So sang the Beatles on their 1967 Christmas record of the same name, one of several now-collectable flexi-discs issued annually to members of the band's official fan clubs in the U.K. and U.S.
The records, which often were mini-masterpieces in their own right (1966 and 1967 in particular), featured spoken and musical messages from all four members of the band. They started in 1963, when all four band members recorded the message in the same studio at the same time, and ended in 1969, when each Beatle basically phoned in his part from who knows where.
As a final holiday gift to the fans, a Christmas compilation album — From Them to You in the U.K., The Beatles' Christmas Album in the U.S. — was issued in December 1970, a few months after the band had officially called it a day.
Below, we've gathered all seven Beatles Christmas records — plus Christmas and/or holiday tunes by all four solo Beatles from 1971 to 2012.
By the way, the only Beatle to record an entire Christmas album was Ringo Starr, who released I Wanna Be Santa Claus in 1999. To keep things simple (and generally pleasing for everyone involved), we've included only the title track.
Below, you have the makings of a very Beatles Christmas. Use it with caution!
1963: The Beatles' Christmas Record
1964: Another Beatles Christmas Record
1965: The Beatles' Third Christmas Record
1966: The Beatles' Fourth Christmas Record — Pantomime: Everywhere It's Christmas
1967: Christmas Time Is Here Again!
1968: The Beatles' 1968 Christmas Record
NOTE: This one features Tiny Tim.
1969: The Beatles' Seventh Christmas Record: Happy Christmas 1969
1971: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"
1974: George Harrison, "Ding Dong, Ding Dong"
NOTE: This one features Ringo Starr on drums and Alvin Lee of Ten Years After on guitar. Although it's not exactly a Christmas song, it's a holiday tune that was released as a single around New Year's Day 1975.
1979: Paul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmastime"
NOTE: That's brilliant fingerstyle guitarist Laurence Juber in the video.
I'm not exactly sure how to describe my take on the music that came out in 2013.
Did I simply take a year off — a vacation, if you will — from listening to new stuff? Did I intentionally focus on old stuff, reissues, box sets and new albums by incredibly old artists?
Simple answer? Yeah, that's pretty much what I did. And I had a good time.
That said, I'm looking forward to a ton of new albums that are scheduled for 2014, including the Reverend Horton Heat's Rev and a new one from Jeff Beck.
On that note, here are my top 11 (yes, 11 — call it a bonus!) albums of 2013. See you next year!
For the rest of Guitar World's Year End 2013 content — including Brad Tolinski's 10 Best Albums of the Year, Guitar World's 30 Best Albums of the Year, a Tribute to the Rockers We Lost in 2013, Paul Riario's top gear picks and more, head HERE.
My favorite acoustic-based album of 2013 would be Charlie Worsham’s Rubberband. Mississippi boy Charlie Worsham was a child prodigy.
Before he went through puberty, he had already played banjo on the Grand Ole Opry stage with Earl Scruggs. His guitar skills are unmatched among modern country artists. He is one of the rare artists who actually plays lead guitar while singing. f you go to a Charlie Worsham show, it will be Charlie, not a hired gun playing the solos for each song.
As a disclaimer, I must confess that I wrote two songs on Rubberband. Charlie’s first single, “Could It Be” was a co-write with Charlie and producer Ryan Tyndell as was “Trouble Is.” “Could It Be” was the highest charting debut single for any country artist in 2013. I will let the reader judge those two songs for themselves.
Check out the official video for “Could It Be.”
Highlights on the album include “Mississippi In July,” with lyrics like “My heart might as well be one of those cans tied to the back of your limousine” as he describes watching the girl he SHOULD have married drive off into the sunset with her new husband.
“Tools Of The Trade,” features guest vocals from legends Vince Gill and Marty Stuart. Classic country at its best.
The title song, “Rubberband,” features an infectious track that sounds like nothing else in country music and a melody that gets stuck in your head. You won’t be able to stop humming it after one listen.
Here’s the official audio for “Rubberband.”
The second single, “Want Me Too,” is reminiscent of Diamond Rio but is pure Charlie Worsham. Great guitar work and pure tenor voice that makes every word believable.
Charlie Worsham, as a person, is one of the nice guys that you want to see succeed. As an artist, he can hold his own with anyone in the business on the guitar AND vocally. In fact, put any instrument with strings in Charlie’s hands and he will blow you away.
If you haven’t heard of Charlie, you will. Hop on the train early so you don’t miss out on some great music!!
Marty Dodson is a songwriter, corporate trainer and entrepreneur. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell and The Plain White T’s. He once bumped Psy out of the #1 spot on the K-Pop charts but that’s another story for another day. Marty plays Taylor and Batson guitars. Follow him here: www.facebook.com/songtownusa, at www.facebook.com/martydodsonsongwriter and at Twitter @SongTownUSA or visit martydodson.com
Playboy Playmate of the Year Raquel Pomplun, Playboy's Miss May 2013 Kristen Nicole and Audrey Allen, Playboy's Miss June 2013 star in Guitar World's latest Holiday Review Guide.
Guitar World's 2014 Holiday Review Guide includes concise evaluations of the best guitars, amps, effects, recording gear and accessories, aimed at giving you all the info you need to make your next gear purchase wisely.
Reviews on gear from:
• Blackstar • Budda • Carvin • Dean • D'Angelico • Epiphone • Ernie Ball • Fender • Fishman • Framus • Ibanez • Marshall • Martin • Orange • Peavey • Roland • Schecter • Washburn • Yamaha
... and many more!
PLUS: A special sneak preview at next year's models; Winner of our bi-annual Model Search Contest: singer song-writer Kelly Grrl; and much much more!
Today, we're revisiting the 10 most popular "viral" videos to be shared on GuitarWorld.com. How did we determine what was the most popular? Let's just say it all came down to page views!
Note that we've kept this top-10 list to videos that do not feature famous, world-recognized artists. In other words, you won't find our exclusive John Petrucci lesson videos on this list, nor will you find clips of Yngwie Malmsteen shredding at a small TV station in Memphis.
You will, however, find videos that shine the spotlight on regular people whose skills captured the attention of a wide online audience in 2013. Spoiler alert: There is one exception, since a famous guitarist does appear in one of the clips. However, he's accompanied by a 6-year-old drummer.
What can we determine from this list? GuitarWorld.com readers like watching other guitarists — of all sexes and age groups (but mostly women, it's safe to say) — shred. And there's one teenage girl from France who almost has a monopoly on our top five.
On that intriguing note, sit back and enjoy the shredding! Vive le shred!
P.S.: In the spirit of the holidays, we've provided an extra video for your viewing pleasure — for a grand total of 11! Enjoy!
11. Video: A Brief History of Rock and Roll — Guitarist Plays 100 Famous Riffs in One Take (Read the full story here.)
In the very cool video below, guitarist Alex Chadwick at Chicago Music Exchange plays 100 well-known guitar riffs — in one take — providing a chronological history of rock and roll.
And while some of you might've seen this clip before (It was posted in June 2012 and has been viewed almost 7 million times), you might enjoy a recent update to the video — TABS for everything Chadwick plays.
