The one minute major third expansion

Using every available note on the fretboard

I hope you had fun with the idea and the licks in my last article. Today I’m going to expand a bit on that same simple idea. But before I go on I would like to make this clear: You can use all available notes on the entire fretboard to play over any Blues Rock chord progression, and when you come to the end of these articles, you will! So the point of these article is not to show you...

How to expand the pentatonic scale in two minutes

More freedom and choices

I’ve been looking forward to writing this series about how to master the blues rock sound in all it’s different manifestations. This is by far the most used sound in all of rock music so mastering it is crucial. But most people often feel a bit limited by the measly five or six notes that you have at your disposal in the traditional pentatonic blues scale. I use to feel that way for sur...

Breaking free from the tyranny of time

How to create the solo of your dreams

Improvised or prepared?

What's best: A totally improvised solo or one that is carefully prepared and structured in advance? I used to not like the improvised solos very much. "Go home and come up with something worth listening to" I thought to myself whenever I heard Jazz players dive into mass quantities of, what seemed like, random notes. But at the same time I was convinced that you should be able to improvise your way thor...

How to never run out of licks again

This article contains one very important lesson that we can draw from the playing of Yngwie Malmsteen. It represents an important key to building effective solos while having immense fun. When you apply it consciously to your own playing, you will experience a greater sense of freedom and playfulness than perhaps ever before.

How to get beyond repetitive playing

Why is it that Malmsteen's solos seem so alive? Wh...

The secret Malmsteen rule

The second principle that Yngwies brain seems to work by is the concept of “The path of least resistance” Choosing the easiest way around anything sounds like a no-brainer but in this case it isn't. This principle can make or break your success in shredding and when I started applying it to everything I did, I made so much progress in so little time, I couldn't believe it.

When I first began to s...

How to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen

If you want to play like the best, you should know how the best became the best. If you know that, you can do the same thing they did, and achieve the same results. In the next series of articles I’m going to give you every little nugget that I’ve picked up in my study of Yngwie Malmsteen. I've found that there are two sides to cover when it comes to this guy. 1. How to play like Yngwie and 2. How to think like him. It's...

Integrating Major & Diminished Arpeggios

Integrating sweep picking with other techniques

How to build sweep picking precision

The 3 tools of sweep picking

The 3 traps to avoid at all cost

Magical shredding super powers

Imagine your favorite guitar player on stage. See and hear how cool it sounds when he or she is playing. Feel the emotions you would feel if you where there right now. How would your face look? How much fun would you have? Then imagine taking his place. Switch parts with your favorite shredder and imagine that you are on stage, playing with the skills of a guitar super hero. Imagine everyones amazement. See t...

How to visualize every note on the fretboard

How to always know what scales to use

How to create the Malmsteen sound

Now let's push the 7th step up one fret (The G not...

How to master blues rock scales

How to nail this challenge in two months

This article will show you ways to master all the things I've talked about.  And the first and most essential thing is the concept of planning. This doesn't have to take more than a couple of minutes but it's essential to your success. Planning is deciding what you will do and for how long you will do it. Here's what happens when we don't plan:

1. We decide on something we'd like to maste...

A Massive Chunk of Shredding Freedom

When dealing with large amounts of information we must do two things in order to get the most out of our brain.

1. We must group things into manageable chunks
2. We must look for easy patterns to remember
3. Then we must put those chunks of information together like a jigsaw puzzle

Any four notes per string scale pattern consist of one easy pattern, repeated three times across the strings.

H...

Develop automated pattern recognition

When you've given yourself sufficient time to learn to play all the notes on the top two strings, it's time to move on. But remember, the top two strings should feel like home now. You should be able to clearly visualize all the notes on this set of strings quickly and effortlessly. If you still feel a little slow at this, here's another strategy you can use:

Place your guitar besides your TV-set in an upr...

Breaking out of limiting scale patterns

The fretboard can be compared to a city with it's roads and locations: If you try to find your way around the whole city at once, you have to refer to the map at every crossing and corner. But if you live in one part of the city for a couple of months, you get to know that neighborhood so well, that you can find your way in the dark. And if you then move to another part of the city, the sam...

A totally new way of thinking

In this series of articles, I'm going to give you, what I consider to be, the fastest and easiest way to "fretboard vision": The ability play over the entire fretboard like it was the easiest thing in the world. If you apply every element in my strategy and really go for it, you will not believe what will happen to your skills in this area. This subject is such an amazing example of how much progress yo...

