Fix Your Guitar Playing! 7 Common Problems Solved

Hello to everyone watching the live replay. It is Monday, the 2nd of November, so happy November everyone. And we are gonna be doing the Guitar Clinic, answering all your questions that were placed on the Discord, a few from YouTube comments as well. Uh, trying to group topics. Its together to make this as rewatchable as possible. If you want more help with this kind of thing, tune in on a Monday and ask me anything. Uh, we're live from 6 p.m. UK time and you can ask me anything on the AAA Discord as well. The links will all be down below, but let's make sure we're all working and let's check in with live members before we get started. How are we all? What have you guys been practising this week? We got, it looks like a full house. We have uh Gareth's here, Camilla, Peter, Michael, how are we all? Let me make sure my comments are working, yep, there they are, 21 people watching, that's great news. Matthew's here saying hi all, let me just check my audio. There we go. That's looking good. That's looking good, lovely. Terry says evening all. hello Alan, hello Scott, how are you doing? Um, lovely to see you all. What have you guys been practising over the past week? And do you have any burning questions for me, because it is a Q&A special. But thank you to the Discord comments from, uh, about a week ago. We've got plenty of questions coming in already, so thank you so much for everyone that's submitted them already. I think most people will be on this call as well, so that'll be really nice. Rowley, good to see you mate, it was great to see your, uh, open mic Sunday at the weekend. Um, RE, quick one coming in, RE tuning changing overnight, that's a good one, OK? Um, Paul is continuing intermediate Electric level 3, really cool. Is that beginner level, oh, intermediate electric level 3, very good. So you'll just be rounding off your bar chord stuff and hopefully starting off, uh, learning a few guitar riffs, a little bit of lead guitar techniques, and putting rhythm and lead together a bit in the same song, so that's really cool. Uh, Femki, I have been practising the slap strum, but would love some tips. Is this the, so the slap strum. Think I might have gone away for a second there. The slap strum, do you mean the, like the thumb tap? Uh, cos we've got a couple of detailed lessons on that already. The drumbeat one, yeah, like the snare tap, I got that. No problem. Camilla's just finished uh Beginner Electric level 3, Bravo, that's really cool. What else have you guys been doing over the past week on your guitar, let me make sure that's rolling. Just in case, if I'm playing guitar, I like to be on camera, I'll be honest. Uh, we've got Spencer watching, Terry's watching. What have you guys been up to since we saw you last? Um, Paul C says, my question or issue is that I have smallish hands and find the thumb over the top really difficult. I think that's fair enough. Uh, so I keep it on the back of the fretboard. I will ask Paul, what guitar do you have? Cos I would definitely say an SG. Or something with as slim a neck as you can, will really help with that, and if you're trying uh playing on acoustic. And uh you've got a slightly thicker neck, that might not be working for you. Some electric guitars also just have a neck like a baseball bat, really round, really thick. Peter's gone through most of the beginner's course, but is, this is a good one. Peter's gone through most of the beginner electorate but want to target playing a song or two from start to finish. What are you closest to? What's the closest song you're getting? To close to finishing. How close have you got, what have you tried so far and how close are you? My chair's gone wobbly again, excuse me, there we go. Um, Steve says same here. I think that's on the thumb over the top thing. I'm still struggling with getting the Hendrix, Hendrix hybrid chords to sound clean. Thank you Rowie for that. I struggle to stretch my thumb and flatten my first finger on the first two strings. Got you, OK, we'll have a look at that independently. Um, mostly on, uh, electric. You say smart electric, Paul C. What do you mean by a smart electric? What, what brand is it? Is it a Fender, is it something totally different? And Enya inspire. That's interesting. So guitar does become a factor, especially when what you've been asking about there, apologies for the screenshots, but we don't save the chat. There's no way that the technology like saves the chat, so I'm just making sure I get all this cos I might um make some member only videos. Um, so firm over the top of the neck. I mean, does it look something like my strat? It is the closest thing to what I imagine you've got. Does it look something like that? Pauly. Um, Cos if so, we can help with that. Gone through most of we're going to let you, let's have a look, um. Spencer's been just looking at. Uh, Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam, that's cool. Who's