Category: Guitar Technique

September 2, 2010

Guitar Lesson: A Fun Alternate Picking Song to Work on This Labour Day Weekend

categories Guitar Technique | comments 0 Comments
Welcome back!

For the upcoming Labour Day Weekend I thought I would give you a fun alternate picking song to play.

It’s a piece by J. S. Bach.

I’m sure you’ve heard his name before.

Bach is considered to be one the most important composers of all time.  Although Bach never actually wrote any music for the guitar, many of his pieces have become standard repertoire for guitar players.  His pieces have so much to offer guitarists.

The song we will look at today is Bourree II from Orchestral Suite Number 2.

Like all of Bach’s pieces it sounds great at any tempo.

This piece is for intermediate to advanced guitar players.

In this post, you will find PDF sheet music in tab and standard notation for you to download and print off.  I’ve also included an audio recording of the piece played on electric guitar.

The first thing you should do is click on the following link to download and print off the sheet music.  You can download the PDF for Bach’s Bourree II here –> Bach’s Bourree II

Now let’s dig into the piece.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s a nice short little piece.  So it shouldn’t take too long to memorize the song.

This piece consists of 2 sections that each repeat.  This is known as binary form.

Section 1 of the song is in 8th position while section 2 is in 10th position.  Let’s dig a little deeper into this…

In one of my previous posts, I explained how fret-hand positioning works.  If you haven’t read it, or need a quick review, read it here and come back:

Guitar Scale Lesson: How to Read Guitar Scale Diagrams

Now that you understand that scale fingerings are based on the concept of one finger per fret, I can explain the fingering used for this Bach piece.

In section one of this song (measures 1-4), you are in 8th position.  This means that your first finger will play any notes found on the 8th fret.  Your second finger will play notes found on the 9th fret.  Your third finger will play notes on the 10th fret.  And your pinky or 4th finger, will play notes on the 11th fret.

Now there is some stretching involved.  So what happens is your first finger actually performs double duty.  Your first finger will also stretch one fret lower to the 7th fret and play any notes found there.

So lets do a quick recap of the fingering:

So now all you do is play through the first section of this song and simply apply the fingering principles shown above.

In section two of this song you move up to the tenth fret.  Your first finger will play notes on the 10th fret.  Your second finger will play notes on the 11th fret.  Your third finger will play notes on the 12th fret. Your fourth finger has double duty in this section so it will play any notes found on the 13th and 14th frets.

So there you go.  You now know which fingers you need to use.  Other than that, the piece is pretty straight forward.

Here is the audio for the piece:

Bach Bourree II for Guitar

(Depending on your Internet connection speed, it may take a short while to load the audio)

Have fun with this song and have a great Labour Day Weekend!

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March 9, 2010

At Last! Randy Rhoads’ “Crazy Train” Isolated Track with Guitar Solo

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Wow, this is really cool.

The Metal Den has come across an isolated guitar track of Crazy Train from Ozzy Osbourne’s album the Blizzard of Ozz featuring the late great Randy Rhoads.

If you love to play this song or have always wanted to play it, you’ve got to check out this isolated guitar track.

I remember when I was first learning to play guitar, this was the third guitar solo I learned.  I don’t remember exactly how long it took me to learn the song and guitar solo, but I do remember practically locking myself in my room for weeks learning and practicing it.

Man if I would have had this isolated track back then!

Here’s the link for the isolated Crazy Train guitar track.

By the way, they’ve also got an isolated track for Mr Crowley, also from the Blizzard of Ozz album.  This too is another classic guitar song and guitar solo .  Here is the link for the Mr Crowley isolated guitar track.

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January 26, 2010

Play Guitar: How to Finger-Pick Part 1

categories Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Technique, Play Guitar | comments 3 Comments

Today we begin our look at how to finger-pick.

Finger-picking is a great way to add variety to your playing and will help you become a well-rounded player.  On top of that, once you get the basics of finger-picking down, you’ll be able to play songs that you wouldn’t otherwise

In finger-picking you use your right-hand fingers to sound the notes without the use of a pick.  Finger-picking is a very effective technique to simultaneously play notes that lie on non-consecutive strings.  This technique is also great for playing arpeggios when you want to let the notes ring into each other.

The Fingers
Spanish or Latin designations are used to symbolize your right hand fingers.

Finger picking diagram of right hand
Finger picking diagram of right hand


Spanish/Latin English Strings Direction
p pulgar/pollex thumb 6, 5, 4 down
i indice/index index 3 up
m medio/medius middle 2 up
a anular/annularis ring 1 up

The free-stroke is a very common way to pick individual strings in an arpeggio, or simultaneously sound the notes in a chord.

Here are some general rules for finger-picking:

·    The thumb (p) picks any notes on the 6th, 5th or 4th strings.

·    The index finger (i) plucks the 3rd string.

·    The middle finger is responsible for notes on the 2nd string.

·    The ring finger plucks the 1st string.

·    The thumb plucks the strings with a downward motion.  Use the left side of the thumb and/or the thumbnail to sound the notes.

·    The index, middle and ring fingers, pluck their respective strings with an upstroke.  The tip of the finger and/or fingernail should be used to produce clear notes.

Bear in mind that there are many exceptions to the above rules.  Context should be the final judge.

In part 2 of  “How to Finger-Pick” we will look at some specific exercises to begin to build your finger-picking chops.

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