You can check out the tabs, in real time (as Chadwick is playing the 100 riffs), RIGHT HERE, courtesy of Sound Slice.
This video is titled "Fastest guitarist in the world: 27 notes per second on guitar (Sergiy Putyatov) Guinness Record 2012," and it was posted to YouTube earlier this year. Here's the info that was posted with the video:
"Sergiy Putyatov is one of the fastest guitarists in the world. His official Guinness Record is 27 notes per second."
So that's all we know about this clip (except that it looks like it was shot in Liverpool, England, and that Putyatov bears a passing resemblance to Perfect Strangers-era Ritchie Blackmore), but we think you might appreciate this guy's blinding speed.
Well, below, you'll find a more recent video of another guitarist playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" at 1300 BPM on an Ibanez. Yes, you read that correctly — 1300 BPM.
His name is Daniel Himebauch, and the event took place September 8, 2012, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Like the 2011 John Taylor video (See the link above), Himebauch starts off slowly and works his way up to a mind-blowing 1300 BPM.
At the beginning of the clip, Himebauch writes, "This is not a demonstration of musicality or tone and should not be viewed as such." While I completely agree with Himebauch, I have to point out that his guitar sounds more and more like an Eighties-era video game that's about to explode!
08. Video: Bride and Groom Play Loud Electric Guitar Duet Before Getting Married (Read the full story here.)
Below, check out a video of a couple who performed a guitar duet before getting hitched. And if that sounds normal (and we admit it does sound normal), be sure to check out the video.
Jordan Strauss, 30, who teaches guitar in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, taught his bride-to-be, Andrea Strauss, 25, how to play a few chords so they could perform something together on their wedding day (at the church).
"We wanted to do something we knew would stand out and put our own personal stamp to make it even more memorable,"Jordan Strauss told Yahoo.
The ceremony took place in May (and it's just getting noticed now) at a church in Long Valley, New Jersey. Jordan is playing Pachelbel's "Canon" with one of his groomsmen as the priest stands nearby. Andrea enters in white, with a guitar strapped on, and joins in (Note: She seems to be tuned to an open D chord, not that there's anything wrong with that!). At one point, there are four guitarists playing the song.
"She was an easy student to teach. She's a natural. I told her that from day one," Jordan said.
We thought we'd share this just-posted video (August 27) of an 8-year-old girl named Li-Sa-X playing a Guthrie Govan tune, "Fives." The song is from Govan's Erotic Cakes album from 2006 (It is, of course, track 5 on the album).
No, it's not perfect, but it's quite impressive for an 8-year-old (or a 38-year-old). Come on — she's tapping!
For a bit of reference, we've also included a clip of Govan performing the song live a few years back. Enjoy!
06. Video: From Vai to Dimebag to Yngwie, Guitarist Imitates 30 Shredders in One Solo (Read the full story here.)
Here's a video of a talented British guitarist named Ben Higgins, who imitates the styles of 30 famous shredders in one guitar solo. Actually, it's 29 famous shredders, and Higgins includes himself as No. 30, which is justified, to be honest.
He starts things off with some Yngwie Malmsteen-style runs, moves into Eddie Van Halen territory and then pays visits to Steve Vai, Slash, Dimebag Darrell, Zakk Wylde, Uli Jon Roth, Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, John Petrucci and many more.
Higgins even supplies the tabs for the entire solo, and you can access them here.
This time she's performing a piece called "Vivaldi Tribute," inspired by — and featuring music written by — Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).
I'm not going to pretend I'm a Vivaldi expert, so I'll simply quote the information that was posted with the original video on YouTube:
"'Presto' is the third movement from Vivaldi's 'Summer' from 'Four Seasons.' This version is an extract from Patrick Rondat's guitar adaptation on his 1996 Amphibia album."
Tina, who was filmed by her guitar teacher, Renaud Louis-Servais, is playing her Vigier Excalibur guitar.
For more about Tina, visit her YouTube page and follow her on Twitter. For more about Patrick Rondat (He's mentioned above ...), visit rondat.com.
BTW: It seems Tina has been 14 for a long time ... Just sayin'!
04. Video: "Guitar Duel" Featuring Classical Guitarist and Female Seven-String Guitarist (Read the full story here.)
Below, check out a new video of classical guitarist Thomas Valeur performing Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen Op. 20 with a female seven-string guitarist from Norway called "The Commander-In-Chief."
The performance is interesting right off the bat because this piece is normally played on violin.
If you want some background info before diving into the video (which features shots of a nice Laney amp at various points), here's the information that is included with the video on YouTube:
"The two guitarists met when they performed at the Bergen [Norway] International Festival in June 2013. They agreed to cooperate and soon started to work on this piece of music. It took five months to prepare, and the recording took place in November at Modern World Studios in the Cotswolds in England."
The Commander is playing an EMG-equipped prototype Ibanez X Series Falchion 7, which is the only one of its kind (Only six-string models are currently available).
NOTE: The faster stuff starts at around the 5:41 mark. Enjoy!
03. Video: Brad Paisley Plays Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" with 6-Year-Old Drummer (Read the full story here.)
Here's a video of country shredder Brad Paisley rehearsing and performing Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" (three times) with a 6-year-old drummer on Good Morning America earlier this year.
The video was posted by the family of the young drummer, Avery Molek, who appeared on GMA with Paisley on April 12, 2013. First you see their rehearsal, followed by three different live performances of the song.
While it's not unusual to find 12-, 13- and 14-year-old guitarists on YouTube who make adults feel like, well, lame-o guitar players, we thought you'd appreciate this recently posted (May 20) video of 14-year-old "Tina" playing a convincing — and effortless — cover of Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" solo.
In terms of extra information, all we know is that Tina was taught by Renaud Louis-Servais, who also shot and posted the video. Tina is playing a Vigier Excalibur Custom guitar.
Enjoy! And start practicing!
01. Video: 14-Year-Old Girl Performs Steve Vai's Version of Paganini's 5th Caprice from 'Crossroads' (Read the full story here.)
This time she's performing a piece called "Vivaldi Tribute," inspired by — and featuring music written by — Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).
I'm not going to pretend I'm a Vivaldi expert, so I'll simply quote the information that was posted with the original video on YouTube:
"'Presto' is the third movement from Vivaldi's 'Summer' from 'Four Seasons.' This version is an extract from Patrick Rondat's guitar adaptation on his 1996 Amphibia album."
Tina, who was filmed by her guitar teacher, Renaud Louis-Servais, is playing her Vigier Excalibur guitar.
For more about Tina, visit her YouTube page and follow her on Twitter. For more about Patrick Rondat (He's mentioned above), visit rondat.com.
Today, GuitarWorld.com presents an exclusive guitar (and bass) play-through video by Close Your Eyes.
In the clip, which you can check out below, the band show you how to learn and master "The End," a track off their third studio album, Line In The Sand.
The origin of guitar distortion goes back to the earliest electrified blues guitarists.
They didn’t care that their primitive tube amps were breaking up and distorting, as long as they were loud. Soon, blues guitarists grew quite fond of those nasty, gnarly distorted tones, and they sought to replicate them by any means necessary.
Enter the overdrive pedal. Designed to push an amp to the brink, the overdrive pedal allows players to summon singing sustain, compelling crunch, and glorious grit at any volume level, giving guitarists the bite and balls they need for genuine blues-approved tone.
