How many of you guitarists out there can play in any key, any scale in any position on the neck? I would lay a bet that there are more that can’t than can. This lesson will put you on the right path to breaking out of those comfortable boxes and shapes that you have probably become used to. Continue reading »
In celebration of UK rock band Muse selling out the new Wembley Stadium in June, I’m going to be looking at the playing style of singer/guitarist Matt Bellamy, paying to particular attention to the band’s “Showbiz” and “Origin of Symmetry” era.
After forming in Teignmouth Devon in 1994 Muse have managed to become one of the biggest rock bands on the planet, although many would have thought their mind blowing headlining set at Glastonbury 2004 would have been the peak of their career, Muse have once again raised the bar for what it means to be the ultimate live band. Continue reading »
Many years ago I was sitting in a motel room with my good friend and Bassist Peter Amazing watching a band play on TV while waiting to go onstage ourselves. The drummer on the tube was playing “open handed” style. That is, he was not crossing his right hand over his left to play the hi-hat with his right hand. Instead he was playing the hi-hat notes with his left hand and hitting the back beat with his right. Continue reading »
Research paper on “The Healing aspects of Micro-tones of musical, astrological and psychical vibrations” connected through the universal principle of Spiral of fifths. Continue reading »
Hello there,
It’s Nick Andrew (the Mad Scotsman) here with the first in a series of lessons in clichĂ© busting musical ideas for the bold axe men and axe women out there, looking for something more than the latest licks. Continue reading »
Intellectual Musician’s own Sean Gill has done an excellent job drawing up some promotional posters for the site. They are found below in both image (.jpg) and printable (.pdf) format. Continue reading »
As a guitarist for hire I’ve learned a couple of things: keep your teeth together, attitude professional, gear in top form, and ears wide open. As Frank Zappa said, “Shut up and play your guitar!” Here are some thoughts about a past gig. Continue reading »
The blues scale was the first thing they taught me when I got into jazz band in high school. It’s a simple scale to learn, and all the tones sound good over blues changes. The advantage of knowing it Continue reading »
Here is a couple of finger exercises for guitar / bass that I was taught years ago and I still swear by them now. Although they do not sound particularly melodic they are great for coordinating your fingers, especially your little finger. Continue reading »
Putting some conscious thought time into the detail of your melody writing can give them a twist or a sound that you might not come to just by ear. Of course, the ear is still king, but there are several ways to examine a melodic line.
The approach I’m outlining today is counterpoint. Counterpoint is simply the movement of two or more melodic lines together. The lines should stand on their own, that is, they will sound good and make some sense played separately. And while counterpoint lines do create harmony, that is incidental to the independent lines. They way the lines interact should be seen as the creation of tension and release.
Continue reading »
The music business: a weird, wonderful and sometimes ugly world, where we all try and find our way in. It can be a very confusing place, and I have been working in it one way or another for the past 17 years and have been living inside of it for the last 24. Continue reading »
Whenever I’m learning a new lick, riff or scale, I always find it best to start off slowly then gradually get faster until I can play it faster than actually I need to, then it’s always a relief to play it at the correct speed 8). To help you do this, I’ve put together a range of drum backing tracks in various time signatures for you to practice your licks and riffs over.
Modes are the arrangement of consecutive pitch-names arranged in such a way that there will be whole steps except for two half-steps with the two lower pitches a perfect fifth or fourth apart (and therefore the two upper pitches also a perfect fifth or fourth apart in the same direction). Continue reading »
The whole tone scale is one of the most underused scales in improvising, in my opinion. It has revolutionized my approach to improvising on a tune. People always talk about playing “out” and they will spend years and years working on all kinds of complicated ways of doing it, but the answer is right under our noses and its really not all that complicated. Whole steps. That’s it. Just play whole steps. I’m dramatizing a bit, but essentially that’s the idea I’m talking about. Continue reading »
Right, where were we?
