Today I just started listening to Chris Jericho’s podcast series titled, “Talk Is Jericho”. Just listened to the first two episodes where Jericho was interviewing Stone Cold Steve Austin. It was a very good interview. “Talk Is Jericho” is a good podcast. I think Jericho is doing a great job and think I’m gonna be addicted to his podcast. Why? I’ve always been a huge fan of Chris Jericho. Not only that he’s a talented wrestler and a good performer, he’s also an interesting guy. I like the way he talks and the way he thinks. He’s a good speaker and I like how he speaks his mind. His podcast is more than just wrestling too. He talks about music, movies and things like that. I’m new to his podcast series and will listen to a lot more of it soon.

If I were to start my own podcast series, though… I gotta find a way to record it and think of what it’s gonna be about. I don’t think I would want it to be about politics. I think I’ll keep my podcast series more interesting by talking about music stuff and movies. Do music and movie reviews. Give out opinions and rants. Things like that.

I came up with an idea that I could conduct my own interviews with local musicians but I would need to figure out how to record live phone calls, though. I’m sure there’s a way, I’ll research it.

The podcast thing is becoming a big deal. It’s getting huge. Why? Podcasts is nothing but talk radio, in my opinion, but with a podcast you can listen to it anytime and anywhere rather than listening to talk radio on Sirius or an FM station. There are too many celebrities with their own podcasts like Adam Carolla (which is the biggest podcast ever) which I plan on checking out soon.

Not sure if I’ll start my own podcast or not. I’ll think about it a while and make a decision. I’ll probably go for it. Podcast is a really good way to speak your mind. That’s why a lot of them do it. I got a good enough USB mic for the Ipad so I’m good enough to go. I just gotta learn how to do all this stuff and will.

Kev

For a long time now, I have been trying to learn modes. Learn how to play modes and learn how to apply them with my riffs & rhythm playing. I think I finally getting the technique of learning modes. After all this time, learning modes is not that hard. However, before you think about learning modes, you can’t learn the modes of major scale right away. Learning modes is for intermediate/advanced guitarists. Before you learn the modes, you have to be playing guitar for a while and learn beginner stuff first.

First you must learn the 5 patterns of the major scale up and down the neck. You have to know how the chord progressions go like the 1. Major 2. Minor 3. Minor 4. Major 5. Major 6. Minor 7. Minor flat 5 (which the 7th chord progression and it’s also the Locrian mode which is hardly ever used anyway). Once you get the hang of that stuff, then you’re all set for learning the modes.

Thanks for the “Fretboard Theory” book by Desi Serna which helped me understand the topic of guitar modes. I finally get it now ’cause of him. For years, I’ve been trying to understand modes and how they work and I think I finally got it!!!

Now I can finally start experimenting and practicing modal jams which is what I plan on doing right away today. Today I’ll make a backing track through AmpliTube using modal jams. Maybe I’ll try the lydian and mixolydian jams. I’ll figure something out.

To become a great lead guitarist, you don’t need to be all technical and fancy. Like I said before, all you need to learn is a few basic scales. All you need are the minor/major pentatonic scales, the blues scales and learn the modes — that’s it!!! That’s all you need in order to become a decent lead guitarist.

I’ll have to admit and confess that I wanna become a great lead guitarist. I wanna be that kind of guitarist where other musicians would look after me and be inspired. I wanna become the virtuoso type but it’ll take a long while to get there and I am getting there. It does take years of hard work, practice and patience. Becoming a virtuoso doesn’t happen over night. I’m really am trying to become a more advanced and skilled guitarist. It just takes a lot of time to become great.

This is why I’m starting to get into jazz music. It’s why I started to get into Al Di Meola for guitar inspiration. I’ll get into more jazz guitarists too like George Benson, Pat Metheny, Allan Holdsworth, Joe Pass, Django Reinhardt, etc. I’ll get into those guys soon, I just wanna listen to Al Di Meola for a while ’cause that guys music have been addicting to me as of late.

While I’m getting better at lead guitar, I just need to improve the improvisation/ear training part. I also need to improve phrasing and learn to play more melodically. Like I said before, playing fast notes and showing off maybe fun but I wanna focus on melody… make my lead guitar playing sound lyrical… like someone singing a song. If you wanna melt people’s faces with your solos, playing melodically is key. Nobody wants to hear a bunch of fast notes and noodling. They wanna hear music and that’s it.

Kev