Watch as Gabriel Bergman outlines five essential topics you need to level up your playing.
How Do I Learn All the Notes on the Fretboard?
The guitar fretboard can be a very tricky instrument to memorize, but understanding how to visualize the notes on the neck is absolutely essential no matter what style you play. Start by learning your octave shapes and then moving them all over the neck while saying the name of the note out loud. Pretty soon, your eyes, ears, and fingers will start to connect and you'll understand the fretboard on a deeper level.
How Do I Learn the CAGED System?
The CAGED system is simply a series of shapes based on the open-position chords we are learn when we are starting out. These shapes can help you not only understand chords, but also scales, arpeggios, and pentatonics. Start with our in-depth CAGED lesson and really develop seeing these shapes all over the neck.
How Do I Learn Triads on the Guitar?
Having a deep understanding of triads all over the neck is the foundation for a well-rounded view of the fretboard. Start simple with a few shapes on the top three strings and then move those through a few keys. Once that feels good start slowly moving those shapes to other string sets. Not all of them will be comfortable or useful in all situations, but soon you will develop a vocabulary of shapes.
How Do I Learn Arpeggios on the Guitar?
What's an arpeggio? It's when you play the notes of a chord one at a time. Arpeggios can take many forms, so don't try to tackle them all at once. Start with triads on adjacent strings and then slowly expand to 7th chords.
How Do I Learn Pentatonics?
Pentatonics are the bread-and-butter of blues-rock guitar. The shapes are easy to get under your fingers and learning some stock pentatonic licks is relatively easy. One tip: Learn the scales horizontally up the neck in addition to the vertical positions. It will make shifting patterns much easier.
Last August, metalcore giants Poison the Well gave the world a gift: They announced they were working on their first studio album in 15 years. They unleashed the first taste, single “Trembling Level,” back in January, and set off on a spring North American tour during which they played their debut record, The Opposite of December… A Season of Separation, in full every night.
PG’s Perry Bean caught up with guitarists Ryan Primack and Vadim Taver, and bassist Noah Harmon, ahead of the band’s show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl for this new Rig Rundown.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Not-So-Quiet As a Mouse
Primack started his playing career on Telecasters, then switched to Les Pauls, but when his prized LPs were stolen, he jumped back to Teles, and now owns nine of them.
His No. 1 is this white one (left). Seymour Duncan made him a JB Model pickup in a single-coil size for the bridge position, while the neck is a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Staggered. He ripped out all the electronics, added a Gibson-style toggle switch, flipped the control plate orientation thanks to an obsession with Danny Gatton, and included just one steel knob to control tone. Primack also installed string trees with foam to control extra noise.
This one has Ernie Ball Papa Het’s Hardwired strings, .011–.050.
Here, Kitty, Kitty
Primack runs both a PRS Archon and a Bad Cat Lynx at the same time, covering both 6L6 and EL34 territories. The Lynx goes into a Friedman 4x12 cab that’s been rebadged in honor of its nickname, “Donkey,” while the Archon, which is like a “refined 5150,” runs through an Orange 4x12.
Ryan Primack’s Pedalboard
Primack’s board sports a Saturnworks True Bypass Multi Looper, plus two Saturnworks boost pedals. The rest includes a Boss TU-3w, DOD Bifet Boost 410, Caroline Electronics Hawaiian Pizza, Fortin ZUUL +, MXR Phase 100, JHS Series 3 Tremolo, Boss DM-2w, DOD Rubberneck, MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe, Walrus Slo, and SolidGoldFX Surf Rider III.
Taver’s Teles
Vadim Taver’s go-to is this cherryburst Fender Telecaster, which he scored in the early 2000s and has been upgraded to Seymour Duncan pickups on Primack’s recommendation. His white Balaguer T-style has been treated to the same upgrade. The Balaguer is tuned to drop C, and the Fender stays in D standard. Both have D’Addario strings, with a slightly heavier gauge on the Balaguer.
Dual-Channel Chugger
Taver loves his 2-channel Orange Rockerverb 100s, one of which lives in a case made right in Nashville.
Vadim Taver’s Pedalboard
Taver’s board includes an MXR Joshua, MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe, Empress Tremolo, Walrus ARP-87, Old Blood Noise Endeavors Reflector, MXR Phase 90, Boss CE-2w, and Sonic Research Turbo Tuner ST-200, all powered by a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus.
Big Duff
Harmon’s favorite these days is this Fender Duff McKagan Deluxe Precision Bass, which he’s outfitted with a Leo Quan Badass bridge. His backup is a Mexico-made Fender Classic Series ’70s Jazz Bass. This one also sports Primack-picked pickups.
Rental Rockers
Harmon rented this Orange AD200B MK III head, which runs through a 1x15 cab on top and a 4x10 on the bottom.
Noah Harmon’s Pedalboard
Harmon’s board carries a Boss TU-2, Boss ODB-3, MXR Dyna Comp, Darkglass Electronics Vintage Ultra, and a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus. His signal from the Vintage Ultra runs right to the front-of-house, and Harmon estimates that that signal accounts for about half of what people hear on any given night.
