Slash ft.Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators w/Hawk Eyes in Luxemburg (@Rockhal, 17/06/2015)

After the magnificient Judas Priest gig the night before, here I was standing yet again before Luxemburg's Rockhal, here to cover the live performance of a equally grand figure in rock music. To put things simply for those out there who've been living under a rock for the past few decades, Slash is no less than one of rock n' roll's most popular and biggest guitar heroes in history. After having left his position as lead guitarist for Guns n' Roses, the man has managed to keep his his iconic status intact through his subsquent projects. The mere fact that the formation playing tonight goes by the name "Slash ft.Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators" comes to show the sheer extent with which Slash's legendary stature knows no precedence.

Considering my experience with opening acts playing before heavyweight Rock n' Roll megastars, I will admit that I wasn't expecting much from this band Hawk Eyes from Leeds that I had never even heard about. Moreover, after waiting over an hour standing within a packed venue with limited airspace in order to keep my good spot for the headlining show, I will admit to praying for this show to be over as quickly as possible. Despite being faced with an audience as sceptical as I first was, the band pulled off a remarkable show. The band put up a great performance playing a unique formula of catchy rock n' roll tunes with a distinct edge to them. By alternating melodic, power rock hooks à la Foo Fighters with clunky, sinuous riffs and syncopated rhythms from the likes of noise rock and math rock acts, the bands managed to craft themselves a unique and effective sonic identity with a great sense of composition and character.
For a band opening for an 80s' style Hard Rock act like Slash, the rougher, more dissonant edges of the band's unique sound did make them seem slightly out of place at times, which only added to the initially cold reception of an already sceptical hard rock crowd. However, after consistently delivering one left-hook song after the next with blood-pumping passion and energy throughout their set, the band's divergent sound rightfully earned itself a warmer and warmer reception as the show went on, winning over a reasonnable amount of fans. To further add to the contrast between the bands' modest punk rock spirit and our crowd of rockstar enthusiasts, audiences were bewildered to hear Hawk Eyes frontman daringly state "Go on the internet and find our albums, you have my permission". Overall this was an excellent opening set. I'll be sure to keep an eye on these guys, and so should you. While the band did seem to be slightly out of place at this show, I wish these guys all the best in getting there music out there and getting the fanbase they deserve.

After this surprisingly great set came the time for Slash and his boys to tear things up. Slash stepped to the stage looking buff as ever, wearing his trademark hat, piercing and chains, to the deafening roars of an extatic audience and thus ensued a nearly two hour long show of classic hard rock riffs and pentatonic solo frenzies delivered by the man behind hard rocks' most iconic licks. More than a mere guitar player, one only needs to witness the ease and style with which the man shreds through each song to comprehend why Slash has come to be known as a guitar legend. Not even a string break can stop the man in his way, as the man himself proved to us during a solo section where he carries on, effortlessly shredding on as though nothing happened. Being that Slash is the main star of the show, every song of the set gave him a place in the spotlight to unleash his solos. Despite being led by Slash, the main difference between this act and that of most other guitar hero shows is that a great amount of attention is put into the rest of the songs besides the solo sections; rather than indulging in a whole show of continuous shredding, Slash puts great care in the actual compositions and the vibe of each song, leaving enough space for the rest of the band to shine through. Over the course of the evening, fans were greeted to a setlist of 21 songs, half of which consisted of cover songs from Slashs' back catalog : 7 Guns n' Roses tracks, one Velvet Revolver song as well as a couple of tracks off of his 1st solo album.
Handling vocal duties, Myles Kennedy was in top form, harvesting the crowds energy through his great performance and great stage presence. To my great surprise, the frontman also proved himself to be a great substitute for Axl Rose as demonstrated on his rendition of "Nightrain", "You Could be Mine" and "Sweet Child of Mine" namely, clearly outshining anything that we've heard from Guns' N Roses live as of recently. The man also managed to dodge a glass being thrown at him during "Sweet Child o' Mine", responding with a playful "Ha ha! You missed me motherfucker!". If only other frontmen could react in the same way... For a few spots during the show, the bands' bassist Todd Kerns took over the vocal duties, making for an impressive rendition of "Doctor Alibi" (originally sung by Lemmy) and "Welcome to the Jungle".
The setlist went by at a pretty fast pace, though the latter half of the set made way for a guitar solo break that went on for what I could only modestly describe as "awfully long". Going over 7 minutes without any particular hooks or any of his trademark tasteful licks to hold on to, Slashs' spotlight moment of the show surprisingly lost the attention from the audience, who were looking around, waiting for the end of the solo only halfway into it. Considering the mans' stature, I couldn't help but feel as though this could've been the extatic highlight of the show rather than its flaw. After a finale consisting of "Sweet Child o' Mine", "Slither" followed by an encore with "Paradise City", the show ended majestically with confetti shooting across the venue and the crowd going absolutely mental for the climax of the show.