While a handful of purists prefer to plug a guitar straight into an amp, most blues guitarists these days have a handful of overdrive, distortion and even fuzz boxes in their rigs.
Thanks to the proliferation of boutique pedal builders over the past 20 years, there are easily more than a thousand distortion devices available to help guitarists find their signature blues sound.
The following pedals are the top 10 classics and modern marvels that get our mojo working when we spank that plank and crank up the volume.
10. Way Huge Pork Loin
By blending modern soft-clipping BiFET overdrive and classic clean “British” preamp tone pathways, the Pork Loin allows players to dial in raw, raunchy tones that never lose bottom-end clarity or definition. The Pork Loin plays a massive role in Joe Bonamassa’s bigger-than-life modern blues sound.
9. Klon Centaur
The Klon Centaur’s legendary clean boost transforms a guitar’s natural tone the same way a livestock farmer turns a piglet into a prize-winning porker—by making it bigger, fatter, juicier, meatier and more muscular.
Centaur designer Bill Finnegan discontinued production several years ago, driving prices for used Klons well above $1,000, but he’s trying to bring a similar pedal to the market again with the same hand-selected parts, attention to detail and signature sound that the numerous “klones” have failed to match.
8. PaulC Audio Tim
Thanks to its impressive tonal range and expressive touch sensitivity, the Tim is a favorite of tube amp aficionados who don’t want to sacrifice the dynamic response of their favorite amps but need more gain and tonal-shaping capabilities. With the EQ controls set at 12 o’clock, it provides some of the most transparent clean boost and overdrive tones available.
7. Fulltone Full-Drive 2
Fulltone makes an impressive variety of incredible overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals, including the OCD, PlimSoul and Fat-Boost FB-3, but when it comes to the blues, most guitarists choose the Fulltone Full-Drive 2.
With separate overdrive and boost footswitches and mini toggle switches for selecting clean boost, midrange emphasis, MOSFET clipping and more, the Full-Drive 2 is a versatile overdrive pedal that makes it easy to dial in your own signature blues tones.
6. Ibanez TS-808 Tube Screamer
Thanks to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s use of an Ibanez Tube Screamer (he replaced the TS-808 with a TS-9 and TS-10 later in his career), this pedal has gone on to become the best-selling and most copied overdrive pedal of all time.
The Tube Screamer’s output boost and signature midrange hump, along with a characteristic warmth that the TS-808’s successors lack, make it ideal for playing fat, aggressive solos that destroy everything else in its path.
5. Electro-Harmonix Big Muff π
Most staunch traditionalists think that the raunchy fuzz tones of a Big Muff π are a little too furry and furious for the blues, but that hasn’t stopped a new generation of blues-inspired players from using one. The Big Muff is a key element of 21st century blues as envisioned by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys and Jack White of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather.
4. Dallas-Arbiter Rangemaster Treble Booster
Eric Clapton’s alleged use of a Dallas-Arbiter Rangemaster Treble Booster on John Mayall’s legendary Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton album remains the source of much controversy, but the Rangemaster was also a key element of Rory Gallagher’s late-Sixties rig that similarly redefined blues guitar tone during the British blues revival, thanks to its marvelous midrange and gritty germanium transistor grind.
Numerous clones are available today, including the Analog Man Beano Boost and Keeley Java Boost.
3. Boss BD-2 Blues Driver
Not since the late Seventies, when the Ibanez Tube Screamer and Boss OD-1 made their debut, has a mass-produced overdrive pedal won over the great unwashed and cork-sniffing tone snobs alike. The BD-2 delivers a wide variety of overdrive tones, from creamy to crunchy, with personality that ranges from retro smooth to modern blues-rock raunch.
2. Blackstone Appliances MOSFET Overdrive
This pedal’s nameplate and crinkle finish may have the retro-cool vibe of a Thirties toaster, but underneath the hood lies a modern circuit that uses small-signal MOSFETs and an unconventional input stage to cook up distortion and overdrive with rich harmonic overtones that will melt your face off like a million-watt microwave.
“It’s heavy stuff, not the sound of a popcorn machine,” says Billy Gibbons, who used the Blackstone in tasteful excess on several new ZZ Top tunes.
With a two-year waiting list, the Analog Man King of Tone is one of the most sought-after overdrive pedals, and for a very good reason: it provides a clean boost that preserves a guitar’s tone, making it sound bigger, badder and more bodacious, with just the right amount of natural-sounding distortion.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Clark Jr. and Buddy Miller are just a handful of the pros who have discovered that the King of Tone truly rules.
"This was the most unique show Metallica has ever done," wrote the band on their Facebook page. "The band, contest winners, research station scientists (from Russia, South Korea, China, Poland, Chile, Brazil and Germany) and the ship crew all crammed in this little dome out on the helipad of Carlini Station in Antarctica! The energy in the little dome was amazing! Words cannot describe how happy everyone was."
The band cranked out 10 songs for the small crowd, including "Creeping Death,""For Whom the Bell Tolls,""Sad But True,""Welcome Home (Sanitarium),""Master of Puppets,""One,""Blackened,""Nothing Else Matters,""Enter Sandman" and "Seek & Destroy."
Metallica also posted the official video recap of the December 8 show (which differs from video that was created by a TV station and posted the week after the show). You can check it out below. It is more than 20 minutes long and shows the band rehearsing and performing.
A thoughtful Black Sabbath fan has posted clips of the band in action December 22 at National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England, and you can check it out below.
The two clips, which total 13 minutes, include "Black Sabbath" and "Children of the Grave."
Here's the band's setlist from that night:
01. War Pigs
02. Into The Void
03. Under The Sun / Every Day Comes And Goes
04. Snowblind
05. Age Of Reason
06. Black Sabbath
07. Behind The Wall Of Sleep
08. N.I.B.
09. End Of The Beginning
10. Fairies Wear Boots
11. Rat Salad
12. Tommy Clufetos Drum Solo
13. Iron Man
14. God Is Dead?
15. Dirty Women
16. Children Of The Grave
Encore:
17. Paranoid
If there’s one thing that I believe we guitarists can really work on, it’s rhythm.
As guitarists we sometimes think in terms of shapes — chord shapes, scale shapes, etc. Many times we learn with fretboard diagrams and tablature, neither of which focuses on rhythm.
And yet our main job as guitarists is to play rhythm. Sure, there might be the occasional opportunity to melt some faces with a solo. But most of the time we’re just chugging away on rhythm.
On top of all that, good rhythm is one of the most important skills to have as a professional musician. Other musicians don’t care what scales or chord shapes you know. They just know if they can groove with you or not. And really, the same goes for your audience.
So let’s check out a few exercises for working on rhythm. In this post, we’ll just focus on strumming.
Strumming the Eighth
The most important thing to remember when strumming is to keep your arm swinging with the beat. In general, you can swing your arm with the quarter-note beat or eighth-note beat, but just keep it swinging, whether you’re hitting the strings or not.
In the examples we’ll look at, the strumming arm should swing down with the eighth note.