that by? You just don't want me for a sunbeam. And you inspire. Thank you for letting me know, let's have a look. Guitar, and you know buy our guitar, yeah, so it's look, that looks decent actually, that looks very good. So there's nothing wrong with your guitar itself, that's good, sometimes you never know what people have got. I'm just having a look at the neck with a keen eye cos they are all different. I think the biggest thing is some, some, some necks have what they call a C shape, which is actually quite narrow, or a D shape which is really, that's what we call a baseball bat neck. Um, no better or worse, thinner is not always better, um, but something to be aware of for sure. So yeah, plenty to be digging into, I've got some notes, just making sure I get all your comments while they're coming in. David picked up a guitar again this weekend for the first time in something like 6 months. I was happy that there is still some muscle memory there. And I could still play a few riffs. I was concerned that I would have slipped back to early beginner level. Very cool, David, I think the cowboy chords normally stick around. And if you ever get the, if you ever get rhythm down, that tends to stick around too. Anything strumming wise, and remember there's a lot of rhythm in riffs as well. You know, all your All of that, there's a lot of rhythm even just with basic chords. Joshua having a crap at your Bon Jovi Dead or alive tutorial, Hybrid F chord is so difficult, is that this one? So yeah, definitely this kind of, anything with the thumb over the top seems to be giving people. Anything with a thumb over the top seems to be giving er people some bother. So Tennis, how are you? Um, ah, that's good to see. Gareth was messing with Forever Autumn after being inspired by my shorts. Uh, very good, we got a bit of a longer tutorial in the full, like, top 5 video. But it's a great song, mid-seventies, can't go wrong. Steve struggles with the F bar and the hybrid F2, so this one with the thumb over the top, right? So let me show you some of the basics. Make sure we're all singing from the same hymn sheet on this thumb over the top stuff. Let's have a think about where to start, um, one you might not have come across before is that for players that play stood up. Like most electric guitarists you'll ever see in a band. There's a select few, there's a select key few of them that actually play their power chords like this. Cos they're so used to one. Playing bar chords like this and never doing this cos that just, you know, the, we're talking about the low slung. Knee players, some guys call them, you know, these guys, er, perhaps Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, um, who else is here, Dan Hawkins of the Darkness, Brian May plays his, um, a lot of bar chords like this. A lot of the time, not all the time, but a lot of the time. Um, so that is something to try, like try a basic riff that you know with power chords, uh, a pretty simple one is um. That's Brain Stew by Green Day. And when you normally go like this. That's just your A about power cord, and you know you can have the little finger down or not. And that's using a lot of the same things, you could even. All those power cord ones you where you're like this. Just have a go at doing them with the thumb over the top, just for something new. Sometimes just approaching things from the slightest different angle can give people a big breakthrough, don't discount that at all. But the real reason is, yeah, it's more comfortable when I'm still, like if I literally stand up. With where this is pretty comfortable for me, for standing with cos I film loads of reels with this and that kind of thing, um, it's not too uncomfortable to have, like that's my wrist. But it's a hell of a lot more comfortable to do this. What's the um. That's it, it's that bit in Bohemian Rhapsody. And And Just gotta get out so that Brian May can go between. All those single note riffs. He has his thumb over the top like that. It also enables us to go. Now what we need to note here is whenever I'm playing anything, so let's just go A minor pentatonic scale. Which you've all played. 100 times. And if not, this can be a great thing to try. When you're playing that, there's only the thickest two strings. That I don't have my thumb over the top. So if you're playing a whole scale any scale, and you're getting to the thinnest strings like this, and you're wanting to be a late intermediate player, early advanced player. Then you need to you need to change that, cos you've still got beginner level habits that you need to change at intermediate and you need to change at advanced because of what you're wanting to be able to do. So yeah, thickest two strings. Thumb right at the middle of the back of the neck. As soon as you get to the D string, string 4, that thumb's gotta be over the top, and then we play the rest like this. I hasten to add, this is if you want to be a blues or kind of