Black Belt Guitar Academy

Tommy Emmanuel

Tommy Emmanuel is one of the most overall brilliant guitar players in the world, and voted best all around guitar player and entertainer in Australia. You never knew you could get so much music out of an old acoustic guitar. Tommy Emmanuel sends all of us back to school.

Guitar Challenge of the Week:

This week's example is a groovy blues combo with a heavy BB King influence, including the sound of his guitar, "Lucille". There are two guitar parts in this example, and you should learn them both. Notice the call and response action, or in other words the "conversation" going on between guitars.

I Ching, the Book of Changes: Part 2

In this part two, I Ching patterns are applied to guitar string groupings with some observations to get you started in your exploration of how the guitar is really 64 instruments in one. When these string groupings and their distinct qualities and limitations are mastered, then your playing will become more expressive and articulate.

I Ching, the Book of Changes: Part 1

From ancient China, within the pages of the oldest text on Earth, we find some interesting insights to the nature of the guitar, which can help us develop a deeper connection with the physical and spiritual aspects of the instrument. This lesson is an introduction into the I Ching itself.

The Essence and Importance of Flow

Listening to music, we hardly notice how music flows from one measure or from one phrase or section to the next. But playing flowing music requires many months of study and training. Developing timing and flow cannot be rushed any more in music than in learning a new language. It takes time, effort, practice, trials, errors and reinforcement and celebration of successes.

Scale Modes as Substitutes for Major and Minor

Scale modes as colorful scales are essential to all aspiring lead guitarists. This lesson explains how to think of scale modes as substitutes for major and minor scales, and how to use them.

Eddie Van Halen

There is before Eddie Van Halen, and then there's after Eddie. In the world of Rock Guitar, there has arguably never been another player with a greater impact on how the guitar was played. Eddie's musical sensibilities combined with chops, virtuosity and unique techniques blazed new trails for the up and coming generation to follow.

Major Scales and the CAGED + 2 System

The C major scale is the most universally recognizable scale in all of Western music, owing to all the songs written in the key of C. However, learning to play the C scale on a guitar is a bit of a challenge for most beginners, and even intermediate players. It's just one of those scales we have to master, and this lesson breaks it down into manageable chunks.

Derek Trucks

Derek Trucks is the youngest player ever to be voted into the Best 100 Guitar Players of All Time poll. When you hear Derek, you'll know why. Derek is one of the premier slide guitar players of all time, with deep southern roots and branching out to world music.

Ritchie Blackmore

Ritchie Blackmore made his indelible impression on the 60's and 70's rock scene with Deep Purple, and later with Rainbow, and gave the world the most recognizable series of power chords in rock... Smoke on the Water.

Your Attention Channels

This lesson gives some ideas that help to boost concentration. By gaining total control over our ability to concentrate, we open the physical, mental and physical channels that allow music to flow freely.

Learning to Play Leads Using the Vector Method

Having trouble hearing all those fast notes from your favorite players? Try the techniques in this lesson to help you dissect and interpret the most elaborate and lively leads. Learn to make the leads uniquely your own, while preserving the essence of the original artist.

Improve Your Solos with Drones and Pedal Notes

No matter how fast you can play, no matter how technically brilliant your fretwork, unless you build good melody into your lead playing, you will quickly lose your audience. This lesson will show you how you can use droning and pedal notes for solo practice to help your sharpen your melodic sensibilities and make your solo and lead playing more interesting and emotionally compelling.

Red Hot Double Stop Picking

High-octane double-stops fuel hot country and rockabilly solos. This lessons introduces double-stop picking, and gives you the are some ideas for supercharging your leads.

The Way of the Black Belt is One Eternal Round

At the end of our journey, we find ourselves again at the beginning. This lesson will give you a tangible experience of the distance you have traveled to this point, and also a humbling way to keep you connected with those you teach.

Overtones and Natural Harmonics

This lesson will show where natural guitar harmonics are found on your guitar, and how to avoid unwanted harmonic feedback. You'll learn enough practical theory and observations to understand harmonics.

Rhythm Melody Harmony: The Basis of All Theory

At the heart of every lesson and every practice session there should be an awareness of three vital and essential forces in all music. Learning how to manipulate these forces will give your music and performances tremendous depth, clarity and power.

The Four Corners of the Harmonic Landscape

There are thousands of possible chords in the Western scale, and millions of possible chord progressions, but armed with knowledge of the harmonic scale, you are ready to learn about four broad categories that songs fall into harmonically. Understanding these categories can help you make sense the endless possibilities of and chord progressions, and improve your songwriting.

