Posts Tagged ‘guitar backing tracks’

How To Build Patterns For Lead Guitar Improvisations

May 31st, 2011

Few strategies are there to build various patterns:

1. Start on the E string on any note of the scale. Keep this fret in your mind . Move up that string playing notes from the scale until the next note would be more than 4 frets from home position (count the home position as fret 1), and place that next note on a higher string. Continue it until you run out of strings.

With this approach you can find regular scale boxes – boxes are great because they help you to hold your hand in the same position throughout the scale.

2. Start on the E string on any note of the scale. For each string, add notes until you have played precisely 3 notes on that string and after that change strings.

You can find 3 notes per string scales with the help of this approach – this is great because they have an even number of notes on each string which actually helps with speed runs.

You can get 2 note per string scales by altering the number from 3 to 2 or 4, or even 4 notes per string scales (possible, but really difficult to play, a favorite of Alan Holdsworth I believe). 2 notes per string are especially suitable for pentatonic.

3. Whole neck approach – in this approach we play entire number of scales by moving up 1 string and handle every string in isolation. Understand that there will be great overlap between strings, and figure out all the practicable means of playing an individual note or run on all strings (very challenging to do in practice but this is how actually top notch performers find out things)

That’s all what the patterns actually are – and as far as a point of terminology is concerned, I would call boxes a special case of patterns that are constructed by applying rule 1, patterns is a more general term that refers to all possible ways to map a scale to the guitar neck.

E Walker is contributes regular to guitar publications worldwide. He is the founder of Planet of Rock. See how guitar backing tracks makes guitar practice more enjoyable! Jam to over 1000 professional tracks including 100s of backing tracks

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You Are Only As Good As The Wood of Your Acoustic Guitar

May 29th, 2011

Believe it or not, your sound is only as good as your wood. Each wood has a very distinct sound that is individual to every acoustic guitar. Like a finger print, it cannot be recreated, even if another piece of wood is taken from the same source.

This is due to the wood’s unique characteristics. Perhaps there are knots in the wood, or a slightly different grain pattern. Maybe there are some other subtle differences but in the end, it all affects how the wood resonates. Resonate is a fancy word for vibration, which is what wood does when you attach strings to it.

How freely the wood resonates will affect your volume (how loud you are) and your tone as a result of that. This explains why that plywood (laminate) guitar sitting in the pawnshop or music store doesn’t sound that great: The wood is too stiff to vibrate freely.

That’s why you may frequently hear the saying “Solid top”. While that may sound great in a sales pitch, the reason it’s actually important is that it’s real wood, not plywood. This transforms your tone to give you a much nicer sounding guitar.

Before the wood actually gets to your guitar, it undergoes quite a few steps. First off, most tone woods are either industrially logged. This is common for many production model guitars. Still sounds great in most cases, but there are some imperfections.

Higher end guitars have their wood hand selected. It is usually cut by hand and the select chunks are chosen for quality and then shipped back to home base for further processing.

Most manufactures of decent acoustic guitars season their woods for a period of time. This removes excess moisture and hardens the fats, oils, murr (gum), and other sticky things that are naturally found in wood. This seasoning protects the wood from warping and prepares it structurally for the building stage.

From that point, a piece of wood is then book matched. This is the process where one single cut of wood is sliced into two pieces. This forms two identical pieces of wood, which can then be used for the front or back of the guitar. That explains why you have that line running down the back of your guitar (it’s usually white). That line just covers up the seam.

Now, onto the woods. Here are some of the neatest and powerful woods out there:

Spruce – Spruce is an extremely strong wood, which is important for building a guitar. It offers some very nice crisp highs and a much more powerful volume. Great wood choice. Used on the majority of guitars.

Cedar – Slightly more mellow than Spruce and has a very warm feel to it. It has a beautiful glow and is aesthetically pleasing.

Maple – A great all round wood that offers a good balance of highs, mids and lows. This is something that many guitarists desire for an all round good projection and clean sound. However, because of this equal balance, it can also sound quite flat for the acoustic world so it’s often used on electrics. It is highly desired for it’s beautiful grain and lusture.

Koa – Known for it’s high range, Koa is known for it’s solid tone. It doesn’t have a good bass response but makes up for it in the high end of the dynamic sound spectrum.

Mahogany – Great projection and nice treble. The flatpickers dream when combined with the dreadnaught body type because it offers such a great response and tone.

Brazilian Rosewood – This wood is probably the most wanted piece of wood for guitars in the world. It’s becoming increasingly rare as it’s becoming extinct, therefore jacking up the price tremendously. It offers a huge bass response with nice treble and mids. Unfortunately, most only come on limited edition guitars that are at the top end of the price spectrum.

