 | TFU 3.3 Lessons, News & Views
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Blistering July TrueFire Happenings
Jeff Scheetz's new Rock Solid interactive video course launched and, in less than a month, has earned its way to the top of the charts. If you hurry, you can still pick it up with a cool double bonus promo.
With lots of good suggestions from members, we have completely overhauled the TrueFire forum and bulletin board. Lots of new features and now much easier to work with.
We discovered Stage Rig, sellling like hot cakes at the recent Philly guitar show. We picked up a few ourselves and the founder, Bret Barnes, was kind enough to put a special deal together for TrueFire members (see below).
Finally, we just returned from the Chet Atkins convention with tons of incredible footage and now off to NAMM and another All Star Guitar Night. If you've not yet subscribed to StudioWire, now's the time!
Practice smart, play hard!
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TFU 3.3 - Chord Scales
TFU students will be receiving TFU CD 3.3 within the week.
Chord Scales 1 - TFU 3.3 kicks off a new series focused on chord scales and their use for comping and soloing.
This first CD-ROM touches on intervals, diatonic triads, inversions, triad targets, modifying triads, quartal harmony and a few tips for maximizing your practice sessions.
Like the last few previous TFU series, this one will serve up more information than you can easily digest in a month. The best way to approach this material is to go through all of the lessons to get a feel for the curriculumn, and then return to the beginning and start digging in.
Your goal for the first go-round is to memorize all of the diatonic triad shapes on the first 4 strings, in all keys.
Course Overview
Intervals
Chord Inversions 1
Chord Inversions 2
Triad Targets
Modifying Triads
Adding Voices
Quartal Harmony 1
Quartal Harmony 2
Practice Tips
>> GPs August '05 Lessons
Great Balls and Fire - A Summer Shape-Up with John Petrucci
EZ Street - Exploring Counterpoint
Lead Guitar 101 - Bluesy Sliding Sixths
Rock Guru - More Gristly Chicken-Pickin’ Licks with Greg Koch
Metal Guru - Rusty Cooley shows you how to harmonize yourself
Twang Guru - Stealing from the Steelers
>>Chop Suey
As we put the finishing touches on this month's Chop Suey, our bags are packed to head out to this year's CAAS - the Chet Atkins convention where for four days and nights, the world's top pickers gather to perform and celebrate the legend of Chet.
Long time friend and recording partner of Chet's, Tommy Emmanuel will be there again to light up the house with his inimitable guitar prowess and stage charisma.
Here's a taste of Tommy's performance from last years gathering.
>> Not yet enrolled in TFU?!
Jump on the bus and have some fun in the woodshed!
>> learn more about TFU ...
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A 38 Special for your Lick Bag
 My band just did a show with .38 Special, and they were fantastic! It was great to hear all those cool solos from their many hits. Reminded me of how much melody plays a part in all the southern rock band’s solos. Since we have been taking Rock Solid down south for a couple of months, I thought we should give you one more dose of a southern bluesy flavor. There is certainly something to be said for following the chord changes with your solo licks to help beef up your melody chops! This lick is reminiscent of so many southern style solos and follows the chords nicely. Once you get this one down you can move it to ANY key and adapt it to be played over various chords. That is one of the keys of learning new stuff; make it so you can use it over and over!
>> Download 38 Special for the Lick Bag ...
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George Benson's "Midas" Touch
When I first started getting seriously involved in transcribing tunes by ear many years ago, I really had no idea where it would all lead at the time. As my own solos and phrasing continued to improve, I began to write original compositions, and the elements of those tunes were clearly based on all the knowledge gained from transcribing my mentors. As far as jazz and blues is concerned, guitarist George Benson was and continues to be a major influence in my work, because it always fascinated me how he'd fuse his core language and phrasing with latin, pop, and dance music.
This month time I'll be sharing a Benson-influenced pop tune I composed in the eighties. Besides the bass-driven progression, it's loaded with licks from both guitar and sax sources, and fun to blow it out on. Enjoy!
