Below are 20 little mistakes I noticed common with players who have been playing a long time but get stuck.

If you are newer to guitar, take note of these. They can help you get it right from the beginning so you don’t have to go back later.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity here. Getting these fundamentals right is very important.

 Here we go:

*Can’t play to a metronome

*Can't tune without a tuner

*Thinking that if they can play something once, they’ve mastered it

*Bad posture and body mechanics

*Notes are buzzing

*Playing with too much tension – this will stop you in your tracks and make you choke up on stage

*Not having a system for fingerings to play guitar

*Hitting other strings everyone can hear by accident

*Thinking one note can only be played one way. When really any one note could be played 1,000+ ways.

*Can’t tap foot while playing

*When they go to sing, the strum hand stops 

*Does not understand time signatures

*Tries to play a bunch of songs not appropria...

Are you struggling to make it to the next step in your guitar-playing career?

If so, I have a valuable tip in this post that just might be the secret to you getting unstuck.

To make my point, let me tell you this story. I heard it from a friend. So full disclosure, it’s not my story. But I did take martial arts classes as I kid so I can completely understand where it’s coming from.

Here goes…

There’s this young whippersnapper who once went to an old Wing Chun kung fu master wanting to learn how to fight. He waltzes in and tells the Sifu he wants to be able to really kick some a**.

So, the kung fu master starts showing him the basics of how to punch. The young man gets impatient and says, “Sifu, when are you going to show me ADVANCED???”

The Sifu walks over to the corner of the room where there is a candle lit. He throws a rapid fire punch so fast by the side of the candle. The wind created from his punch immediately blows out the flame.

The Sifu says, “You mean like that?”

T...

Behold a magnificent song every fingerstyle guitar player should know.

The story behind it is quite interesting, and the melody and chords have stood the test of time.

So grab your guitar and let’s dive into this “Sound of Silence” guitar lesson.

Who wrote Sound of Silence?

“Sound of Silence" was written by Paul Simon, one half of the iconic American folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. He wrote it in February 1964 and it was first released on the album "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." in the same year.

It’s a haunting song that has lyrics about isolation, alienation, and the lack of communication in society. While the actual meaning of the tune is unknown.

The story behind "Sound of Silence" is quite interesting. Simon wrote it when he was only 21 years old and was feeling disillusioned with the state of the world. He wrote the song in his bathroom at his parent's house while they were out. He turned off the lights so he could focus.

Initially, the song didn't gain much attention, an...

There’s this crazy story about Steve Vai getting kicked out of a guitar lesson with Joe Satriani… 

The year was 1973 and at the early age of 13. Vai started taking lessons from Satriani, who was roughly four years older.

In one of Vai’s first lessons, Satriani assigned him this: 

“Memorize all the notes on the guitar in one week.” 

Vai, overwhelmed by the guitar neck, had no idea what to do. He thought there was no way he could do it. His memory wasn’t that good.

So he came back the next week and Satriani said, “OK play an F# on the B string.”

Vai got immediately flustered. He was muttering and fumbling as he looked down at the guitar neck, and Satriani said, “Stop!..lesson over.” 

Then he wrote down in Vai's book, which he says he still has to this day.

“If you don’t know your notes, you don’t know SH-*!” And then sent him home.

Back in the day, this was the old-school hard a*$ way of teaching. And I get it. I had some teachers like this.

But to be honest, I think it’s cr...

Here’s an embarrassing little tidbit about what I’ve been going through lately…

I think you can use this info to help you play guitar better and improve faster.

When I was a kid, I was homeschooled. Grade zero all the way up through high school, until I went to college at UCLA for music.

But early on, and probably still to this day, I was a little nuisance. Kinda like Dennis the Menace. Remember that show?

Anyway, my mom hired various tutors to teach me, as well as herself throughout my early years. One day my tutor was showing me how to hold a pencil and write with it. 

Now, there are basic principles for a good pencil grip. It should be held in a stable position between the thumb, index, and middle fingers. But being the little shyt I was. I didn’t do this. I grabbed the pencil like a monkey and wrote however I wanted.

I remember the teacher telling me, “No Jonathan, hold the pencil like this” as she demonstrated.