In the previous part, we laid down a very simple MIDI drum part and bass line for a 6 bar ‘jingle’. Next it’s time to get some real instruments on there. For this example I am going to use my guitar, I have plugged my guitar into the back of my PC through the Microphone-In port using an 1/4 inch to 1/8th inch mono adapter.
Here’s some more ready to print Word document music templates I made. Enjoy 
In the Indian music system which originates from South India, there is a particular form of classification and nomenclature of scales arising out of the maximum number of scales known as “Parent Raagas or Melakarrtaas” These are arranged in a very specific Ascending and descending order. Continue reading »
Here is some handy stationary I made which you can print off. They are all in Word 2000 (Doc) format and should be ready to go. The examples here are filled in, but the downloads are completely blank. Continue reading »
Buckminster Fuller, the acclaimed Canadian scientist who invented the geodesic dome, described the universe, in his book ‘Utopia or Oblivion’ as entropic. By this he meant that energy escapes from ‘local systems’ causing the Law of Increase of the Random Element. Continue reading »
Music is mysterious stuff. It’s completely invisible. You can’t smell it, taste it or feel it in a normal sense, yet it can touch you. Fair enough you can hear it, but what makes music different from anything else you may hear? After all, it uses the same parts of your body you would use to detect a barking dog, or an engine starting. We have evolved ears as a kind of early warning system for our eyes - We will hear a bus coming before we see it, so we’re less likely to get run over by it. Music was not ‘planned’ by nature, and has no real purpose in our survival except for what we have made of it since we discovered it. Continue reading »
As you may be aware, the whole process of music production has taken a giant leap forward in the last 10 years. This is all due to the increase in computer technology, and we’d be silly not to take advantage of it. The few times I have paid for recording sessions, I have never ever been happy with the result. I put this down to a few factors.. Continue reading »
ATLANTA—In the world today, there are a growing number of people wanting to get in “the business.” There are also a lot of people trying to transition out of the business because they’ve somehow realized that it really wasn’t what they expected. Continue reading »
In the Indian classical music scenario, artists of the North Indian classical system have often adopted most of the South Indian ragas to compose, elaborate and present these raagas in highly varied formats of raga music. In the process of this transition from South Indian to North Indian music, many ragas such as, Hamsaddwani, Keeravani, Chaarukeshi, Vaachaspathi, Lathaangi, Shanmukhapriya, Ramapriya, Ranjani, Janasammohini, Bhinnashadja etc… are most prominant raagas that have been cleverly handled by many stalwarts of North Indian musicians with elegance and sometimes at disdain- tend to lose their original texture to say the least. Continue reading »
I’ve found that most guitarists underestimate the effect their right hand technique can have on their playing. When the average guitarist sits down for a couple of hours to practice, I imagine that he/she doesn’t spend 2 minutes thinking about what their right hand is doing. It just goes on auto-pilot. You hold the pick between your thumb and first finger, but what about those other three fingers on the right hand? They just sit there and don’t get to have any fun. The solution to this situation is “Hybrid Picking”. Continue reading »
It is certain that every chord combination has tones that distinguish it from others and give it its personality. I am going to review a very simple way to add a little bit extra boost to the chords you might already know. Continue reading »
‘You sound like a strangled cat!’
‘But Sir!’ replied Johnnie ‘That’s the way I normally sing…….’
‘Not in my school choir-not ever!’ replied the school master. Continue reading »
How is your bassdrum technique? Many drummers are looking for a better way to control their foot technique as it seems the bass drum presents the most challenge on the conventional drumkit . Most of us are looking for some type of secret technique to conquer it’s mass and awkwardness. There are however many ways which to address this issue however today we will talk about a simple secret that is very effective. Continue reading »
Have you ever wanted to go to a music store and get a book that had the best information on how to play guitar, explained in ways that were easy to understand and made sense, and not know which book to buy? Ever go out and get that book, only to discover that it had a bunch of information that you didn’t need and didn’t make a good deal of sense after all? Ever wonder whether the “get chops quick” guitar methods so prevalent on the Internet today are really ripoffs? Well, no need for further frustration, help is here. Continue reading »