Latest at All Out Guitar

Adrian Legg Master Class Review - Welcome to my first master class review! On our very first day at Guitar-X we were fortunate enough to be visited by the amazing Adrian Legg.

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Simon McBride’s reputation precedes him: at 15 he won the UK Guitarist Magazine's ‘Young Guitarist of The Year’ against stiff competition from all corners of the globe. Quickly joining Irish rockers Sweet Savage (notably Vivian Campbell’s – of Dio/Def Leppard fame – first well known band) Simon recorded two albums and played some major festivals with the outfit. Since then Simon has toured the world as guitarist for many diverse acts. Now, in 2008 Simon’s debut album is released...has he delivered the goods?

One of the stand out guitars that appeared at the recent Music Live show at the Birmingham NEC were found on the Fox guitar stand.
Fox Guitars make hand crafted guitars exclusively from exotic Brazilian tone woods, each one being unique due to the pattern of the wood on the body. These are stunning to look at and even more stunning to play.

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Well it’s been 2 weeks since I started at Guitar-X and so far I have not got a bad word to say about it! All I can do is be honest and say I love it here. All my class mates seem to have started to settle in and we’re all getting chattier with each other. With that happening the early morning starts make it seem more worth while, because everyone who goes to Guitar-X and TMS schools wants to learn music and you won’t find any idiots here who want to waste time. We all

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There has been much banter on the internet about the laughable cover of the sacred Yngwie’s latest opus ‘Perpetual Flame’. If only photoshop could be applied to music so easily, to make it sound young and fresh.

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I read a really interesting statistic the other day about DC. Basically since their last live show in 2003 they’ve sold 18 million albums. Yes, that’s right, 18 million of back catalogue for sitting on their arses! You’ve got to laugh though, with all so called stars in the charts thinking they’re the bees knees for having No 1 singles and selling out their local Carling Academy.

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Hello, my name is Bradley Beets. I’m a 16 year old guitarist and I’ve been playing for about two years. This year I won the Marshall scholarship at Guitar-X, part of Tech Music Schools, to study the One Year Diploma in Guitar Performance.

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I was very intrigued to hear this album: I was lucky enough to see Queen at Wembley in June 1986, and the atmosphere of that day has resonated clearly over the past two decades. Fast forward to the present day and with Freddy Mercury (RIP) very much a dearly loved memory, hearing how another iconic vocalist would fit into the unique music of May and co was always going to be interesting.

Ron Coolen is a passionate fan of the legendary Jason Becker. He has recently set up the Jason Becker Charity to help raise money for Jason. Many famous artists have donated memorabila for an ebay auction and Ron is running the New York Marathon on the 2nd November 2008 to raise money and awareness for Jason. Here is a fantastic interview that Ron recently had with Jason. We hope that it inspires you enough to maybe donate to this most worthy of causes...

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So one of the biggest bands in the world release the long-awaited follow-up to 2003’s unfairly criticised ‘St. Anger’. The critics, fans and industry all seem to have embraced ‘Death Magnetic’ for differing reasons.

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When the latest package from Schott arrived containing ‘Improvising Blues Guitar’ at Alloutguitar Towers - and we clocked it was written by John - we all looked forward to diving into this as one thing would be assured: Quality...

The basic structure of the book is that the essential key components of key guitarists from the dawn of Blues are examined - alongside the techniques and harmonic factors they brought to the genre and broken down into chapters (see below) with several musical performances and backing tracks for you to play along to, alongside detailed examination of the concepts, musical examples and loads of relevant chord/scale/arpeggio diagrams as appropriate.

With a player of John’s calibre one would expect the playing examples to be excellent, and they do not disappoint! Whilst all are accurate a few bear extra mentions: his Buddy Guy absolutely nails the mans vibrato; the BB King has a playful lightness of touch, the Robert Cray (a man hard to emulate) is so close... The Freddy King (absolutely required listening for those who wish to delve into Claptons original style) is a text book example of combining Major and Minor pentatonic phrase’s in a cohesive fashion. The Jeff Beck examples really nail that fake slide approach El Becko uses to such effect... I could go on but you get the idea!

For the rockier readers the Eric Johnson study provides a text book example of nailing this highly idiosyncratic player’s style, whilst the Gray Moore example portrays not only the Irish firebrands style to great effect, but also shows licks in their own right that could be from Paul Gilbert’s Pentatonic sequencing vocabulary and Viv Campbell’s speedy pentatonic repeating licks. The Joe Bonamassa example shows the debt he owes to many of the above players whilst showing his own slant on a genre that for many seemed moribund until his recent ascendance to global popularity.

With excellent Jazz blues players such as Larry Carlton and Robben Ford covered in equally comprehensive style as well as slide and ‘modern’ acoustic players covered this is pretty much all that you will ever need to truly nail the Blues!

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So. If you've read all of my columns so far you should be able to get some inside / outside sounds over some popular minor and dominant progressions. It's ok to play pre determined licks, but I like to use any harmonic improvisational device as I would speak.  In this instalment we'll look at some ways to get familiar with the 'sounds of the outside' by creating excercises and by extending our phrase ideas.

I recently played on the alloutguitar. com stand at the London music show, where I had a few people come up to me and asked:

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What better way to test out my new eleven speaker, pro-logic surround sound car stereo, than with the fourth studio album from Iowa’s finest, Slipknot. ‘All Hope Is Gone’ certainly makes for a suitable lyrical template for Slipknot and it proves that they themselves, have plenty of hope musically speaking.

The first thing that my new stereo emphasised to dramatic effect, is the crystal sonic splendour achieved by Slipknot’s acute technical excellence, captured perfectly by producer Dave Fortman and in Colin Richardson’s final mix.

Today's Elevenses Throws Eleven Quick Questions At 'Italian Master' Daniele Gottardo!

Daniele Gottardo took up guitar at the age of 14. His dedication to the instrument has won him many musical accolades and prestigious gigs with top pop singer, Alexia. His astonishing two-handed technique, dripping with heart felt emotion, has made him a highly sought after clinician and magazine writer. High quality instructional DVDs feature his trade mark incendiary licks, and now Daniel is set to release his awesome debut CD, Frenzy Of Ecstacy.

Today's Elevenses Throws Eleven Quick Questions At 'West Country Wonder' Jas Morris!

Jas Morris has been called such things as ‘Future Guitar God’ by Wishbone Ash and ‘A Rock Legend of the Future’ by Planet Rock. He began playing guitar at 13 and now at 22, has built up a considerable live reputation in the South and West of the UK. He was also the ‘UK’s Guitarist Of The Year’ in 2003 and a finalist of the epic International ‘Guitar Idol competition 2008’.