A popular guitar forum that I frequent gets a lot of these types of questions:

1. How do I learn how to shred?

2. What scale is this (random notes that have nothing diatonically to do with one another)?

3. How can I make my sweep picking faster/better/whatever?

4. What chords are these (random, again meaningless triads)?

I have advice for those guys – quit it. Your perspective above is wrong. While technique and theory are really important, they aren’t the most critical part of music. The most critical aspect of music is, of course, being musical. It takes time, practice and self-critique to develop musicality. If you aren’t doing that you are missing the MOST IMPORTANT part of development as a guitarist.

If you want  4% of the male population to geek out while you play 64th note sextuplets at 240 BPM, sweet – keep the practice up. On the other hand if you want to have a chance of taking your career anywhere you need make good music, not technical music, so stop being a guitar player and start being a musician. Stop f***ing shredding!

Two quick questions:

1. How many great shredders are there who have made it big? Like “do it for a living” big?

2. How many mediocre guitar players have made it big because they are incredible musicians/songwriters/performers?

If your answer to #1 is less than your answer to #2, you need to adjust your practice schedule so that it is more in line with a long term goal that looks like #2.

One great way to do this is take lessons on another instrument or from a good instructor who teaches on another instrument. Find a great piano player, tell him what you’re trying to do and get him to work with you on musicality. He can’t give you tips on technique because he doesn’t know any.

I never really had to deal with SEO at PartnerWeekly. We got most of our traffic from affiliates. Whether they were PPC, email, organic – we really didn’t care, we just knew that we didn’t have to do it.

When I started this blog (and, more recently, a couple other projects) I had the rude “you need to get your own traffic beotch” awakening.

It’s cool to see that I rank for such in-demand phrases as “bald guitar player” and “joe lilly las vegas dog trainer,” but in my infinite wisdom I totally spaced on including the word “guitarist” in any of my shit.

….not that a blog about internet marketing, guitar, politics, rescuing dogs and whatever else is gonna ever amount to much…..but still…..that was pretty friggin’ stupid.

So for the record, I am a bald guitar player guitarist that plays guitar guitarist in Las Vegas who rescues dogs while being a guitarist and guitar player and internet marketer.

While rehearsing a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that our rhythm player’s chords were sounding slightly out of tune on a couple of songs. He plays in open G a lot (loves them Stones) and it was only on the songs in which he was tuned to open G. He checked his tuning and intonation and they were both fine. WTF? I realized the problem and wrote him the note below. (Background: he’s a very solid player with teenie tiny little baby hands. He uses 9 gauge strings – pretty light for chording.)

“Just got lost in thought here at work, and when I found myself returned to awareness I realized that I was thinking about your open tuning intonation situation. Had a few thoughts for you to consider. Your right hand attack is nice and strong – you really don’t want to compromise that, as it makes your rhythm work (particularly on the open g stuff) sound great. Problem is though that your are forcing your strings out of tune by hitting them too hard – acoustically speaking too hard. You also don’t want to use a lighter pick, as that will sound flimsy and shitty. What to do?

(FYI I had this exact same problem in college and just after. Wound up putting 13 gauge flatwounds on my guitar. It is impossible to hit those too hard. It strengthened my left hand and taught me how to lighten up my right hand. I’m not suggesting you do that, though. It hurts a lot.)

Thinking about it, I notice that the intonation on your Les Paul (standard tuning) is near perfect. I attribute this to the fact that you’re playing a lot more arpeggios, etc., on the Les than the SG. The SG, by virtue of open tuning, just gets the poop whacked out of it. Also, as far as I can tell it is just the 3rd of the chord going out of tune – which in that tuning is located on your ‘B’ string, if I’m not mistaken. That said, here are a few ideas:

1. Intentionally tune the “b” string and high e 5-10 cents flat. This will always make your thirds sounds a bit flat (once pitch levels out after your initial attack) but guess what? Uh….we’re playing blues rock. 3rds are supposed to be a bit flat. (We disqualified this idea as using duct tape to fix a cat – solution does not match the problem. Why cats are “the problem” is another post…)

2. Develop a hybrid set of strings just for you. Grip and hand strength problems are naturally going to be the worst near your fingertips, which is furthest from the “fulcrum” or your grip’s strong point (lowest knuckle on index finger.) So, instead of doing the super slinky 9′s: 9 11 16 24 32 42, what if you swapped out the bottom three to 10 13 20? Would be a bit of a brighter sound but that would probably sound pretty cool.

3. Put 10s or 11s on the guitar and drop your tuning another half step. The reduced string tension will offset the increase in string gauge, making the notes easier to fret.

4. Tune the B string up to D or down to G. (I’m not sure how this will sound).  (Disqualified as not stylistically appropriate).

5. Take an additional 16 gauge G string, put it where the B string goes, tune it down to G. Take your B string, put it where the E string goes, tune it normal. (Also disqualified as not stylistically appropriate.)

Just a few thoughts. I think I like the notion of 2 the best as it retains the harmonic integrity of your sound (which is great btw) and solves the vibrational issue of the current string gauge.”

He finally decided upon #2. (My favorite idea, by the way.)

If you’re having any of these problems, here are some things to consider:

- You might be hitting them too hard, which starts them sharp.

- You might be fretting too hard, which bends the string slightly sharp.

- Check your tuning and intonation. (Duh. )