Don't fall into the same old trap of convincing yourself that now is not the time.
Welcome to the December holiday edition of Guitar Nine's on-line magazine. We're closing out 2017 and welcoming in 2018 with our first new design aesthetic in 10 years, developed to work on your large monitor, laptop, tablet or smartphone. We've also got new columns and new contributors (James Rosocha, Luca Sellitto) in this issue as well. We wish you all the best for the holiday season and hope you'll take this time to improve your playing and educate yourself about the business of music. In total, seven guest columnists have submitted excellent articles on a range of musical topics of interest to practicing musicians. Also, a new interview with guitarist Shawn Christie (guitarist for Zeroesque) is featured in this issue. After working through the information and lessons, please sample some great music released by the over 1400 musicians we've worked with over the past 21 years! Remarkably, we've now published over 220 artist interviews, while over 210 musicians and industry experts have written close to 1100 guest columns for this site since 1996.
Don't fall into the same old trap of convincing yourself that now is not the time.
Anyone (including yourself) can learn to develop creativity by using the proven methods and strategies for reaching this goal.
These exercises will help you to focus on string crossing with alternate picking, and also to help you develop left/right hand synchronization, speed and stamina.
Melodies are what stick in the listeners mind and convey passion and emotion: creating coherence in your solos.
There's a chance you have too many unfinished songs sitting on your computer, or maybe even on your bookshelf - let's finish them.
Mike teaches you scale sequences (in the Hanon style, adapted from piano) that are great for your dexterity and precision.
In my opinion, having a booking agent is more important than any other traditional aspect. Independent artists need to take their music to the people and having more opportunities to perform live is paramount.
Online streaming is a good way of adding a new revenue channel to your live shows.
A technique that allows you to play both the melody and accompaniment parts of a blues tune at the same time.
Guitar Nine's December-January 2017 newsletter.