Repairing A Classic Guitar, Power Chords, Sneak Peeks and so much more
Hey everyone, I’m writing to you from Denmark! I’ve been flying around the country the past couple of weeks, and have been in Canada, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, and now to Denmark before I head back to my home in New Jersey.
Thankfully this has given me a bunch of time to write new posts for Chasing Sound and do a daily broadcast on my guitar show Amped Up! (It’s lingering in the top 100!) I also wanted to say thank you for all the feedback you’ve given me on what you’re looking to learn. If you think you’d benefit from “cheat sheet” PDFs, let me know by emailing Brian@ChasingSound.com. Alright, on to the links!
The most powerful chords — I announced last week that I was taking your feedback and doing a Back to Basics series. I launched the third post for that series this week, and it focuses all on how to play power chords. These are essential chords to learn, that show up in everything from punk, metal and more.
They’re only comprised of the root note and the fifth (so they’re not major or minor, because they don’t include the third), and they’re a great bridge to learning barre chords. If you want to learn a lot of new songs quickly, using power chords is a great way to do it. Check out the post here, and let me know what your favorite power chord songs are.
An easy way to sell your music online — So many students ask me how they can get their guitar albums sold online. I always recommend using Bandcamp. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but I’ve loved using their service and app for the past decade or so.
They give you a great way to set your own price (even if that’s “pay what you want” a la Radiohead), sell physical merch too (like tickets, t-shirts, etc.), and even given listeners the ability to “subscribe” to you for the year. It’s a great service that lets your listeners hear your album first before purchasing, which develops trust, and also has a great community vibe to it.
Do you use Bandcamp? If not, what do you use to get your songs out there? I’ve had people sell their physical CD through CD Baby, and use TuneCore to get on all the online music services, but Bandcamp has always been a great DIY alternative.
Guitar Album of the Week — This week I picked Exodus by Andy James as the Guitar Album of the Week. I found out about Andy through numerous YouTube videos, and seeing a short interview with him in Guitar Player magazine.
Exodus is one of the heaviest, yet still musical albums I’ve heard in the past couple of years. The funny thing is that’s one of the points that Andy made in his interview for GP. He focused on a number of things for the making of Exodus, but two of my favorite tips were that he didn’t listen to any other shredders/guitar heroes while making this album.
The other tip was that he played for the song. This is important for so many reasons. There are always going to be times you get to show off, but often you might end up sounding like a robot, or too scalar. Playing for the song lets you put the song first, and also gives you an opportunity to write catchy and sing-able riffs. It’s a good thing to keep in mind if you’re learning a new scale or technique. Always try and practice what you learned in a musical context as soon as possible after you’ve learned it.
This album also features Rick Graham, who’s one of my favorite YouTubers, and who I’ve mentioned in the past. Go check it out and let me know how you like the album.
Upcoming reviews — As a sneak peek to you guys first, I wanted to let you know about a couple of reviews I’ll have coming up. I’m working on reviewing the latest version of Guitar Pro 7, which is one of my favorite apps to write music in.
I’m also going to be reviewing the Ernie Ball Paradigm strings soon! I’ve been an Ernie Ball player for so long, so I’m really excited to try something different than just the regular Slinkys.
I’ve been checking out the to do app Things 3. While my to do app of choice is still Todoist, Things 3 has a great look to it, so I’m working on developing my whole practice schedule inside of it. Stay tuned! Have something you’d like me to check out? Email me at Brian@ChasingSound.com and let me know.
Willie Nelson’s Trigger — I’m always a fan of these videos where they take classic guitars and attempt to fix them or recreate them. In this video, the team takes the iconic Trigger acoustic from Willie Nelson to repair it. The video is from the great team at Stew Mac, one of my favorite places to go for accessories and repair items for my guitar.
I’ve gotta assume that this guitar has seen a bunch throughout its lifetime, and it’s wear pattern is very unique looking. Go check out the vid to see how they did some maintenance on an epic acoustic.
Reading Studies — Reading sheet music is a use it or lose it type of thing. I’ve been getting back into trying to work on sheet music multiple times throughout the week. Similar to exercise, if you don’t do this a little every day, you won’t be as quick when you have a new piece to try and work on.
I’ve recommended William Leavitt’s Modern Method for Guitar Vol 1–3 book in the past, which compiles all three volumes into one book. Another Berklee book I’ve been using lately that I’ve heard about from Music Is Win is Reading Studies for Guitar. You don’t want to learn these too well because then you’ll have memorized them, so it’s always a good idea to get different sheet music throughout the year!
That’s about it for now friends! Have a great week, and have fun playing guitar.
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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, and do a guitar radio show called Amped Up!
Brian Sutich is a guitar player, audio engineer, podcaster, teacher, and hockey fan. He loves learning, helping people, and drinking way too much coffee.
