One of my students inside Essential CAGED Guitar System had a great question about which was more important when learning soloing.

I thought I’d share my answer here. The timeless debate scales vs licks.

They asked:

=== 

it's more important to develop your lead solos over the pentatonic shapes and chord tones than it is memorizing a lot of riffs. Right?

===

It’s kinda like saying what's more important the car or the wheels.

Scales are a lot like the box frame of a car. While licks are like the wheels.

If you just have the boxframe of a car without wheels. Going anywhere is pretty tough. What happens to players who focus only on a bunch of scale work is. Their solos end up sounding boring and lacking melody.

On the other hand, if you just have wheels (licks). Sure, you could hop on a single wheel like a unicycle and ride around a bit. But you might find yourself limited on the fretboard and lacking substance. You won’t understand how the notes work or the...

One of my students inside Essential CAGED Guitar System had a great question about which was more important when learning soloing. 

I thought I’d share my answer here. They said:

===

it's more important to develop your lead solos over the pentatonic shapes and chord tones than it is memorizing a lot of riffs. Right?

===

Ah yes! The timeless debate scales vs licks.

It’s kinda like saying what's more important the car or the wheels.

Scales are a lot like the box frame of a car. While licks are like the wheels.

If you just have the boxframe of a car without wheels. Going anywhere is pretty tough. What happens to players who focus only on a bunch of scale work is. Their solos end up sounding boring and lacking melody.

On the other hand, if you just have wheels (licks). Sure, you could hop on a single wheel like a unicycle and ride around a bit. But you might find yourself limited on the fretboard and lacking substance. You won’t understand how the notes work or...

Back in the day, I used to watch a lot of iconic performances on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Ed was a big deal. He was super charismatic and seemed to be able to connect with viewers of all ages. And you’ve got to give him credit for introducing a huge variety of acts to America. Everything from comedians and dancers to opera singers and rock and roll stars.

But one of the most impactful performances I saw, other than the Beatles of course, was Bo Diddley’s.

Apparently, the producers wanted Bo to perform the old country song “Sixteen Tons”. Ed also agreed and thought this would be a safe choice for his audience.

But Bo Diddley at the last minute went rogue.

Instead of performing “Sixteen Tons”. He played his own brand new song called “Bo Diddley”. 

Yup.

“Bo Diddley” by Bo Diddley

This was a bold move. He had some serious guts to defy the wishes of such a powerful television program at the time. In fact, some accounts of it...

Very few songs ever created move the world like this one…

The story behind it is powerful and emotional, and the chords and melody fit the sentiment of the tune perfectly.

It’s a complete masterpiece from beginning to end.  

So grab your guitar and let’s dive into this “Tears in Heaven” guitar lesson. 

What is the story behind Tears in Heaven? 

Tears in Heaven" was written by Eric Clapton and Will Jennings. It was released in January 1992 and is one of Clapton's most iconic and personal songs. 

The song was written about the tragic death of his four-year-old son, Conor. Conor fell from a 53rd-floor window in a New York City apartment building. The lyrics powerfully express Clapton's grief and his contemplations about the afterlife and whether he would be reunited with his son in heaven. 

Eric Clapton co-wrote "Tears in Heaven" with songwriter Will Jennings, who initially hesitated to write about such a personal and...

Below are 20 little mistakes I noticed common with players who have been playing a long time but get stuck.

If you are newer to guitar, take note of these. They can help you get it right from the beginning so you don’t have to go back later.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity here. Getting these fundamentals right is very important.

 Here we go:

*Can’t play to a metronome

*Can't tune without a tuner

*Thinking that if they can play something once, they’ve mastered it

*Bad posture and body mechanics

*Notes are buzzing

*Playing with too much tension – this will stop you in your tracks and make you choke up on stage

*Not having a system for fingerings to play guitar

*Hitting other strings everyone can hear by accident

*Thinking one note can only be played one way. When really any one note could be played 1,000+ ways.

*Can’t tap foot while playing

*When they go to sing, the strum hand stops 

*Does not understand time signatures

*Tries to play...

