10 things that amateur guitarists can do to play more like a pro.
For some reason, I've been getting out more often lately and experiencing live music. It's been a mixed bag. Some have been national acts in large venues, while some have been at the local bar and club level. Most recently, I was a judge in a local guitar competition. After seeing the more polished national acts, I got a little spoiled hearing well put together sets that paced themselves and built up to a peak in the evening. All the musicians' playing was spot on, and they were great experiences.
Coming down to the local level, I witnessed a lot of similarities in players that were quite different from the national level acts. Of course this is to be expected to some degree, but it was overwhelming how many fundamental aspects of playing seemed to be overlooked. Here's what I witnessed on the local level. It's not a representation of everything that's out there, but it hasn't been pretty. Therefore I'm compelled to present my list of 10 things every guitarist should be able to do. It's not too tall of an order, but it is an important list.
1. Stay in Key
Before you get up onstage, it's a not a bad idea to know the notes on the fretboard! Sure, most people at the bar are already drunk and most likely can't tell the difference if you nailed the solo in "Free Bird" note for note, but hey, it's a point of pride to know you understand what you're doing. Would you hire a plumber that didn't know how to use a snake or plunger?
2. Tune Up
We've got tuner pedals, tuners built into guitars, tuners you can attach to the headstock, portable tuners, iPhones, iPads, pitch pipes, tuning forks, and keyboardists. NO excuses on this one! It shouldn't take but a minute to tune up before a set and a few seconds between songs if the guitar has started to slip from climate changes, or got beaten up on that last killer solo. Hey, even if you can't hear that you're out of tune, any of the previously mentioned devices can. Use 'em, and keep your listeners from getting their ears punished for no good reason.
3. Hold Your Notes
Sure it's fun to play fast, but I like to hear a note held out every once in a while. Make it the first or the last note in the solo—or even in the middle if you're crazy—but give us a little something to hang onto and ponder. If you're still speed-crazy, think of it this way: The fast notes will sound so much faster if you've got something slow to compare it to.
4. Incorporate Vibrato
Maybe I came up in a time when this was more of a personality statement, but it seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird. To me, the first mark of a great player and their tonal character is the mighty vibrato. Call me a geezer, but Hendrix, Paul Kossoff, Van Halen, Yngwie, Gilmour…they all had it. You could tell the player from his vibrato alone, and that's a beautiful thing.
5. Pay Attention to Phrasing
Those notes that you play are all part of a story. Are you a good storyteller? My fellow columnist Paul Gilbert has recently talked about this, so if you haven't yet, swing by his area and check out the killer advice. He knows what he's talking about and backs it up with fantastic phrasing on every solo he's recorded.
6. Dial In Great Tone Even If It's Not Your Rig
Guess what? Sometimes you won't have your main rig with you. Maybe it's a backline rental, maybe you're at a jam night, or maybe you need to use a different rig while yours is in the shop. So many guitarists I've met don't even know how to dial in a good tone, regardless of whether it's their own amp or belongs to somebody else. Take the time to understand what those knobs do. Too much treble? Back it off. More power tube saturation? Crank it up. Do you understand how a master volume works? These are all things that should be the most basic of skills mastered as a guitar player and used to your benefit. Amps are built (for the most part) to be inspiring and offer an extension to your hands, not just to make notes louder.
7. Play a Few More Licks
It doesn't take a lot of effort to expand your licks base. We have more than enough places to learn from these days, and while it's easy to get stuck in the comfort zone, there is no reason you couldn't add a dozen new licks each week. Spend some time breaking out of the box and dazzling your listeners and bandmates by sprinkling some newness on them. Oh yeah, don't just string 'em together either. Refer back to #5 and make them part of a story, otherwise they're just a bunch of phrases tied together with no purpose.
8. Nail Your Timing
Play with the band—they are there for a reason. I'm not sure what's going on—perhaps too many people are segmenting themselves off in their bedrooms or something like that—but I've never heard so many players sound like they're not even in the same room as the rest of the band. It's as if they've stopped listening and are just playing in a vacuum! Ahead of the beat, behind the beat, and everywhere in between. You have to listen to each other and play off of each other. This is music folks, not just a platform to show off the new licks out of context. Open your ears and feel the music. Like The Force, it is there to guide you.
