Tapping With Modes

  Two-handed tapping is a fun technique that allows you to grab ahold of notes generally outside of your reach and often leaves audiences dazzled by its flashiness. While you shouldn’t learn tapping purely because it’s flashy, most guitarists would be lying if they told you that it wasn’t at least part of the appeal. But for all the awesome things a solid tapping technique has to offer, a surprisi

  It’s often said that most improvised solos can either be categorized as “vertical” or as “horizontal”. These designations refer less to objective musical elements, and more to the mental approach taken by the improviser during the solo, which is why you will sometimes hear these concepts referred to as “vertical thinking” and “horizontal thinking”. But whatever way you like to frame it, the conc

  When we first learn how to play guitar solos, we’re generally taught to stick to the confines of a specific scale shape. As we progress, we learn how to break out of that initial scale shape and into other shapes all across the fretboard. Yet, no matter how many different places across the guitar we learn to play in the key of A-minor, there is still this somewhat unquestioned conviction th

  All guitarists learning to play improvised solos have at some point gotten stuck in a creative rut, playing the same handful of tried and true licks over and over again, but shying away from trying anything new. It makes sense how it happens. Learning the guitar is a practice that relies heavily upon muscle memory, and once that muscle memory is established you find yourself entering into a

If you feel like you’re starting to fall into a rut with your soloing, exploring the harmonic and melodic minor scales can be a great way to pull you out of it. Both scales are similar to the minor scale that you likely already know, but with some essential notes changed, making for a formula that will force you just far enough outside your comfort zone to spark some new creativity. In this piece,

This piece includes three important tips for playing improvised guitar solos, all of which are things that I find myself telling my students quite often. That’s because all three of them are simple concepts that can be tricky to actual a habit of implementing, but are pretty easy to do when you find yourself thinking about them. If these tips are new to you or something that you otherwise feel lik