Indian Rosewood – The more popular alternative to Brazilian Rosewood and is far more accessible. Has virtually the same tonal characteristics, just not as powerful. It’s used on most professional guitars.

Cocobolo – My personal favorite! In my humble opinion, it takes many characteristics from the above woods and combines them to form a truly unique sound. It produces a great bass, awesome volume and phenomenal overtones. This wood will most likely be on my next acoustic. I suggest you do the same.

…Keep in mind that there are many, many more species of tone woods available to you. There are also some great subtypes of the above woods. For example, Taylor guitars use Sitka Spruce on many of their models and limited edition guitars. It’s in the family of spruce, but offers something different.

In the end, the above comments are extremely subjective. While I have played many of the woods mentioned above, my ear likes things that your ear may not. The only way to find out is to hunt them down and try them for yourself. Many companies use the above woods listed, so it shouldn’t be extremely difficult.

E Walker is contributes regular to guitar publications worldwide. He is the founder of Planet of Rock. See how guitar backing tracks makes guitar practice more enjoyable! Jam to over 1000 professional tracks including 100s of backing tracks

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Using the Tremolo Technique with Backing Tracks

May 27th, 2011

Life couldn’t be easier than this: You get guitar backing tracks for almost all the top rock, metal, blues and progressive music tracks. All you need to do is learn to focus and learn to play along with the guitar backing tracks.The guitar backing tracks are essential for practice because you can play just about anything or any type of lead. You can even conjure your own piece of work.

For example: if you have guitar backing tracks for the Blood and tears by Steve Vai then you don’t have to necessarily play the same lead that Vai has played. You can use all the different advanced guitar techniques using the tremolo and do your original stuff. It’s much more fun that way.

The tremolo technique for playing the lead guitar comes in handy especially when you’re practicing for a live gig. Of course the guitar backing tracks have to be there but then you need to understand how to play around and improvise with the tremolo. While playing a tremolo all you have to do is play the string with an up and down motion with the help of your pick. It is something that was made famous by the legendary guitarist Pete Townshend.

You can use a tremolo on guitar backing tracks at very high speeds as well as slow speeds. More often than not, a tremolo is played rapidly. If this is your first time then all you need to do is get the right guitar backing tracks and start playing the tremolo at a slow speed and then proceed a step ahead and try to play it faster. The firmer your grip on the tremolo, the faster you should play it. The truth is that there is no fun playing the tremolo slow. Here is a tip: try to play thin picks on the tremolos as they are easier to play. Here is an example of a basic tremolo track:

E|–0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0–| B|———————–| G|———————–| D|———————–| A|———————–| E|———————–| |–d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u–|

Always remember that when you’re playing the tremolo with guitar backing tracks, you need to pick down on whatever string you are playing and then immediately pick up that particular string. It should never be two motions – it should always look like just one motion. Here is another example of a simple tremolo that you’ll be able to practice with guitar backing tracks:

E|–0-0-2-2-4-4-2-2-0-0–| B|———————–| G|———————–| D|———————–| A|———————–| E|———————–| |–d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u-d-u–|

E Walker is contributes regular to guitar publications worldwide. He is the founder of Planet of Rock. See how guitar backing tracks makes guitar practice more enjoyable! Jam to over 1000 professional tracks including 100s of backing tracks

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Jam With Guitar Backing Tracks and How To Benefit From It

May 26th, 2011

Join us as we examine all the benefits of using guitar backing tracks to play live gigs. You’ll learn how using such backing tracks for guitar can improve your skills and ability as well as making practice time more enjoyable, along with the many advantages of using them to play live.

One of the most beneficial learning tools for a guitarist looking to fully master the guitar is to play a lot of live gigs. Playing live shows is great for honing and perfecting your skills and abilities under the pressure of playing in front of an audience. Performing in front of an audience will help you to gauge how far you’ve come and give you a chance to entertain people and put all of that practice time to good use.

One of the many reasons why some guitarists shun away from live performances is because they do not have a band and have no one to back them up on stage. Others may be in a band with members who are not as dedicated, or don’t show up for practices, so playing a live gig would be a disaster. Practice makes perfect and performance at a live gig without any preparation would be the fastest way to end your gigging career. Whatever the reason may be, these individuals are missing out on a great teaching experience that could really help them to master their instrument by not playing to a live crowd.

This is where playing live gigs with guitar backing tracks can be extremely useful. Guitar backing tracks are the serious guitar student’s most effective secret weapon for improving their playing style and perfecting their instrument. These backing tracks sound great, like a professional band playing behind you to back you up. Do ensure that you do play along to professional guitar backing tracks and not “midi” based tracks. Professional tracks are available from online shops such as Planet of Rock.