Exploring the Possibilities
A good place to start developing strumming rhythm is to take a look at the possible rhythms you might run into. If you think of all the different rhythms you could play in a quarter-note beat, there really aren’t that many options.
Leaving out dotted rhythms for now, we end up with these possibilities (using an Em chord):
So that’s five different rhythmic options. Notice the letters “D” and “U” indicating down-strumming and up-strumming respectively.
For practice, first try repeating each measure until it feels comfortable. Once each measure feels good, try mixing and matching. Pick a measure and repeat it four times. Then move on to another measure and repeat it four times. Then another. The idea here is to be able to move to any measure at random, repeating each four times without missing a beat.
When four repetitions becomes comfortable, try bumping it down to three. Then two. And finally just play each measure one time before moving on to another at random, while keeping the metronome going the whole time.
Dotted Rhythms
Just a couple more rhythmic options to toss into the mix, both of which use dotted eighth notes.
For the first rhythm, strum down for the dotted eighth, swing down again without hitting the strings, and then strum up for the last sixteenth note. For the second rhythm, strum down-up, and then swing down again without hitting the strings.
Practice these rhythms along with the five we looked at before, until you can strum any of these seven possible rhythms at random along with a metronome.
There's more to come, so stay tuned!
Ben Rainey works as a guitar teacher and freelance guitarist in the Pittsburgh area. He's also in charge of music content at Tunessence.com.
Below, check out videos of three guitarists who entered the 2013 Jonas Tamas Guitar Competition in Hungary.
The Jonas Tamas Guitar Competition, Hungary's biggest annual contest for guitarists, is hosted by Hungarian guitarist and recording artist Jonas Tamas, whose latest album was issued by Steve Vai's Digital Nations label.
This year, judges included Steve Lukather and Guitar World Editor-in-Chief Brad Tolinski, plus some of Hungary's finest players and other internationally acclaimed guitarists, including Gianluca Ferro from Italy, RIck Graham from the U.K. and Mathias Holm from Sweden.
The award ceremony took place over the weekend in Budapest, Hungary. Prizes were awarded in seven categories, including "Best Fusion Approach,""Best Technique" and "Best Overall Guitarist."
Here are three videos we're particularly fond of:
01. Lelovics György won in the "Best Progressive Approach" category and finished fourth in the overall rankings out of 192 entries. Check out his approach and use of the whammy bar.
02. Rune Berre was the runner-up in the "Best Technique" category. He finished third in the overall rankings.
03. The overall winner was Meszoly Marton, whose video you can see below. He told the audience at the award ceremony that he plans to attend Berkeley next year.
The holiday season is once again upon us, and you know what that means: It's time to brace yourself for a non-stop barrage of atrocious, agonizing Christmas music.
But not to worry!
Here are 13 kick-ass Christmas songs that will help get you through the rest of 2013 in peace (and in one piece).
For you lovers of the six-string (so, like, everyone reading GuitarWorld.com), we've got you covered! You'll find some festive fretwork from Paul Gilbert, Tony Iommi, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Freddie King, Zakk Wylde and the masked gentlemen of Los Straitjackets (Eddie Angel and Danny Amis)!
True story. I got a call the other day from Alex Skolnick. He was in town with Testament for a show at the Fox Theater in Oakland.
He had somehow ended up with an extra acoustic on the road, and was hoping I’d take the 20-minute drive over to meet him at the tour bus so that he could hand me the extraneous guitar to hold onto while he toured the country. Seems he didn’t want it subjected to the extreme winter temperatures of the gear trailer and there was no room for it in the bus itself.
And, of course, he wanted it to be in a home where it would be lovingly cared for and played on occasion until he could retrieve it. Well, who am I to say no to such a request? And the thought of having the chance to strum a bit on Alex’s guitar was somewhat appealing, I must say.
What I didn’t realize until I got it hope and pulled it out of the case, was that the neck was like butter, the pickups crystal clear, the tone, so full and resonant. Yep, I was hooked. There’s no way in a million years my chops could compare to Alex’s, but I can appreciate a finely made musical instrument, and this sure is one!
The LLX26C is handmade by Yamaha in Japan, with a solid spruce top and solid rosewood back and sides. It’s body is a little larger than I’m used to and it has a cutaway, with a mahogany and paduak neck and ebony fingerboard. But what impressed me the most were the acoustics of the internal pickup system.
Its A.R.T (Acoustic Resonance Tranducer) three-way pickup system allows you to control the level of each pickup individually and is structured in such a way that that it dampens excessive vibration from the topboard while picking up small resonances to achieve ideal sensitivity and outstanding dynamic balance. It truly delivers a special result that was immediately clear from the moment I plugged it in at the songwriter night I co-host for the West Coast Songwriter’s association.
With vintage-inspired brass tuners and a gorgeous hard-shell case, this guitar is fitted for some fine finger action. It even smells deluxe.
After filming a lesson with John Butler (coming soon!) I was inspired to try an alternate tuning on this guitar and work on a new song (also coming soon!). Having an extra guitar around the house can be handy!
Here I do some simple strumming on the LLX26C as I perform a brand new song called “From The Inside Out,” which I co-wrote with Sharyn Cassidy for a SongTown USA class I just finished. Don’t be alarmed, part of the assignment was to write from the “male” perspective!
Laura B. Whitmore is the editor of Guitar World's Acoustic Nation. A singer/songwriter based in the San Francisco bay area, she's also a veteran music industry marketer, and has spent over two decades doing marketing, PR and artist relations for several guitar-related brands including Marshall and VOX. Her company, Mad Sun Marketing, represents Dean Markley, Peavey Electronics, SIR Entertainment Services, Music First, Guitar World and many more. Laura is the founder of the Women's International Music Network at thewimn.com, producer of the She Rocks Awards and the Women's Music Summit and co-hosts regular songwriter nights for the West Coast Songwriters Association. More at mad-sun.com.
We all know Yngwie Malmsteen can play more notes in 60 seconds than any player out there. But here he takes his unique agility and applies it to the acoustic guitar in a most tasty way. Does this mean Malmsteen is getting soft, or dare we say it, romantic? Perhaps the latter and his lovely wife April can attest, but never the former, as there's nothing unmanly about this performance. Not by a long shot!
Play Christmas Songs on the Guitar is your ultimate DVD guide to playing holiday songs. It teaches you eight classic holiday tunes: "Silent Night,""Oh Come All Ye Faithful,""Deck the Hall,""Jingle Bells,""The First Noel,""Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,""Jingle Bell Rock" and "Auld Lang Syne."
Plus, as a bonus, you'll learn a Christmas medley for the electric guitar featuring "Little Drummer Boy,""Silent Night" and "Auld Lang Syne."
With more than 80 minutes of lessons, Play Christmas Songs on the Guitar will let you evoke the holiday spirit with your playing, and teach you valuable skills along the way!
