As a budding lead guitarist, you will need to put in hours of training into your scales to build up your chops. Unfortunately, not all of us have a band when we start so we turn to many different pieces of software that provide us with backing tracks that we can play along with.

Now, most of these softwares are to cost a bit of money and they require you to be sitting in front of your computer before you can jam along to it. That is fine and all but if you’re looking for a mobile option to practice your lead guitar, you might want to check out “Jam Amigo“.

The Jam Amigo app for the iPhone was created by a guitar player named “Guillermo Carbonell” (view Youtube video below to see him playing along to the backing tracks)  and no he’s not just an app developer. The way he’s set up the software is ideal for guitar beginners as well as intermediates to learn how to familiarize themselves to the different scales applicable to each jam progression type.

Once you load up the software, you’ll get a feel for how good this software for the iPhone platform really is. With this application, you can take your backing tracks, customize them and bring them along with you on the road so you can practice anywhere. Practice and silence with a pair of decent quality Bose or Sennheiser earphones so you don’t disturb the neighbors, or plug it into your favorite amp and let hell break loose – the choice is yours!

Here’s what you can look forward to with the Jam Amigo app:

- Play along real guitar tracks recorded on top of realistic, carefully sequenced bass and drums.

- 12 inspiring original songs, covering many styles from blues to jazz to metal and more.

- 28 loops for you to practice specific styles and keys more in depth.

- Each song contains different sections so you can explore different scales/modes/keys.

- Also includes a shuffle mode to allow you randomly skip from different loops.

- It comes with a super-easy to use interface that you can accustom yourself to within minutes.

- Each loop included in the software, comes with tips as well as suggestions on which scales you ought to use when playing lead against this backing track.

You can buy the iPhone app direct from iTunes, or you can go through the developer’s website - See link below.

Watch the video below to see Guillermo in action with his iPhone 3GS as his backup band.

Click here to visit the Jam Amigo’s Official Website

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Jam Amigo – Professional Guitar Backing Track App For Your iPhone

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Guitar Rig in my opinion delivers the good and gives you the most realistic sounding tones – I’ve yet to come across any other guitar software that does it this well and smoothly. By the way, I’m by no means promoting for Native Inst. okay..I just really love GR.

GR 4 Pro comes with some nice enhancements and upgrades but rather than me just telling you the entire list of upgrades, pop over to Native Instruments and read it up yourselves if you want more detailed info.

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Guitar Rig 4 Pro – Must-Have Guitar Software!

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I was looking for guitar accessories today and I came across a very interesting new product – The V-Pick.

What is it? The V-Pick is a specially created guitar pick made of clear acrylic. The fantastic part is that after you’ve held it in your fingers for a while, the pick actually ‘sticks’ to your skin. Myself and many other guitarists alike, have the problem of guitar picks slipping out from our fingers, especially after playing hard and sweat starts building up.

Sticking equals being able to play faster without worrying about slips. The pick also comes with a slight bevel to the edge that allows it to glide across strings much more easily giving it faster action. According to the creators, the tone and volume from these picks are unsurpassed. (I’ll not comment on that one).

They produce a good range of these V-Picks to suit electric & acoustic guitars, and also bass guitars and mandolins. They come in different gauges and thicknesses, with 30  different ones to choose from.

Check out their website at www.v-picks.com

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V-Picks – The Guitar Picks That Stick!

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Hey Guys,

It’s been a week since I’ve last posted. Been real busy with life and all. Just wanted to give a heads up you guys wanting to learn some awesome electric Blues riffs and licks.

Lick Library has released a brand new Stevie Ray Vaughan tutorial DVD that teaches you some killer blues guitar riffs and licks. The DVD focuses on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s style and explores his technique in much detail. In the lessons, instructor Jamie Humphries from Lick Library take you through 6 hours of meaty Blues lessons – 6 hours in total for the 2 volumes.

The DVD’s cover tutorials on several tracks like “Texas Flood, “Pride & Joy”, “The House Is Rocking” and “The Sky Is Crying”. The lessons break down the songs and teaches you how to play the lead and rhythm sections of each song, and leaves nothing out.

These DVD’s are great if you have been looking to add some sweet-killer licks to your playing and improvisation.

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Blues Guitar Lessons – Lick Library DVD feat. Stevie Ray Vaughan

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This summer has Lick Library releasing a massive range of their guitar learning DVD titles for sale.

For those of you who’ve wanted to purchase some of their guitar DVD tutorials, now’s your chance! Most of these titles are going for 50% off their usually marked price. Below are the titles I’ve personally bought in the past and recommend you check out. These are especially good for you if you’re into Rock or Metal.

• Extreme Guitar Metal Edge – Extreme Tapping Techniques

• Ultimate Guitar Techniques

• Quick Licks For Fast Rock – Van Halen style

• Jam With AC/DC

You can find these DVD’s at the Lick Library website.

