“Anything is allowed, because there really are no rules”
Welcome back to Six String Sunday! This week there was a ton of great guitar happening on the internet, and I’m excited to share my favorite links with you. I want to make sure you’re getting the most out of this weekly post. If you want to see more or less of something, please let me know. Feel free to comment below, and I’ll be more than happy to respond.
”Office hours” coming up on Thursday — Since Chasing Sound is still growing in size, I’m trying something starting this Thursday that doesn’t really scale. Every Thursday I’m doing “office hours” on the site. You guys get to hear about it first though. If you’re struggling with something on guitar, every Thursday you can email me at Brian@ChasingSound.com and I’ll do my best to provide a good answer by the weekend.
New posts on the site — This was a super busy week. I talked a little about my love for Apple products, but later in the week I posted this article, which was from the days when I was just getting Chasing Sound started. It still makes sense today.
It has tips on trying to be the best guitar player you can be. I talk about practicing with a metronome with some app recommendations, how to have a great practice regimen, and never giving up. It’s a different kind of post for me, but I still enjoy it. I hope you do too.
10 reasons you should play classical guitar — I really loved this post from Guitar World. It gives 10 reasons why you should play classical guitar. When I was going to school for jazz and classical guitar, I loved practicing this type of music. I would sit in the practice room for hours honing my skills.
GW talks about how classical guitar doesn’t have to be limited to “just” classical music, how you can shred on classical, because you can play solo or with friends, and a lot of other great reasons. Check it out.
Satriani on combining musical styles — I also found this post from back in 2015 on Guitar World. The whole post is great, and it covers Joe Satriani talking about how you can put together many different styles on your quest for improvisation.
There’s lots of great quotables in this post, but one of my favorites was, “It might sound a bit esoteric, but I think this is at the heart of what a lot of musicians ask themselves when they are practicing: Why am I doing this? What really is my style? What am I trying to say? And “what’s allowed?” which is a very important question to ask.
The truth is that anything is allowed, because there really are no rules. Whether a musical idea works or not often comes down to the way in which one presents it, so, if you are feeling it, you might as well try it.”
Ben Eller’s Weekend Wankshop — One of my favorite places to go for funny and really insightful guitar vids on YouTube, is Ben Eller’s channel. His Weekend Wankshop series is amazing, and you could spend months going over all the vids and learning a lot.
I’ve been catching up on the latest episodes, but one that I thought would be really helpful to readers is this one on combining minor and major pentatonic scales. Go check it out, and tell Ben Uncle Brian over at Chasing Sound sent ya!
Guitar Album of the Week — This week’s Guitar Album of the Week is “Concrete Gardens” by the super talented Tony MacAlpine. I first heard of Tony when I saw him in Steve Vai’s band on the G3 tour. Tony is not only a phenomenal guitar player, he also can play keyboard really well, and sometimes at the same time!
Concrete Gardens is for fans of musicians like Vai and Satriani. It’s really melodic, yet heavy guitar music. Tony kicks off the album with Exhibitionist Blvd., which is a tour de force of shred worthy of any G3 stage, moves on to The King’s Rhapsody with super heavy riffs, plays Satch-esque riffs on Poison Cookies, and lots more.
Plus how cool does he look holding that awesome Ibanez on the cover? Go check out the album, and let me know what you think!
That’s about it for now. This weekend I’m heading to the beautiful city of Vancouver in Canada 🇨🇦, which means I’ll have lots of time on the plane rides to and from to write great new posts for next week. Stay tuned!
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If you have any questions or comments, you can reply to this post, let me know on Twitter, or by posting in our Facebook group. I also have a fun Instagram channel where I post fun guitar pictures throughout the week.
Brian Sutich is a guitar player, audio engineer, podcaster, teacher, and hockey fan! He loves learning, helping people, and drinking way too much coffee.