Guitar backing tracks are great for private practice sessions as well. They increase your skill by allowing you to practice chords and scales as well as improvising solos to a live backing band. This practice experience also helps you to develop the timing skills necessary to play along with other musicians. They improve practice time by making it less dull and helping you to use the knowledge you have gained to create awesome lead work as well as perfecting rhythm techniques. By perfecting your skills with guitar backing tracks, you can also work on perfecting your tone. All great tone comes from the player’s abilities and how well they actually play; it’s not all about the fancy equipment.

Once you have become comfortable with your skills and abilities, you’re ready to put them to the ultimate test! Use these guitar backing tracks for a live performance! They will enable you to express your creativity to improvise great lead work and to thoroughly rock the crowd. You do not have to worry about your back up band messing up or missing the show.

E Walker is the founder of Planet of Rock Music Studios. Listen to samples of backing tracks. Find out how these guitar backing track will bring your skills to the next level. You are just One Click Away!

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Advanced Guitar Theory- The Relative Minors

May 21st, 2011

This short article presents a woolly description as well as a more technical one to make you familiar with Relative Minors.

A relative minor is a musical scale that is “related” to a major scale. As they work together harmonically, thus they can be regarded as being in the same family. Relative minors provide a remarkable mode to move from a major to a minor key without too much of a jump or use of multiplex chord sequences and so they are considered as a well-set tool in songwriting.

Here is a more technical description:

The relative minor of a certain major scale is a scale that starts 6 intervals up and after that shares all of the same notes. Firstly, what is an interval? It is not easy to answer it exactly but you can say that an interval is a note in a scale. You can understand all this with the help of an example. Let’s look at the scale of C ??” it is liked by most of the people because it has no sharps or flats. It comprises of followingnotes

C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

We find that A is the relative minor of C by moving up 6 notes, (C-D-E-F-G-A). Therefore the possible notes we will use for A minor are A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A.

Although we start on the note of A, all of the notes also exist in the C major scale.

Taking it a step further, looking at the scale in terms of half and whole notes, as in the Major Scale 101 lesson, for a relative minor we would apply the pattern:

W H W W H W W, or

2 1 2 2 1 2 2

You can practice this formula to figure out the relative minor scale for any major scale by starting at the 6th note and applying it.

Now, to conclude, a short note of a couple of fascinating facts about Relative Minors is given. Firstly, three various minor scales are there in western music ??” with a slight divergence in their formula. The scale above is in reality a “Natural Minor” or “Pure Minor” scale – two names for the same thing while the other two are called “Harmonic” and “Melodic”. As their formulas differ from each other, so they do not share the same notes as the associated relative major scale and are harmonically speaking not such a right match as the Natural Minor.

And eventually, the Natural Minor (or Relative Minor) scale of a certain major scale is also known as the “Aeolian Mode”. Modes are a concept that we will discuss later, but for now, you can say confidently that you have correct understanding of Relative Minors, Pure Minors, Natural Minors, and the Aeolian mode.

E Walker is the founder of Planet of Rock Music Studios. Listen to samples of backing tracks. Find out how these guitar backing track will bring your skills to the next level. You are just One Click Away!

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Guide To Blues Guitar Improvisations

July 15th, 2010

Blues, is such a passionate form of music. When these players are playing the blues type of music, they seem like they are playing from the heart.

They are weaving a story, which is bearing their soul, using the six strings of their guitar. Many people who enjoy playing guitar, just love to play the blues and become infatuated with this particular type of music.

Blues music is formed by developing a technique for playing the chords and scales, which is the foundation of the blues, so starting to perfect these, will enhance your playing and you will be able to play the blues in no time. Practice the chords and scales, building on these basics, then you will be able to work yourself up to advanced levels, in time. This is a priority in learning to play great blues on the guitar. The pentatonic scale is a basic blues scale, with one additional note to it.

With this additional note, the sound of the blues will come through, because of the amount of tension needed. The scale itself is comprised of six notes which are all named differently. When you play the scales that belong to the blues then its the position of the named notes that you will be playing.

You will be prepared then to master the improvisational aspects of the blues music, when you have mastered the timing, and the structure of it. Backing tracks are the best way to accomplish this strategy. You need to play along with them, and this way will make you think that you have a whole band accompanying you, and this will greatly enhance the time you spend on your improvements and your skills immensely. This tool is the most beneficial one that you can own.