The Play Christmas Songs on the Guitar DVD teaches you:
"Silent Night" (See the video below)
• Adding Bass Line "Walk-Ups" • "Willie Nelson Style" Melody Playing • Tremolo Picking and Pick-Hand Anchoring • Fingerstyle: Accompaniment in C, Instrumental Solo in G, and Solo with Chord Substitutions
"Oh Come All Ye Faithful"
• Using Capo with Key-of-C Chords • Instrumental Duet in D • Instrumental Solo Arrangements: Key of D, Capo 7, Key of C
"Deck the Halls"
• Basic Strum Accompaniments: Key of C, Key of G, Capo 5 • Instrumental Duet in G • Picking Tips
"Jingle Bells"
• Country-Style Strum Accompaniments: Key of C, Key of E, Key of G, Key of D • Using A Capo with Key-of-G Chords
"The First Noel"
• Chord-Melody Solo in G, Capo 7 • Instrumental Duet in D
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• Muted-Sting Chords • Alternative Voicings • Instrumental Duet in G
"Jingle Bell Rock"
• Intro and Ending Licks • Lead Guitar Chord "Stabs"
"Auld Lang Syne"
• Strum Accompaniments: Key of C Basic and Added Chords, Key of G Basic and Added Chords, Key of D Basic • Instrumental Chord-Melody in C
As 2014 rapidly approaches, Guitar World is taking a nostalgic look back at the most popular GuitarWorld.com stories of 2013, including viral videos, guitar lessons, Guitar World Girls and other features.
Today, we're revisiting the 10 most popular guitar lessons on GuitarWorld.com, as determined by page views.
You'll find a fine assortment of useful lessons here — everything from a sweep-picking how-to to the art of shredding to a few Jake E. Lee-inspired staccato riffs. There's even a "Flight of the Bumblebee" lesson, two lessons by popular LessonFace instructor Steve Stine, two Guitar World lessons by John Petrucci of Dream Theater, one by Guitar World's own Jimmy Brown — and plenty more!
In fact, in the spirit of the holidays, we've even thrown in a bonus lesson! On that note, enjoy — and use — these 11 guitar lessons! Remember you can read the complete lessons by clicking on the READ THE FULL LESSON HERE link on each page.
The inspiration for this lick came from former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee, who used this effect in several Osbourne songs. The pre-chorus and chorus of "Bark at the Moon" use this technique, as well as the main riff from "Waiting for Darkness."
For this lesson, I want to explore some more applications of this technique and give you some ideas of how you can use it in your own playing. The technique can be applied to virtually any single-note sequence you can come up with. I find it best to create a simple melodic line and then apply the technique to create a riff or motif. I've found it particularly useful in my solos as a way to create dynamics.
Here's the lick from my previous lesson. Its just a very simple D minor pentatonic idea, which, combined with the technique, creates a much more memorable passage. This also is a good way to use pentatonics outside of the traditional rock-style licks.
Though he's mostly revered for his huge-sounding, eternally cool riffs, inventive altered tunings, acoustic fingerpicking masterpieces and otherworldly, ambient soundscapes, Jimmy Page also is one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock.
That his solos in such Led Zeppelin classics as "Good Times, Bad Times,""Heartbreaker,""Rock And Roll" and "Stairway To Heaven" are so firmly etched in two generations of guitarists' memories is testimony to his compositional and improvisational genius.
In this lesson, we'll examine the main technical elements and improvisational approaches that characterize Page's soloing style, and we'll look at some of his signature licks.
The Smear Box
Jimmy relies heavily on the minor pentatonic "box" pattern illustrated in FIGURE 1 for many of his licks, using mostly the top three or four strings. When he does go down to the bottom string, he'll shift positions with his middle or ring finger on the 5th string, as indicated here.
FIGURE 2 shows this fretboard pattern in the key of E with the root note E falling on the top and bottom strings at the 12th fret. Using this visual pattern as a template, Jimmy will often begin a phrase by playing the Chuck Berry-influenced "smear" motif shown in FIGURE 3 in the key of E.
This lick begins with a whole-step bend on the G string from the fourth up to the fifth (A to B). The bend is executed with either the ring or middle finger while the index-finger barres the root-fifth doublestop on the top two strings.
Page utilizes this smear motif as a springboard to dive into blazing E minor pentatonic speed licks like those shown in FIGURES 4-6. As you play through these figures, notice the use of pull-offs on the top three strings, as well as whole-step bends, such as from the minor third up to the fourth (G to A) on the 1st string at the 15th fret. You can hear Jimmy playing licks along these lines in his solos in "Good Times, Bad Times" (1:30), "Dazed and Confused" (3:52), "The Lemon Song" (1:51) and "Communication Breakdown."
Bass is more than just a guitar with two fewer strings. It has a different tone, scale length, feel and musical role, and in many cases it requires a different conceptual and technical approach.
Guitarists who are new to playing bass will often double the guitar part one octave lower. There is certainly a place for lockstep octave doubling—just listen to Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean” and Pantera’s “I’m Broken.”
But there is so much more that can be done with the bass guitar. As a bassist who later took up guitar, I have developed 20 general guidelines that I live by when I play the bass. Apply them to the instrument, and hear your playing improve as they help you to think and play like a real bass guitarist.
1. PLAY FOR THE SONG
More often than not, solid bass playing requires that you exercise restraint and subtlety rather than showcase your technique and slick moves. In many situations, it’s best to work mostly with the root notes of the chords and lock in with the drummer’s kick and snare drums.
2. LEARN TO WALK
“Walking bass” originated in jazz and blues, but it has since been adopted in other styles. The term refers to a way of playing in which the bass line remains in perpetual motion as opposed to staying on or reiterating one note. The line “walks” from one chord’s root note up or down to the next, mostly in a quarter-note rhythm, with the occasional embellishment.
To achieve this, you use “transition notes” to smoothly connect the dots and bridge the gap between different root notes as the chords change. The transition notes can be any combination of chord tones (arpeggios), scale tones that relate to the chords, or chromatic passing tones.
FIGURE 1 shows a stock blues walking bass line. Although the line is rhythmically animated, with staccato (short, clipped) swing eighth notes and a triplet fill at the end of each bar, it is fairly tame harmonically, as it uses mostly chord tones (the root, fifth and dominant seventh) with a brief chromatic run-up to the fifth.
Although often regarded as a “shredder’s” technique, the notion of sweeping (or raking) the pick across the strings to produce a quick succession of notes has been around since the invention of the pick itself.
Jazz players from the Fifties, such as Les Paul, Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow, would use the approach in their improvisations, and country guitar genius Chet Atkins was known to eschew his signature fingerstyle hybrid-picking technique from time to time and rip out sweep-picked arpeggios, proving that the technique is not genre specific.
Within rock, Ritchie Blackmore used sweep picking to play arpeggios in Deep Purple’s “April” and Rainbow’s “Kill the King.”
Fusion maestro Frank Gambale is widely considered to be the most versatile and innovative sweep picker and the first artist to fully integrate the technique into his style, applying sweeping to arpeggios, pentatonics, heptatonic (seven-note) scales and modes, and beyond.
Gambale explains his approach wonderfully in his instructional video, Monster Licks and Speed Picking. Originally released in 1988, it remains a must-watch video for anyone interested in developing a smooth sweep-picking technique.
It was Stockholm, Sweden, however that would produce the name most synonymous with sweeping in a rock context, one that gave rise to a guitar movement known as neoclassical heavy metal.
