From Amateur ➜ Pro Guitarist in 23 minutes

[Music] you know professional guitar players have certain tells when they play guitar that truly indicate that they are indeed professional and I'm grateful to say that for the last 20 years I've been fortunate enough to Sur myself with professional guitar players really get to absorb and observe what they do so that I can hopefully imitate it myself and hang along with them and I'm about to share with you three things in particular that I believe truly separate professional players from nonprofessional players and by the way be sure to stick around till the very end of the lesson because I've got a free gift for you and your guitar that you're both going to love [Music] [Applause] now before I get into these three particulars and what makes a professional guitar player I do want to say that this is not a dig on nonprofessional players obviously if you got a love for guitar and you got the music in you it doesn't matter what capacity that you get to use it whether it's at home or doing like whatever capacity you're able to do it in doesn't have to be this big glorious thing if you got the music in you let it out that being said there's a whole lot that we can learn from professional players and of course these same players happen to be ones that Inspire us ones that make us want to pick up guitar and get better at it right so there's always something we can learn and we can gain from observing professional players that can automatically upgrade the way that we play even if we don't aspire to be professional on that same level so the first of these three things that really make a professional guitar player is that they are Melody focused this means that Melody is everything especially when we're talking about improvisation playing solos you know even if it's jamming over a backing track it's always thinking in terms of Melody so you're not thinking in terms of scales really the scale is the vehicle to get you there as far as the melody is concerned but you're thinking about the melody it's like you're you're in the creative process rather than the mechanical process so if you think of a short sweet simple Melody whatever scale it takes to get you there that's kind of like secondary but what comes first is the actual Melody because that's the creative part of you right so when you think in terms of Melody you're not necessarily thinking in terms of I know all the scales to play over you know whatever kind of uh track or whatever you know it's like you're not very you're not being scale forward in your thinking that's important in the beginning just to understand you know the different scale patterns the different tonalities of them and find out which ones actually speak to you the most musically and you can get the most use out of right and that's going to help inspire you when it it comes to coming up with Melodies but Melodies don't have to be complicated or they don't require a multitude of scales in order to even have a starting point with Melody you can have the most simplest Melody and still make it sound very professional right as long as it's something that you can hear in your head and you learn how to bring it out on guitar and I know that may seem like a tall order if you've never done that before like coming up with a melody and then just playing it right it's important to start really really simple just a handful of notes right and depending on what you're playing over so like in the beginning of the video I was playing over a ballad style backing track that was an EF flat major so my guitar is actually tuned down a half step right so my low E is actually an E flat so every string is tuned down a half step so well what I'm going to demonstrate to you and it's important you know when it comes to these particular things that I'm going to show you it's more about the way things are played and it's not necessarily about like you know play this exact thing because again a professional player is more about like with this first thing it's about the creativity right so this is meant to just kind of get the the gears turning in your own mind and help you find ways that you can bring this stuff out even with just a handful of notes so what I was focusing on when I was playing over that ballad style backing track was just E flat major pentatonic right and what I was really doing was just these kind of four note [Music] boxes but I was connecting them right so it was across three octaves but if you're already familiar with the pentatonic hot boxes then this will be pretty easy to pick up and the reason I give myself a limited amount of notes to work with is because it's to really prove the point that it doesn't take a whole lot to sound professional and especially when it comes to coming up with Melody and like the whole process of doing that having a handful of notes will take a lot of the pressure off of you and make it much easier to get kickstarted with it so let's say for example you come up with something like if you're used to hearing you know the tonality that playing it right this happy sounding pentatonic so you're focused on that that's the tonality that your mind is focused on so when you come up with a Melody you're most likely not going to come up with like uh you know harmonic minor or something that's a little more uh like tense or exotic sounding right you're going to be focused pretty major right and I'm not a good singer right this is this is something that I'm being very uh uh vulnerable and a little Shameless about because I encourage you to do the same is to just