Simple Sample Blues Licks

This lesson will present some common and useful blues licks for those just starting out. Take these for a test drive and see if they can get you off to a good start.

Blues Rhythm Patterns

In this lesson you will focus on the most common and distinctive rhythm patterns in blues music form, straight 8ths, straight 16ths, swing and shuffle.

Blues Tunes Need Lyrics

Let's face it, dear guitar players... the blues aren't the blues unless you sing 'em. As a green belt, you should master singing while playing. The blues format offers a safe, familiar platform for singing from your heart.

Modified Blues Scale

This modified blues scale has two passing tones that make it doubly blues sounding and give additional variety and color to the usual blues scale. This is a favorite of Steve Morse, and many of the better Nashville players.

Minor Blues Scale

The minor blues scale is akin to the minor pentatonic scale, which you should also already know by now. Additional passing tones create a more colorful palette of sound. Learn the most common box patterns for playing the minor blues scale here.

Major Blues Scale

The major blues scale is very similar to the major pentatonic scale that you already know by now, but has an additional passing tone that makes it undeniably bluesy. Learn the most common box patterns for playing the major blues scale here.

Minor Blues

Blues played in a minor key has a very solemn, dark, heavy feel and the progressions that every green belt should have in their repertoire, just for those occasions when no other form of music can adequately tell the story. Minor blues can be played in the 12 or 8-bar forms.

Major 8-Bar Blues

The hugely common 8-bar blues form follows the blues I - IV - V form, although not the same blues feel as the 12-bar blues. Still, after 8 measures, there is a strong sense of verse completion. This lesson will help you learn the structure and how to use it in your own playing.

Major 12-Bar Blues

The study of the blues is the core focus of the green belt. You are preparing for your blue belt, which means that you understand and have good mastery of all the musical concepts embodied by the blues. This first lesson deals with the framework that the blues are built upon, otherwise known as the 12-bar blues.

Moveable 6th Chords

6th chords are a vital part of the competent and confident jazz and blues players' library. Learn these moveable chord shapes, and you'll be playing several voicings of this pleasing chord in any key. These chords are a cool departure from the bland and boring triads and power chords.

Ottmar Liebert

Ottmar Liebert has forged a unique blend of flamenco, salsa, bossa nova, and contemporary rock and blues classics through years of study, experimentation and sheer genius. Ottmar's style will add new dimensions to the way you see and hear guitar, and you'll find classical and latin styles more accessible than ever before.

Billy Gibbons

When you think of Billy Gibbons, you think of ZZ Top, or maybe you've heard of ZZ Top, and didn't know the name of the blues juggernaut behind the raunchy sound. The blues and rock concepts Billy relies on are simple, but packed with enough energy to keep packing in the crowds at tours around the world. ZZ Top's sound is one of the favorites of Hollywood directors and producers as well. This trio really packs a wallop!

Pentatonic Scales: Rocker's Favorites

Pentatonic scales and guitars go together like peas in a pod. They are a favorite of rock, blues and jazz fusion players, because of their forgiving fingering and exotic sound.

The CAGED System: Seeing the Fretboard

After mastering open chords and barre chords, this lesson has the natural next step for helping you see the entire guitar fretboard. It's called the CAGED system, and unlike the name implies, the system is quite liberating. In 5 minutes of studying this lesson, you'll learn more than at perhaps any other lesson about the fretboard.

Major and Minor Scales: Yin and Yang of Scales

Major and Minor scales are the workhorses of Western music (not western like John Wayne, Western like descended from European roots. Learn why these scales are so pervasive, how they are related, and why they are complementary.

A Horizontal Approach to Playing

You probably know the feeling of not getting anywhere with your playing. Everything seems to be tied down to those darn positions and patterns, and your fingers won't let your mind sing freely. Everything is just hard work! If you do, this lesson is for you.Christian Mose-Chistensen is an accomplished, well-read and well-rehearsed musician with great fretboard knowledge and a practical knack. Christian highly recommends this book:

The Advancing Guitarist Performed by Mick Goodrick. Reference. Size 9x12 inches. 116 pages. Published by Hal Leonard. (603009)
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A Horizontal Approach - Take 2

Christian gives us a few more ideas we can sqeeze from single-string playing, that you may not have thought of before. This lesson will help you keep stale practicing a little more fresh.

