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It is what it is. Im slowly learning to embrace the imperfections. Somehow, knowing that I’m only allowing myself one take is helping me learn how to not give up on ideas before they’re formed. Not jumping for that space bar is both liberating and terrifying 🍻

Late night at the studio. In the spirit of rawness, here’s some playing. All first takes, so forgive the slop.... but there’s some good stuff in there too 🤣 OK, full disclosure, I did 3 takes on the wurli.... but the guitars are one take Tommy’s. Sometimes I prefer this approach to the polished, well thought out one. What do you think? Should I keep posting these or do I need to clean up my act???

Had 20 minutes before everyone came into a session. I just went for it! All first takes, no time to edit mistakes or come up w real parts. There’s a charm to the raw stuff.... sometimes I look back at these things and I like them more than the polished ones.

Play what you play out of choice, not cause it’s the only option you got.... Get comfortable with opening up every chord you come across. Use this basic example over C minor to open up Dominant chords, Major chords, Augmented, Diminished... whatever you can. It’ll free you up. And even if you go back to just playing the block chords, you’ll play it with a lot more confidence! Hope this helps an...

These dudes are truly the best of the best and I still can't believe I get to call them my friends. It's always an honor to make music with them, whether in stadiums, living rooms or virtually via an iPhone. I've been very fortunate to play with quite a lot of incredible people. Bonnie Raitt was my absolute favorite. Derrick Wright (Adele) on Drums Al "Boogie" Carty (Ed Sheeran) on Bass David C...

A quick little nugget.... Superimposed tonality over another superimposed tonality. I hope this is helpful to somebody ❤️

If you want to get fluid lines through different chord changes, this is the best exercise I know. I’m still constantly working on it. Don’t let familiarity dictate where you start your phrases! A scale is just a pool of notes, and we want to be able to draw from that pool at any order.

Pat Martino is one of our masters. When it comes to stringing together 16th notes, for me, no one blazes harder. This video breaks down one of his classic licks. Unfortunately, Pat has been ill since November 2018 and I’m including his Go Fund Me page, for those of you who are touched by his music and are in a position to help an inspirational soul. www.gofundme.com/f/pat-martino-fund

I got a lot of questions on this topic, and decided to further clarify. Even though most people voice these two chords the same, they in fact come from two very different tonalities that have different rules. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m often all about breaking the rules, but I genuinely try to understand them first before I ditch them. As always, I hope this helps!

I got a bunch of questions about making “the changes”. Hope this video offers a good first step to transitioning your playing towards this approach. Keep the requests coming if there’s something you’d like me to cover ❤️

Let’s get out of that box! Here are some ideas to hopefully help expand on your approach pentatonic playing. I’m constantly trying to think about the actual notes to avoid falling into visual traps.... drop a comment and let me know your thoughts! Happy shredding 😷

During my last IG live, I was asked about using the diminished scale to transition from the I chord to the IV chord, and the connection totally got messed up as I was explaining it.... Hope this clarifies it.... my apologies, and thanks

Approach notes/Bebop enclosures/Neighbor tones/whatever you want to call them. Hope this answers some questions! Much love ❤️

A few of you asked me about them. This is basically it... with a few other exceptions. Those exceptions naturally lead us to a whole other rabbit hole, so I wanted to cover the basic principles. Notice that altered chords have both a major 3rd and (technically) a minor third, which we think of as a raised 9th. Don’t let it confuse you. It’s starting to get super nerdy. I love it. Great to talk ...

Guitar lesson #6: Diminished chords

Guitar lesson #4: Quartet Drive guitar

Guitar lesson #5: Pop RnB guitar playing

Lesson #3: The Blues - ish

Guitar lesson #2: A little chat about the 2-5-1 relationship

Guitar lesson #1 (quick note): How to practice scales

Guitar lesson #1: Adding a chromatic note to a 7 note scale

"Now I'm Here" - Queen Cover

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