Using backing tracks, you will learn the scale so much faster, and now you are ready to understand the importance of using and understanding the complexities of the scale and how it works with the rhythm

By taking the lead playing in the backing tracks, you will be able to apply what you have learned so far and apply your scale understanding. . You have come a long way, so you should be very proud of yourself and your accomplishment.

Improvisation is considered to be one of the most intricate parts of guitar playing. One of the best tools to help you, would be to play along with backing tracks, as this will be of great benefit to your playing. You will be able to have the choice to change the sound of the scale based on what you know and you will be finding yourself playing your own lead solo. Your creativity will be coming to the forefront of your playing, and this will make all the difference to you.

When playing before a live audience the techniques that you learn are a crucial element in playing the blues, so practicing along with the backing tracks is so beneficial in your practice time, even if you become a virtuoso in the art of playing the blues on the guitar.

Want to jam to professional backing tracks guitar? Visit PlanetofRock for top quality guitar backing tracks! These tracks are gig-friendly with proper endings. See our full range of jam tracks by clicking the links here: motley crue backing

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8 Steps To Learn Guitar Scales for Guitar improvisation

October 10th, 2009
by Mike Brown

Scales are an important portion of your creativity, regardless of whichever scales you want! The more scales you know, the more ways you have of expressing yourself. If you wish to have a proved and tested path that will allow you to play the music of many master musicians, I would advise you learn scales in the following order.

1. Minor Pentatonic. This is the first scale and a lot of people learn it. It is simple because it only has 5 notes, and it opens up huge openings for improvisation. Some guitarists never need more than this scale.

2. Major pentatonic. This is pretty alike and is a variation of the minor pentatonic.

3. Major Scale. This scale is the base of western music.

4. Natural Minor scale. The major scale and natural minor scale both form the backbone of western music. You can use the pentatonic scale wherever you apply the minor scale because the pentatonic is in reality the minor scale with just a a couple of notes. With the above collection of scales you can play 95% of music that you are familiar with. If you stop here you can still be a very efficient instrumentalist. The next scales are more particular in their application, but more wonderful and cooler and will start to impart your music with a more special and distinctive feel.

5. Harmonic Minor/Melodic Minor. Two variations of the lower-ranking scales that give a different feel, particularly the harmonic minor.

6. The major modes are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian. These Modes are built up according to particular patterns. Depending on your own choice, they will give your music of a different feel. The taking of modes helps you greatly when you are thoroughly experienced with the scales I stated above.

A lot of people don’t make it past the major modes – by the time you master the major modes and the other scales, you are skillful musician, with a large range of scales and stylings to feed into your musical composition and soloing.

7. Exotic Scales. I call any scale that I haven’t listed above an “exotic scale” – that’s simply my tag for it. There are hundreds of exotic scales, many of them used in specific types of folk music or Jazz. You could spend many years learning them all, and you can find reference books on them such as the Guitar Grimoire.

8. Modes of Exotic scales. Every scale has associated modes; it is not true that modes merely exist for major scales. They provide you an even better palette of notes to pick out from.

About the Author:
Listen to samples of Free Guitar Backing Tracks. Find out how these Guitar Backing Tracks will bring your skills to the next level.

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Acoustic World – Tone Woods of Acoustic

October 1st, 2009
by Eugene Walker

Believe it or not, your sound is only as good as your wood. Each wood has a very distinct sound that is individual to every acoustic guitar. Like a finger print, it cannot be recreated, even if another piece of wood is taken from the same source.

This is due to the wood’s unique characteristics. Perhaps there are knots in the wood, or a slightly different grain pattern. Maybe there are some other subtle differences but in the end, it all affects how the wood resonates. Resonate is a fancy word for vibration, which is what wood does when you attach strings to it.

How freely the wood resonates will affect your volume (how loud you are) and your tone as a result of that. This explains why that plywood (laminate) guitar sitting in the pawnshop or music store doesn’t sound that great: The wood is too stiff to vibrate freely.

That’s why you may frequently hear the saying “Solid top”. While that may sound great in a sales pitch, the reason it’s actually important is that it’s real wood, not plywood. This transforms your tone to give you a much nicer sounding guitar.

Before the wood actually gets to your guitar, it undergoes quite a few steps. First off, most tone woods are either industrially logged. This is common for many production model guitars. Still sounds great in most cases, but there are some imperfections.

Higher end guitars have their wood hand selected. It is usually cut by hand and the select chunks are chosen for quality and then shipped back to home base for further processing.

Most manufactures of decent acoustic guitars season their woods for a period of time. This removes excess moisture and hardens the fats, oils, murr (gum), and other sticky things that are naturally found in wood. This seasoning protects the wood from warping and prepares it structurally for the building stage.