kind of like sing an idea just make something up you don't have to be a good singer to do it and if it's just a handful of notes you know you can do something like um that's it right simple so let's see how I can find that on with these notes let's see okay so I was able to find the notes cuz obviously I've been doing this for a while but even if you don't find the exact notes it's it's the process has started right like you're you're starting to get some even you did something like something like that it's not exactly what I Sayang but I just kind of it gave me something something to hold on to and just try out and that's that's what I want you to do in the beginning don't worry so much about being Pitch Perfect with you know matching the notes in your head with being being able to play them on guitar that's going to come with time I promise you but it's important in the beginning to just give yourself uh like permission to be okay with fumbling through it at first because as long as you have something to hold on to then that you know that's something that you wouldn't have otherwise had so if you just sort of like sing out a random idea and just try to find it even if the notes aren't correct you have like the budding like new idea that you otherwise would not have had and I'm telling you as you spend more time doing that you're going to get more precise with it you're going to be able to actually hear a melody and play it in your head and again start really really simple with just a couple of notes and then over time as you get more accustomed to it you'll be able to kind of graduate into having more notes at your disposal next thing you know you're going to be singing like complicated lines like 16th note runs and stuff in your head and you'll just know exactly where to play it but for now we're just focused on simple Melody right we're thinking ballad we're thinking major pentatonic so that's it right let's think of another Melody like uh like you know like that that that backing track kind of reminds me of like a '90s like almost like Smashing Pumpkins style uh ballad right so if I were to think of like something Billy Corgan would sing you know like like just like something like that right let's try that okay let's see if I can find that uh let's [Music] see okay found it and it's right there you know in that major pentatonic [Music] right like again that's the range that I'm working with here and and then I know an octave up it's right [Music] here that's cool I'm going to throw on the backing track and just try that out and actually see if it sticks I'd say that worked you know and this is something that's going to be a trial and error process if you're new to the whole thing right so that's where the fun is though you start to realize like wow I didn't realize I was actually musical right even though we're guitar players sometimes we don't realize how musical we truly are but the truth is there is an inner musician in there it's the whole reason you're watching this video learning guitar in the first place it's because because that inner musician exists it's there you cannot tell me it doesn't exist right if you're here so you have to just understand that even your love of music that connection to music is feeds that inner musician so you can come up with a very simple Melody and even if it seems clunky and silly at first as this process you know as you keep putting in the work to to develop this process work it out you don't even have to sing it out loud you'll be able to sing it in your head and you can figure it out so that way you don't have to so much worry about judgment from your spouse or anybody else you know like I said I'm a little Shameless so I don't care but but it's really like I'm I'm you know comfortable enough with myself uh to know that I'm a terrible singer but I won't let that stop me from coming up with musical ideas because that's the most important thing if we're trying to come up with Melody and the second thing that a professional guitar player tends to do is utilize something we like to call Guitar Linguistics these are basically the subtle techniques on guitar that give it a vocal quality you know and especially if we're talking about Melody we're being very Melody focused we're playing over a ballad you know so the techniques for guitar Linguistics are like slides bends vbros stuff like that subtle things that make all the difference as opposed to just statically playing notes and the other side of it when it comes to guitar Linguistics isn't just the use of those techniques for the sake of it it's the deliberation right the the actual on purpose you're using them on purpose so if let's take for example that Melody I came up with before that like uh you [Music] know so a great thing with that is like sliding to start just felt right to me you know as opposed to just right if I were to play it real static like that it takes a lot of the life out of it but if I were to do simple subtle things like slide and then you know like hammer on pull off do something like that and then thebr too especially if we're going for a very vocal singing kind of thing and I do want to put a disclaimer out there you know I'm not trying to say that professionals only play Slow ballad type stuff right I I love the fast playing too right and a professional knows the time and place for either you know either type of technique to pull out right it's all about being tasteful even with the flashy stuff so I totally I love and I advocate for you know learning how to uh really push the boundaries of your playing and play