I first played an Aurora about a year ago whilst picking up my Patrick Eggle Berlin that Charles had woked on for me (re-radiused the fretboard, re-fret and shaped the nut), it had a Charcoal burst and a Bigsby and looked the business. I plugged in to a Bogner Shiva stack and sat there for about an hour playing, I didn’t want to put it down. That particular guitar then went to Michael Dolce who used it on Series 1 of The Voice Australia after switching the pickups for a pair of TV Jones style humbuckers. Michael also used an Aurora on Series 2 of The Voice Australia too. So as you can imagine I was pretty keen to get hold of a guitar to record a demonstration for you all to see and hear how amazing these guitars are.

In my video demonstration above I have tried to include as many combinations of this guitar’s tonal possibilities by using the Piezo on its own with a clean and overdriven tone as well as blending with the humbuckers and using just the humbuckers. I have also recorded demonstrations with the coils split and another cool feature, the different Piezo voicings. When you pull the Piezo volume switch it changes the EQ and creates a different style of acoustic guitar sound, like going between a Parlour and Dreadnought. So as you can imagine there a lot of tonal variations and it is great fun tweaking to find them all but in the end a guitar has to play well too and the Aurora is one of the most playable guitars I have ever laid my hands on. This guitar is not just good looks, I actually felt like it enhanced my guitar playing which was actually a reason why I ordered a CGA7 from Charles last year which will soon be finished.

You can keep up to date with all the latest Cilia Guitars news on their new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ciliaguitarsaustralia

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Fingerstyle guitar lessons give you the power to take basic chords, break them into pieces and reconstruct them in a more interesting form for your progression. You’ll have probably learned arpeggios in the past, and in essence fingerstyle is pretty much the same technique, except you use your fingers as picks instead of your overworked plectrum. The effect of this is that you have the ability to create more intricately-layered melodies and incorporate simultaneous bass and melody lines into your compositions. This fingerstyle guitar lesson introduces you to the techniques and skills you’ll need to play in the style.

Labeling Your Fingers

Before you start to learn fingerstyle guitar, it’s important to address one of the new challenges it poses for tablature. Think about it; since you ordinarily hit everything with your pick, fingerstyle would basically be a free-for-all (using whichever finger you felt like) when you’re first learning. To address this problem (and show you the best method of playing fingerstyle passages), each of your fingers needs a tablature-friendly label.

Since classical guitar makes use of fingerstyle playing, the names for your digits are taken from the (admittedly archaic) musical language of Latin. This means that your thumb is shown with “P” (pollux), your index with an “I” (indicis), your middle finger with an “M” (medius) and your ring finger with an “A” (annularis). Little fingers are rarely used in fingerstyle, so it isn’t included in the labeling system. Now you’re ready to learn fingerstyle guitar – all you really have to remember is the unusual symbols for your thumb and ring finger. Of course, this labeling system has long been the standard; otherwise modern guitarists would have undoubtedly switched them for “T” and “R” by now.

Don’t worry about the length of your nails for now. There is a lot of discussion about the optimum nail length for fingerstyle guitar playing, but in reality it’s more a matter of preference. Some fingernail length will help you strike the strings more precisely, but specific lengths aren’t really worth worrying about for now. You can even by some “finger picks” – which are basically like finger-mounted plectrums – if you prefer.

Basic Pattern

Fingerpicking patterns tell you the order you should play the different notes from the chord, which means they can be applied to any chord. The simplest one to tackle works just like an arpeggio, except you get some experience with the different roles your fingers take on as part of a pattern. As a general rule, your thumb plays the notes one the lower three strings (the E, A and D strings) and your index, middle and ring take the three higher ones, but feel free to change this up if it helps in a specific pattern. For now, follow the suggested fingering as you play through the tab.

Practice the fingerstyle pattern above until you’re comfortable using your fingers independently. When you’re comfortable with the pattern, try to apply it to a different chord. Note that this pattern is based around a C major chord, so the first note picked is the low root – basically the lowest note of the chord you play. Play the same pattern, but over an A minor shape. Now try to change the pattern to suit a G chord. On six-string chords, find the root note on the low E string where possible. Using this technique, you can build chord progressions into your fingerstyle playing.

