding guitar scales is simple if you have a system.  The mistake a lot of guitarists make is trying to memorize a zillion scales in every position which becomes overwhelming.  Or they go the other direction and just learn them as patterns without any sense of how to apply them usefully and creatively.

I’m going to take the mystery out of scales by showing you how to build them and relate them to each other .  We’ll have just a few memorization points, then a system to figure the rest out.  If you have any questions along the way, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to explain further.

Let’s start with the the idea of “What’s a scale?”  A scale is a set of notes that we line up horizontally to create melodies and stack vertically to create chords.  Think of your scale like a painter’s palette.  A painter has his red, blue, green, black, white, etc, and he throws those at the canvas to create a painting.  As guitarists, we have our C, F, Bb, G#, D, etc, to throw on the instrument and create a piece of music.

To take the painting analogy one step too far… While a painter spends time learning how to mix colors, that palette isn’t the art.  In the same way, guitarists don’t just learn scales to learn scales.  They are tools that we combine with our other tools (rhythm, dynamics, technique, imagination) to create music.  Understanding how and when to use your guitar scales is the important thing.

As we’re going through this system, keep that in mind.  Also, you should have your guitar in hand as you’re going through this.  It won’t sink in if you just read it.  So get the ideas under your fingers as you’re learning them and you’ll be well on your way to understanding guitar scales.  Once you’ve got a scale pattern under your fingers, do some improvising with it to make it musical instead of technical.

I’m making the assumption that you know how to read the notes on your guitar’s fretboard.  If you don’t, learn how to read your guitar fretboard in this post.

In my opinion, you really only need to learn 5 different scales.  Major, Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, and Pentatonic.  From those, most of the other scales can be easily and quickly derived with a few shortcuts.  Not to mention, those 5 will get you through 90% of the music out there.  From that point you can move on to understanding some of the more exotic guitar scales out there.

As well, I suggest learning each scale in just one position to start, so you can see how they relate to each other.  Then choose a second and third position and learn them there the same way.  For tips on finding new fretboard positions for your scales, see this post.

Major Scale For Guitar - 6th String Root

A scale is made up of a combination of half steps and whole steps.  On your guitar, a half step is a movement of one fret.  A whole step is a movement of two frets.  The major scale is our home-base template for everything else, so we’ll start there.

C Major Scale: C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C

Play these notes on your guitar in any position and see if you can find out where the half steps are.

You should come up with half steps between E and F, and B and C.  Everything else in the scale is whole steps.  The formula for a major scale is then: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.

In order to make this applicable to any key, let’s use numbers for the scale degrees instead of letters.  Here’s what we get:
(^=half step)
1 2 3^4 5 6 7^8 – 8 will be the same note as 1, an octave higher.

Now that you have a number relationship of half steps and whole steps, you can apply that to any root note and get your major scale. Try writing out the scales starting on these roots:  G, D, Bb, F#.

Here’s what you should come up with:
G Major:  G  A  B  C  D  E  F#  G
D Major:  D  E  F#  G  A  B  C#  D
Bb Major:  Bb  C  D  Eb  F  G  A  Bb
F# Major:  F#  G#  A#  B  C#  D#  E#(Fnatural)  F#

I suggest starting with a 6th string root pattern.  Start with C Major since it’s easy natural notes.  Once you’ve got a pattern for the scale, you can move it around to different roots on that string easily.  Here are some tips on how to memorize scale fingerings.

Review Memorization Point: Which major scale degrees have only a half step between them?

Understanding Guitar Scales Part II is here.

For more in depth guitar scale training, check out Guitar Scale Mastery.
Also check out the best all-around guitar training course I know, Learn and Master Guitar.

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It’s been a little while since I’ve posted.  Sorry about that.  I’ve been on the road performing and the week I was home my DSL was down.  Gotta love AT&T.

Anyway, I’m still on the road performing, but I wanted to get something new up for you.  Every guitarist needs to know how to change their strings.  This great video from the Dummies people gives you the lowdown on how to do it correctly.

How often should you change your strings?  If you’re playing daily, probably every six weeks.  If you’re playing less than that then every 3-4 months.  But you should be playing daily! 

Phil Johnson
http://www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.com

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Overkill

Recording music is a totally different beast from playing live. And whether you’re going into a big studio or doing it on your own with a laptop and a DAW, there’s a few guitar-specific things you can do to make the whole process go faster and sound better.