>> Download Love Beyond Measure ...
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Slip and Slide Into Summertime
 Kick back on the porch and slip slide into “Summertime”. If you’re partial to acoustic slide, you might just like this swampy version of that all-time classic. Actually this particular arrangement is fairly loose and free. It’s from Rick Payne’s “Blue River Blues” CD. It's played here in the low tuning of C minor. That is to say from low to high: C G C G C Eb. If you haven't tried C minor for slide, you should give it a go. The key of C minor has a distinctive and poignant quality. You can play some really lowdown, chilled out stuff with this tuning.
With this arrangement, you should aim for a languid feel and use the vibrato markings on the tab as a guide. Dots above the tab indicate that you should play these notes fairly short to give the tune a little punctuation where needed. Improvise as much as you can. Enjoy the slide!
>> Download Slide into Summertime ...
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Villa Lobos Prelude#2 by Jamie Andreas
When students work on a very difficult piece that they have heard played masterfully by some guitarist or the other, they will, of course, compare their efforts with the other guitarist. Usually, the student finds themselves on the losing end of the comparison!
Let's find out how to move in the direction of mastery of this virtuoso piece for the classical guitar by learning how to make some difficult moves easier to make.
>> Download Villa Lobos Prelude#2 ...
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Tip Jar! Endless Road from Tommy Emmanuel
Tommy Emmanuel chose the title of his highly anticipated Favored Nations release Endless Road as a colorful metaphor about life's mysterious and magnificent twists and turns. Yet it could apply equally as well to the multi-talented guitar virtuoso's breakneck touring schedule, which tops 300 dates a year throughout Europe, the U.S. and his native Australia, where a series of Gold and Platinum albums since the mid-70's along with his duet of the rock anthem "Back On Terra Firma" with brother Phil at the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney have cemented his stature as that country's most successful and celebrated instrumental artist.
>> Pick up Endless Road from Favored Nations ...
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Pick of the Month: Greg Koch - Chicken Pickin' Fricassee
"One thing I like to help blues and rock players realize is that you can learn the joys of chicken pickin’ without having to listen to a bunch of country music [laughs]. Hey, I grew up a rock and blues pig, too, and when I used to watch Hee Haw as a kid, I thought, 'This music brings me down, and these jokes aren’t funny,' so I started out hating country music. But then I heard Albert Lee on an Eric Clapton record and thought, 'Wait a minute, this guy’s not just playing the blues scale'."
>> Download the pick of the month...
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Rock Solid: New Interactive Video Course from Jeff Scheetz
Rock guitar offers players more dialects, techniques and colors to draw on than any other style of guitar, bar none. Today's rock player needs tasty chops, a more sophisticated sense of rhythm and harmony, a bagful of rock techniques, improvisational skills and other essential tricks of the trade. And that's where Rock Solid comes into play -- this interactive video course will seriously and quickly overhaul every aspect of your blues-rock and rock chops.
> Full description and audio samples of Rock Solid ...
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Hot Deal: Stage Rig - 25% Off for TrueFire Members
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The Stage Rig is a combination hand cart and amplifier rack that reduces equipment set-up time and makes getting your gear from point A to point B easier than its ever been. No disconnect of cords - amplifier is played on the cart/rack - simply roll onto stage - set it up at desired angle and play your heart out.
"Most of us guitar and bass players are looking for the next big thing to be a pedal, amp or instrument but you blind sided us with something that will actually resonate in the real world of gigging. Many times we arrive at a new job to find that the closest parking lot appears to be in another county with moon-like terrain to cross before we get to the stage. With the Rig it's been cut down to a single trip and bless you for thinking of pneumatic tires !"
How to get your 25% TrueFire discount:
Visit www.stagerig.com, click on the "TrueFire Members" tab, enter Username: truefire and Password: members. All of the pricing will reflect a 25% discount.
>> Visit Stage Rig site for details, more pics, and 25% discount ...
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