I was so bad, they got me one of those plastic grippers that...

The year was 2002…

I had just bought tickets to see the Who at the Hollywood Bowl and was ecstatic.

You see, Pete Townshend was one of my idols, and seeing him do the windmill arm live was definitely on my bucket list.

The show I had tickets to was on a Sunday night…

But something tragic happened the Friday before the show...

News broke that John Entwistle had passed away...

My heart sank as I thought this is it, I’m not going to the Who. They are going to cancel the shows.

So they canceled Friday night's show and Saturday’s show. But the first show back was the show I had tickets to on Sunday night.

And wow was it a powerful night…

In fact, Roger Daltrey came up on the mic, and the first thing he said to 17,500 Who fans at the bowl was…

“Tonight we play for John”...

Another amazing side-note to this story is that legendary bass player Pino Palladino had stepped in and learned all of John’s bass parts for the whole show in two days. 

What a legend.

Today I want to share...

One of my buddies texted me this awesome video that blew up on the internet… 

It’s about two guys who walk into a Walmart and become blues stars. It got over 10 million views.

It starts off with them just mozying around the aisles. Then they stumble upon this little red toy guitar. It’s a short scale guitar for kids and what happens next is quite shocking.

One of the guys picks it up (Clay Shelburn), and starts busting out these tasty Stevie Ray Vaughan-style blues licks in E. He’s slaying this mini guitar right there in the toy aisle, sandwiched between Barbie dolls and Legos.

He then comes in singing and does the first verse of “Pride and Joy” with a soulful tone. 

The camera guy, filming on his phone, leans into the frame and Clay says, “Catch the next verse?”

The camera guy says, “I'll do it.” 

And then he comes in and sings the next verse!

After that, Clay plays a little blues solo and then takes it out with a blues-ending lick.

The barbies go wild.

It's a great examp...

Years ago I was sitting in a music class with blues guitar grand puba Kenny Burrell…

He didn’t have his guitar with him that day. But he did have a grand piano in the room.

So he walked over to it and played the notes:

E 

G

A

Bb

B

D 

E 

In that order, slowly, he hunted and pecked at the keys. (Kenny isn’t a piano player. But, he would often use the piano to demonstrate certain sounds he was talking about.)

He then looked up at the class and said, “Do you know what that is?”

The room was silent. 

He said, 

“That’s the blues scale.”

Then he paused and said,

“Do you have that worked out? All over your instrument?...

…because if not, you’re going to want to do that.”

Decades later, I still remember this lesson. And as I became a more proficient musician. I’ve only seen MORE value in it.

You see, when I play lead guitar, in pretty much ANY style, I rely on knowing the blues scale on my instrument. The blues seems to always sneak its way into my soloing somewhere.

But ...

A few decades ago I was down at this ginormous record store in Hollywood, California called Amoeba Music.

I’d spend hours in the listening rooms and thumbing through records.

One day I stumbled upon this bundle of Eric Clapton’s Unplugged concert.

It was both a DVD and a CD. I bought it and listened to it...a LOT...

Like every day.

And I learned every song on it…

This album was incredibly instrumental in teaching me a ton about the rhythm and lead blues guitar. Today, I'd like to share with you 3 killer blues licks from Eric Clapton's Unplugged Record.

If you want to learn the patterns and scales behind these classic licks. Get your hands on my blues scale PDF guide at the link below:

Jon MacLennan

Not long ago, I read this crazy story in a book. 

It was about an anthropologist who went to live among tribal people with little to no contact with the modern world.

The anthropologist wanted to share some of the wonders of modern technology with these isolated folks. And so he took a photo of the chief and his wives.

When the Polaroid picture was processed and shown to the chief. He was unable to recognize the blotches of black, white, and gray as an image of himself. He had never learned to translate two-dimensional images into recognizable three-dimensional shapes.

Yet at the same time. This chief could look at a patch of grass and say what kind of animal had walked on it and how long ago. He could do that as easily as you and I can tell the sun from the moon.

Playing music works the same way.

Most guitarists haven’t learned to see the patterns below the surface. It’s like they are living in isolation and can’t recognize themselves in a photo. 

They have problems like lea...