Here’s another example picking pattern, which illustrates how using different patterns creates a different effect.

Thumb Independence

One of the most important fingerstyle guitar lessons you can learn is about thumb independence. Your fingers are tasked with keeping the melody going, but your thumb is the powerhouse that holds the main beat. Working first on keeping your thumb rocking separately, you’ll soon pick up the basics of Travis picking – a useful style as you learn fingerstyle guitar.

First, choose a chord (say A minor) and work on alternating between the two bass notes. Keep the rhythm even when you play, counting out the beats (“one and two and three and four and”) and plucking the notes at the appropriate points in the bar (when you say each number).

All of the notes in the example above are thumb-picked. You can change the E note on the D string for the open E string, if you prefer. This might seem very basic, but you need to keep up that regular, rocking rhythm throughout the other examples in this fingerstyle lesson.

Build in a “pinch” to add a melody note into the fingerstyle pattern. “Pinches” are when you play to notes at the same time with different fingers, so the notation is doubled-up accordingly.

So far, the Travis fingerpicking pattern only has notes on the beats, with all of the off-beats (the “ands”) still free for a note. So we can add these notes in to create a more complicated guitar fingerstyle pattern.

Get to grips with the Travis fingerpicking pattern, and then practice applying it to different chords in the same way as you did with the previous patterns. To play more complex fingerstyle guitar patterns, you can build in legato techniques or skip some beats for a unique rhythm.

Playing Songs

The best thing to do when you learn fingerstyle guitar is to try to apply the patterns you’ve learned to different songs. If you have a song you’d like to learn on the guitar, use open chords and create a fingerpicking pattern for it. This will give you practice working through a chord progression in fingerstyle and putting together your own patterns. Use the basic Travis picking method if you want to keep things simple, but you can pretty much use any pattern as long as you’re in time and you work around the root note of each chord. You can use other fingerstyle guitar lessons if you’re stuck for patterns – but you should be able to come up with loads of your own!

About The Author
Founded in 1998, Guitar Tricks was the Web’s first multimedia guitar lesson site. 15 years later, Guitartricks.com features over 40 guitar instructors continuously creating a massive library of online video guitar lessons (6,000+) covering every musical style, technique, and level of ability. John has played guitar for several years and is excited to contribute his and Guitar Tricks’ knowledge to this blog!

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“The Cross Over Drive is a FET overdrive designed to capture the response and touch-sensitivity of an amp’s organic overdrive. This preamp design is all about the strumming hand – with the amount of drive determined by every nuance of the attack, be it finger-picking or plectrum.”

“The pedal was dubbed the Cross Over Drive due to its seamless transition from boost to overdrive to distortion to fuzz with a sweep of the GAIN knob. At its lowest gain, it is a boost/enhancer adding some extra sparkle to the guitar’s natural tone. Turning up a bit more GAIN gives some nice, complex, tube-like overdrive but allows clean-up of the signal via the guitar’s volume knob that A/B’s well against a standard clean. A bit more gain and you have a smooth, harmonic-rich, sustaining lead sound from 70′s rock to jazz-fusion.”

“Find the right EQ spot with the DETAIL knob, and blend in the amount of top-end harmonics with the BALANCE control for one of the sweetest, responsive drive tones that will have you convinced you have found another channel in your amp!”

This will be a limited edition run of 250 pedals, due to limited transistors supply. The XOD will be sold at selected retailers worldwide, available August.

More info to come at www.mieffects.com.
Facebook (www.facebook.com/mieffects)
Twitter (www.twitter.com/mieffects)
Instagram (www.instagram.com/miaudio)
Google + (plus.google.com/mieffects)

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With a completely new circuit design and specially-tuned EQ section, the Super Badass delivers unparalleled versatility for players who want a more personalized distortion sound. Its highly responsive Distortion control covers a full spectrum, from early ’70s low gain overdrive to modern high gain saturation and every shade of dirt in between. Once you’ve dialed in your desired crunch level, you can use the Bass, Mid, and Treble controls to finely sculpt your sound.