Styles of the Fender Stratocaster

Nothing sounds like a stratocaster, and in the right hands, it is arguably the most versatile and expressive instrument on earth. The strat has added a depth and range to all electic guitar styles, such that the strat can almost qualify as a style in itself. Learn from one of the world's top teachers how to reach down and pull out the best sounds from your own strat.

Playing in the Style of the Fender! Stratocaster Greats DVD. By Tom Kolb. DVD. DVD (Digital Video Disk). Published by Hal Leonard Corporation. (320381)
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Intro to Major Scale Modes

Scale modes are essential to all aspiring lead guitarists. Few self-taught players know what modes are, and even fewer know how to use them effectively. This lesson explains how to get started with modes as scales that fit over the chords in the harmonic scale.

Reading Music for Guitar: Pegging Notes to Fretboard

In this lesson, we present you with a free and useful tool that will help you tie the notes you read on paper to the positions on the fretboard. You can download the graphic, and make it your desktop wallpaper to help you learn it while you are waiting for your hourglass to go away.

Music Reading for Guitar

Been playing for 10 years and still can't read standard notation? It's not because you haven't tried... it's because it can only be taught by one who really knows how. By the end of this course, you will be hearing music in your head anytime you see written music.

Adrian Legg

Voted Guitarist Magazine's Guitar Player of the Decade, Adrian Legg is unlike ANY guitar player you have ever heard. Don't try to imitate him, because you can't. But hearing his fingerstyle in almost every guitar tuning imaginable will give you an appreciation for the depth of possibilities for the instrument that most of us only scratch the surface with.

Extending Bar Chords by Morphing: A Form

This lesson will show you how to construct 7th, 9th and 13th chords on your knowledge of the A-form bar chord. Again, you start with what you already know, then add to it one or two notes at a time to give color.

Making Music 2

More in-depth concepts from Pablo Ortega. This is a continuation of the first lesson, and has to do with important musical constructs which all composers should know. Midi and tab also for illustration.

Making Music

Pablo Ortega is a professional class Black Belt Guitar member who accepted the invitation to post a lesson of his own for the benefit of everyone. Pablo is an accomplished player still in his teens, who follows Steve Vai, Stanley Jordan, Wes Montgomery, and Pat Metheny. Pablo is strong in theory, technique and phrasing. Enjoy Pablo's lesson, and let us all know what you think in the forums. Thanks, Pablo.

Balance in Martial Arts and Guitar

In Martial Arts, there are three vital important aspects of balance. The fighter that masters all three aspects, wins, the other loses. These principles have surprising application in music as well.

Cadences: Musical Punctuation

Understanding cadences allows you to understand and enjoy the music you listen to a little more, but the real benefit of understanding cadences is how to use them to make clear statements in the music you write.

Harmonic Scale Directional Chord Changes

This lesson will show that within a harmonic scale, there are all kinds of possible chord change combinations, but from the perspective of forward motion when pairing chords together, there are really only 4 potential kinds of choices to understand and master.

Jazz Primer: Comparing to Pop

Jazz is group of styles that may elude us self-taught guitarists for years, and seems to belong to those, who having mastered rock, pop, country ideas and concepts, are looking for new musical frontiers. So if we feel ready for a taste of jazz but don't know how to get started, or how or when might we break out from blocky, redundant and circular musical constructs to free-flowing jazz form, this tip may help. Where can we go for a working definition of jazz concepts to know what we can borrow to add color or depth, or to "jazz up" our playing?

7th Chords: More Stacked 3rds

These chords are very common in jazz and pop music, and the only way to really learn them is to memorize the construction, and learn to finger them on the fretboard. No shortcuts, just take the time to memorize the sound and the fingering. You will be armed for bear.

Intervals: The Essential Building Blocks of All Music

Notes do not make music. It's the intervals between notes that give a melody its direction... either toward or away from the tonic, or home base. Studying this intervalic tension and release will help you understand why some melodies are compelling and others are not. Songwriters, you should know this well.

Gary Moore

Gary Moore is a multi-talented blues-rock artist, and is a big favorite among many of our polled members. Gary's style is straight forward driving rock/blues, but his phrasing and licks are all original, groundbreaking and unmistakably Gary Moore signature work. Gary is a must-own artist if electric blues is your game.