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Lick Library Summer DVD Lessons Sale

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I’ve recently posted an article with exercises to help you develop high speed alternate picking. To most beginners who learn to play the guitar, alternate picking can feel rather unnatural and comfortable – They tend to lean towards the hybrid picking technique where each string is picked in a non-uniform manner ( ie. not being up down, up down consistently ).

I find that pure alternate picking is very important for a beginner to learn. When you use it over the hybrid picking styles, you’ll notice much more rhythm evenness in your guitar playing. Go to the guitar exercises article and perfect your alternate picking technique.

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Exercises To Develop Your Alternate Picking Technique

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Les Paul has one of the most accomplished electric guitarists since his career started in the 1930′s. The Gibson Les Paul guitar is one of my great loves and I hope you will share a silent moment with me for it’s creator.

There’s a good article here if you want to read more about Les Paul himself.

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The Father Of The Gibson Les Paul Guitar

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ElectroKraft just released their new Magnedyne electric guitar pickup for the Fender Stratocaster. The Magnedyne single coil pickup allows you to adjust its tone with a little control knob based on the top of the pickup.

The Magnedyne has no active electronics so your guitar tone is as true as can be. This pickup will be great for guitarists who frequently change their electric guitar pickups to obtain different tones. Check out the ElectroKraft website for more information.

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Guitar Accessories – Magnedyne Pickup

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In terms of the body’s shape, feel and weight, this electric guitar is pure elegance. It has been redesigned slightly but mainly in terms of the guitar ‘horns’.

The new DragonFly comes in a twenty-two fret neck and also a HSS (Humbucker-Single-Single) pickup for the greatest variety of tones possible. Guitar players can now more easily switch out the stock Duncan pickups to the ones of their choice as modifications have been made to the pickup mount.

The retail price comes in at about $4500 and is available in 4 different shades of pure sweetness. To find out more details about it’s features, visit the Parker Guitars website.

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Parker Guitars New DragonFly

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This Youtube youre beautiful lesson consists of  simple guitar chords so even as a beginner, you will find it super easy to learn (compared to other harder songs this is a piece of cake).

You’ll also need a capo if you want to play it in the same key as Jame Blunt. Don’t be too frustrated if you find that it takes you a while to perfect this song. You’ll get it after a few days. You’ll want to get this song learned so you can play it for the girls

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Learn How to Play You’re Beautiful by James Blunt

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This is a great Youtube video for you to start off with if you want to learn power chords for guitar. This guy covers plenty of really good tips on how to form the chords with your fingers and things not to do to get the best sound possible on your electric guitar.

After watching this video, check out the article I wrote on how to play power chords and this will give you more useful information. The article also contains power chord charts that you can follow and learn.

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Power Chords For Guitar – Power Chord Exercises

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He goes through some really easy and simple strumming patterns at the end of the video so you can start jamming right away. This lesson is very much catered to the beginner guitarist and covers chords such as the Dsus , D and the Asus ( “sus” stands for “suspended”, I will cover that in future tutorials on my website ). These chords will come in useful to you later on.

I tend to apply the chord progression very often in my rock acoustic songs too.

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Simple Guitar Chords Video Lesson

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This Youtube video lesson starts by showing you which fingers you should be using for the finger picking style, then it runs you through some really simple exercises to get your muscle memory up to speed. For those of you who are beginners to finger picking, don’t fret! I know it’s really awkward but remember the rules of learning guitar – start very slow, then speed it up after a couple of days. You’ll just get frustrated and form bad habits if you don’t take this piece of advise.

Practice daily which these exercises and after 7 days, I guarantee you’ll be most comfortable with this picking technique.

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Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons On Finger Picking

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If you’ve already mastered your current training routine, it’s time to break out of the rut and push yourself out of your comfort zone – you won’t get any better without a variety of different exercises.

One DVD I constantly use till this day is Frank Gambale’s Chop Builder. It’s like a workout/training video that gets you practicing a moutain of licks and scales over and over. Each lick is played an average of 7 times then it switches to the next one.

The DVD is a “play-along” format, and the feeling you get is like working out along to an aerobics video, difference is you’re doing it with a guitar instead. It runs through quite a few customized licks and all the scales like the Major, Minors, Dorians etc..

I find it really good in my practice routines ’cause focuses plenty on repition and building stamina. The whole workout session runs for about 1 hour and by the end of it, you’ll definitely feel fatigued in your picking hand. I definitely feel the “strength” in my picking when I do this workout 3 times a week.

For you absolute beginners, you might want to skip this guitar DVD as it’s a bit too advanced. I think Amazon.com still stocks this title, it’s a bit old but there’s nothing else like it on the market.

