I remember starting guitar when I was around 8 years old.

I hated it.

My dad gave me his old guitar from childhood and a guitar chord chart and kind of just let do my thing. He didn’t really show me anything I just picked up a few chords and that’s about it.

I just wanted to be a ninja turtle. Guitar was cool but it just didn’t fly with me until later on in life.

My mom and dad divorced when I was around 3 years old. So my dad wasn’t a huge influence at home because I lived mostly with my mother. I think the other reason why I didn’t like guitar at that age was because my dad literally told me that I’d better be practicing when he came to visit.

Of course when your eight years you follow orders. I can recall many times when I would hear my dads VW bus sputter in the driveway I would then run and grab the guitar and pretend to strum the guitar chords. Lol!

I regret later in life that I should have taken more interest earlier. My guitar skills would have been awesome. My environment did not lend to my inspiration. Don’t allow this to happen to you and take that first step. You won’t regret it.

Go and grab your guitar and let’s get started with the Rookie Guitar Guide.

The following are excerpts from my book, “The must have Rookie Guitar Guide”

Conclusion

That’s just a small portion of the guitar guide. If you’ve enjoyed this lesson there is a lot more to that. Receive a FREE sample by clicking here. Most guitar instruction guides are roughly 40-50 pages. The book encompasses over 100 pages of great material. Which include:

• All 16 basic guitar chords
• Covers all 6 strings
• Power chords
• Blues scales
• Over 20 songs with tab
• Eighth notes and rests
• 12 bar blues
• Over 10 strum patterns
• Bonus: 18 page standard guitar test
• And much more..

If there was ever a time to get started it’s today! Enjoyed this post? Please share it with your neighbor by clicking social media button below. Thanks for allowing me to share this with you. Enjoy your day.

Those were my thoughts at the Rock Harbor church worship leader conference in Orange County a few years back.

As Tim Hughes was talking about a particular song he wrote I sat down on my seat wondering who he was. One tune in particular, he was mentioning it was a song that mentioned touched thousands of people and become a standard in many church’s today.

I thought to myself, “what song is this?”

After his talk he started worship with the song in question. He sang, “Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness.”

“Oh yeah!!” I thought to myself. “Tim Hughes wrote that?”

Cool!

What an awesome worship conference by the way. I learned so much and it was a huge impact on my growth as a music director.

For the next set of tunes with the capo we’ll start off with “Here I am to worship”.

Finally the last installment of guitar capo secrets.

Click here and download the capo key finder.

Conclusion

That’s it’s for this tutorial I hope you enjoyed it as much as had a blast writing it for you.

Here are the rest of the series I case you missed it. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Please feel free to comment in the section below and let me know if you need anything. And please share with your neighbor.

Thanks again peace

Roland

Stuck in my room trying to figure out this 4 second sax riff.

Back then we didn’t have apps like transcribe or the amazing slow downer app. What I had to do was rewind the tape a hundred times to capture those few second of an incredibly fast sax line.

Eventually, I got it down pat. Confusion was over.

What I learned was it doesn’t matter how many scales and chords you have to learn.

All that really matters is that you learn songs. As many songs as you can!

We call this transcribing. Usually it means to learn songs be hearing it many times and figuring out the chords and notes and then you write it down on paper.

What you’re doing is building your musical vocabulary. Music is a language. As babies we start to learn language by picking it up from our parents. It’s until we enter school is when we learn how to read and write.

You don’t really have to write the music down unless have memory like Kim Peek, but it really helps to analyze exactly what you transcribed and keep it as reference for future use.

Musicians who have not studied any music theory would say they never transcribed. But the really did, the difference is they didn’t write it down.

Learn, learn, learn as many songs as you can. It will help you build your musical vocabulary.

With that said here are a couple of tunes to get your started using the capo.

Guitar capo secrets part 4

Conclusion.

Now, you have some tunes under your belt. It’s time to start practicing and implementing.

I’ll add a couple of more tunes in the next lesson.

If you have missed the other parts. Click here: part 1 part 2 part 3

If you have any questions about this tutorial please give me a shout and leave a comment below and if you like this lesson be a pal and share it with your buddies.