classic rock, even to an Oasis like indie rock style player, that's what they do. You can get quite high level without doing this, but it's harder, it's just there's less examples of people who do that. To a to a high standard. Thumb over the top as soon as you get to that root note and as soon as you get to string 4. And then the real thing to start to relearn is to kind of do that grip. Where this part of my hand, so the, what's that, the inside of the bone of the inside of my knuckles, the inside side of my knuckles, that's hitting the back of the guitar, and I'm pinching between my thumb here. So this part of the neck, which might be used on some of these shapes for the lead thing isn't. And I do think it's when you start going for the. All of this kind of style of playing. I mean a huge, the, the breakthrough tune for this for me, probably because of the year it came out was uh Are You Gonna Be My Girl? That's the song that got me trained on this, is that not recording? Just to get the HD version for you guys on the rewatch. er yeah, because it's really hard to go bar chord. And then do My thumb's having to go from low to high, so just that is probably a really good one. And this is also where you see that the rhythm of stuff is way more important than even changing chords or anything. Just playing that A bar chord with the thumb over the top, however you can, even if you're just muting string six, absolutely fine, it doesn't need to go any further, ever than just sitting on top. You'll see me with my thumb over like this, and I get it. That's, that's gonna take a little bit more to come, a little bit longer to come, it will. It'll come if you practise the right stuff, but the minimum we need to do is mute string 6, cause we've got our 3rd finger on string 5. And we can do the Lust for Life rhythm, the Town Called Malice, down, down, down, up, up, up, down, up, down, up. Even more important, or the whole reason to go for this style, is when we hit this note. I am muting string 1235 and 6.5 and 6 are muted with my thumb. Strings 1 and 2 with the index. Third string muted by index there, uh, the middle finger. Another riff I think of that does a similar thing. Now this is Bitch by the Rolling Stones, and this is another really good gateway for even acoustic players, because we don't have to hold the thumb down, we actually want the A string to ring out, and we just need to mute string 6, you don't, we don't need the A note from it. And we're doing a lot of these same techniques that we'll rely on. For the whole Hendrix. But without And the greatest thing of this riff is you don't even have to move from fret 5 and fret 7, you don't have to move from there. A great one to start with your er lead lines as well. Uh, let's check in with some comments now. Matt's with us. Um, Matthew says, I only just put the comment on Discord. I'm having issues with my fretting hand palm muting the first string when I'm playing F and G 6. So that sounds like what I would call string 6, but I totally get it, guitar's kind of upside down. So I think you mean. Fretting hand, palm muting. The frettingham muting the first string when playing F major 7. That sounds like that, Matthew. Am I on the right lines there, Matthew? You'll have to confirm that for me. I will make a note of it. But let's just check in with some comments before we do, um, that kind of thing. How do you sing and play at the same time? I've got 3 pretty videos that I'm pretty happy with on that. Um, yeah, I also have to make sure you can sing. But you know, a lot of people think they'll learn to play guitar and then the singing will just kind of happen, and I've worked a lot on my singing voice over the years. We have two singing courses on this website, both taught by two fabulous female singers, um, and that's where I've got a lot of my tips from over the last few years. Steve, full bar chords are no problem, it's the hybrid. E& B strings are always muted no matter what I try. E and B strings, that's the first finger. And that means you've not done enough of the, I guess we don't have enough of those kind of riffs. But that, that, it's that pinch. The thing I think you're missing, Steve, is the pinch when you need the thinnest two strings to ring out. You need to pinch like here. Again, it goes against the tip of the finger or slightly to the inside, so it's a little bit bonier there, it's very fleshy here, a little bit bonier here, and then the guitar, you're pressing at the back of the fretboard, so it's a pinch like that. And yeah, it'll be really frustrating if you can't get those two to ring out. You can still do some absolute equality. Absolutely. Quality songs. Without, without those thinnest two strings ringing out. But yeah, you need to, you need to pinch like this. Here Should sort it, give that a try, let me know how it goes. Let me make sure, I mean I've freshly changed these strings over the weekend. So they're gonna slip slightly, but that's