I'd like to thank you for subscribing. Back in my high school days, we didn't have the internet, we had my friend, Eric Fraser, who was a year higher than me who went and got lessons and then showed me what he learned. Today you got 17 year old fools on youtube teaching. For free. Beware of the crap, because there's tons of it. I hope I don't disappoint or confuse. There's going to be a lot of moments where you're just going to have to trust me when I say, "Trust me.." It's for your benefit. Now trust me by wending me your life savings, in crisp one dollar bills.

Aside from the brilliant teachings of my high school buddy, I'm self taught. I did it the very hard way. Put a record on the record player and start learning song/solos. Manually slow down the record (which of course also changed the pitch) if i needed to really know what was going on..I did that for what, 3 or 4 years? It helped. I can turn on the radio or listen to a band and pretty know what chords or being played, etc etc. So whatever formal training I may have missed out on, my ears are KING!!! And ear training is the hard part, or so they tell me. And if I had the choice between knowing theory or being able to have great technique, I'd choose both!!! But if I had to choose one, it's be the technique aspect. Theory is obviously knowledge, and you need minimal to write a song or play a decent solo. So nyah..We'll do both here but I want to get you playing first, we'll get into the hows/why's later....aiight??

Am I rambling? Good, this is when the good stuff comes out. So yeah, what I'm going to try and do with this site is a few things. Give you lots and lots of exercises, and I apologize for this, but it has to be done..and then you decide if you can hack it. And if you can't, of course, you blame me, the teacher, for not getting you ahead....WRONG!!!!!! If you're not willing to put in AT LEAST AN HOUR A DAY, forget it. When I was late teens/early 20's I did between 3-6 hours a day. Yes, I hated it, yes, I missed out on parties and girls and whatever, but hey, I got better on the guitar..and with the guitar, you get the parties, the chicks, all that stuff anyways!!! Right?

So, any exercise I give you, should be done to a metronome for at least 15-20 minutes a day, forever, until you die. I don't get the time to practice as much as I used to (try never, ha ha!!), but when I do, I practice things that I did back in my 3-6 hour heydays..and I'm in good company. Vai did 9 hour days. Becker did 10.

I think the big winner will be what to play over backing tracks. I'm sure a lot of you already have enough chops to get crazy, but don't really know how to utilize 'em..Good, we'll work on it togeva.

Alright, I must bail, but I'll see you on here.

And thanks for being on here. This is just the beginning. We'll all have a blast learning how to burn in a musical context with brilliant vibrato (Thanks George Lynch!!).

PS- There will not be a lot of me showing off, that's just stupid. I think we both know I can already do this stuff. This is to help you kick MY butt.

DS