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Rock Guitar Lessons

Rock guitar lessons: solos and more

 At the Creative Guitar School we offer a selection of guitar courses geared towards the achievement of your personal goals as a musician or artist. As a prerequisite for this specific rock guitar course, you will need to have some basic understanding of scales and chords.

What will you learn

In this series of rock guitar lessons you will learn to analyse and understand what makes a good rock solo work in any style, and how to apply this knowledge to your playing.

We will analyse solos from guitarists such as Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Robby Krieger (The Doors) and Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones) amongst others.

You will learn their improvisational techniques and how they construct their solos in relation to the harmony. You will learn to improvise using pentatonic scales, arpeggios and modes over various types of chords, and chord progressions, but always with the clear objective of creating your own sound.

Rock Guitar lessons

 

Rock Guitar Course Outline

The pentatonic major scale

  • In our rock guitar lessons you will learn three fingering of each major pentatonic scale starting on the 6th and 5th string.
  • You will learn upon seeing a chord which pentatonic scale to play.
  • You will learn how to create melodies with pentatonic scales but always in relation to a chord progression.

The pentatonic minor scale

  • You will learn three fingerings of each minor pentatonic scale starting on the 6th and 5th string, You will learn upon seeing a chord which pentatonic scale to play.
  • You will learn how to create melodies with pentatonic scales but always in relation to a chord progression.

Combining major and minor pentatonic

How to improvise over Blues progressions

We will analyze solos of the above artists understanding what pentatonic scales are used, what blues sales are used and what chord tones are played.

Major scales and their modes

  • You will learn 3 fingerings for each major scale starting on the root of the scale on the 5th or 6th string.
  • You will learn when and how to create solos based on this scale.The same will be applied to the modes on the major scale.

Triads and arpeggios

Triads are the basic sound of a chord. They can be minor o major. They can define the chord or tensions of the chord.

  • You will learn how to construct and play triads on the guitar in closed and open position.
  • You will analyze how guitar masters use these triads in their solos.
  • You will further explore the triads playing them as arpeggios.
  • You will learn fingerings for two octave arpeggios on the 6th and 5th string. You will learn how to use these triads in a solo and combine them with major, blues and pentatonic scales.

Seventh chord arpeggios

Tensions and upper structure arpeggios

 Learn to play guitar riffs. Create your own!

What is a riff?

If I were to ask you to sing a song like Back In Black (AC/DC) or Black Dog (Led Zeppelin):

Leran to play Guiatr Riffs

What would be the first thing you would try to sing?

Would it not be what the guitar plays?

Don’t you think that these phrases in someway define what the song is all about? These distinct musical phrases (riffs) establish a unique manner about how to play chord. Instead of just strumming a chord, we play original phrases that sound like the chord, but in a way that makes them become a vital element of the song .

How about if we learn to create our own unique riffs?

Upon completion of this course the student will be able to create his own unique riffs in similar musical contexts as the analysed examples.

How will we achieve this goal ?

Step 1

We will analyse and learn to play guitar riffs, the top 10 that have made history.

  • I Can’t Get No Satisfaction – Rolling Stones
  • Sunshine Of Your Love – Cream
  • Layla – Derek And The Dominos
  • Iron Man – Black Sabbath
  • Johnny B Goode – Chuck Berry
  • Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns N’ Roses
  • Purple Haze – Jimi Hendrix Experience
  • Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
  • Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – Jimi Hendrix Experience
  • Led Zeppelin “Black Dog” (Tab)

Learn to play guitar riffs. Jimi Hendrix

Step 2

You will incorporate this new vocabulary into your personal expression through specific controlled exercises that will allow you to create riffs of similar character.

Step 3
You will compose a song and play chords as riffs.

Required Skills
Fluency with pentatonic scales, bar chords and power chords.

Check our my video where you Learn to play guitar riffs and define chords in other styles as Funky Pop styles.

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