alright. I've got my um people t-shirt on as well. New album's out now. These are the guys that have that um. Oh, I guess uh the more common. All these kind of one string riffs, they all double up as guitar exercises, they're fantastic. Um, over the top is still a physical limit for some people, even with a smaller neck. So are you implying there's no chance of getting an intermediate with smaller fingers? You know that's not the case, David. You know there's so many guitarists that both of us can name with small hands. In particular, Angus Young's always the guy. Angus Young, he's about, he's about 3'2. He's, he's got hands smaller than er er dolls, er Barbie dolls, and he can play faster than I ever will. But let's have a look at a couple of things. What guitar does he generally play? He generally plays a Gibson SG. Which has just about the slimmest lightest body, and the thinnest neck with very easy slim access all the way up to the top of the neck. You try playing a C chord on, on a Fender Stratocaster, and then you play a C chord on a Gibson SG and you tell me which is better for smaller fingers and smaller hands. It's the SG by a country mile. The other uh guitar he's known for playing when he's not rocking out with AC DC. It's something that looks like that, like a 335. Much, much easier, and I, he's, that you can get around with nimble fingers. Um, any, any, you know, if, if, if you can't stretch to this, you can get from here to here and just be faster. Definitely Angus Young's one of those guys that speed's not an issue for. So, um, and also it depends on your goals, like. Are you saying, are you, are you implying there's no chance of getting intermediate with smaller fingers? Like literally, you can be an advanced guitar player and play on one string. Absolutely, um, just. The question shows the limitations you're putting on yourself there David. Honestly, I love the exercise, I I um. Let me, let me just show you show you something real quick. I will use one of these, uh, let's go for. You get the idea, one string solo, mostly playing on one finger. That was at least intermediate level, if not relative like borderline advanced cos most intermediate players wouldn't ever think to do that. Um, high of first string. Uh, that's on Matthews, so you don't need to, on an F major 7, you don't need to mute. You don't need to mute the thinnest string. um Let's have a look at this case, smooth changes from open to bar chords. Is it OK smooth change from open to bar chords. Is it OK to finger the open chords so it's as much like the bar as possible? Yeah, I do this all the time. We learned this in uh all my E-chord lessons in the where we learn our bar chords. Kay, you've been watching for a while, you've heard me play, you know, a bit of Damien Rice. I can't take my eyes. Can't say my eyes off of you, can't see my. Playing that E chord like this without the first finger, it's, I mean, it's literally how I teach bar chords. That's just an Ecord 12 frets up. Let me show you to make sure you're all doing this. Again, don't need the thumb, the thumb's not over the top for any of this. Thumb does, and this is without the index finger down at all. Let's have a look at some more questions before we dig into some stuff. Um, so like the A from an A to a B minor, finger in the open A as a bar chord squished into one fret. Um, 100%, yeah, do the A as a bar. Or is that just a really bad habit to start? No, I do that all the time. I, I just think such a gateway chord for a lot of guitarists, as you guys know, is the one finger A chord to the D over A. Because that trains you for that A to B minor change. There's that one finger I caught. D over 8. Sounds so great together, right? But I grew up loving Queens, so. And again it just trains that thumb over the top in the right way. But I think a lot of er intermediate players again have held over those beginner habits of having loads of tension in the fingers, and they don't realise that when I'm. Like how little I'm pressing down and how much I'm not pressing down at all. Relax. Relax, which gives me ages and ages to move. That's Rock and Roll Damnation by AC DC. I was just watching on the telly downstairs just to keep the er. Keep the dog quiet, to be honest with you. Rowley says muting the IB is my problem too. Yeah, you're not pinching there. It's, it's literally, it feels like squeezing your first finger with your first finger of your other hand. That's what that feels like, that's the same muscle. That's what I'm doing all the way there. And that's what I'm doing for like. Like that? Those thinnest 3 strings. Oh a great one to practise for that would be the Beatles, you know. There was something. me No, I you have forgotten it. Oh yeah, it's fine. So you've got one finger chords you can play with that F chord, up at, so this is the Beatles' version of Till There Was You. Here's how we can blend most of it with one finger. 