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Guitar Training Exercises For Stamina

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Before you go ahead and learn Stairway To Heaven, watch this video and get really inspired. I’ll try and find some really good online guitar tutorials on finger techniques over the next few days and post here.

Stay tuned..

Stairway to Heaven live (Rodrigo y Gabriela)

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Guitar Training Software - Fret Surfer For The iPhone

Guitar Trainer Software On The Road!

This is the best guitar training fretboard software in my opinion. Fret Surfer came onto the iPhone about 6 months ago and I’ve been using it every week to refresh my knowledge of the guitar fretboard.

If you want to learn guitar fast, you’ll need to learn all the note positions on the fretboard. This is a crucial step that many beginner guitarists find daunting and try to avoid. In fact, about 70% of guitar players don’t know the fretboard back to front. You’ll find that once you master all the notes in every possible position, learning songs and chords get a lot faster and easier, and you gain freedom in playing solos all over the guitar neck.

Learning all the notes might seem like a daunting task at first, but after a month or two of doing certain exercises, you’ll find that it’s a breeze. This is where Fret Surfer comes in handy..

Fret Surfer is an inexpensive iPhone software that you can purchase for only a couple of dollars. What it does is it lets you play the game of ” guess what note this is? “. There are two modes which you can test your skill levels in. The first one names a note and a string, and you have to find it. The other mode points out a note on the fretboard and you have to name the note. It keeps things fun by allowing you to choose different levels of difficulty, where the hardest level only gives you 3 seconds or so to provide a correct answer.

I’ve recommended this app to a friend of mine who was just starting to learn to play guitar, and he pretty much mastered the entire fretboard worth of notes in a matter of 3 weeks! I recommend anyone who’s got an iphone and is serious in learning guitar, go out and get this guitar trainer software – you’ll really go a long way with this one.

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Guitar Fretboard Software For iPhone

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I found the tutorial breaks it down easy enough for the beginners among you to learn this song rather quickly. The author of this video takes his time to explain the hand and finger positions required to play the Wonderwall chords, so it’s all very clear.

Be warned though, his singing skills aren’t all that great.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCwGOz47EBE[/youtube]

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Wonderwall Guitar Chords

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This Metallica solo is one of the most easy to learn and well-known numbers, even for a beginner. The use of the double-stops give the solo a real aggressive tone, especially at the start of the guitar solo ( listen out for it! ).

For those of you who are wanting to learn how to play this solo, you’re in luck. I was scouring around for Youtube videos and I came across this awesome one by Lick Library. Now, I actually do own a copy of this particular tutorial DVD and that’s how I’ve come to know about it. It’s a surprise that this video is still up on Youtube seeing that it’s against copyright laws.

Anyhow, hope you guys enjoy it while it lasts! Watch it, learn it, and nail it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1E-CSAD-xs[/youtube]

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Guitar Solo Tutorial – Nothing Else Matters By Metallica

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The first tutorial DVD titled ” Learn To Play Gary Moore ” features songs like ” Still Got The Blues ” and it shows you how to play via the note by note method. I’ve personally always loved the Lick Library collection of guitar tutorials and I’ve found that it’s probably the best way to learn if you want to master a particular song.

The other two DVD’s ” Learn to Play Gary Moore ‘The Solos’ ” and ” Quick Licks in the style of Gary Moore ” round out this collection and teaches you a collection of hot solos and lick most commonly played by Gary Moore. Again, these are great for beginners through to advanced guitar players as it breaks it all down for you note for note.

At the end of each DVD, there are also jam tracks for you to practice what you’ve just learned, which is the thing I love most about these Lick Library instructional DVD’s.

You can purchase them at www.licklibrary.com

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Ultimate Learn to Play Gary Moore DVD’s

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I recently got to mess around with Band In A Box. What is it? It’s a creative music composition program that allows you to generate midi music and create your own backing tracks. It has all the instruments you’d want in a band including piano, drums, saxophone, rhythm guitar etc. All you have to do is enter the chord progression you with in standard notation form, and it goes to work for you. Perfect if you want to create your own backing tracks to jam along with.

It’s available on both Windows and Macintosh platforms, and will set you back about $80+ USD via direct download.

Is This The Ultimate Band Software?

From my own experience, it’s great for a beginner who wants to compose their own music. In terms of overall sound, I find the sounds available on their demo software a bit unprofessional.

If you’re interested in reading up about it, Hugo has reviewed Band In A Box in good detail.

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Guitar Software – Band In A Box

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String bending is the act of picking a note on your guitar and bending the string upwards or downwards to get a higher pitch.

Why do we need to learn how to bend strings?

The answer is because it brings character to our songs. Rather than just picking a higher note up in a scale, bending the string allows us to reach the same pitch or note ( from a lower note ) in a smooth fashion. You’ll hear plenty of string bending in Country Western and Folk guitar music. It’s used very often in Rock as well.