Are you struggling to make it to the next step in your guitar-playing career?

If so, I have a valuable tip in this post that just might be the secret to you getting unstuck.

To make my point, let me tell you this story. I heard it from a friend. So full disclosure, it’s not my story. But I did take martial arts classes as I kid so I can completely understand where it’s coming from.

Here goes…

There’s this young whippersnapper who once went to an old Wing Chun kung fu master wanting to learn how to fight. He waltzes in and tells the Sifu he wants to be able to really kick some a**.

So, the kung fu master starts showing him the basics of how to punch. The young man gets impatient and says, “Sifu, when are you going to show me ADVANCED???”

The Sifu walks over to the corner of the room where there is a candle lit. He throws a rapid fire punch so fast by the side of the candle. The wind created from his punch immediately blows out the flame.

The Sifu...

Behold a magnificent song every fingerstyle guitar player should know.

The story behind it is quite interesting, and the melody and chords have stood the test of time.

So grab your guitar and let’s dive into this “Sound of Silence” guitar lesson.

Who wrote Sound of Silence?

“Sound of Silence" was written by Paul Simon, one half of the iconic American folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. He wrote it in February 1964 and it was first released on the album "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." in the same year.

It’s a haunting song that has lyrics about isolation, alienation, and the lack of communication in society. While the actual meaning of the tune is unknown.

The story behind "Sound of Silence" is quite interesting. Simon wrote it when he was only 21 years old and was feeling disillusioned with the state of the world. He wrote the song in his bathroom at his parent's house while they were out. He turned off the lights so he could focus.

Initially, the song...

There’s this crazy story about Steve Vai getting kicked out of a guitar lesson with Joe Satriani… 

The year was 1973 and at the early age of 13. Vai started taking lessons from Satriani, who was roughly four years older.

In one of Vai’s first lessons, Satriani assigned him this: 

“Memorize all the notes on the guitar in one week.” 

Vai, overwhelmed by the guitar neck, had no idea what to do. He thought there was no way he could do it. His memory wasn’t that good.

So he came back the next week and Satriani said, “OK play an F# on the B string.”

Vai got immediately flustered. He was muttering and fumbling as he looked down at the guitar neck, and Satriani said, “Stop!..lesson over.” 

Then he wrote down in Vai's book, which he says he still has to this day.

“If you don’t know your notes, you don’t know SH-*!” And then sent him home.

Back in the day, this was the old-school hard a*$...

Here’s an embarrassing little tidbit about what I’ve been going through lately…

I think you can use this info to help you play guitar better and improve faster.

When I was a kid, I was homeschooled. Grade zero all the way up through high school, until I went to college at UCLA for music.

But early on, and probably still to this day, I was a little nuisance. Kinda like Dennis the Menace. Remember that show?

Anyway, my mom hired various tutors to teach me, as well as herself throughout my early years. One day my tutor was showing me how to hold a pencil and write with it. 

Now, there are basic principles for a good pencil grip. It should be held in a stable position between the thumb, index, and middle fingers. But being the little shyt I was. I didn’t do this. I grabbed the pencil like a monkey and wrote however I wanted.

I remember the teacher telling me, “No Jonathan, hold the pencil like this” as she demonstrated.

I was so bad, they got...

The year was 2002…

I had just bought tickets to see the Who at the Hollywood Bowl and was ecstatic.

You see, Pete Townshend was one of my idols, and seeing him do the windmill arm live was definitely on my bucket list.

The show I had tickets to was on a Sunday night…

But something tragic happened the Friday before the show...

News broke that John Entwistle had passed away...

My heart sank as I thought this is it, I’m not going to the Who. They are going to cancel the shows.

So they canceled Friday night's show and Saturday’s show. But the first show back was the show I had tickets to on Sunday night.

And wow was it a powerful night…

In fact, Roger Daltrey came up on the mic, and the first thing he said to 17,500 Who fans at the bowl was…

“Tonight we play for John”...

Another amazing side-note to this story is that legendary bass player Pino Palladino had stepped in and learned all of John’s bass parts for the whole show in...