Joe Satriani

Every serious rock lead guitar player should own a few Satriani albums, to hear the purest form of neo-classical and avant garde rock with high distortion. Harmonics, whammy tricks, stretching, modes, modulation, and violin-and harp-like rifts, intertwined with raunch, and heart-wrenching polyphonic acoustic work. Nobody makes music theory work quite like this guy.

Extending Bar Chords by Morphing: E Form

No need to be afraid of chords with big numbers. This lesson will show you how to construct 7th, 9th and 13th chords on your knowledge of the E-form bar chord. Extending chords is easier if you start with what you already know, then add to it one note at a time to give color. This lesson will get you on your way.

In and Yo: Our Place in the Musical Universe

One of the most important realizations in music (and life) is that we cannot play everything, but what we choose to play, we should play extremely well. The ancient concept of In and Yo teaches us artists how to find our niche in the universe of musical possibilities.

Yin and Yang: Dynamics in Music

Every song, every practice, every lesson has elements of Yin and Yang running through it. Understanding these dynamics makes all the music you listen to and play more vibrant, dynamic and alive. Important to understand before studying any of the lessons.

Body Mind and Spirit in Music and Guitar

Martial Arts teaches us that humans are spiritual beings. Music, like no other force, can teach us about our own spirituality, and the interconnection between our bodies, minds and spirit.

Triads: Stacked 3rd Intervals

Most harmony in Western music is based on tertian harmony, or some combination of major and/or minor 3rd intervals stacked atop one another. Learn some useful guitar chord formulas based on stacked 3rds.

Joe Satriani: Riff from Big Bad Moon

Here is a classic lick from Joe Satriani. This one is an ear teaser and very raunchy if you can nail the notes and time.

The Journey of the Black Belt Guitar Player

Great guitar players are not born, they are made... one hour of practice at a time. We do not promise quick success, but we do offer a comprehensive method that closely examines the knowledge and skills of great players who gain their status by earning it. These are players that know all the basics, inside and out. They play mean lean and clean guitar, and push the boundaries of their own styles. They know music, and they know their instruments. They know it all, and they do it all day in and out. These are black belt players. Maybe they are famous, maybe not. Maybe you know someone who is a true black belt guitarist... and maybe this is you.

Like Zen Guitar, this site explores the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of playing guitar music, and dynamic musical forces at work with rhythm, melody and harmony. More than Zen Guitar, we also explore how music works technically, so we get the best of both worlds: a little Eastern philosophy mixed in with good old Western music theory and practical examples.

Black Belt Guitar Academy is Web-ified!

Black Belt Guitar Academy is reaching out to guitar players everywhere who are making the world a better place through music.

Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck is arguably the most creative and influential electric guitar player of our musical era. His work has inspired other greats such as Steve Morse, Eric Johnson and others today. Jeff was a contemporary and acquaintance of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, but Jeff's playing was all his own. When you think of modern electric guitar, whether it is straight up rock or jazz fusion, you think of Jeff Beck.

Steve Morse

Steve Morse is set apart from all other guitarists by his raw speed and precision picking, underscored by classical and jazz training and unequaled songwriting and improvisational genius. Steve's licks and signature sound are among the most difficult to imitate, and seldom tried. Steve has played, toured or recorded with the Dixie Dregs, Kansas, Triumph, Lynard Skynard, the Steve Morse Band, Rush, Al DiMiola, Paco DeLucia, Manuel Barrueco and most recently, Deep Purple. Take this opportunity to be inspired by one of the most prodigious talents ever.

Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson is known for his exquisite tone, technicality, intense attention to details, raw speed, and colorful playing. His genre spans instrumental rock, jazz, country, fusion, and blues, having absorbed the styles of many of the fathers of each of these styles and amalgamating them into a powerful manifestation of his own style. If you have not listened to or studied from Eric's many available instructional offerings, you are missing an opportunity of a lifetime.

Blackberry Blossom

Here is a riff from a classic Bluegrass standard tune that sounds best played fast. See if you can keep up!

Hidden Beast

More recent Steve Morse work brings us this lick. This is a good speed drill, and when you finally get it up to speed and use distortion, you can hear the the beast emerge. It's cool!

Cruise Missile

A classic Steve Morse lick from his early solo work. Chromatic quadruplets, modulation, alternate picking and speed all come together in this lick.

Alternate Picking

This lesson deals with an often overlooked and almost always underdeveloped technique in most guitar players: alternate picking. Learn tricks and tips from the best in the world, and blow your friends away.