Learn How To Bend Strings

Here’s a tip for you. Many beginner guitar players tend to bend the strings using their fingers to push the strings up, then they complain that their fingers hurt or they don’t have enough strength to do their bends. That’s just wrong technique.  Instead, keep your fingers rigid and twist your wrist to get the string to bend. This gives your bending a lot more strength and takes the pressure off your fingers, creating a much nicer tone over all.

Here’s a pretty decent Youtube video that teaches views the basics of bending.

Guitar Lesson: Bending Strings

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String Bending Lesson – Learn How To Bend And Why

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For those of you beginners who want to learn to shred, practicing with the end in mind is crucial to your success.

Today, I came across a great little blog post titled ” Terry Syrek on Concentration ” from The Practice Room blog. I thought this particular article would be really apply to beginner guitar players such as yourselves, as well as intermediate players.

( For those of you who do not know who Terry Syrek is, just Youtube him. He’s one of the best shredders and improvisation guitarists I’ve come to know. He’s also released a book called ” Shred Is Not Dead ” – A DVD / book tutorial combination course covering shredding and building up your chops ).

This really great post talks about being efficient with your guitar practice sessions, and really putting your 100% concentration on the licks, scales or songs you’re trying to learn, as opposed to letting your mind wander off while you practice.

Now come to think of it, I think this is true. When I first started learning to play the guitar, I was mentally going through licks or scales that I would play – While I was practicing and also when I wasn’t.

Anyway, check out the article and apply what you read to your guitar practice.

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Guitar Practicing Mindset – Terry Syrek Words Out

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Guitar accessories - The " Ultrex Sharp " from Dunlop

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Ultex Sharp Guitar Pick – New From Dunlop Accessories

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My quick answer is: If you’re a beginner learning to play guitar, sweep picking is one of the last things on your ” to learn ” list Sweeping is not easy and takes a lot of left and right hand co-ordination.

Sweep picking is going to be one of the hardest skills you will attempt to develop as an electric guitarist, and many guitar players still have trouble with it years down the road. There is really no fast route to learning this, despite what all the online guitar tutorials say. The key is practicing slowly, and lots and lots of repetition. You will need to play as slow as possible so that you build up super-accuracy especially in  your fretting hand.

So here are some tips and advise for sweep picking:

• If you can, use both your hands to mute the strings that you’re not picking. If you do not do this, it will no longer be sweep picking but strumming instead as all the notes that you picked will still be ringing.
• On your fretting hand, you need to lift up your finger with a delayed action. What this means is that after you’ve picked the string, you will want to lift the finger up a bit slower than your normal rate. This will immediately mute the note you’ve just played, and on you go with the next string. Do this with every string you pick. If you notice a lot of ” string noise ” or unwanted notes, then this is the area you’ll need to check and correct yourself.
• For my own playing style, I use the tip I just mentioned above, as well as using my right hand to mute the strings I’m not sweeping. So if I’m doing a downward sweep, I’d be using my palm ( picking hand ) to mute the strings above, continually.
• Angle your pick slightly at a 45 degree angle as you sweep, this will help you to get a smoother sweep as your pick slices or glides smoothly from string to string.

I hope this has been helpful to you. You can email me for further help if you wish.

Technorati Tags: guitar tips, sweep picking, string muting

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Guitar Tips For Sweep Picking – Tips For Practicing

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Learning to play the guitar and learning to maintain your guitar go hand in hand – Please do learn to maintain your guitar especially if it’s a relatively expensive one. You will enjoy playing the guitar more this way and it will have a better tone overall. Also, be sure to change your strings as soon as you start to notice some corrosion happening on the strings.

This Youtube video’s pretty hilarious but it gets the job done. He first shows viewers how to use lemon oil to clean the fretboard and also how to use tape to protect while you use steel wool to keep your frets clean and shiny. Word of warning – MAKE SURE you use the finest steel wool you can find, if not you can really damage your frets whilst cleaning. Also be sure to tape up your guitar pickup as shown in the video. The reason is because the pickups are magnatized and filing away at your frets will create fine metal shavings that will stick to your pickup and you’re going to find it very hard to remove.

You can do it if you want to, but I don’t clean my fretboard every time I change guitar strings. Only once every few string changes. There is no real need for excessive cleaning. Another reason is if you keep using lemon oil on your fretboard, you could put too much moisture into your guitar neck and cause it to warp a bit.

Good luck with changing strings and cleaning your guitar. Remember that if you have any questions about this, I am always prepared to help. Just click on the ” about me ” section and drop me a message.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzBkBkY6tGY[/youtube]

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Youtube Guitar Tutorials – Changing Your Guitar Strings