The Brain-to-Hand Connection

The third aspect of guitar control is perhaps
the most powerful, and this is what I call the
“brain-to-hand” connection. It is the most raw
and abstract skill for improvising. It all starts
with the energy of inspiration, which comes from within.
What you feel in your heart and hear in your head
is simply played directly, without thought, without any considerations.
We can improvise freely with our vocal chords by
singing pitches – but why is it so much harder to
do it on the guitar?

It’s because our vocal chords are a part of our physical body – so there is
nothing in between to get in the way. With the guitar, we somehow have
to know the right pitch and how to find it on the fretboard.
This requires some serious ear training. The most direct way of recognizing
pitches that you hear in your head is to develop the ability to know the
pitches themselves. This skill is called “perfect pitch” or “absolute pitch”.
This takes 1) knowledge of how to train your ear in this manner and 2)
either a partner or a computer program to drill you. Thankfully, both of
these issues are solved for you by tone tutor, which you can
get free access to when you sign up for Killer Guitar Control Secrets.
The next kind of ear training is relative pitch training – which essentially
means getting good at recognizing which degree of the scale you are hearing
over the chord progression.

For example, take a simple 12 bar blues progression. It is fairly easy to
distinguish when you are hearing the root of the progression. Then it
becomes a matter of learning the other important pitches such as the fifth
degree. It just takes practice.

Besides ear training, there are a number of other things you can do to
improve your brain-to-hand connection.

One exercise you can do is simply to practice getting good at nailing the first note
of a phrase that you are imagining in your head. I call this the “first note”
exercise. Its very powerful because once you hit the first note, often the rest of
the phrase falls under your fingers.

But, there’s many other exercises you can do. There was a time when I focusing
specifically on developing the brain-to-hand connection. I was playing lead guitar in a
band at the time, and …get this… I refused to know or learn what key I was playing in.
And I played some very inspiring and powerful leads.

However, occasionally I would get lost. Eventually, I learned how to play totally from
the heart, yet still feel grounded by the knowledge of the fretboard. I was able to
integrate the two, and also use my technique to serve the purpose of expression.
Other exercises you can do for the brain to hand connection:

– Seperate left and right hand practicing.

– Singing along with what you play

– focusing on various rhythmic groupings

And there are MANY other techniques that I cover inside my DVD course – for
example, just one of them is the “In and Out” technique that will get you closer to
playing from the heart by pushing you closer and closer to what you really want to play.

Fretboard Knowledge

The first thing is technique and the second component
to “guitar control” is fretboard knowledge. This includes the
knowledge of the scale patterns, but also where the
notes are on the fretboard, knowing
their various combinations (such as scales, modes,
chord voicings, etc), and beyond. It
encompasses music theory, and how that
theory applies to the particular layout of
the guitar fretboard.

For example, take a simple A minor pentatonic scale,
starting on the 5th fret low A string, playing two
notes per string, and ending on the 8th fret high E string (C).
This is the pentatonic scale that guitarsists are
probably most familiar with. The scale itself is
easy to learn and play.

But go a little deeper with analysis, and you discover
a wealth of fretboard knowledge…Notice all the degrees of
the scale, and the intervallic relationship to every other note.
Notice the physical relationship on the fretboard.
Notice the first octave is 2 frets and 2 strings away.
Notice the V (5th) note (E) on the B string at the 5th fret.
Now go deeper, notice how the notes in A pentatonic
(A C D E G) are a subset of the notes in C major,
without the IV and the VII. Notice the A minor triad
overlaps with the scale on the 5th fret on the top
three strings. And this is all just the beginning.
Now expand these kinds of observations to more positions, more
scales, and to entire chord progressions. Notice the
relationship between scales used to solo over a
progression and the chord tones within the chords of that
progression.