9. Balance Your Volume With the Band
Yes, you can do this from the stage. Even if you don't get a soundcheck, it's imperative that you have your volume balanced with the band. Drop the ego and make sure you can hear everything. If you've got a wireless, you're in better shape because you can drop off the stage and listen from the audience's perspective. Yes, the soundman has a job to do but you can help by not making it impossible on him. I know you love your new Dumble, but make an honest assessment of your volume situation and keep it in check. Trust me, no matter how great that new amp sounds, nobody is going to care if you're just blowing doors down to show it off and drowning out the rest of the band in the process. Oddly enough, I've never heard a guitarist that wasn't loud enough in the stage mix, unless his amp wasn't big enough. How strange.
10. And the Granddaddy of Them All: Don't Saw the lady in Half First!
A long time ago, my first guitar teacher told me that a soloist is a lot like a magician—they both have a bag of tricks. The best magicians know how to pace the show. Start with a card trick here, maybe a little cup and ball trick followed by something like a disappearing rabbit. You get the idea. You never see the magician start the show off by sawing the lady in half. That's saved for the finale (unless he's really good and has a better trick up his sleeve). Do the same as a player. If you blow your wad in the first 10 seconds, you'll wow the crowd once, but put them to sleep for the rest of the night when you can't deliver beyond that. By the way, notice how I waited for #10 to saw the lady in half? It's magic!
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Do you overuse vibrato? Could you survive without it?
Vibrato is a powerful tool, but it should be used intentionally. Different players have different styles—B.B. King’s shake, Clapton’s subtle touch—but the key is control. Tom Butwin suggests a few exercises to build awareness, tone, and touch.
The goal? Find a balance—don’t overdo it, but don’t avoid it completely. Try it out and see how it changes your playing!
The author dials in one of his 20-watt Sonzera amps, with an extension cabinet.
Knowing how guitar amplifiers were developed and have evolved is important to understanding why they sound the way they do when you’re plugged in.
Let’s talk about guitar amp history. I think it’s important for guitar players to have a general overview of amplifiers, so the sound makes more sense when they plug in. As far as I can figure out, guitar amps originally came from radios—although I’ve never had the opportunity to interview the inventors of the original amps. Early tube amps looked like radio boxes, and once there was an AM signal, it needed to be amplified through a speaker so you could hear it. I’m reasonably certain that other people know more about this than I do.
For me, the story of guitar amps picks up with early Fenders and Marshalls. If you look at the schematics, amplifier input, and tone control layout of an early tweed Fender Bassman, it’s clear that’s where the original Marshall JTM45 amps came from. Also, I’ve heard secondhand that the early Marshall cabinets were 8x12s, and the roadies requested that Marshall cut them in half so they became 4x12s. Similarly, 8x10 SVT cabinets were cut in half to make the now-industry-standard 4x10 bass cabinets. Our amp designer Doug Sewell and I understand that, for the early Fender amps we love, the design directed the guitar signal into half a tube, into a tone stack, into another half a tube, and the reverb would join it with another half a tube, and then there would be a phase splitter and output tubes and a transformer. (All 12AX7 tubes are really two tubes in one, so when I say a half-tube, I’m saying we’re using only the first half.) The tone stack and layout of these amps is an industry standard and have a beautiful, clean way of removing low midrange to clear up the sound of the guitar. I believe all but the first Marshalls came from a high-powered tweed Twin preamp (which was a 80-watt combo amp) and a Bassman power amp. The schematic was a little different. It was one half-tube into a full-tube cathode follower, into a more midrange-y tone stack, into the phase splitter and power tubes and output transformer. Both of these circuits have different kinds of sounds. What’s interesting is Marshall kept modifying their amps for less bass, more high midrange and treble, and more gain. In addition, master volume controls started being added by Fender and Marshall around 1976. The goal was to give more gain at less volume. Understanding these circuits has been a lifelong event for Doug and me.
Then, another designer came along by the name of Alexander Dumble. He modified the tone stack in Fender amps so you could get more bass and a different kind of midrange. Then, after the preamp, he put in a distortion circuit in a switchable in and out “loop.” In this arrangement, the distortion was like putting a distortion pedal in a loop after the tone controls. In a Fender amp, most of the distortion comes from the output section, so turning the tone controls changes the sound of the guitar, not the distortion. In a Marshall, the distortion comes before the tone controls, so when you turn the tone controls, the distortion changes. The way these amps compress and add harmonics as you turn up the gain is the game. All of these designs have real merit and are the basis of our modern tube–and then modeling—amplifiers.