The Super Badass Distortion features true bypass switching and comes ready for the road with the sturdy housing and durable components that MXR is known for.

Features:

• 100% Analog
• Unparalleled tonal versatility
• Highly responsive full spectrum distortion
• Bass, Mid, and Treble controls
• True bypass

JimDunlop.com: http://www.jimdunlop.com

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The JS22-7 Dinky seven-string model includes an arch-top basswood body, bolt-on maple neck, 16″-radius rosewood fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets and “piranha” inlays, 26.5″ scale length, dual high-output Jackson humbucking pickups, single volume and tone controls, direct-mount hard-tail bridge and die-cast tuners.

The JS32-7Q seven-string model includes an arch-top basswood body with a dazzling quilt maple top, bolt-on maple neck, 16″-radius rosewood fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets and “piranha” inlays, 26.5″ scale length, stylish fingerboard and headstock binding, dual high-output Jackson seven-string humbucking pickups, single volume and tone controls, direct-mount Jackson HT-7 hard-tail bridge and die-cast tuners.

The JS32-8Q eight-string model features an ?arch-top basswood body with a lustrous quilt maple top, bolt-on maple neck, 12 to 16″ compound radius rosewood fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets and “piranha” inlays, 26.5″ scale length, stylish fingerboard and headstock binding, dual high-output Jackson eight-string humbucking pickups, single volume and tone controls, direct-mount Jackson HT-8 hard-tail bridge and die-cast tuners.

For more information, go to www.jacksonguitars.com.

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Press Release
Want to go to Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, MA this weekend? Want to watch a great acoustic guitar documentary while you’re there? Wilco likes our film and we think you will too. Musicwood is screening at their festival and they’ve given us two 3-day passes to give out. Simply like the Musicwood Documentary facebook page and tell us in one sentence why you love the acoustic guitar, the best answer will win the two free passes. Look for Musicwood to screen in your area, and soon available digitally. Enjoy the show!

Musicwood follows the most famous guitar-makers in the world as they travel to a remote Alaskan forest on a desperate mission: to change the way this forest is logged before it’s too late for acoustic guitars. The film includes exclusive interviews and performances by acoustic virtuosos such as Kaki King, Yo La Tengo, The Antlers, and Steve Earle.

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20 Essential Rhythm Guitar Styles starts simple with open chords moving on to the slightly more tricky barre chords as well as power chords. Each lesson takes a different rhythmic approach as the title suggests starting with basic strumming patterns, percussive strums, the galloping metal power chord rhythm, chord arpeggiation as well as blues shuffle and reggae style. Each lesson includes TAB as well as video featuring Guitar World senior editor Jimmy Brown who talks through each example and performs the pattern so you can hear what you are aiming to achieve.

If you are just starting out learning guitar this book is a great insight into the many different styles of rhythm playing and the more styles you learn and absorb the better all round guitar player you will be. You’ll be especially thankful if you ever play in a covers band or want to work towards becoming a session player.

The ebook costs $5.99 USD and is available on the iBooks Store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/guitar-world-lessons/id655733743?mt=11

and Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-World-Lessons-Essential-ebook/dp/B00D30G1IO

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http://www.wamplerpedals.com/

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The 30-day celebration begins June 15th and runs through July 15, 2013. And when it’s over, one lucky student will get one of Paul Gilbert’s signature Ibanez PGM301 guitars from his personal collection.

Gilbert will be playing the guitar throughout the month as he provides Video Exchange™ responses to practice videos submitted by students in his Online Rock Guitar School.

In addition to the grand prize, each of the “Original 25” students who signed up for Paul’s school and who are still members, will receive a Gilbert-designed “Paul Gilbert is My Teacher” T-Shirt. Plus, T-shirts will be given away at random to 25 of the new students who sign up between June 15 and July 15.

Finally, for those guitarists who can’t join by the July 15 deadline to be eligible for Paul’s personal PGM301 contest, ArtistWorks is giving away a new Ibanez Artist guitar here, through June 22.

To learn more about the ArtistWorks Online Rock Guitar School with Paul Gilbert, visit PaulGilbertGuitar.com

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