I love to play giant chords by swinging my arm through the air. But about six months ago, I swung my arm one too many times. The result? I can still play "normal" guitar just fine, but if I try an arm-swing like the one above, it is quite painful. Recently, I finally had some time at home to see a doctor, and he did a strong massage that was more painful than the arm-swing. It didn't seem to help much either, so I never went back. After six months of waiting for my arm to heal, and feeling no improvement, I thought I might just have to live with it.

But this morning, for the first time, my arm felt significantly better. It surprised me. I haven't been doing anything differently... but then I realized that I have been playing with my new kitten a lot. Every day I swing a toy mouse on a string slowly around to let her chase it. I love my new kitten, and I've been gently swinging the mouse around for 30-60 minutes every day. After a few days of this... my arm feels better!

I've still got a little more healing to do, before I can do a full Pete Townshend arm-swing. So I'm going to continue my cat-therapy and see how it goes.

Thank you,

Paul

In this sample video from Martin Taylor's online guitar lessons we'll get into a topic that Martin also mentions in his guitar lesson about tuning: harmonics.  Martin talks in-depth here about playing harmonics and also covers sound waves, arpeggios, and how to combine natural and false harmonics.  

Harmonics come from basic physics by modifying sound waves.  Plucking a guitar string naturally oscillates at not one, but several frequencies (which are known as partials).  Since the guitar string is long and thin, many of the partials are multiples of the frequencies which are called harmonics.  These sounds made by long, thin oscillators are considered musically pleasing and are also fun to play.  So let’s get started! 

hey all, hoping you're having a nice summer so far! I'm off to southern Sweden tomorrow for a few days of vacation. Just received the great news that the SHINee album where I co wrote the featured track "Breaking News" is currently nr 9 on the world chart, that means that only 8 other releases world wide is selling more at the moment (physical albums + downloads). I'm also doing a little guitar solo on that track which is kind of a special bonus :)

I have also started working on my next solo project together w the fantastic producer Erik Lidbom. I'll keep you posted on the progress with that project. At the moment w have recorded five new songs.  Me and erik wrote them all except for two that we wrote together with the amazing Jonah Nilsson from Dirty Loops.

There will soon be new lessons posted on the site, waiting for the ArtistWorks tech team to get one up this week!

regards andreas

First of all, I want everyone to know that I'm still thinking about everyone at this school. I appreciate your patience while I'm traveling, and this week is relatively short compared to most tours, so I'll be back next week to get back into the Video Exchanges that are waiting for me.

I've also had a great time hanging out with the guitarists that I've met from this school. Derick (MangoMachine), Scot Gormley, Jason, Drewseph, Kyle (Kdog), Rielly, and Victor (Varruda), are all familiar faces from their VEs, and it's nice to hang out with them in person.

Now, on to the update from today.

I gave lots of private lessons this morning, did a workshop about scales and arpeggios for all the students, gave more private lessons, did a quick photo session, and then joined Andy Timmons in giving away one of his Ibanez signature model to a lucky student. I had the incredible pleasure to play Gary Moore's "Still Got the Blues" with Mimi Fox. Even though the word "Blues" is in the title, the chord changes are actually closer to a jazz standard, which is extremely challenging to a rock player like me. I must admit I was nervous to trade solos with a world-class jazz pro like Mimi, but I managed to play at the top of my ability, and Mimi shook the stage with a combination of jazz notes and ferocious attack that left everyone stunned. There were so many great moments during the solo sets and jams, that it would be too lengthy to describe them all. And I have to get some rest, so I can have energy for tomorrows lessons, workshops, and jams.

Don't worry, I'll bring back all this guitar inspiration to you next week. More news tomorrow!

Thank you,

Paul