From that point, a piece of wood is then book matched. This is the process where one single cut of wood is sliced into two pieces. This forms two identical pieces of wood, which can then be used for the front or back of the guitar. That explains why you have that line running down the back of your guitar (it’s usually white). That line just covers up the seam.

Now, onto the woods. Here are some of the neatest and powerful woods out there:

Spruce – Spruce is an extremely strong wood, which is important for building a guitar. It offers some very nice crisp highs and a much more powerful volume. Great wood choice. Used on the majority of guitars.

Cedar – Slightly more mellow than Spruce and has a very warm feel to it. It has a beautiful glow and is aesthetically pleasing.

Maple – A great all round wood that offers a good balance of highs, mids and lows. This is something that many guitarists desire for an all round good projection and clean sound. However, because of this equal balance, it can also sound quite flat for the acoustic world so it’s often used on electrics. It is highly desired for it’s beautiful grain and lusture.

Koa – Known for it’s high range, Koa is known for it’s solid tone. It doesn’t have a good bass response but makes up for it in the high end of the dynamic sound spectrum.

Mahogany – Great projection and nice treble. The flatpickers dream when combined with the dreadnaught body type because it offers such a great response and tone.

Brazilian Rosewood – This wood is probably the most wanted piece of wood for guitars in the world. It’s becoming increasingly rare as it’s becoming extinct, therefore jacking up the price tremendously. It offers a huge bass response with nice treble and mids. Unfortunately, most only come on limited edition guitars that are at the top end of the price spectrum.

Indian Rosewood – The more popular alternative to Brazilian Rosewood and is far more accessible. Has virtually the same tonal characteristics, just not as powerful. It’s used on most professional guitars.

Cocobolo – My personal favorite! In my humble opinion, it takes many characteristics from the above woods and combines them to form a truly unique sound. It produces a great bass, awesome volume and phenomenal overtones. This wood will most likely be on my next acoustic. I suggest you do the same.

…Keep in mind that there are many, many more species of tone woods available to you. There are also some great subtypes of the above woods. For example, Taylor guitars use Sitka Spruce on many of their models and limited edition guitars. It’s in the family of spruce, but offers something different.

In the end, the above comments are extremely subjective. While I have played many of the woods mentioned above, my ear likes things that your ear may not. The only way to find out is to hunt them down and try them for yourself. Many companies use the above woods listed, so it shouldn’t be extremely difficult.

About the Author:
E Walker is the founder of Planet of Rock Music Studios and contributes regularly to many guitar publications. Find out how Guitar Backing Tracks will improve your guitar playing skills. Jam anytime anywhere with Professional Guitar Jam Tracks. Planet of Rock – Backing Tracks Guitar

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Why Every Guitarist Should Use Guitar Backing Tracks

September 29th, 2009
by Eugene Walker

Guitar backing tracks are essential armory that every lead guitarist should have. Without it, it would be extremely difficult to play solos or lead guitar.If you have moved from the basic stage into the advanced stage then it doesn’t mean that you are ready to play the solo or lead live on stage. There are many more aspects to playing a guitar solo and one of them is learning to play with guitar backing tracks.

The good thing is that you can purchase some of best professionally recorded guitar backing tracks from companies such as Planet of Rock. It will come for a cost depending on the track and the band. These guitar backing tracks are a must for all those who are dreaming of playing their own solo someday in the near future.

What it really does is that it replaces the need for a band playing the background. For example: if you want to practice your solo with a Eddie Van Halen or a Jimi Hendrix number, you don’t really need a bassist, drummer and rhythm guitarist. All you need is the guitar backing track for that specific number and you will be good to go. These tracks are perfect for a nice jam session when you are practicing without a band.

The reason why every guitarist should use guitar backing tracks is because they are options you can have for practicing advanced lead guitar techniques. This is a type of tool that will help you especially when you want to work on new licks or practice different type of scales like the blues scale, the pentatonic scales etc. You can even use guitar backing tracks for rhythm guitar.

One of the important aspects of guitar backing tracks is that it will help you to improve your timing immensely. You will never go out of tune or end up playing the wrong scale. The reason why most guitarists in their advanced learning stage use guitar backing tracks is because it helps them to prepare for live gigs.

Playing at a live gig is very different from playing in a studio. You will not have any room for mistakes as you will be playing right in front of an audience. So you will need to perfect your skills and the best way of doing that is by playing with guitar backing tracks. Guitar backing tracks are available for some of the top numbers in rock, metal, blues and alternative.

About the Author:
E Walker is the founder of Planet of Rock. For Free Lead Guitar Lessons and to get access to guitar online lessons, visit our Blog! Visit Planet Of Rock for more details.

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