10th rep. OK, index fingers needed to play this second chord. Which is like a. Uh, it's an E flat diminished. But I never, that's at the 3rd fret on the thinned 4 strings, but you have to pinch. I really think the, the, the reason a lot of you guys cannot move this thumb over the top is because you're not pinching your first finger. And I'm not gonna let this. Lie until a few of you try it in the comments and let me know whether that has worked or it hasn't. If it hasn't worked, fine, but at least try that and give me some feedback on it, because that, without pinching, your thumb can't get far enough over. Like that's the, that's the trick I think. And if you've gotta be able to pinch, 2 strings, 3 strings, or 4 strings, it's all the same move, cause I'm doing this all the time for like F to F minor. I'm doing it with 3 strings. Try it with till there was you with 3 strings. Even for this one, here's a bar called um Tuffy, thinnest 5 strings. There were barcodes on a hill. But I never heard them ringing, no, I never heard them at all, till I learnt this squeezing technique with my first finger. Between like this, like hook it. Has that worked for anyone, let me highlight this. Have we had any breakthroughs yet? I don't think anyone's actually tried it. Can anyone try this riff and try squeezing there and then can they reach their thumb further over? Someone, we've got 22 people watching live. Someone that's commented about this must have a guitar in the vicinity. Try squeezing the neck with the index finger, like you're squeezing a finger, like you've got a, like a baby squeezing your finger and it won't let go. And then try these, these chords, 8th, um, 10th fret. Add the 11thre on the 3rd string. Fret for the G minor, B flat. Yes, it seems to work. Neil, thank the Lord. I thought I was going crazy. Uh, it seems to work for me, but I have bigger hands. Look, people with big hands seem just as disgruntled as those with swa. My big fingers cannot possibly fit into this one A chord, Andy. I'm like, you have no idea how much big fingers are an advantage for most. People, people with small fingers, oh, there's no way I can possibly play anything on guitar and my hands are too small. I'm like, you can, I've seen children do it. But I totally appreciate that children have very er fast fingers. Rollie, I think we've had a breakthrough. Yes, on my strat I can. Try it and yes. This is what we like to see. Good man, right, we're getting these comments on screen. We're getting them up Now the, the, it's not all it, you know, it don't mean everything's cured, but I think we've had a lot of success there with these guys. So I want a round of applause for Neil, round of applause for Rowie, Paul, Paul C, Kay, and David. Even if you felt you could do it somewhat already, I think that technique has done it a lot better, and it's a really good thing to practise it with. So genuinely, thank you so much for trying that. And this is a really good one. You're playing really jazzy chords there and I'm not even, like you don't even need the thumb at all. I'm, I'm encouraging the thumb over the top cos I think if you play this bit right, you you'll be able to do it and you'll be like wow, I can really rap over the top. But what this teaches is that relaxing as well. Between every chord. Super jazzy, alright? Right, so we've had some great breakthroughs there, very nice, very nice. Uh just following up on any live comments, I think we look good. There was a few we had in the um precursor. One thing definitely came up er about strumming, stop strumming so hard. This will be a big curer as well. Let me see what comment this is replying to. Uh, which is in my little folder here. I haven't needed them yet cos we've got so many, uh, great comments coming through. But let me make this nice and big. We've got a load of cage system stuff as well. I feel like that takes a little, it's a little bit harder to have a breakthrough on. Um, but Martin says, here we go, there's something here. Ooh, that's big, innit? Hi Andy, strumming, as a late beginner, I'm 12 months into your acoustic course, which is really well done, by the way, fair play for sticking with it that long. We, uh, people on average stay, uh, over 12 months. It's a good 15 to, uh, 18 months as an average, so that's pretty bloody good. Um, we don't have many people, uh, stopping in the first few weeks, people really give it a good go. But I feel myself strumming too hard at times despite trying not to. I watched your earlier strumming video, but the habit still slips in. Would welcome some additional suggestions, techniques to improve strumming methods, hope that makes sense. To cure your strumming woes, mate, honey in a feather comes to mind. Any of you guys remember honey in a feather? It's remembering what it feels like. Strumming should feel like you've got um something sticky on your hand like some honey, and then you, a feather's touched it and you've got a feather stuck to your hand and you need to get it off, or you've