Everything in these amps makes a difference. The circuits, the capacitor values and types, the resistor values and types, the power and output transformers, and the power supplies—including all those capacitor values and capacitor manufacturers.
I give you this truncated, general history to let you know that the amp business is just as complicated as the guitar business. I didn’t even mention the speakers or speaker cabinets and the artform behind those. But what’s most important is: When you plug into the amp, do you like it? And how much do you like it? Most guitar players have not played through a real Dumble or even a real blackface Deluxe Reverb or a 1966 Marshall plexi head. In a way, you’re trusting the amp designers to understand all the highly complex variations from this history, and then make a product that you love playing through. It’s daunting, but I love it. There is a complicated, deep, and rich history that has influenced and shaped how amps are made today.
Lenny Kravitz’s lead-guitar maestro shares how his scorching hit solo came together.
Hold onto your hats—Shred With Shifty is back! This time, Chris Shiflett sits down with fellow west coaster Craig Ross, who calls in from Madrid equipped with a lawsuit-era Ibanez 2393. The two buddies kick things off commiserating over an increasingly common tragedy for guitarists: losing precious gear in natural disasters. The takeaway? Don’t leave your gear in storage! Take it on the road!
Ross started out in the Los Angeles band Broken Homes, influenced by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and the Beatles, but his big break came when he auditioned for Lenny Kravitz. Kravitz phoned him up the next day to tell him to be at rehearsal that evening. In 1993, they cut one of their biggest hits ever, “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” Ross explains that it came together from a loose, improvisatory jam in the studio—testament to the magic that can be found off-leash during studio time.
Ross recalls his rig for recording the solo, which consisted of just two items: Kravitz’s goldtop Les Paul and a tiny Gibson combo. (No fuzz or drive pedals, sorry Chris.) As Ross remembers, he was going for a Cream-era Clapton sound with the solo, which jumps between pentatonic and pentatonic major scales.
Tune in to learn how he frets and plays the song’s blistering lead bits, plus learn about what amps Ross is leaning on these days.
If you’re able to help, here are some charities aimed at assisting musicians affected by the fires in L.A:
https://guitarcenterfoundation.org
https://www.cciarts.org/relief.html
https://www.musiciansfoundation.org
https://fireaidla.org
https://www.musicares.org
https://www.sweetrelief.org
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Engineering Support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudion
Video Editor: Addison Sauvan
Graphic Design: Megan Pralle
Special thanks to Chris Peterson, Greg Nacron, and the entire Volume.com crew.
Tobias bass guitars, beloved by bass players for nearly half a century, are back with the all-new Tobias Original Collection.
Built for unrivaled articulation, low-end punch, and exceptional ergonomics, the all-new Tobias Original Collection comprises an array of six four and five-string bass models all offered in both right and left-handed orientations. The Tobias range features Classic, Killer B, and Growler models, and each is equipped with high-quality hardware from Babicz and Gotoh, active electronics from Bartolini, and the iconic Tobias asymmetrical neck design. Crafted from the finest tonewoods, Tobias Original Collection bass guitars are now available worldwide on Gibson.com, at the Gibson Garage locations, and at authorized Gibson dealers.
The bass world has been clamoring for the return of the authentic, high-end Tobias basses, and now, Tobias has returned. Combining the look and tone of the finest exotic tonewoods, such as quilted maple, royal paulownia, purpleheart, sapele, walnut, ebony, and wenge, with the feel of the famous Tobias Asym asymmetrical neck and the eye-catching shapes of the perfectly balanced contoured bodies, Tobias basses are attractive in look and exceptional in playing feel. However, their sonic versatility is what makes them so well suited to the needs of modern bassists. The superior tone from the exotic hardwoods, premium hardware, and active Bartolini® pickups and preamps results in basses with the tonal flexibility that today’s players require. Don’t settle for less than a bass that delivers everything you want and need –the look, the feel, and the sound, Tobias.
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For more information, please visit gibson.com.
