I didn’t put a video up last week because it was Christmas, so I’m sticking this one up now with the intention of doing another one at the end of the week like usual.
I only discovered there are two different versions of the song out there on Sunday, so I obviously haven’t practiced this one much, but it’s not very tough. It’s a straight cookie-cutter solo. All the licks fit right inside the bar, so it’s easy to practice.
Anyways, here it is:
This video started as a quick excuse to show off a quick, simple way to block your floating bridge so that you can execute unison bends or other similar things. It went by so fast that I decided to do a complete (albeit brief) lesson on the Yardbirds’ song “Heart Full of Soul”.
Enjoy.
I was going to do a video/lesson about tempo, note values, and why bragging about those things is stupid, but then I heard “The Middle” on the radio and thought “Man, that’s a fun solo, I’ll just do that!”
So here it is:
My co-workers and I have been working on Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time” recently, so I thought I’d share the solos.
I didn’t include the third (and longest) solo because a lot of it is just atmosphere and vibe. If anybody wants to see it, I can throw it up. But I think this is good for now.
One of my students mentioned that he’d like to learn Eric Johnson’s “Cliffs of Dover”. I had tinkered around with a few parts from it years and years ago, but I never really committed to learning it note for note. I figured that not only was it was a good opportunity to do so, but it was also a good pick for a video this week.
I recently received some Tusq bridge pins and a new saddle from GraphTech, so I wanted to do a video with my acoustic to show them off. The old pins were cheap plastic, and the saddle was some other synthetic ivory (I think it was a proprietary Ibanez brand). The new setup has a noticeably brighter and more percussive sound, which I really enjoy on a steel-string acoustic.
Anyways, here’s the intro to Passenger’s song “Let Her Go”.
While Neil Peart and Geddy Lee definitely deserve all the praise they get for their playing, Alex Lifeson is criminally under-appreciated as a guitar player. This song is a popular challenge piece for drummers and bassists, but Alex has plays his ass off and delivers a killer solo that’s a lot of fun to play.
Try it out!
Oh yeah, regarding whether it’s “zee” or “zed”… I’m American. I call that letter “zee”. If you’re going to insist it’s ” zed”, then I insist you pronounce the titles to all Rush songs with a Canadian accent.
One of my students was a no show today, so I threw down this lesson on the intro to the Joe Satriani classic “Satch Boogie”. I’ve seen countless people attempt to play this song, and VERY few get a real… well, BOOGIE feel to it! The trick is to start with an upstroke, then keep your hand moving. Big, broad, wide pick motion. Watch Satch play it and you’ll see the same thing.
When it comes to this tune, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!
Pro-fé-cia will be playing the Hell & Heaven festival in just a few days. KISS will be headlining, so I thought I’d share the solo from the opening track of “Alive”.
Impellitteri’s “17th Century Chicken Pickin” is a classic shred tune, but it seems there is only one transcription of it that gets passed around. Everybody learns that version, but I don’t like it.
Most of the notes seem correct, but some of the fingerings are really awkward, particularly the section that starts at the 53 second mark.
I think this is the way Chris actually played it. I can’t be sure, because it doesn’t seem like he’s ever performed the song live, but this way is much more consistent and makes use of more common shapes.
It’s a really fun lick when you get the speed up. Have fun.