There are many, many, many ways to conceptualize
the fretboard, and the more you know, the
greater your fretboard knowledge and mastery will be.
“Memorizing” the fretboard is often a misused concept.
Let’s say you memorize that the 8th fret on the B
string is a G. That by itself is of some value, but it is
more meaningful within the context of a scale or chord
progression. For example, in an A blues progression,
using the A minor pentatonic scale, the G is considered
“the 7th”.

So if you’re playing the G on the 8th fret B string,
you should be able to see all the notes around it,
such as the A on the 10th fret B string, which is the root.
Then, you should also be able to see that the G is part of
the A7 chord, in multiple voicings.

And you should be able to see that the G is one
half step above the F#, which is the third of
the D chord, which is the IV chord in the progression. And
you should be able to see the relationship between the A7 chord and the D7
chord, and the smooth voice leading from the G down to the F#.

I could go on and on, but hopefully this gives
you an idea of what I mean by fretboard
knowledge. The bottom line is, the more
familiar you are with all these conceptualizations
of the fretboard, the deeper your understanding will go.

Now here is a critical concept – when you’re playing
a deeply passionate solo, there is no
room for thought. There is no room for conceptualization.
Therefore, you learn the various ways of thinking
about the fretboard, you deepen your understanding
and knowledge, but you don’t let this get in the way of
emotion and feeling.

It can help you in many subtle ways. One way is “if you get
lost” on the neck, you can fall back on what you know.

This idea of looking at the scale from as many angles as possible is the concept behind
the guitar scale system software, which will grill you and drill you to make sure you
know the scale everywhere.

The Modes

All the patterns all over the neck for E minor
are the same as for G major. The only difference is
which note is treated as the root or tone center.
By changing the tone center, or which note is
emphasized the most and returned to, the quality of the
musical flavor changes. This is what guitarists are
talking about when you hear them talking about
the various modes. Understanding that it’s all really
ONE scale (the diatonic scale) makes things much more
easy to grasp and to practice.

For your reference, here are the various “modes” of the diatonic scale:

SCALE DEGREE ONE: Ionian Mode (Also called Major Scale)

SCALE DEGREE TWO: Dorian Mode

SCALE DEGREE THREE: Phrygian Mode

SCALE DEGREE FOUR: Lydian Mode

SCALE DEGREE FIVE: Mixolydian Mode

SCALE DEGREE SIX: Aeolian Mode (Also called Minor Scale)

SCALE DEGREE SEVEN: Locrian Mode

You should know that each mode has its own musical
flavor and uses. For example, the ionian mode is a
warm, sunny, happy sound… the dorian mode is a
slightly jazzy, bluesrock scale. The phrygian mode
has a dark, exotic, middle-eastern feel to it.

The use of modes could be a topic and discussion
all on its own. The nice thing about
the “Guitar Control” approach is you don’t need to
worry about any of that because
playing from the heart comes first and
everything follows naturally after that. Whatever
kind of sound you are hearing in your mind,
or in your gut, or in your heart, you simply
have to find the right notes. Whatever scale
it happens to be, it doesn’t really matter.
Also, to make things simpler, I recommend
learning 5 basic diatonic patterns…
Essentially, the major, minor, dorian, phrygian,
and mixolydian patterns. There is not
really a need to learn a separate lydian or
locrian patterns as these mostly overlap the
others.

Here is the major scale pattern:

Here is a dorian mode pattern:

Here is a phrygian mode pattern:

Here is an aeolian mode pattern:

Here is a mixolydian mode pattern:

In addition to these patterns, you can learn the
diatonic patterns with 3 notes on every
string, which gives you an entirely new set of
patterns. Eventually, you have to see how
they all overlap and connect.

When should you use the “short” patterns and
when should you use the 3 notes per
string patterns?

The answer is revealed in detail in Killer Guitar
Control Secrets, but the short answer is that
the more compact patterns are more useful to play
melodies and arpeggios, while the extended
patterns lend themselves to playing fast shredding runs.

And by learning the diatonic scale everywhere on
the neck, you will already be equipped
to produce the various possibilities with your fingers.