all the fun fast Stu I mean I spent the better part of my teens and 20s you know learning uh like how to play like my favorite guitar players like Paul Gilbert and Vinnie Moore and you know malmstein and all those guys right like I went through that same phase and I don't regret a minute of it because it's really helped me learn how to use those especially if it calls for it you know whenever I encounter that as a professional whether it's on a session or on a gig you know sometimes I'll encounter an artist that's like man can you do something kind of shreddy you know and I want to be able to say yeah I can do that as opposed to being like well you know I could play a ballad you know like you got to be able to to read the room and you got to be able to do what what's asked of you right but for this example that just to get you started it's really all these little things because all the professionals I mean all of them that I've had the pleasure of uh of developing relationships with or even just getting to talk to you know they value more the little things in other guitar players right than how fast they play because a guitar player can play like Wicked blinding fast and then if they move to a vbr and it's just like really nervous and Manic and doesn't really fit the same level of control that they had over all those other techniques the whole thing just kind of Falls flat on its face but a guitar player that can V really really well and may not be able to you know shred or sweep arpeggios or whatever is still considered a valuable guitar player to a professional I'm just telling you that based on experience and I truly feel the same way so these guitar Linguistics are important but it also is in the H like uh actually uh being deliberate when you do them so if I were to do something [Music] like something like that right that's just off the cuff little [Music] slides you know and just focusing on like not playing them just like [Music] where it's like you're so matter of fact with the notes it's just not very inspiring it sounds way more vocal and it also indicates that you have a lot more control over your playing when you're focused on those little things so if you were to take a simple fourn note pentatonic box like this E flat major thing I'm doing and I'm just like okay [Music] slides you know Bend the Bros all those little things I'm telling you like that screams Pro to other professional players it's like game recognizes game so if you're able to sit there and like just really exercise those techniques and let your guitar truly speak imagine like what that'll do to your Melodies if you're coming up with great Melodies and then you apply those guitar Linguistics they're just going to sound that much more professional and that much more musical oh and hey real quick if you're getting value out of this lesson please do me a favor hit that like button and consider subscribing to our YouTube channel it really helps us out and it lets us know that you want to see more lessons just like this one which we'd be more than happy to give you so thanks in advance and let's get right back to business and finally the third thing that separates professional guitar players from all the rest are the use of Dynamics similar to guitar Linguistics in that these are subtle techniques but guitar Linguistics like slides bends vbr and stuff really are focused on your Fring hand but Dynamics really focus on the picking hand and this kind of completes the Ensemble for just overall in control playing professional playing so with Dynamics I'm talking about controlling your attack and your volume and even your overall tone based on how hard or how soft you pick and I'm going to say something mildly controversial here but tone is indeed in the hands I am 100% a firm believer in that I have seen too many times in my life guitar players playing the same exact rig right just just like imagine the same amp same pedals same guitar everything and just this Revol revolving door of guitar players all playing the same rig without changing a thing and sounding completely different that difference was in their hands now I don't necessarily know how I feel about tonone being in the Fring hand I mean I do think there's something to that but I believe most of it really comes from the picking hand let me show you an example okay so with the picking hand how you control your Dynamics right your attack if let's say you play really soft you're actually going to have a different tone than if you played really hard check this out so if I were to just do something like this playing this right [Music] here just that right I'm going to play it real soft and then I'm going to gradually increase intensity and I want to see if you can hear a difference in the tone okay the start soft here we go [Music] [Laughter] [Music] okay I didn't change a thing right my volume and tone everything's wide open I didn't hit a pedal I didn't change the settings on my I mean they're all the way over there anyway right all I did was change my text all I did so let let's do a little play byplay right when I started off playing soft it sounded you know a little throaty really warm viously quieter right uh but then as I started to increase [Music] intensity you can almost hear an increase in gain like there's a little more Distortion a little more breakup based on how I'm hitting the string right getting a little brighter too and then when I hit it real hard I mean I unless I'm like in the throws of like you know playing live I normally don't play that hard usually but you can totally hear a difference