got something on your hand and you're like, come off. Honey and feather on your hand, it should feel as natural as that, that just shaking out, like people do, I encourage people to do this 11 to 1, you've been strumming for a while, shake out that tension, that's what it should feel, that's what it feels like, you know, even when I'm doing, what's a more funky one, Or even uh maybe. That's the rhythm of it, it's not about the downs and ups. What's the downs and ups? I'm almost hitting. Well, one and then the last two are just downs. But it has to be small, and it has to be, and make sure you don't go too deep with your pick as well, a lot of people strum really like. And it just hits against every string and kind of you get this happening. Really, um, really shallow, the pick needs to be shallow at all times, that was the trick for how I could get um alternate picking. Or tremolo picking as we call it. Stay shallow with your pick, stay nice and loose, keep the motion small, and remember it should feel like you're shaking a feather off your hand. Uh, I'm still pressing far too hard when playing bar courts. Yes, good positioning, um, this is Collins. Again, it's something I think everyone needs to, it's even something I'm always reminded me of, you know, you. I'm commonly playing guitar for like 3 hours, if I'm, especially if I'm filming, you have a warm up, you're filmed for a couple of hours and it's like, yeah, I've I've been playing guitar for 3 hours. So when I'm doing anything. Um, especially chord wise. I'm often going, right, I've played it, the next time round I'll just try and press down lighter and get the same result. Just every time I was cycling then I'm just like a little bit lighter, less, less, less. It's something I remind myself of with um with interviews. I'll fill you guys in er last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Jimi Hendrix's stepsister. Um, this was a martial event, and I also, uh, it's, it's a martial event that we're celebrating 60 years since Jimi Hendrix first plugged into a marshall, so pretty cool. We really wouldn't get all these. You won't get all that without Hendrix plugging into a marshal or it wouldn't sound the same, wouldn't have been a a similar kind of thing. And uh I also had the pleasure of interviewing er Spanish Love Songs, Dylan, who's one of mine and my partner's favourite er bands, he's the front man of Spanish Love Songs er really, really super people. And uh yeah those are coming out later this week, I'm sure there will be some some really cool tips for everyone, including some of this uh Hendrix over the thumb style in the the Hendrix video we've got coming out. Um, Here's an interesting one that's kind of putting a few different ones together, we've got Heather watching. So with this one, let me try and sit in a decent place so we can have these these on screen. That made no difference whatsoever, didn't it? Let's try for that. So I can, let me make this big so I can see it. I can get bar chords to sound clean-ish, which sounds like. In isolation, you know, doing this kind of thing. Um, but know when using them in a song and especially moving between different bar chords. There's a, there's a nice little progression here. Which is certainly, um, you'll think I'm crazy, but this is just the C to a D like this. And to get moving barcodes really clean. This way of playing a C. Let me make sure you can see. This is REM Man and the moon. This is a C chord. But with a full, it almost looks like an E. An Echord like here. So again, we're training that bar cord muscle. I believe it's Golden by. Harry Styles as well. Where he moves to this This is played in the same way, we've got a tutorial for that one on the website as well. But this um. You got down, down, up, up, down, strumming, down. I don't know the lyrics, but Just that. Now what that's training is making sure these three fingers can go between those three frets without barring. No barring at all, but we are doing 4 finger bar chord shapes. And then the next, uh, key song is Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, where again you don't have to bar, but we are putting those 3 fingers where they would be on an E and then your F. And then your G chord, and like a G6, like was mentioned earlier. But um the thumb does need to mute. Thumb does need to mute on this one, which is why it's harder. This, this is down, down, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up on the G, so down. Then I really think power chords are really crucial. I really think, you know, yeah. This is brain stew again. Or even getting, you know, your uh Cause that gets the slide, and it teaches your fingers to stay still, but without needing the thinnest strings to wring out too much. And a nice rocky one that's really hybrid, that was Seven Nation Army obviously, but a nice rocky one that's a real hybrid of those two. Um, teenage kicks, doing them all route 6. I think you can even On the