Robin

PS : A huge thank you goes out to the Rockhal staff for their incredible hospitality and support.

Hawk Eyes
Official Website
http://www.hawkeyesmusic.com/
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/HawkEyesMusic
Bandcamp
https://hawkeyesmusic.bandcamp.com/


Setlist
1. You're a Lie 
2. Nightrain  (Guns N’ Roses)
3. Avalon 
4. Standing in the Sun 
5. Back from Cali (Slash cover)
6. Wicked Stone 
7. Double Talkin' Jive (Guns N’ Roses)
8. You Could Be Mine  (Guns N’ Roses)
9. Doctor Alibi  (Slash) (Todd Kerns on lead vocals)
10.Welcome to the Jungle (Guns N’ Roses) (Todd Kerns on lead vocals)
11.Starlight (Slash)
12.Beneath the Savage Sun 
13.The Dissident 
14.Rocket Queen (Guns N’ Roses)
15.Bent to Fly 
16.World on Fire 
17.Anastasia 
18.Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns N’ Roses)
19.Slither (Velvet Revolver)
Encore:
20. Paradise City (Guns N’ Roses)

Guitar Column and Semi-Blog

Hello everyone, if you haven't figured it out yet I'm not Matt. Him and I have been talking for a bit and I got the luxury to be invited to contribute to this blog in a not-so-standard way. I'm not much of an interviewer so he had the idea that I could track my guitar progress over the Summer (as I'm starting to really get heavy into the technique side of things during my 5th year of playing), give mini-lessons, and generally run a "Guitar Column" on the site (and sometimes album reviews). So time to get down to business... hi, I'm Nicholas Nicoletti and you'll probably be seeing more of me in the coming months!

May 14th, 2012

I mainly worked on my picking speed and 7-finger tapping today, adding the 8th every now and then.

As per Matt's recommendation I downloaded the tab for Yngwie Malmsteen's Trilogy Suite Opus 5 No. 2 and, well, I'm having a hell of a time learning it. I know I could do the main themes pretty easily, but the intro is killing me. Far too fast for me right now, but I can play it at about 60% speed (about 90 bpm as opposed to 140). That's going well and there's really not much I can talk about with it. Economy picking: work on it guys. And alternate picking...

After that I worked on 7-finger tapping. Here I can talk a little bit about technique that doesn't JUST require sitting in front of a metronome playing scales over and over again. I'm figuring out that the trick to 7-finger isn't just getting the right hand working... it's getting the left and right working in tandem. And, in my experience, the left is harder to get synchronized than the right, since the right is oftentimes leading the melodic phrase and the focal point of the contour of the melody. I will give you guys the phrase I'm using to practice it for now, it's a simple one based on a Dominant 7th chord, but altering it to a Major 7th or Minor 7th is pretty easy. Alright, here it is, at 120 bpm:

(I would show you more, but I plan on using some variations of it in a metal song at some point ;) )

The trick to this lick is to not have everything ring out at the same time. I personally like to do it on a clean channel, but to each his own. Learn to mute with your right arm and your left fingers that aren't being used. And I literally mean your right arm. Like your under-forearm. It works I swear.

NOTE: To make it a little harder, make every F# an F natural (essentially making it an Ealt/E7b9 chord). It makes your arm and fingers have to hit a harder angle and it changes what fingers your right hand needs to use on the way up (for me I have to use the pinky to go from the F to the B) and on the way down (jsut the normal ones). Essentially changing the exercise to an 8-finger tapping exercise.

So, enjoy it... tell how it goes! And I'm glad to be here.

Adam Satur, Playing Guitar Musically, FINAL

So after a LONG break I a here to bring you my final installment of my multi part review of Adam Satur's Playing Guitar Musically. In this final chapter we will discuss the chapters on Notation, Chord Extension (or as Mr. Govan calls it, “How to play big scary sounding chords”) and finally Minor Scales. Together they offer a little “extra” to an excellent book. While the rest f the book offers the basics to learning the instrument these chapters really help you to get going into the more advanced stuff. They start to show all of the possibilities that are to be had when playing the guitar, or any instrument really.