The Never Ending Circle of 5ths

This lesson explains the Circle of 5ths, where it came from, what it is used for, and what its limitations are. All guitar players who want to really know how music works, should know this cold.

Compound Intervals: Intervals in 2nd Octave

Compound Intervals are intervals that span more that an octave, but less than two. These intervals are important to learn in jazz guitar because jazz uses so many extended chords, 9ths, 11th, and 13ths, all of which are extend beyond the perfect octave.

Intervals: Musical Atoms

An interval is the distance between two notes and is measured in whole or half steps. An understanding of intervals is required in order to understand any discussion of melody or harmony. Intervals played sequentially create melody, intervals played simultaneously create harmony. Intervals are classified as either perfect, major or minor.

Want to Turbocharge your Guitar Learning Abilities?

Effective Learning habits and methods can teach you how to transform any idle time into quality practice time whether you have your guitar or not. This reference will teach you how to effectively learn to play your instrument... even when you don't have your instrument with you. You can potentially be learning to play guitar 24 hours a week, even if you only have a guitar in hand for 5 or 6 hours a week.

Blues Scales

Blues scales are perhaps the third most common and popular scale in music today. It abounds of course in blues, but also spills over comfortably in rock country and jazz.

Tritone: The Devil's Interval

What? The devil's interval? Don't look at us. We didn't invent the name, We're just letting you in on a little known secret among self-taught guitarists. Learn this interval, and why it can wreak so much mayhem in music.

Harmonic Scale Chords for All Major Keys

This lesson has all the base chords and a few of the most popular substitute chords you can use in the major harmonic scale. Please use this to check your answers to the previous lesson's exercise, and commit now to learn this stuff well.

Nashville Numbering System Adapted for Black Belt Guitar

To help you learn how to use the Harmonic scale the way the pros do, we have adapted a system developed by old-timer Neal Matthews, of Nashville fame. Neal's numbering system evolved in Nashville as a way of quickly communicating diatonic progressions that could be used by musicians in the studio who did not all read music, but they sure could play! Learning this system will be a serious time-saver for all guitar players who want to play solid music by ear without having to read music.

Basic Theory of Harmonic Scale Progressions

Somehow you have noodled your way through the internet to arrive at the heart and soul of how all music flows... from chord center to chord center... within an established key. Your ear senses this flow when listening to any kind of music, but you probably have not learned how chords connect together to make music, and more importantly, how to make your music interesting, which is a fine balance between boredom and ear-sickness. This is where you will begin to learn how to connect chords together so that they sound great!

She's So Heavy (Modified Ending)

This riff, inspired by the Beatles "She's So Heavy" has a lot of noteworthy elements in it. First is the driving 6/8 meter that doesn't pause to let you rest. Next is the base note melody of the minor scale while the arpeggiated chords ring above the dark melody. In bar 7 we threw in major 6th intervals walking down chromatically, which is a really hard to pick out by ear in some leads, especially when played fast. This riff also sounds great on acoustic, classical or electric guitars (jangly, glassy tones work well, and if you have phaser or chorus, it also adds depth to the riff).

2nd and 7th Intervals: The Leading Intervals

More intervals to discuss, think about and get into your ear. In Scales, the 2nd and 7th intervals play the role of leading the melody "home" to the tonic note. In Chords, these intervals play the role of adding color, direction or suspense.

Major and Minor Chord Inversions

Now that you have mastered open chord shapes and bar chord shapes, it's time to turn those chords upside down! This lesson will expose you to major and minor triad (three-note) inversions.

3rd and 6th Intervals: The Emotional Intervals

Since you have already mastered the perfect intervals, you have a solid foundation for any western chord or scale. Now you are ready to learn the next set of intervals: those which impart emotion into the chords or scale.

Moveable A-Form Barre Chords

Now we come to the bar chords of the A-form. The A form is the perfect foil for the E-form. Here's why... Leaving the index finger in the same position and just moving the 2, 3, and 4 fingers onto the next higher strings, you are already playing a perfect 4th up the scale. Starting on in the A-form and hanging to the E-form leaving the index finger in the same position, you have gone down a perfect 4th, which is the musical equivalent of going up a perfect 5th.

Moveable E-Form Barre Chords

Welcome to Bar-Chords. Fasten your seatbelt, because you are about to learn how to give wings to some easy open-chord shapes that you already know. This will both reinforce what you already know, and open new doors to comfortably play songs that were just out of reach with open chords alone.