Unless you’re already pretty advanced, don’t
worry about learning 29 different
exotic scales. It is better to go deep and
master the basics than to know a little bit
about many different scales or modes.

As far as actual practice goes, I tend to
focus on the major/minor scales. The
modes such as dorian, phyrigian, lydian, etc
are all just inversions of the major
scale. When you learn a complete scale all
over the neck, such as G major, you
are really learning all the modes of that scale as well.

Guitar Scales

Whatever style you want to play, technique will come in handy.
And perhaps the most universally handy tool is guitar scales.
Not only will they improve your chops tremendously, but they
are a great way to find the right notes to play.

Think of guitar scales as a bridge between technique and
fretboard knowledgable. Within the realm of scales, it is
counterproductive to try to learn too many. Forget those
books that show you 100 different scales.

For starters, work with the pentatonic scale. This is a 5 note scale
and its the easiest scale to get started with to make some
sweet lead guitar sounds. Even when you become advanced,
you will still rely heavily on this basic scale.

It is important to be able to play through each scale pattern.
After that, learn sequences on each of the scales. Practice alternate picking.
Here are the 5 basic patterns of the pentatonic scale:
Pattern 1:

This is the “home base” pattern with the root of the scale
as the first note on the low E string. For example, in the key of A,
you would start this pattern on the fifth fret. The nice thing about
any pattern on the guitar that doesn’t use open strings, is that you
can change keys by moving it up or down on the fretboard without
changing the shape.

In case you’ve never seen these kinds of patterns before, the highest
string (the high E string) is first, then B, G, D, A, and low E strings:

Starting on the next note of the scale, pattern 2 would look like this:

Starting on the 3rd note of the scale gives you pattern 3:

Starting on the 4th note of the scale gives you pattern 4:

And finally, the last or 5th note of the scale gives you pattern 5:

These patterns are well known to experienced guitarists. Nothing new here, but how
well do you really know the patterns? Can you play all of them with no problem?

Next, you should practice diatonic scale. “Woah, hold on”,
you might be saying… What the heck is the diatonic
scale?

The well-known “major” scale is the diatonic scale.
However, the “minor” scale is really the same scale
but starting on a different note.
For example, the G major scale contains
the notes: G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#.

These are the same notes as in the
E minor scale: E, F#, G, A, B, C, and D.

How to Develop Guitar Technique

Technique is the basic physical ability to
play notes on the guitar. Without at least a
basic technique, it is essentially impossible
to play any music at all on the guitar. If
you’ve been playing guitar for any amount of time,
you already posess a certain level of basic technique.

Ironically, technique (also called “chops”) is both
underemphasized and overemphasized.

Many modern “shredders” (players with a lot of chops)
overemphasize technique in that they mostly work on,
and develop the ability to play fast. For example, they can play
fast through a scale pattern. But playing through a scale at a
fast pace doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to play a better solo.
What is the purpose and role of technique? If your goal is to play from the heart,
then technique should be there to serve that purpose,
and nothing more. In other words, technique’s purpose is to
allow you to play the notes that you hear in your
head, without stumbling.

There is nothing wrong with those shredders who have built speed.
But I feel that many of them overemphasize technique and do
not go far enough to develop real feeling on the guitar.

They can start to believe that great chops means great playing
when it is only part of the equation. There is also the tendency
to overplay – both in terms of playing fast too much, and also
developing musical ideas that are technically impressive rather than
emotionally deep.

On the other side of the spectrum, many guitarists never develop
enough chops to play fast. Why not? They simply don’t have
a regimented, disciplined program to build technique.
There are all kinds of rationalizations guitarists have for this. Some of
them include:

“Technique is not that important.”

“Practicing technique just makes me sound like everyone else”

“Practicing technique is boring”

“My technique will automatically get better over time as I become
a more knowledgable musician.”

“Building technique is just mindless repetition. That’s easy so
I’ll worry about it later.”