Satur starts the chapter on notation with the basics. He shows the student what the musical staff normally looks like and then introduces the different clefs. While I think the introduction of clefs that most guitarists will never use is a tad unnecessary ( I didn't learn about other clefs until I had done 5 years of saxophone) I see why Satur might have done it. It definitely makes everything feel a bit more complete. The description of where the notes are on the clef is a tad clunky and I feel like it might have just been improved with a simple diagram. But again, I understand why Adam wanted to do it this way. It allows the student to figure it out on their own. Adam describes the “extras” rather well. He provides a great description as to how to identify sharps and flats as well as giving a good idea on how to determine which note is which when it falls outside of the clef. He describes rhythms well too. Unfortunately he again uses the English terminology for the duration of notes. This is something that will probably turn off a lot of international readers. Otherwise, he provides an excellent description as to the use of rests and really helps clarify how key and time signatures are marked. In conclusion, asides from a few minor issues, this is an excellent chapter that really helps to show how notation works.

The next chapter covers Chord Extensions, a subject that downright scares many guitarists. Yet Satur describes it perfectly. He starts off by explaining the basic types of 7 chord, how to form them. and there applications. Then he goes on to more elaborate stuff. He adds in 9ths' and things start to get tricky. He does a good job of explaining the different notations and how they are constructed though and you will not be lost by his explanations. The same goes for his descriptions of 11th's and 13th's. These are extremely tricky and very mathematical concepts and explaining them properly is no mean feat. Yet he does it, somehow, Satur's explanations make sense! When it comes time to talk about 2nds and 4^ths he yet again does a great job. I really like how he describes the different uses for these chords. To finish, this chapter is a great resource for any young guitarist seeking to understand the complex concept that is chord extensions.

The final chapter is on minor chords. Here we get a brief introduction to these concepts. While de does not dedicate much space to them it is clear what he is trying to accomplish with this chapter. He is A. Trying to give the reader a taste of things to come. B. Helping the reader learn that he does not have to be spoon fed theory anymore. This chapter exists to help students confirm their skill. While his explanations are not very long or thorough here, they do indeed get the job done. They show what a minor scale is and give a basic idea on how to use them. This is the scantiest chapter, but in some ways the most important. It gives the reader confidence to go off on his own and become a true virtuoso.

All in all these three chapters provide an excellent terminus to an excellent book. They help a young guitarist in many ways and give a view of all that an be done with the instrument. The chapter on notation helps the player be able to start playing with a practitioner of any instrument right away. Then the chapter on chord extensions helps the student in making their music a bit more interesting. Finally, the chapter on minor scales is great as it really instills the student with a sense of accomplishment showing them that they CAN work this stuff out on their own. So, to finish, Adam Satur's Playing Guitar Musically is a BRILLIANT book and you should REALLY consider buying it!

https://www.facebook.com/PlayingMusically
download sample chapters there!

Jeje Guitar Addict-The Fractal Reason

So today I had the pleasure of checking out fellow Petrucci Forumite Jeje Guitar Addicts' new instrumental record The Fractal Reason. The playing is a fascinating combination of djent, jazz, metal, and classical. Its really my kind of thing. The guitar playing is illuminating and with tons of heavy bits the headbangers will thoroughly enjoy this album. Meanwhile there are some more emotional acoustic parts that sound particularly good. There is even an instrumental pop punk song “Happy Alone” I didn't even know that was possible, but Jeje pulls it off. The bass playing is pretty phenomenal, and while the bass mostly exists to back up the guitar there are definitely some cool moments on this record and you will not cease to be amazed. Meanwhile the drumming is stellar. With a ton of really cool rhythms and beats this is a really cool sounding record drum wise. The playing is great and won't fail to excite. Finally we have the keyboards which are only present on a handful of songs. Yet they can be atmospheric and moody or there high powered and piano driven songs that add a lot to the music. It also adds a really nice classical feel at times and it proves Jeje's mastery of the instrument. All in all this is a very cool find which you should really check out!

iGuitar Magazine

 I know that a lot of my readers are guitarists and bassists, so I decided to make today's post for you. I want you guys all to know about iGuitar, its a digital magazine that could very well change the face of the guitar magazine industry. The digtal nature of the medium is exploited to the max and creates a unique user experience. Content-wise this magazine is excellent and has interviews with some HUGE names like Slash and Petrucci. It's impressive to see all of the work put into this. The overall experience is wonderful and intuitive and will take your guitar playing to a new level. The iGuitar magazine is taking guitar to a new frontier and I sincerely hope that you check it out!

The page design for each page in the magazine is a great mix of old and new. Rather than just posting boring old pdfs iGuitar posts lush full color pages that are easy to zoom in on (just a click away!). The structure of the iGuitar magazine makes me think that this is the magazine of the future. I sincerely hope that soon all magazines are as easy to access and streamlined as this one. The video lessons are embedded directly into the magazine so you don't need to change sites to view the lesson. This feels really futuristic for some reason and it really tickles me that I can click on an add and see the commercial IN MY MAGAZINE. I find this to be pretty magic. Combined with some awesome content this magazine is almost perfectly presented and I can not find fault with its overall composition, it's just so beautiful!