Perfect Intervals: Pillars of Western Music

Of all the intervals in our Western scale, the perfect intervals are the ones that act as the anchors for all the other intervals to swirl around in music. Learn to recognize them by ear, and you will have a solid foundation on which to build your later understanding of chords, scales and progressions.

Open Minor 7th Chords

Congratulations! At the end of this lesson, you will have 35 of the most popular chords used in pop, country, rock, bluegrass and jazz. You will be armed with 35 chord forms that can be transposed up and down the neck to any key by using a capo. This is an amazing accomplishment, and you should be proud. Many professional artists play all their tunes using only the chords you have learned so far!

Open Major 7th Chords

More very common open chords to get to know. By now you are probably beginning to take notice that the chords have a lot in common with the ones you already know, but the sound is quite unique. It's this difference in the quality of the tiny changes that make them so interesting and useful. Pay particular attention to these differences. At the end of this lesson, you'll have 28 of the most popular chords in music in your arsenal!

Open Dominant 7th Chords

In this lesson you will add more open chords to your library. These chords are similar to those you have already learned, but the addition of the dominant 7th chord will add funk, and flair to your playing. At the end of this lesson, you'll have 21 of the most popular chords in music at your disposal!

Open Minor Chords

In this lesson you will double the number of open chords you have already learned, by adding the natural complement to the major chord series. When you learn the major and minor chords together, you will be able to play the accompaniment to most popular songs ever written.

Open Major Chords

These are the first 7 chords that every beginning guitar student should master. Play these chords comfortably, and you'll be able to play almost any beginning-level song.

Knowing your Guitar Neck like the Back of your Hand

Want to learn a valuable skill that your friends probably won't? Commit now to learn something that most self-taught guitar players never learn. This skill will enable later learning of reading music by sight.

Tuning Your Guitar

The purpose of this lesson is to help you keep your guitar in tune so that it sounds optimal for the kind of playing you do. Unless you know how to tune across all strings, and along the whole neck of the guitar, you may find that your guitar sounds good when playing an open C chord, but when playing the same C chord as a bar chord on the 8th fret, it sounds out of tune.

Guitarist and Guitar Anatomy 101

Parts are parts... or are they? In this short but important lesson, we just want to take a little time to pay attention to some details too often overlooked in keeping the guitarist and their guitars healthy. We want both you and your guitars to be around for a very long time.

Effective Practice

This lesson will reveal some of the secrets that separate great players from the rest. The secret is in knowing how to practice, then doing it... consistently. What to practice varies with each player. We will focus here on the how to make the most of your practice time.

Set Management: A Must-Have in Performing

Even when you have learned 1000 songs, and have achieved superstar status... the most you'll ever be able to play for an audience in one concert is about 20. Most gigs we play while coming up through the ranks are much shorter, so what you don't play is as important as what you do play. This lesson will help you polish your performances to knock the socks off your audience.

Ongoing Growth: Horizontally and Vertically

A black belt guitar player should be both wide and deep, as explained in the sections below. Also the black belt guitar player should be continually expanding both horizontally and vertically. This lesson has a few ideas to keep you growing and make you a wider and deeper player.

Always Begin Here!

What would you do if you knew in advance you could not fail? What is that secret element that separates good players from bad players, and great ones from good ones? You may be surprised by the answer.

Ear Training: What? How? Why?

It's not "ear straining", or "fear training", it's EAR TRAINING. This lesson will give you a very practical approach to the subject that will help you do it right and won't burn you out.

Inverted Chord Forms

Inverted chords are just chords we already know, except they are upside-down. Chord inversions are important for intermediate guitar players to learn to add variety, substance, character, flexibility and feeling to their playing.

Musical Vitamins for Guitar Players

To always be ready for peak performance, we need to be sharp and at our best physically, mentally and spiritually. This lesson will give us a complete list of musical Vitamins, that when taken in recommended doses will help us to enable us to absorb the music we ingest, process it, and derive energy from it. Musical vitamins also help us grow, stave off disease that can afflict musicians and heal ourselves musically.

Guitar Teaching Do's and Don'ts

Here is a brief list of do's and dont's that can help make or break a guitar teacher in the minds of their students.

Guitar Teaching Basics to Remember

Anyone can call themselves a guitar teacher, and even charge money for it, but most students are smart enough to figure out after a while whether they are learning anything from you. So this lesson will give teachers some basics to remember.

Guitar and Martial Arts?

This site is founded on an idea that many guitarist/martial artists have noticed in the course of practicing both arts.