Work hard like always.

Roland

I’ve liked this girl for awhile now. She was a nice girl, cute and pretty. Her friends were my friends friends.

If that makes any sense…

Every time I’d meet up with my buddies she always tagged along and kept throwing my those little hints.

But I was too dumb and scared to figure out what they were. Until one time we all went out to Fuddruckers.

While I was chewing on my awesome bacon avocado burger, everyone laughing and giggling at the table. She just blurted out in front of everyone.

Hey, Roland! When are we going out on a date??

Seriously, she called me out..

I froze! Awkward!!

Her girlfriend told her to relax. I told her whenever you want. I was too much of a wuss. She had more cajones then me.

She also wanted to learn guitar so I set up a lesson with her after our date. Our first date was at Pollo Loco.. Yup.. You heard me.

Pollo Loco!

The date went well and we went out a few more times. When I was teaching her guitar is when I discovered this little insights of the guitar capo. This was in my early stages of teaching.

I didn’t end up marrying her but we had a good time together. Hey, she was the one that asked me out. You don’t get that too often with women.

And through her is where I discovered and learned more about these guitar capo secrets.

Without further ado..

Guitar Capo secrets part 3

Conclusion

Keep your pants on because there’s more to come. It’s just about to get spicier. The next one we will start to introduce songs into the mix.

If you happened to miss the last parts click here: part 1, part 2..

Please let me know if you’ve enjoyed this tutorial or not. You can criticize, it’s okay I can take it:) It’s the only way I can improve.

Question:

What are the issues are you having as a musician? Maybe I can help.

Please leave a comment below.

if you have missed the first part. Go ahead and click here..

The second part of this tutorial is even juicier. I go deep into how you can really play in any key with a just a few simple moves. I also expand into your diatonic modes and a couple of more chords to spicy up your guitar chord palette.

 Enjoy the second part of Guitar capo secrets…

Conclusion

Ok, this stuff is getting pretty juicy please stay tuned for the next installment of guitar Capo secrets.

Please feel free to share this with anyone who is looking to pick up guitar and if you have any questions or struggles you’re dealing with at the moment please leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

If you missed the first part click here.

Peace

“Yup..” I answered back.

“Ok, just as long as long as my brain doesn’t melt and come out of my ears.” Corey mumbled.

“Maybe just a little. But, don’t worry I got the brain melting first aid kid on my shelf just in case.” I teased. “After this ill show you the guitar Capo secrets.”

“Deal!” Corey shouted.

While Corey has to go over all the 12 keys on guitar by memory.

I’ll start you off with the guitar capo secrets. Enjoy.

Conclusion

That concludes the first part of the guitar capo secrets for lazy guitar players. Be on the lookout for the next part.

As always keep in mind though I call this lazy guide to capo guitar playing. The goal is to be able to play the beautiful open chords in any key not to use the capo is a crutch.

I am always looking for new ways to be more efficient in my playing. I urge you to always keep learning new things and explore new ideas. With that your mind will expand and grow like a beautiful flower.

Until next time.

Peace out

Roland

As I’m sitting in isolation listening to some nice classical music that will soothe and relax my mind. I can’t seem to think of an opening line.

I’m having brain farts!

So I guess this is what I’m going to begin with. God please help me with this next guitar tutorial. I have the topic but not sure on how to start.

Have you ever had these moments where you don’t know what to say? You have distractions all around you. It’s just hindering you from being creative.

It’s the same with your guitar practice. It should be just you, your guitar, and your tools. Distractions cause you to lose focus and thus your progress becomes stagnate and your process diminishes.

Let’s get to the tutorial before my brain starts farting all over the place. Haha

Here are the 5 ultimate guitar hammer on and pull off exercises.

Tools of the trade:

1. Your mind
2. Your focus
3. Your guitar
4. Your plan
5. Your metronome
6. Your timer
7. Your recorder
8. Your music of study

I hope I haven’t left anything out. Let’s begin

Exercise 1: 1-3 Finger Hammer On

Hammer ons are a very important technique for all stinged instruments not just guitar. It provides for different sounds and also flexiblility for certain guitar passages you will encounter in you guitar career.

