Guitar Practice
Neo-Soul Riffs
Neo-soul is a subgenre of R&B that often incorporates elements from other genres, such as funk, jazz, and hip-hop.
On guitar, it's often characterized by the use of a lot of Major 7th and Major 9th chords, and using a good amount of hammer-on, pull-offs, and sliding into notes.
Let's take a look at couple examples of neo-soul lines. As always, the goal is to get an understanding of the concepts, and not to necessarily memorize the riffs.
This first example in C Major is something you might here from players like Isaiah Sharkey:
Th e second example features some beautiful chord voicings based around a Dmaj7 vamp. This used quartal 6/9 chords, which are also commonly used in neo-soul.
Guitarist/Educator Spotlight
Steve Stine, Guitar Zoom
Known for his ability to make learning guitar fun and easy, Steve Stine is one of the world's most sought-after guitar instructors.
With a background that includes a bachelor's degree in music education, a role as the professor of Modern Guitar Studies at North Dakota State University, and experience touring in various bands, Steve has been playing and teaching guitar for over 30 years.
Steve is not only a talented and knowledgeable musician, but is a fantastic teacher. Steve takes complicated topics, such as music theory, and helps make them super simple. Most importantly, he teaches you how to put all the building blocks of guitar and music all together in a practical way. Steve does a great job helping guitar students see big improvements quickly.
In addition to offering tons of great free guitar videos on YouTube, Stine offers premium guitar courses, memberships, and masterclasses at GuitarZoom.com. Focusing on rock, metal, acoustic, and blues styles, the lessons on Guitar Zoom are designed to maximize your progress in the shortest time possible.
Check out Guitar Zoom and Steve's YouTube channel
Gear Showcase
Suhr T
John Suhr took his experience as the Senior Master Builder for Fender, and launched his own guitar company back in 1997. Suhr quickly built a legion of die-hard fans, and has built a reputation as being one of the best guitar manufactures in the world.
Suhr offers a modern and innovative take on the Telecaster, and arguably sets the standard for perfection when it comes to guitar build quality.
The Suhr Classic T is typically offered either with the classic 2 single coil setup or with a humbucker in the neck position, while their semi-hollow Alt T features dual humbuckers, with a 5-way selector that offers split-coil tones.
The Alt T is truly one of the most versatile t-style guitars around, with a sound that sits somewhere between a Telecaster and an ES-style guitar.
With modern features such as a compound radius fretboard, a neck heel carve that allows for easy access to upper frets, locking tuners, their own noise-cancelling system, and 22 stainless steel frets, Suhr takes playability to a new level.
Standout Features:
- Proprietary SSCII hum cancelling system to remove 60-cycle hum.
- 22 frets
- Various pickup configuration options
- Contoured neck heel
- 9" - 12" compound radius fretboard
- Locking tuners
- Stainless steel frets
News & Notes
- Fender Japan released a wild Custom Shop Deck O’ Cards Collection of Stratocasters.
- Guitarist Lyle Brewer joined the Roosic Podcast, discussing deciding to make a career out of music, the art of playing solo guitar, not overthinking, writing music, and much more.
- Rick Beato interviewed Steely Dan's original guitarist Denny Dias on his podcast. Dias shared behind-the-scenes stories and insights into his unique approach to guitar playing.
- Gibson revived it's Firebird guitar model with the all-new Firebird Platypus. The guitar pays tribute to the iconic 1965 guitar that's sought after by vintage collectors, and features a mahogany body & neck, a rosewood fretboard, a "Platypus" style headstock, and historically accurate Firebird Alnico 5 humbuckers.
- Fender announced a Limited Edition Custom Shop Brad Paisley 1967 "Lost Paisley" Telecaster.
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