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Learn how to not only ramp up your technique, but how to use it effectively.

Chops: Intermediate
Theory: Intermediate
Lesson Overview:
• Learn how performing slurs can make your guitar playing two to three times faster.
• Integrate fast licks in the context of songs.
• Use fretboard symmetry to create sophisticated and complex melodic phrases. Click\n here to download a printable PDF of this lesson's notation.

More than 30 years ago, classical guitarist Benjamin Verdery wrote the following line in one of the first guitar magazines I ever bought: “Being able to play fast shouldn’t be your only goal, but it should be one of them since it’s part of the classical universe.” I think that is one of the smartest sentences ever written regarding music and speed, and that quote has resonated with me ever since—although I would say “the musical universe” rather than just “the classical universe.” The ability to play fast is akin to any other technique, it’s a tool to be used when needed and set aside when other tools are required. This lesson will demonstrate how to gain access to the speed tool, as well as how and when to use it effectively.

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Behold, the organized chaos of PAKT in the flesh. Guitarists Alex Skolnick and Tim Motzer hold down the left and right flanks, respectively, with revered bassist Percy Jones and drummer Kenny Growhowski.

Photo by Avraham Bank

The free-playing supergroup returns with a full-length that explores the outer reaches of composition. Guitarists Tim Motzer and Alex Skolnick mull over the mysteries of their music.

While all of their music is produced spontaneously, PAKT—the all-star outfit that takes its name from the first initials of guitarists Alex Skolnick and Tim Motzer, bassist Percy Jones, and drummer Kenny Grohowski—believes in the late saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter’s maxim that “improvisation is just composition sped up.” The foursome’s collective technical ability, open minds, and desire to simply create all combine to make the group an ensemble without boundaries.

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If you can’t figure out how to play Joe Bonamassa’s solo from “Blues Deluxe,” don’t worry. Neither can Chris Shiflett. But it all changes when Shifty sits down with Bonamassa for this special episode of Shred With Shifty. No surprise that both of them reach for their Les Pauls, and Bonamassa even reveals why he switched from Strats to Gibsons in the early 2000s.

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