I've noticed from my guitar teaching experience that many guitarists often feel immense frustration when it comes to their electric guitar playing. And while there are many potential reasons for this frustration, a very common one is having a short-term mindset. What I mean by this is that they are putting too much pressure on themselves to progress quickly. They want to get good, and they want to get good yesterday! On the surface wanting to progress faster and faster may seem like a positive thing. (And there is certainly nothing wrong with being ambitious!). But unfortunately for many guitarists this all-consuming focus on their speed of progress can cause quite a few problems such as... --A shallow level of learning. In their rush to get good they don't take the time t... [Read More]

  If you're relatively new to guitar then you might be curious to find out exactly how long it will take you to play guitar really well. And I think it's a valid concern. You've been putting all this time into practice, and I think it's only natural to wonder when you're going to see the fruits of your labor! But you probably already realize that it's a very difficult thing to answer. (I know that I can't really give a clear-cut answer anytime a student asks me this question). The truth is that it depends on a lot of different factors. Let's take a look at a few of the most important now... Your Goals Everyone has a different idea as to what "good" means. Some people have very modest goals, while others are much more ambitious. For Example: One guitarist may only want to play so... [Read More]

    I think we've all done it at some point. We've looked at some incredible guitarist play and wonder just how they got so good. Maybe we've even asked ourselves questions like...   --Are they just naturally talented? --Do they have something that I don't? --Will I ever be able to play like them? If you can relate to these questions, then you can feel better by knowing that you're not alone. I definitely asked myself those questions when I started learning lead guitar. And I know that many of my students have asked themselves similar questions. It can definitely be quite intimidating watching someone play with incredible skill...especially if you're new to lead guitar! So how do you think these amazing players got so good? Well, clearly there is no simple one-si... [Read More]

  OK...I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit this. I'm definitely not proud of it. And I'm not sure if I should share this with you. But, here it goes anyway... When I first started to learn to alternate pick I was after looking for a quick fix. I was looking for some special, powerful and almost magical alternate picking exercise that would fix all my problems. I wanted to discover an exercise that would transform me into an alternate picking beast! I wanted to uncover some kind of secret exercise that would help me pick as fast as a machine gun. :-) So what happened? Well...over a period of time I bought virtually every instructional video that I could find that talked about alternate picking. I had videos by awesome pickers such as Paul Gilbert, Yngwie Malmsteen, Shawn Lan... [Read More]