between this and this now the fundamental of you know the sound is is similar but you do have to take note of the changes in not just volume right but also in breakup and Distortion and in a little bit in EQ it gets brighter as you pick it harder and it softens up and gets warmer as you pick softer that is a change in tone so what I recommend you do when you're starting out you know exploring your Dynamics in your picking hand is to do a call and response type thing where let's say you play one Melody at your call Melody you play it soft and then your response Melody you play it a little harder right you don't need to go to extremes but make there like make it to where there's a clear difference in dynamic between the call and response that'll kind of help you compartmentalize and just think you know just tell yourself okay I'm going to play soft here and then the next thing I'm going to do I'm going to play a little bit harder so if I did a soft Melody like this like soft little you know picking real soft nice and warm and I want to do a response money that's a little bit a little bit hard O So difference in tone there right you [Music] know almost like you can hear like it's like Marco Polo right with your with yourself right and and and when you're exploring these different Dynamics and you can keep it up right you can do another like nice and simple then like as your response just do that and and really take mental inventory of the difference in sound from when you play hard and when you play soft and then over time you're going to have more control over that to where if you want to let's say play A full-on Melody that's you have the melody in your head and you're using guitar Linguistics and picking Dynamics right this is kind of like a timeline in terms of of like applying these you you start by thinking in terms of Melody you apply the guitar Linguistics then you apply the picking Dynamics and then you have this recipe for professional sounding guitar playing so I'll throw the backing track on again just for just for a few seconds and just play through something that uses all three and we'll see how it sounds [Music] [Music] okay so I was focused on Melody first like just doing the little right just doing the call response thing with the Dynamics doing little slides just really trying to coax some just sweet sounds out of a really hand really just a handful of notes spanning over um three octaves you know and of course when you use those pentatonic hot boxes which like I said we have plenty of videos covering that stuff for both major and minor pentatonic and you can just hear the uh uh like how things change even if I play the same notes in different octaves So that obviously helps too but it really fundamentally comes down to just those handful of notes creating Melodies using guitar Linguistics to give it a more vocal sound and using Dynamics to really like put the icing on the cake and to really make this full-on recipe for professional improvising right and all you got to do is start simple and just work your way up from there that that's all you got to do when you do that you're going to have the foundation of all the priorities that you need to have that professional guitarist mindset and imagine as you start to build your Technique and your repertoire and your whole library of of scales and licks and all that stuff imagine how you're going to be able to execute those having that professional mindset to begin with right still focusing on Melody even when it comes to the fast stuff right when you're playing fast you don't have to play Fast all the time right you can just bust it out to show them what's up right but still have Melody be the most important thing right kind of the the overall theme or motif of what you're doing and then you have your guitar Linguistics and your picking hand Dynamics to just really make the whole thing sound like you're completely in control of your guitar playing and now you know these three simple but powerful professional guitar playing tactics and today we focused on one key a major key specifically but imagine being able to explore all the keys whether it's major or minor all across the fretboard I think you're in the perfect position to explore that after what we just gone over and what you need to have the ability to start playing over all these Keys all over the fretboard happens to involve that free gift that I owe you and here it is right here it's a free lesson on how to in instantly instantly Solo in any musical key even the weird ones like B flat F you name it if it's a key you'll be able to play it major or minor doesn't matter this lesson's going to get you there just be sure to click here to claim your free copy or check the link in the description box I'm really excited to see where your guitar playing goes after taking this lesson cuz you don't have to actually aspire to be a professional working musician in order to play like one [Music]

Channel: Guitar Mastery Method

Views: 14,434

Keywords: guitar, guitar lessons for beginners, guitar tutorial, guitar solo, guitar tabs, electric guitar, how to play guitar, guitar lesson, guitar lessons, guitar riffs, how to learn guitar, guitar for beginners, guitar tutorial for beginners, beginner guitar lessons, guitar mastery method, gmm, intermediate guitar, intermediate guitar lesson, pro guitar, professional guitarist, amateur to pro guitarist, why you don't sound like a pro, Why You Don't Sound Like a Pro (YET!), guitarist

Id: RA-EGHmsmac

Length: 23min 2sec (1382 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024