Swedish guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore and Uli Jon Roth but was also equally enthralled by 19th-century virtuoso violinist Niccolò Paganini. Attempting to emulate on his Fender Stratocaster the fluid, breathtaking passages Paganini would compose and play on violin, Malmsteen concluded that sweep picking was the perfect way to travel quickly from string to string with a smooth, fluid sound much like what a violinist can create with his bow.
Malmsteen’s style has since influenced two generations of guitarists, including Tony MacAlpine, Jason Becker, Steve Vai, Mattias “IA” Eklundh, Ritchie Kotzen, Marty Friedman, John Petrucci, Vinnie Moore, Jeff Loomis, Synyster Gates, Alexi Laiho and Tosin Abasi, to name but a few.
The first five exercises in this lesson are designed to give you a systematic approach to practicing the component movements of sweep picking: from two-string sweeps to six-string sweeps, and everything in between. Practicing each exercise with a metronome for just two minutes every day will improve your coordination and your confidence to use the technique in your own playing.
Work from two strings up to six, keeping your metronome at the same tempo. This means starting with eighth notes, and while this will feel very slow, the technique will become trickier with each successive note grouping: eighth-note triplets, 16th notes, quintuplets and, most difficult of all, 16th-note triplets and their equivalent sextuplets. Focus on synchronizing your hands so that your pick and fretting fingers make contact with the string at exactly the same moment. Only one string should be fretted at any time (this is key!), and any idle strings should be diligently muted with your remaining fingers.
In the coming months, I’ll share with you some of the guitar-playing concepts and approaches that have helped me develop my technique and overall playing style. I’d like to start off with an examination of ascending scalar shapes that, by design, cover the majority of the fretboard.
I have found such patterns to be very useful for both melodic and shred-style playing and also very helpful in regard to the “greater mission,” which is to gain a fuller and deeper understanding of the construction of musical ideas within the framework of the guitar’s fretboard.
The following examples are built from phrases made up of three notes per string that are played across two strings, resulting in various six-note shapes.
I play these shapes in a rhythm of straight 16th notes, however, so there is an inherent “threes on twos” kind of rhythm that is alluded to throughout.
Whether you're a professional guitarist or a hobbyist, finding time to practice can be difficult.
We all have busy lives and responsibilities that distract us from our playing. For this reason, I've developed a quick, intensive guitar "workout" that can be completed in 30 minutes. You can use this by itself as a quick practice when time is limited or incorporate it into a longer practice session. Either way, this workout will help develop your playing in a number of important areas.
The workout involves playing a diatonic scale with specific sequences chosen to improve important areas of your playing. You will improve your knowledge/theory of the scale across the whole fretboard and also improve the speed/accuracy of your picking technique. For this workout, you are going to need a metronome.
For my examples, I am using the A minor scale. You will play each of these sequences to a metronome; when completed, you will increase the tempo and repeat all of the sequences again. You want to begin at a slow tempo, around 80 bpm, and after completion increase by 10 bpm (90, 100, 110, 120, etc.).
The sequences are of varying difficulty, and as soon as one becomes too difficult, you should drop that sequence and continue with the rest. You should make a note of the highest tempo reached for each sequence so you can chart your progress over time. I have included target bpm's for each sequence. If you start at 80 bpm and take each sequence to its target, you should complete the workout in around 30 minutes. Of course, if you are an advanced player, you might be able take each sequence much higher than the target tempos.
For each sequence, I've given you the tab and an audio example playing the sequence at 80 bpm and then at the target bpm.
Steve Stine, highly sought-after guitar educator, teaches live group and private classes at LessonFace.com.
One key to becoming a more versatile blues soloist is learning to combine the minor pentatonic and major pentatonic scales to create guitar lines that go beyond the minor pentatonic scale.
As a prerequisite to this lesson, you should have a basic understanding of the finger positionings for the minor pentatonic and major pentatonic scales, particularly the first and second positions of both scales.
Stepping back, I should note that learning to play within both of these scales at the same time opened new doors for me as a guitar player.
Before combining them, I remember first learning to solo over the standard 1-4-5 blues progression, and my teacher at the time gave me a quick trick for alternating between the minor and major pentatonic solos: Use the minor pentatonic for the sections on the “1” and the major pentatonic for the sections on the “4," and alternate back in forth in this manner in the way that sounded best.
While this approach can work to give you a more varied sound beyond merely the minor pentatonic scale, this trick is by no means a hard and fast rule, and moving beyond it to learn to combine both scales makes you a more versatile player.
A quick point of reference to understand about these scales is that, in respect to physical finger positioning, they are identical, with one scale simply falling three frets below the other on the fretboard. That is to say, in any given key: (i) the finger position for the major pentatonic scale falls three frets down from the minor pentatonic scale, and (ii) the root note is the same for both scales.
So, for example, let’s focus on the key of A. The A on the fifth fret of the first string is the root note of both the A minor pentatonic and A major pentatonic scales. This means that, in the A minor pentatonic scale’s first position, the A on the fifth fret of the first string is played with your index finger.
"Flight of the Bumblebee" has become a popular piece to play to show off technical prowess on the guitar.
Originally written for violin, there are many different versions you will find for guitar. There is no, single, master version for guitar, since it wasn't written for the instrument. Learning a few different versions would be a good idea. The different approaches will present varying techniques and interpretations.
Most, if not all, of the videos you see of "Flight of the Bumblebee" are performed at lightning-fast speeds. This was the intention of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer of "Flight of the Bumblebee." He wanted to write a piece of music that painted a musical picture of a bee buzzing around, which he very successfully accomplished.
That said, if you cannot play the piece at a fast tempo at this time, you shouldn't be discouraged. Even if you're never able to reach your goal, you will have at least gained something from trying and maybe discovered something new in the process. It’s completely up to you to choose to be discouraged or inspired when trying to accomplish something.
Don’t compare your progress to someone else’s; that's the surest way to fail. I used to compare myself to my peers and it did nothing for me, except wasted a lot of mental energy when I should have just relaxed and gone with the process of progress. Everyone develops and learns at different rates.
If you see something you think at the time is unattainable, don’t be discouraged. Be inspired and know that with enough hard work, you will be able to do it or better one day. There's no reason to not be inspired 100 percent of the time!
The best way to approach learning how to play "Flight of the Bumblebee" is to work on memorizing bits of it at a time. A lot of the piece is essentially a main theme with leadups and outs of that theme, chromatically. Work on the main theme separately as a daily exercise, gradually increasing the tempo.
No matter your level of experience, being a guitarist involves pushing your personal boundaries with the instrument.
Many players find themselves struggling to develop the physical abilities needed to play like their heroes, and, crucially, they never settle on a consistent set of exercises because they find themselves drowning in so many different suggestions.
In this column and video, I discuss some straightforward, essential practice techniques you can work into a simple, short daily routine to improve your dexterity, speed, strength and stamina to help you overcome obstacles and become a better guitar player.
These practice techniques are broken into three sections: 01. Picking hand: two three-minute exercises; 02. Fretting hand: a series of 15- or 20-second strength exercises; and 03. Both hands: a symmetrical exercise emphasizing synchronization between the left and right hands.
All in all, these exercises should take about 15 minutes. My students have found that, when done faithfully and properly, they yield significant positive results. Please note that it's a good idea to stretch out your hands, wrists and arms for a few minutes before doing these exercises.
