[this is a preview from the upcoming course Making Theory Practical] In the last lesson, we began mixing quarters & eighths. We didn’t get far, though, because we’re missing an ingredient: silence. Every note value has a matching rest. (Don’t worry about memorizing these—we’re going to learn them in context.) “Rest” is a crappy name […]
The sublime genius of Carole King’s It’s Too Late
get the newsletter RIFFS Ani DiFranco has a lyric: “every pop song on the radio / is suddenly speaking to me” I think of that line whenever I get deep into a subject. Because it always feels like the universe is reconfiguring itself around me, setting up happy accidents, and leading me along to things […]
Riffs, Recs, Charts, & Smarts #35
RIFFS: Anderson .Paak’s name has a dot. But why? The dot stands for detail. It’s a reminder to himself to pay attention to detail, because “people take you as seriously as you take yourself.” Oftentimes we’re in such a hurry to develop our badassery that we forget it’s the sum of paying attention to thousands […]
Mr. Miyagi’s Guitar Lessons
My kids are obsessed with taking their vitamins. Not because they give a shit about their health, but because their vitamins are gummy bears. Metalessons are like gummy vitamins for your guitar playing. Every bit as much fun, but better for you than pure sugary candy. What are the vitamins in this analogy? Every song […]
Finish What Ya Started
Tab, Sheet Music, Backing Track, Lesson, & Analysis Welcome to a different kind of guitar lesson. The kind that needs… a table of contents? How This Works Tiny Little Soapbox Rant The Tones The Chart The Stems Practice Strategies Techniques The Solo How This Works I want to give you better tools for learning songs […]
How To Slow Down Audio In Logic Pro X
Really easy to do… once you enable the control that allows it. Preferences > Advanced > Show Advanced Tools View > Customize Control Bar and Display under LCD, select “Custom” from the dropdown enable Varispeed by checking the box now there’s a “Speed Only +/-0.00%” window you can use to drag the tempo up or […]
Riff Recs #6
Riffs Recs Friends of friends The Main Squeeze covered Pink Floyd’s Have A Cigar. And I don’t want to be hyperbolic here, but: Guitarist Max Newman plays maybe the best guitar solo I’ve ever heard. If you’re pressed for time, skip ahead to where it starts at 3:26. It’s five minutes well spent. Charts I […]
Riff Recs #5
Riffs Recs I’ve really been digging on Jay Leonard J’s YouTube channel. He’s a great player, and this one in particular resonated with me: My Advice For Mastering Your Instrument In it, he touches on these six ideas: 1. Play With The Recording We tend to play super fast for the easier bits, but then […]
Riff Recs #4
Hey Y’all, Hope you’re staying warm this week. We got lucky and left Austin just before the storm hit. Here’s this week’s Riffs, Recs, Charts, & Smarts. ——— Riffs: ——— Recs: In this vid, Mary Spender asks Tomo Fujita, “what do you think people are missing when teaching themselves?” His answers: “mumbling” not recording themselves […]
Riff Recs #3
Hey Y’all! It’s Wednesday, which means… Riffs, Recs, Charts, & Smarts Riffs: ——— Recs: Keep The Fun was an attempt to articulate something I couldn’t quite perceive. I was blindly groping towards an idea that was just outside my reach. But then my friend Nicholas sent me an amazing article, and the cartoon lightbulb above my […]