In the diagram below the 1-3 indicates your first and third fingers of your fretting hand. What you do is place your first finger on the top E string on the 1st fret. Then you down pick the string with your picking hand.

Click on audio

The audio sounds like I keep playing and that’s because I keep shifting  to the right to the following fret.

The “H” means to hammer the following note with your 3rd finger. I’ll keep on explaining.

As you allow the note to ring, your 3rd finger will come down and tap the 3rd fret of that same string without picking it. The force of your 3rd finger hammering down on the string will cause the note to ring.

It’s tough at first because you will not have enough strength in your fingers if you’re just a beginner.

They key is to remember as you hammer with your 3rd finger is to not move or lift your 1st finger. Many of my beginning students don’t have the the practice and flexibility to keep that 1st finger down. They have to keep on practicing and relaxing their hands.

Keeping that 1st finger down is a must for this technique to be effective.

Remember as you cover the first fret descending down the strings approaching the bottom string you are then going to jump up to the top string on the 2nd fret using the same fingerings of course, descend down and again you are going to jump to the top E string to the 3rd fret, following the same patterns and fingerings.

Every time you are going to shift to the following fret and keep on going until you run out of guitar neck.

Exercise 2: Open Hammer Pick

This is a cool technique that sounds pretty retro-ish if that’s a word. It will allow various rhythms, notes and patterns to be played in any way you want just as long as you understand the concept.

Don’t let the diagram freak you out it’s rather simple once you get it.

Click on audio

The “0” represents an open string to be down picked without the use of your fretting hand. The “H” you already know what that means. The numbers above show you what fingers to use the numbers below the diagram represents what frets to use.

Next, you hammer on the 3rd fret  with your 1st finger, then you up pick the exact same note.

Now what you do is follow the exact same concept with everything else. They call these patterns triplets.

Exercise 3: Open Hammer

This exercise is simple but effective. All you have to do is apply open hammer but using all 4 of your fingers one at a time.

Just alternate each finger starting with your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, then 4th finger this will strengthen all of your digits. I mean your fingers.

Click on audio

You can see in this exercise that I don’t finish up the last two bottom strings but the audio captures it.

Take your time practicing these exercises it’s not a race it’s a marathon.

Exercise 4: 3-1 Open Hammer Pull Offs

Just like in exercise 1 we are going to move in the opposite direction. To make this exercise work our 1st and 3rd have got be down fretting the notes.

the “PO” means Pull Offs.

Click on audio

Now, with both fingers down you down pick the first note and just release your 3rd finger keeping the 1st finger down at all times. Make sure your fingers are firmly pressing the down on the strings. This will allow the 1st fret note to ring without you needing to pick it.

As you start this exercise on the top string you keep descending to the following string using the same concept and then the next string and so forth.

Quite a simple technique and if done correctly it will open up a whole new world of musical possibilities.

The point is not to stay on the same frets but to cover the entire guitar neck.

Exercise 5: Legato 1234

The legato technique will create really smooth musical lines in your playing. All the work is done with hammer ons mostly.

Click on audio

Down pick the 1st note, then hammer the next note with your 2nd finger, then the 3rd then the 4th. The more this exercise is used you will achieve Arnold Shwarzenneger fingers and you’ll crush every lick that comes your way.

Just like excercise 3 you’ll have to descend to the following string and so forth.

Click on the audio to check it out.

Yes, it’s kind of tough at first but this is how the pros do it, they stay the course until they achieve success. Persistence is a big factor especially when your fingers aren’t working like you would want them too.

Conclusion:

Practice is a process that most of aren’t really fond of but it is a real necessity. There are 3 D’s that we need to have and they are: desire, dedication and discipline.

I’ve written and created a comic about the 3 D’s it’s pretty funny check it out here.

I hope this tutorial has helped you tons in your guitar journey and if you dig it please share it or post a comment below and let me know what you think.

Thanks and God Bless

Roland