Posted by Zed Shaw | 2010-04-01 02:41:42.143126

Being rather new at studying guitar I definitely needed to work on my ear quite a lot. In fact, ear training and rhythm are the two hardest things for me. In order to work on my ear training I've been doing a few fun exercises lately that focus on the more "functional" method of hearing notes. The exercise I've been doing for about 2 months now has really given me surprising results so I thought I'd share.

Posted by Zed Shaw | 2010-03-25 20:19:23.943606

This shed post is a simple mnemonic trick for memorizing two very important parts of music theory. First is the "Cycle of 4ths" and second is the triads that make up all major chords. Memorizing these will help with figuring out the notes in a chord, chord changes, and many other elements of harmony.

Posted by Ahsanul Haque | 2010-02-04 00:15:59.052513

Here's a little chromatic exercise to free up your fingers. Included media contain the tab and a MIDI sample. It has a slight Flight of the Bumblebee feel to it when you play it fast enough(at around 200 BPM).

Posted by Ahsanul Haque | 2010-02-03 22:54:33.538586

Musicians, like people from every walk of life, hit a brick wall or two once in a while; this is when they think of giving up. Now, to lump all musicians into a single group can be crude. Every musician has their own set of goals and objectives. Some want to play that latest Mily Cirus song for fun, some want to write songs, some want to be the next Van Halen, yet some just want to rock out in their showers. That being said, at some point people do feel like giving up.

Posted by Zed Shaw | 2009-11-30 17:33:04.699397

Round 4 has some classic Jazz chords from the 50's era of Jazz that are still used today, although not quite as often. Most of these chords will be familiar to you, but the stranger ones, and some of their transitions will be very foreign. In this shed post we're going to teach you how to practice these chords so you can play them.

Posted by Ahsanul Haque | 2009-11-20 20:55:08

You need to work on a little technique that just doesn't sound right. What do you do? Usually, you take the piece apart, arrange it into smaller chunks that you can focus on. But what about a random pattern that you need to practice to master a certain technique?

Posted by Ahsanul Haque | 2009-11-19 13:54:14

If you don't know too much about chords, or you're too lazy to look them up, or if you just haven't had the time, here's a snippet showing all the E9 chords.

Posted by Ahsanul Haque | 2009-11-04 09:48:54

Everybody knows that arpeggios kick ass. If you listen to classical composers such as Bach or Paganini, you'll hear a lot of arpeggios which really give that awesome touch to their compositions. Here are a couple of basic arpeggios for you to get started.

Posted by Zed Shaw | 2009-10-28 07:18:07

We're getting The Shed going for this first Fret War round so that people will have more to work with than just the music. This is where Ahsanul will be helping folks play the round by posting etudes, information and advice. We'll also be hitting the comments to help people who are looking for advice.