In this Guitar World exclusive, we’ve gathered together Dave Mustaine, Lamb of God’s Mark Morton and Willie Adler, Arch Enemy’s Michael Amott and Fredrik Akesson and Trivium’s Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu to teach you the essential skills of modern shred.
Using their own examples, we’ll show you everything from rhythm and lead playing to speed picking and sweep arpeggios. So grab your guitar and get ready for the ultimate lesson in shredding—21st century style.
CHAPTER 1 “Sport Metal”: Modern Rhythm Methods
All the guitarists involved in this lesson have one thing in common: they are passionate and dedicated players who write great riffs, many of which are quite challenging to play. In fact, Arch Enemy’s Michael Amott described this type of playing as “sport metal.”
“Michael’s right: it is sport metal,” says Willie Adler. “There’s a real finesse to a lot of the riffs, and they’re physically challenging every time you play them. With the new songs we’re playing from Sacrament, I’ve got to warm up for at least an hour before we go onstage.”
We asked Adler’s co-axman, the always eloquent Mark Morton, to explain some of the rhythm playing differences between metal’s “old-school” and “nu-school.” Despite a brutal hangover, Morton not only stepped up to the plate but also came up with “the hangover riff” to illustrate his point.
I always get frustrated when I hear someone talking about sweep arpeggios.
Though there are plenty of licks and examples out there, no one has ever really broken down the mechanics of the technique. As a result, guitarists have had to figure them out by trial and error. This became all the more evident when I was teaching.
My students repeatedly made the same mistake: they'd hold a barre chord while articulating each note. To play sweep arpeggios correctly, you have to mute each note with the left hand immediately after picking it.
The best way to learn sweep picking is to first isolate the right- and left-hand techniques, master them separately and then coordinate them. Let's begin with the right hand. Basically, you have to let the pick "fall" from string to string as if you were strumming a chord. Don't try to separate the pick strokes!
This technique feels weird at first, but picture your right hand as a Slinky going down from step to step-just let it fall. When executing an upstroke sweep, drag the pick upwards over the strings. Keep your hand loose and relaxed, as if it were being lifted by a string tied around your wrist.
Now let's look at the left hand. In order to use the sweeping technique, you can only play one note per string. As I noted earlier, you need to mute each string with the left hand immediately after picking it to keep the notes from "bleeding" into each other and sounding like an ordinary strummed chord. FIGURE 1 is an atonal-sound sweep picking exercise that is designed to coordinate you left-hand muting and right-hand sweeping techniques. Practice it slowly at first, concentrating on keeping the notes separate and distinct. The try playing it faster.
Happy holidays! Here's a lovely live rendition of "All I Want for Christmas is Us." This was filmed in December 2010 for the release of the Feeding The Soul Foundation CD Release.
The Feeding the Soul Foundation brings community together in creative generosity. They promote local artists, foundations and businesses that make a positive difference by creating events that draw attention and opportunity to their talents and intents. Find out more about them here: http://www.feedingthesoulfoundation.org
“It’s hard to recover from a bad year,” sings Terry Price in the opening track of my favorite release of 2013, Photo Ops’How To Say Goodbye. “Friends that were with us are no longer near / But hey, I’m glad to be alive.”
As Price’s first release under the alias of Photo Ops, the shimmering guitar pop found within How To Say Goodbye is a deeply personal ode to death, loss, growing up and moving on.
Saying that Price had a bad year isn’t an overstatement. Between the loss of his father, to Price’s own struggles with Bell’s Palsy–an illness which temporarily paralyzed one side of his face–How To Say Goodbye is a personal narrative of Price’s recent struggles.
Remarkably, Price managed to draw from these experiences to create one of 2013’s finest records, and from start to finish, How To Say Goodbye keeps the emotional intensity high. While the dreamy production gives the songs an airy aesthetic, it’s Price’s razor-sharp songwriting and knack for melody that separates Photo Ops from the host of other stodgy bands hiding lackluster songs under layers of reverb.
Acoustic-centered numbers “Wanna Feel Good” and “Someplace” are definite stand-outs, as is the jangly “You Said You Were.” Even though it may be your first time hearing these songs, there’s still a sense of familiarity––the melodies and lyrics within How To Say Goodbye are so well placed that it’s like you’ve known them all along.
The record reaches an emotional peak with the acoustic-driven “February Ocean Breeze.” Having just lost his father who had suffered from schizophrenia, Price and his wife make a trip to the beach as a way to reflect and say farewell. Price achingly recalls, “Evolution was unkind to our family, to your mind, and to me / But not to this day’s memory / Somehow it feels right on a beautiful day to say goodbye to a beautiful life.”
How To Say Goodbye displays the human ability to survive and create something miraculous out of the opposite.
Below, check out Photo Ops’ video for “It Makes Me Cry,” which includes shots of Price on guitar, bass, keyboard and drums––all instruments he played on the majority of How To Say Goodbye.
Listen to the aforementioned “February Ocean Breeze” here:
Photo Ops is currently working on a follow up record to How To Say Goodbye. Learn more here.
Tom Gilbert is a guitarist (and aspiring pedal steel player) living in the San Francisco Bay Area. When he’s not blogging for Acoustic Nation, eating Thai food or being obsessed with his dog, Tom does marketing and PR for music and audio companies with Mad Sun Marketing.
Since its appearance in Guitar World in 1990, Steve Vai's intensive guitar regimen has been the Holy Grail for serious players.
In our new book, Guitar World Presents Steve Vai's Guitar Workout, you'll find the lessons that shaped a generation of guitarists. Vai sat down with guitarist/transcriber Dave Whitehill and outlined his practice routine for the January 1990 issue of GW. Never before had a guitarist given such an in-depth explanation of his musical exercise regimen.
It became a must-have for guitarists. Many of the players interviewed in GW have cited it as an influence on their development as guitarists. Here's a chance to experience the workout in its original form and to learn some of the things Vai has done to develop his formidable chops and remarkable music vocabulary.
In this book, Vai reveals his path to virtuoso enlightenment with two challenging guitar workouts – one 10-hour and one 30-hour – which include scale and chord exercises, ear training, sight-reading, music theory, and much more. These comprehensive workouts are reprinted by permission from Guitar World magazine.
Today, we're revisiting the 10 most popular "viral" videos to be shared on GuitarWorld.com. How did we determine what was the most popular? Let's just say it all came down to page views!
Note that we've kept this top-10 list to videos that do not feature famous, world-recognized artists. In other words, you won't find our exclusive John Petrucci lesson videos on this list, nor will you find clips of Yngwie Malmsteen shredding at a small TV station in Memphis.
You will, however, find videos that shine the spotlight on regular people whose skills captured the attention of a wide online audience in 2013. Spoiler alert: There is one exception, since a famous guitarist does appear in one of the clips. However, he's accompanied by a 6-year-old drummer.
What can we determine from this list? GuitarWorld.com readers like watching other guitarists — of all sexes and age groups (but mostly women, it's safe to say) — shred. And there's one teenage girl from France who almost has a monopoly on our top five.
On that intriguing note, sit back and enjoy the shredding! Vive le shred!
