Advanced Guitar Techniques
Join instructors Doug Boduch, Tom Kolb, and Troy Stetina for a fun, informative guitar video course introducing you to nine guitar techniques and concepts that can elevate your playing to a new tier. If you've got a decent grasp on playing some lead lines, barre chords, and strumming patterns, you're probably ready to widen the aperture a bit and try out some new ideas. This course allows you to do just that while learning some great riffs, licks, and phrases.
Videos
• Harmonics (08:44) - These heavenly chimes have decorated countless songs in myriad genres. Learn how to produce them in several different ways in this video.
• Introduction to Hybrid Picking (09:14) - A technique used in country for eons and many other styles as well, such as rock, jazz, and blues, hybrid picking involves picking the strings with both your pick and your fingers. It's a great tool to have for both lead and rhythm.
• Slide Guitar (07:45) - Learn the basics of the slide technique, an incredibly melodic style that's frequently employed in blues, rock, and other styles.
• Bigsby Techniques (04:48) - The Bigsby vibrato bar was a favorite device of players like Chet Atkins and Brian Setzer, to name but a few. One of the early vibrato bar systems, it allows for smooth pitch-bend effects that's incredibly musical on chords in particular.
• Building Speed (07:28) - Almost every player deals with the frustration of wanting to play something that's just too fast for their current level. This lesson will provide plenty of tips and specific exercises designed to help you build up to those quicker tempos in a methodical fashion.
• Economy Picking (08:00) - This picking technique, employed by such virtuosos as Eric Johnson, Frank Gambale, Zakk Wylde, and Yngwie Malmsteen, presents an ... "alternative" to alternate picking. Learn how it works here.
• Sweep Picking (07:42) - Ever wonder how players like Jason Becker, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Frank Gambale blaze up and down through arpeggios lightning fast without seemingly breaking a sweat? The answer is sweep picking, and this is the place to learn it.
• Two-Handed Tapping (10:19) - When Eddie Van Halen recorded "Eruption" for Van Halen's debut album in 1978, he sent guitarists the world over to the woodshed trying to figure out how in the world he was doing what he was doing. Although he didn't invent the two-handed tapping technique (indeed, videos of virtuoso Roy Smeck exist from the 1930s in which he can be seen tapping on a ukulele!), Eddie certainly popularized it and became the resident expert, and the guitar world would never be the same.
• Whammy Bar Tricks (09:22) - Ever imitate an elephant on guitar? In this lesson, you'll learn how to do that, along with plenty of other whammy bar techniques that range from subtle and musical to wacky and deranged.