1. Use new strings – You want your guitar to sound it’s best even if you’re working with a off-brand copy of Korean knockoff of a Strat. And new strings are the easiest way to improve things. They’ll give the engineer a good bright sound to work with. Make sure they’re good and stretched out so they don’t go out of tune in the middle of the song. I usually put my new ones on the day before recording. If you’re doing a lot of recording on a regular basis, make sure to change them every one to two weeks. Otherwise you can end up with different sounding strings on different takes of a song, making it more difficult to edit later.

2. Tune before every take – On a similar note, you should tune your guitar before every take. I’ll admit I’m they guy the engineer is always yelling at tune before takes. Extra weird when I’m recording at home. Your guitar probably won’t be that out of tune, but keeping it fine tuned will, again, make editing takes much easier later on in the mixing process.

3. Pre-Production – Pre-production is a fancy word for “practice before you get there”. You have some leeway here if you’re working in a home studio. But if you’re paying for studio time, you want to get in and get out as fast as possible. That means having your parts totally down before you step foot in the place. And that means making sure your bandmates have their act together too. And I always recommend playing the song live a lot before recording it, if possible. It will make the arrangement tighter and let any natural changes happen so you can get the best performance possible on tape. It’s like letting the song marinate before cooking it.

I made the mistake once of recording a whole song in the key of G. Then finding out that I couldn’t sing it in the key of G. We had to record all the pitched instruments again in the key of F. You can bet that cost me a few extra bucks. Learn from my boo-boos young padawan.

What about guitar solos? If you’re the type that likes to compose your solos, make sure it’s done before getting in the studio. If you like to let ‘er rip of the fly, that’s cool too. But be sure that you’ve improvised your solo on that song at least 100 times before recording. If you have to do more than 3 or 4 takes to get a solo you like, you’re blowing cash.

4. Leave off non-essential effects until mixing – The cleaner the signal going into the board, the more leeway you have to make changes later during editing and mixing. You want to have a good basic sound recorded and you can add all the gooey reverb and delay you want later on.

So, what’s considered essential? Maybe your overdrive or distortion if you’re working with a good amp and you want to capture that amp’s sound. A real Marshall still sounds better than any Marshall-style plugin. If you’re using a wah pedal, that should probably be in the original signal as well since it’s a real time effect. In fact, anything that you have to control in real time should be used during tracking. But ditch the reverb, delays, phaser, flanger, and other such things. That all gets layered on later.

Though I will say if you’ve got a particular pedal that you don’t have a matching plugin for, you’ll have to record it on the original signal. But, also record a totally clean version of the take with no pedal in case you don’t like it later. You can do that either by splitting the signal before the pedal to two tracks. Or you can just play it again.

5. Keep the overdrive/distortion down – Crunchy is good. But when you’ve got your distortion jacked up too high it will sound like white noise when you record it. It will also sound thin and get lost in the mix. Drop your distortion to half of what you use for live performance. Start there and record some sample takes to see how it sounds. A corollary to this is, let the engineer guide you. Especially if you’re new to recording and you can afford an experience engineer, use his expertise and let him help focus your guitar tone.

6. Small amps can sound great too – You don’t need a wall of Mesa Boogie stacks to get a great guitar sound when recording. Some of the greatest sounds on tape have been done with tiny amps. Giant amps are used for giant volume. And you don’t need that in the studio since you’re mic’ing and mixing. If the amp sound good by itself you can work from there and still get a huge sound.

If you are using a larger amp, like a 4×12, mic only the best sounding speaker. Placing the mic closer to the center of the speaker cone gives you a brighter sound. Moving the mic towards the edge mellows it.

7. Use two mics – One close, one far – If you’re in a good sounding room or studio, this will give you a nice natural reverb you can mix with the dry signal. Place the second mic about 5 feet from the amp. If your room doesn’t sound so hot or you just don’t like the sound of it, you can always trash that extra reverb track later.

8. Double track to thicken – This is the studio equivalent of a wall of Marshalls. If you want a big thick sound, double track your guitar parts. While you could just cut and paste the track, it’s the tiny variations in performance of multiple takes that really work nicely to beef it up. Do at least two tracks. Or go whole hog with the old Metallica trick of layering 30-40 tracks of the same guitar part. Just make sure the rest of the instruments don’t get lost in the mix. You and I both know the guitar is the most important but sometimes your bandmates thing they deserve to be there too.

Learning to perform in a recording studio has a learning curve just like learning to play live. These tips will give you a good start to getting your hit song recorded so the whole world can hear it.

Get your free Get Hot On Electric Guitar report for the best guitar practice techniques to make you the hottest six string slinger in town! http://www.GetHotOnElectricGuitar.com

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