“I don’t really want to play fast stuff anyway”

None of these are very good excuses not to practice technique.
Sure, if you just want to sit around strumming simple chords
and playing Neil Young songs or something, you
don’t need to learn to shred.

But if you want to become a great (or even just solid)
lead guitarist, you should spend time practicing your
technique in a disciplined manner.

In addition to being able to run through the scales quickly,
you need to work on your phrasing – this is another
aspect of technique. Specifically, bends and vibrators. Blues
prodigy Kenny Wayne Sheppard once said – “after you
get your basic skills down, work on your vibrato.”

If you are going for speed, the fastest way is to start
by alternate picking just a single note – see if you
can work that up to speed – perhaps 200 bpm or beyond.
Then start working on patterns on a single string with
a few different notes. Next go to 2 strings, and then
finally multiple strings. As your patterns get more complex,
you may need to slightly reduce the tempo.

This is the proven method used by shredding legends like Paul Gilbert.

2-time Guitar Idol finalist Silvio Gazquez breaks down his approach
to advanced lead guitar in his Virtuoso Guitar Secrets program.

Technique involves pushing your nervous system. Experts say you must push your
nervous system to a “90% excitation level” in order for new neural pathways to form.
This means you have to practice hard. However, you should never strain yourself or feel
pain.

There are software programs available to help you push your technique beyond what a
normal metronome can do. Finally, another secret is that endurance is a big part of technique.
Anyone can play a few notes fast – but can you keep it up in order
to play fast, clean runs and produce an entire solo? In addition to
having the practical benefit of just being able to play fast for
a longer period of time, working on your endurance will actually
make you play faster.

Think about it – if you can play something perfectly 10 times
in a row at a medium tempo, you can certainly play it
2 or 3 times at a faster pace.

What is “Guitar Control” ?

When I was just starting out playing, I read an article
about Eric Clapton as an innovator.
It said he had the perfect blend of technique and control.
Reading that had a profound affect on me. Technique
seemed like a straightforward, mechanical thing. However,
control was another story. It seemed be a hard-to-acquire
quality that was rare among guitarists, and in practice,
was difficult. By the time I heard a note in my head, and
figure out where it was on the fretboard, the measure
had long passed. This seems to be the heart of the problem.
Even great players like Steve Vai have said
that really playing what you want is “so elusive”.
I spent the next couple decades trying to learn this
rare art of improvising exactly what I
wanted to hear.

The 3 Components

The three components of killer guitar control are:

1. Technique
2. Fretboard Knowledge
3. The Brain-to-Hand Connection.

Technique is the physical aspect of playing the
guitar – your ability to hit the notes quickly, accurately,
and in tempo. Fretboard knowledge is how well you
see the patterns on the neck, and how they can be used
musically. The Brain-to-Hand connection is your skill
of hitting the notes that you hear in your head.

What is “Guitar God” Soloing?

The first step in any journey is to pick a destination. I have always been inspired by
guitar players like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie
Van Halen, and many others. What do these guitarists have in common?

– They sound amazing.

– They have a unique lead guitar style which reflects and expresses their
personality.

But most importantly:

– They can play what they are feeling on any given day and improvise with
incredible freedom.

This is well docmented. Hendrix played wild solos and played
differently every live show.  In my opinion, his improvised
live solos were more impressive than his studio albums.
Clapton said that he while he might have the beginning
of a lead planned out, he never worked out any complete
solos note for note in advance. And Eddie Van Halen
said that he got his best solos recorded just by playing
them live with the band.

These legendary players are so good at expressing themselves
on the guitar, that they have been called “Guitar Gods”.
Someone even wrote “Clapton is God” with grafitti on
a wall.

Being able to IMPROVISE what you feel is the
essense of being a Guitar God. Why
should you learn to improvise?

– Being able to play exactly what you feel in the moment is very rewarding.
– The better you can improvise, the greater your ability to also compose.
– Playing what you feel in the moment is the best way to express yourself
and create emotive music.