Cuban Guitarist Hears Stevie Ray Vaughan For The First Time
This video is a reminder that there are SO many guitar players out there who are waiting to stun us with their playing and musicality. I'll never forget my uncle showing me Stevie Ray Vaughan AND Dream Theater on the same day. It was for sure one of the best musical days of my life. Check out the vid below and let me know what you think!
Kirk Fletcher on No Guitar Is Safe
The amazing Kirk Fletcher is the latest interview on the No Guitar Is Safe podcast. From gospel to blues, Kirk has some incredible licks under his fingers. That being said, I have to give it up to Jude Gold, who through 69 episodes of his podcast, has hung with all of these guitar greats, and been up to the task of jamming with them.
Check out the full episode with Kirk here - https://soundcloud.com/guitar-player-magazine/ngis-69-kirk-fletcher-final
3 awesome features of Chasing Sound
Tune in to today's livestream, where I talk about 3 awesome features of the site. If you're not checking these features out already, you should be!
Just went live on YouTube to talk about 3 features of the site. If you're not aware already, I just recently announced the ability to ask me anything every week. If you have a guitar, music or recording/mixing question, I'd be happy to answer. Full details on that are in the video, and this post.
I also talked about the Guitar Song of the Week. Last year I did a Guitar Album of the Week each and every Friday. This year, I've been focusing on one single song each week, and I've made playlists for Spotify and Apple Music. By the end of the year, we'll have 52 awesome songs for you to listen to. The playlist gets updated by me each week, and if you subscribe on Apple Music or Spotify, it'll update for you too!
Finally, I talked about one of my favorite things that I've been doing for close to 2 years now - Six String Sunday. If you're not subscribed yet, you should be! Each Sunday I send out an awesome newsletter that goes over the best stuff I found in the guitar world each week. It's absolutely free, and you can sign up right here on the site.
Have fun watching the vid! If you haven't subscribed to Chasing Sound on YouTube yet, you can sub and click the notification bell right through the video, and then be updated each time a new video comes out.
Ask me anything, every Wednesday
I want Chasing Sound to be a site you check out every single week. With all the information that's out there already, it's easy to get lost knowing what to work on. That's why each and every Wednesday I'll be answering any of your guitar questions!
I want Chasing Sound to be one of the spots you check out a couple of times a week for the best guitar lessons anywhere on the internet. There's a wealth of guitar information out there right now. Between blogs, YouTube, tab sites and more, it's rare you won't be able to find what you're looking for.
With so much stuff out there, it's easy to fall into the trap of not focusing on the right things. This is why throughout my entire time of playing guitar, I've tried to take lessons, whether that be through a teacher in the same room or online. It's important to have someone to guide you on what to work on.
A lot of students bring up the fact that they don't even know what they don't know. With Chasing Sound and the Six String Sunday newsletter, I'm trying to write and curate the best guitar material out there. If it won't help you along, inspire you, or entertain, I won't publish it on the site.
Which brings me to a feature of the site that's currently going to be free for all readers. While I can manage it, you can email Brian@ChasingSound.com every Wednesday, and I'll try to get you a solid answer by the weekend.
If you don't know what to work on, have a guitar question, want a recommendation on what to buy, or really anything music related, feel free to email me and I'll help out!
If a question is really good and I think it might benefit other readers to know the answer, I'll try and put a post up right here on the site. That way it helps more and more guitarists.
As always, thanks for reading!
How to play the intro riff to All of Creation
In today's newest video, I show you one of my favorite riffs from the new HYVMINE album. This is the intro riff to the song All of Creation. Grab your 8 string if you got one, and lets get heavy.
After hearing that Al Joseph had a full band album coming out, I was super excited. With HYVMINE, Joseph is on lead guitar and vocals. The new album is some fantastic hard rock, mixed in with great lead lines. One of the coolest riffs that stuck with me is the intro riff to the song All of Creation.
In this new YouTube vid below I show you how to play the intro riff, which will also help you learn the verse. This is such a fun album to listen to, and I suggest taking a listen on your streaming service of choice. If you dig the video, please leave a Like, and if you’re not subscribed yet, consider subscribing so you can see all the new videos as they come out.
Thanks for watching!
Copying is how we learn
Austin Kleon is one of my favorite writers. His books are all about creation, copying and living an amazing life. One of my favorite posts he wrote this year has to do with copying.
Some of the most famous guitarists have copped to copying their heroes and making riffs their own. Here's a great quote I enjoyed from Kleon's post:
My kids (5 & 2) are gleeful, natural born copycats. Copying is how they wrap their hands and hearts and heads around the world. They not only copy drawings and music and recreate the world with blocks and play, they mimic their parents, they mimic each other, they mimic kids on the playground, etc. Copying and mimicry is as natural to them as breathing. There’s nobody around telling them they should do any differently, nobody saying something dumb like, “Don’t you want to do something original?” So they go about their mimicry, unfettered by any adult notions about originality.
Check out the full post for some great inspiration on how you can turn copying into learning.
Whenever I need inspiration, I watch this one take Guthrie Govan solo
Whenever I'm looking for a dose of inspiration, I always check out this one take guitar solo from Guthrie Govan. It's for Steven Wilson's Regret #9 song. Truly inspiring stuff.
How to use Toys R' Us as an example for marketing your music
In today's post I talk about how your band can make their album extra special. In a world of subscription services, albums fall by the wayside really quick. Today, I use an example from Toys R' Us' latest news, and turn it into a positive tactic you can use today.
This might sound crazy, but today I want to compare Toys R' Us to marketing your music. Yesterday Toys R' Us announced that it'd be closing or selling all of its stores in the U.S. I've been thinking for a long time about a post relating to the toy store. In today's post I want to focus on musicians and bands, and how they can use this news to spur ideas for the marketing of their own music.
When I was a kid my parents would take me to Toys R' Us, and I'd really want a game for my NES or Genesis. You'd enter the store, walk to the video game aisle, and see if the game you wanted had tickets under its display image. If the ticket slot was empty you had to wait until the store re-stocked the game, but if there were tickets there, you'd take one and go up to a window inside of a big glass room where an associate would take your ticket and give you the game you wanted.
When the games were out of stock it was dissapointing, but when they were in stock it was one of the most exciting feelings in the world - and its something that I feel like we're missing right now with online music sales or streaming services. With the ability to get nearly every album in the world for $9.99 a month, how does an album really become special?
With services like Patreon and others, musicians are able to offer different perks to their patrons. I've thought about running a Patreon for the site, and its something I'm really considering for 2018 and beyond.
What Toys R' Us and game manufacturers did right was create a sense of urgency and special-ness behind getting games. With music, whether you're releasing behind the scenes videos, tabs to your songs, amp patches, or something else, it makes the entire album experience that much more special.
Subscription services have taken over in a major way, from Netflix and Hulu, to Apple Music and Spotify, food subscription boxes, and many more. It's not a weird thing to ask for any type of help for the music that you create. To put that into perspective, look at someone like Amanda Palmer. She wrote an entire book on getting over the weird feeling of asking for help. She now makes over $40,000 per thing she puts out. How cool is that?
Misha from Periphery did an interview the other day and mentioned that he wasn't making much money with the band, which was why he had to diversify his income. With signature products, merch and more he was able to make a living.
Old stores that were part of our childhood might be closing, and new ideas are taking over, but there will always be something to learn from each and every experience.
What can you offer your fans to make your music special?
Reach out to me on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube so we can brainstorm different ideas to make our music special for our listeners!