Celebrating your victory

I'd like to add a little note to yesterdays article. Most people that I have introduced these two methods to, has been very sceptical to whether they would really work or not. If you feel the same way, here's my recommendation:

Pick a one or two string lick that you would like to master. Then practice playing it to the point where you can do it without referring to the tablature. Then use the methods I described in th...

Two strategies that will triple your results

In this article I'm going to give you two methods that you can use to practice when you don't have a guitar. With these two strategies, you can practice everywhere. Depending on what you do for a living, you might add as much as 6 to 8 hours of valuable practice time to your daily shedule. When you use them enough, they become automatic and you'll start to...

Turbo charge your practice sessions

Greetings fellow shredder. This article will give you a vital strategy that you can use to improve your results dramatically. It's a little long but reading it is well worth your effort. By now you should have laid down a plan for the ten days. You have scheduled every possible 30 minute session during this period and should be clear about the rules of the game. Now it's t...

Essential Rules of Engagement

Now that you've laid down a plan for the next ten days, let's talk about the rules of the game. The first thing to be very conscious of, is what kind of practice routine you are preparing for. It's important to distinguish between these two kinds of practice:

1. Technique
2. Integration

Practicing technique

Improving your technical skills requires repeating a certain pattern of movement until it's embedded in the brain. When you engage...

Expand Your Practice Regimen Explosively

Let's begin the planning part of your ten day challenge. The first thing you must do is to find three licks that you would really, really like to master. Don't aim too low when you select them: They have to be so far away from your current skill level that they really inspire you. Ideally, the thought of "acquiring" them should make you feel like a little kid before Christmas eve.

Also the three lic...

The 10 day breakthrough strategy

Here's the basic mistake that we all tend to make:

When ever we are confronted with a challenge of any kind, we estimat...

The Secret Picking Method...

The Magic of Mastery

How to make super fast picking easy

The hidden key to learning economy picking fast

Practicing economy picking is a radically different process than practicing alternate picking. And the reason is this: Because economy picking involves a sweeping motion, you have to use two different practice routines to get the best results fast:

1. Playing the metronome game
2. Chunking several movements into one
3. Integrate immediately

1. Playing the metronome game

If you are unfamili...

How to pick like a Swedish virtuoso

If you want to play like the wind and the water, economy picking is for you. Alternate picking feels and sounds like a machine gun, where as economy picking flows like a river. Once you have it down, economy picking feels easy in comparison to alternate picking. It feels completely effortless and that frees up a lot of energy to focus on other things. As a consequence, I always use economy picking unless I...

How to pimp your axe for maximum speed

Years ago, I thought that any skilled guitar player should be able to play fast on any guitar. Even though I loved playing on a guitar that had all the qualities that I'm going to discuss in this article, I still did nothing to make my own instrument more playable. "Playing on an impossible instrument will just harden me and make me better in the end" I thought. but I missed the point. ...

The killer strategy for mastering string shifts

Every technique has its challenges. When it comes to alternate picking, shifting strings is definitely one of them. What most people aren’t aware of is that this is a two headed monster. There are two different string shifts that you can make:

1. Outside shifting

2. Inside shifting

Outside shifting is when you go from picking down on, let’s say the B-string, and then picking up on the high ...

How to break through the speed barrier

How to increase picking speed by 500 %

The engine in a car is a complex piece of machinery where everything has to fit together to produce the power needed to drive the car. Imagine if some part of the engine suddenly started to loose it's place. If the explosions in one cylinder suddenly misfired and worked against the rest of the engine, then what would happen? The way to ensure that our alternate picking engine works perfect...

How to make alternate picking easy

1. Picking rhythmically up and down
(Accenting every third or fourt...

How to pick with precision and power

8 things that keep us from getting better, Part 1

Because we humans are impatient by nature, we tend to bite of more than we can chew. This is quite normal, but it is not an effective strategy. We suddenly decide to loose weight and since it has to happen now rather than later, we go for a 20 mile run. Then one of two things happen: Etiher we actually run the 20 miles, but because or body isn't ready for that kin...

How to gain an extra 4 hours of practice time a day

The art of Practicing while watching TV...

It's no joke... When I first started playing guitar I needed tons of practice time because I didn't have the luxury of practicing effectively (You don't have that excuse anymore) I had 7 hours of school to attend to and I had to get some amount of homework done in able to survive the next day. (My teachers where lethal) But I managed to put in 6 hours of practice a d...