original recording, I think it's pretty clear that he can't. Like really lifts off that first finger. You know, you can accentuate that or or not as you like, um, but if everybody started with those as their bar chords, I don't think we'd have this thumb trouble, and I think a real core issue is that a lot of people start off with, you know, F chords, cos that's how you play, I don't know, an Oasis song or a Beatles song or something. And then that just teaches you all these kind of bad habits, which is how to play a bar chord properly. And then we literally have to train you out of those as guitar teachers, we're literally like, OK, don't do that, put the thumb over the top, squeeze there, and you're like, I've never done that, and it's like, well. That is a great way to fix that in my opinion, I might test it sometime. Um, man on the moon. Stroke, um Harry Styles and. What did I say the song was? Anyway, the Harry Styles song that uses Golden is the name of it, Golden by Harry Styles. Then Dreams, Fleetwood Mac. then I would say anything with power chords. Take your pick with power chord riffs. you know, If you're an acoustic guitar player that's never had a go at a lot of these. And you're struggling with sliding bar cords around the neck, give them a go, I mean cos the alternative is you've gotta have a look at people like Jack Johnson. Which you can um That's banana pancakes. And you Damien Rice, I can't take my eyes off you. And you're high in dries. But you'll probably find that it's the rhythm that gives you problems cos you haven't learnt enough riffs or single note lines. Um, so that's the advantage of going between a lot of electric guitar and acoustic guitar stuff, you get kind of the best of both worlds in my opinion. Um, more subtlety and dynamics in my strumming. What's the most dynamic strumming I think, probably hm. Who do you guys think of for dynamic strumming? I mean of course your basic ones of Wonderwall actually have a lot of um So dynamics means loud and quiet. I do think it probably is Damien Rice. Or anyone where you can really hear just a solo mic'd up either acoustic guitar. Or guitar amp. I mean, Rolling Stones, man, are full of them. All of the er, you know, what we're thinking of. Yeah, I'll have that kind of thing, or you know. Oh that that's probably dynamics, innit? Um, but I imagine you're more thinking of the. I mean the most dynamic acoustic guitar stuff that I can think of um Heather's probably like your John Martin stuff which is more finger style. Again, we teach you to play with a pick and then we're like, oh you want a finger style, you wanna play any finger style at all? You gotta then learn to strum with your first finger. look. over. Some cool stuff there. What other question, let's check in with live comments. We're coming to the end now, but I think we've had some breakthroughs. Um, a friend recently told me to drop my thumb lower. What you do in your own time, Collin, that's up to you. Um, we have more questions here. Andy, making Hendrix, uh, chords sound clean. I struggle to stretch from my tyre, yeah, we've done that. We're gonna do a bit longer on the other big one that came in was the Don't Look Back in Anger solo and the uh Live Forever solo, namely the. Everyone can typically get through. That first half until about there, people learn that and they're pretty happy with it, and then. That bit, a lot more of a struggle, and also. Boom baddom bad doodle doodum. Um, what do they both have in common? They both start off with pretty simple bends. That was a tube scream I had on and off, by the way, to really help with the, without. I'm with So obviously the solution is you need to buy a Ibanez tube screamer. Um, I'm joking, you don't, just turn, give you something with sustain. They both start off with pretty simple bends. And less of a run, more of a, more of a melody. And then there's a couple of runs in there. There's this one which we talk about a lot, which is 3 notes. And then back 1, down 3. If I do a gap, you can hear how oriental the pentatonic scale sounds. And then with the other one. We've got that 32 idea, so 1. C major pentatonic, um, one in C, this other one in G. Two very guitar friendly keys. I think rhythm's the biggest thing, which is why I'm gonna keep that separate. I think people struggle to go. They play a solo at a certain speed and then they do this bit. And they probably have the physical ability to play at at the right speed. But you can't hear, you can't feel how fast to go and therefore you just kind of get it wrong, you stop yourself. Got some techniques for that coming, but we can't do it today cos we've not got time and I need to, it's a whole lesson plan I've got kind of set up. Um, Cage is a nice one to kind of finish on because this was. Yeah. Finding a way to remember caged and triad patterns. So, definitely the thing that comes before this. Is, um, both been really confident with power chords and I don't just mean on the