The content in these magazines, every single one is like a treasure trove of guitar information! Many guitarists would kill for just ONE resource like this, iGuitar has 11, and more are coming out, for FREE! I can't help but love this company for making great guitar lessons for high level guitarists (a rather small demographic). There's nothing not to love here. The articles are stellar and streamlined, the reviews clear and easy to understand and the lessons just stellar. The videos are clear and make sense and the teachers are not afraid to take a little extra time to make sure that their message gets fully across. I really have learned a lot from the iGuitar magazines and I hope to learn a lot more! Everything is well put together and the magazine is highly professional looking. It allows for a great overall experience.

The overall experience of reading a guitar magazine online for free with non-crappy format and awesome content is mind blowing. When I started out as a guitarist I never expected to have a resource as great as this! The synergy of great presentation and spectacular content will never leave you bored. With exposure for underground guitarists who are true virtuoso's (Hello Andy James) it's a guitarists dream come true. I literally can not find fault with this magazine, and I don't see how you could either. I have never had such a wonderful experience with an e-zine and I've tried out quite a few. With some great future plans (I have inside contacts to say the least) I can not wait to see where this magazine will go in the future! I predict that there are great things to come from these guys and we will never be disappointed by them.

In conclusion, iGuitar Mag is the greatest resource for modern guitarists. The magazine layout is gorgeous and unforgettable. This is the magazine of tomorrow. It will teach you a variety of techniques, and every issue will see you improve. In addition the articles are fun reads and very informative. The overall experience is great and I highly doubt you can find a better guitar resource online. So, go check out iGuitar Mag, you won't regret it!

http://iguitarmag.com/

Back to the Basics: 5 Finger Tapping

So I have been looking at various tapping articles to improve my 8 finger and, though there's not a lot out there, the little out has helped. But it's also had me realize I don't have it down enough to teach it, so what I've decided to do is go back and teach how to do basic 5 and 6 finger tapping and 7 finger in a lesson or two. Without further adieu, onto the lesson!

5 Finger Tapping

One Finger on the Picking Hand

5 Finger tapping is an elusive woman, easy to see all around you but hard to get. You can see her everywhere from certain touchstyle artists, modern Jazz soloists, to metal and all the way around. There are a bunch of different techniques that people have to do this, but I'm going to look at the two most prominent ones, only one today, and the other the next lesson:

1) Middle finger (a la any sweep tapping variation in most metal/-core bands)

2) Pointer finger (a la Michael Romeo)

1) Middle Finger

This one itself isn't too complicated and I, personally, don't use it too often, but it's good to know considering it's used in basically any sweep tapping lick in existence. Another place you'll find them is in thrash or speed metal solos post-Halen (like Metallica's "One", which I'll show later).

As for the actual technique it's pretty simple but it takes awhile to really master it or do it without notes ringing out, but the basics of it are pretty easy. The hardest part is learning to mute with your right hand. I'm going to give you a quick tapping exercise that can be done at any tempo. The chords are going to be a basic Classical style progression: Dm - Bb - Edim - G - A - Dm (i - VI - iio - IV - V - i).

In this exercise all you have to do is tap the first note of every triplet sequence. I have it at 80 bpm just to hear what it sounds like, but you could easily get this up to a decent speed. The only hitch is that the last triplet of the first bar is a tap slide (that I forgot to add): tap the D (12), pull off to the F (3), tap the A (7) and slide to the Bb (8).

You could easily change keys by changing the string your playing on. I find that the lower strings tend to be slightly easier to to tap on just cause they're thicker and therefore take up more space and are easier to hit. They also have a warmer/thicker tone to them. At least on my guitar.

Once you get good at this you should try some sweep tapping. I'll give a couple examples and then I'll move on... it doesn't need to be too detailed as it's a pretty easy thing to pick up on:

There's quite a lot you can do with it once you begin to play around with it. It's pretty easy. Only problem you might run into is making sure you have properly muted all the strings you sweep once you start getting into the higher tempos. But the key I've found to making sure every note doesn't ring out is to start slow, and build up steadily. You could also use your picking arm forearm to help mute the strings, but if you're too rough with it you could run into problems with scraping against the strings and creating noise, but, again, that comes down to slowly practicing it.

I actually think this is enough for now, I can get into the finer, harder details at a later date. This will be good practice though. Just start slow and build up to whatever tempo you'd like! I'll have harder stuff next time.

Enjoy!