P.S.: In the spirit of the holidays, we've provided an extra video for your viewing pleasure — for a grand total of 11! Enjoy!
11. Video: A Brief History of Rock and Roll — Guitarist Plays 100 Famous Riffs in One Take (Read the full story here.)
In the very cool video below, guitarist Alex Chadwick at Chicago Music Exchange plays 100 well-known guitar riffs — in one take — providing a chronological history of rock and roll.
And while some of you might've seen this clip before (It was posted in June 2012 and has been viewed almost 7 million times), you might enjoy a recent update to the video — TABS for everything Chadwick plays.
You can check out the tabs, in real time (as Chadwick is playing the 100 riffs), RIGHT HERE, courtesy of Sound Slice.
This video is titled "Fastest guitarist in the world: 27 notes per second on guitar (Sergiy Putyatov) Guinness Record 2012," and it was posted to YouTube earlier this year. Here's the info that was posted with the video:
"Sergiy Putyatov is one of the fastest guitarists in the world. His official Guinness Record is 27 notes per second."
So that's all we know about this clip (except that it looks like it was shot in Liverpool, England, and that Putyatov bears a passing resemblance to Perfect Strangers-era Ritchie Blackmore), but we think you might appreciate this guy's blinding speed.
Well, below, you'll find a more recent video of another guitarist playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" at 1300 BPM on an Ibanez. Yes, you read that correctly — 1300 BPM.
His name is Daniel Himebauch, and the event took place September 8, 2012, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Like the 2011 John Taylor video (See the link above), Himebauch starts off slowly and works his way up to a mind-blowing 1300 BPM.
At the beginning of the clip, Himebauch writes, "This is not a demonstration of musicality or tone and should not be viewed as such." While I completely agree with Himebauch, I have to point out that his guitar sounds more and more like an Eighties-era video game that's about to explode!
08. Video: Bride and Groom Play Loud Electric Guitar Duet Before Getting Married (Read the full story here.)
Below, check out a video of a couple who performed a guitar duet before getting hitched. And if that sounds normal (and we admit it does sound normal), be sure to check out the video.
Jordan Strauss, 30, who teaches guitar in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, taught his bride-to-be, Andrea Strauss, 25, how to play a few chords so they could perform something together on their wedding day (at the church).
"We wanted to do something we knew would stand out and put our own personal stamp to make it even more memorable,"Jordan Strauss told Yahoo.
The ceremony took place in May (and it's just getting noticed now) at a church in Long Valley, New Jersey. Jordan is playing Pachelbel's "Canon" with one of his groomsmen as the priest stands nearby. Andrea enters in white, with a guitar strapped on, and joins in (Note: She seems to be tuned to an open D chord, not that there's anything wrong with that!). At one point, there are four guitarists playing the song.
"She was an easy student to teach. She's a natural. I told her that from day one," Jordan said.
We thought we'd share this just-posted video (August 27) of an 8-year-old girl named Li-Sa-X playing a Guthrie Govan tune, "Fives." The song is from Govan's Erotic Cakes album from 2006 (It is, of course, track 5 on the album).
No, it's not perfect, but it's quite impressive for an 8-year-old (or a 38-year-old). Come on — she's tapping!
For a bit of reference, we've also included a clip of Govan performing the song live a few years back. Enjoy!
06. Video: From Vai to Dimebag to Yngwie, Guitarist Imitates 30 Shredders in One Solo (Read the full story here.)
Here's a video of a talented British guitarist named Ben Higgins, who imitates the styles of 30 famous shredders in one guitar solo. Actually, it's 29 famous shredders, and Higgins includes himself as No. 30, which is justified, to be honest.
He starts things off with some Yngwie Malmsteen-style runs, moves into Eddie Van Halen territory and then pays visits to Steve Vai, Slash, Dimebag Darrell, Zakk Wylde, Uli Jon Roth, Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, John Petrucci and many more.
Higgins even supplies the tabs for the entire solo, and you can access them here.
This time she's performing a piece called "Vivaldi Tribute," inspired by — and featuring music written by — Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).
I'm not going to pretend I'm a Vivaldi expert, so I'll simply quote the information that was posted with the original video on YouTube:
"'Presto' is the third movement from Vivaldi's 'Summer' from 'Four Seasons.' This version is an extract from Patrick Rondat's guitar adaptation on his 1996 Amphibia album."
Tina, who was filmed by her guitar teacher, Renaud Louis-Servais, is playing her Vigier Excalibur guitar.
For more about Tina, visit her YouTube page and follow her on Twitter. For more about Patrick Rondat (He's mentioned above ...), visit rondat.com.
BTW: It seems Tina has been 14 for a long time ... Just sayin'!
04. Video: "Guitar Duel" Featuring Classical Guitarist and Female Seven-String Guitarist (Read the full story here.)
Below, check out a new video of classical guitarist Thomas Valeur performing Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen Op. 20 with a female seven-string guitarist from Norway called "The Commander-In-Chief."
The performance is interesting right off the bat because this piece is normally played on violin.
If you want some background info before diving into the video (which features shots of a nice Laney amp at various points), here's the information that is included with the video on YouTube:
"The two guitarists met when they performed at the Bergen [Norway] International Festival in June 2013. They agreed to cooperate and soon started to work on this piece of music. It took five months to prepare, and the recording took place in November at Modern World Studios in the Cotswolds in England."
The Commander is playing an EMG-equipped prototype Ibanez X Series Falchion 7, which is the only one of its kind (Only six-string models are currently available).
NOTE: The faster stuff starts at around the 5:41 mark. Enjoy!
03. Video: Brad Paisley Plays Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" with 6-Year-Old Drummer (Read the full story here.)
Here's a video of country shredder Brad Paisley rehearsing and performing Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" (three times) with a 6-year-old drummer on Good Morning America earlier this year.
The video was posted by the family of the young drummer, Avery Molek, who appeared on GMA with Paisley on April 12, 2013. First you see their rehearsal, followed by three different live performances of the song.
While it's not unusual to find 12-, 13- and 14-year-old guitarists on YouTube who make adults feel like, well, lame-o guitar players, we thought you'd appreciate this recently posted (May 20) video of 14-year-old "Tina" playing a convincing — and effortless — cover of Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" solo.
In terms of extra information, all we know is that Tina was taught by Renaud Louis-Servais, who also shot and posted the video. Tina is playing a Vigier Excalibur Custom guitar.
Enjoy! And start practicing!
01. Video: 14-Year-Old Girl Performs Steve Vai's Version of Paganini's 5th Caprice from 'Crossroads' (Read the full story here.)
This time she's performing a piece called "Vivaldi Tribute," inspired by — and featuring music written by — Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741).
I'm not going to pretend I'm a Vivaldi expert, so I'll simply quote the information that was posted with the original video on YouTube:
"'Presto' is the third movement from Vivaldi's 'Summer' from 'Four Seasons.' This version is an extract from Patrick Rondat's guitar adaptation on his 1996 Amphibia album."
Tina, who was filmed by her guitar teacher, Renaud Louis-Servais, is playing her Vigier Excalibur guitar.
For more about Tina, visit her YouTube page and follow her on Twitter. For more about Patrick Rondat (He's mentioned above), visit rondat.com.