thickest two strings, like knowing that this, let's have a look at this close up. So there's not a lot of point in looking at cs unless you're really confident that this is an A. This is a D and this is a G. Few of you might have gone, oh, I knew the first two, but that one I, I didn't figure it out. Let me show you again. A root note. Acord. D root no, power chord shape. D chord. What's that root note, that's where we get the question marks, it's the top of this power chord here. So we can kind of learn the neck by stacking power chords. There's one power chord, there's another one, and then rather than the rest of the power chord being here, if you play it, it's really obvious that it's here. And then we come round to learning octaves. OK. and In every which way we can play a G chord. Which you can see. Is something I practise, um, that comes before getting. One kind of shape to another, what, what you learn is this power chord is actually your D cos the root note's on the D string. If you know this shape, you know one of the cage shapes. And then there's the sea. And A And G I mean. Easiest to learn it from C, but every time you get to another key, you'll feel like you're starting again until you realise they all move together. So you know you got um you got C's, which everyone kind of gets. Pretty straightforward. That's where we've we've really had any of my cage lessons I show you what the cage system is. If you're wondering what this caged thing means, that's where we start, so I'm not gonna cover it more than that. But if I then go, OK, where are all the D's, or, or an even better one, where actually where are all the um, yeah, let's, let's go all the D's. So where. Hang on, how can I, how can I show you how they all move? Yeah, let's do all the D's from here. D and then C. And they've all moved along by one. Uh, let's have a think. I was trying to think how to teach that one. And as you see. It's, it's, you know, that's, that's advanced, it's, it's grade 6 for a reason, the cage stuff. If you're looking at the cage system but you've not got your triads worked out. It's probably a much better place to start. You know, if I'm trying to remember it. Also don't neglect when you're trying to learn the neck, like I did then when I was trying to show, I think it was David. You know, one string solos, if there's a one string solo to learn this week, I'd definitely say it would be John Mayer's. I'm waiting on the world to change. Just, just brilliant. So you've got D, B minor. G and D A B minor. And it just shows you how much you can do with one string. messed it up. And one actually probably a better one to finish on that more people will be able to do is my er Noel Gallagher, um. I've got a Noel Gallagher player study. And people usually miss these and they're really, like, this is why I made them guys, they're really beneficial. It shows you how to do all these lead Noel Gallagher lead uh lines, like remind myself of the of the jam track kind of idea. Um, Here we go. There's a Noel Gallagher style study which, if you've never come across that before. It is here. That is sent in the chat. And it is. This one. Any of you guys struggling with those Noel Gallagher style solos? Or anything how you wanna. How do I play over major? Just such, Noel Gallagher, it's over there, it's over there, it's that one. It's got an interactive tab with it. It's really good, you've got all the cage system stuff as well, the, the noisy clan stuff, it all really helps. But it clicks different pieces at a time, it certainly don't click all together. But I think we've had some breakthroughs there tonight, so I'm very pleased with that. Hope you guys are too. We will leave it there for this week. Uh, Next week I'm planning on a Pink Floyd, uh, special, but the ones, the rest of the, um, live streams in November are all up for grabs. So get your suggestions in on the Discord, on the hashtag #AAA Live Discord. If you leave it in the comments now, it'll disappear, it'll be gone forever. Leave it on the Discord so we can all check in and more, most importantly so that people can upvote their favourites. Um, I've checked out the other, um, the other stuff that's up for grabs is the stuff that people have requested on the open mic Sundays. I know going every couple of months it'll take a while to get to them all, but there's some good ideas on there and obviously it's been suggested by members, so they're the other things that we'll be covering in November, I reckon. Check out unpeople the Fab, thank you so much for watching guys, this has hopefully been a really useful session, just checking in on the comments, very helpful tonight, I'll go and practise with my thumb over the top. Great stuff, good comments there, thank you so much for the positive chat. Uh, we will leave it there. Take care guys, I'll get this edited up so you can watch the rewatch, win uh true 4K and have the better tab and stuff like that. See you next time, bye bye.