Sometimes, when thinking about learning guitar or improving your playing, it’s easy to think of all the things we can’t do:

• I can’t play like XYZ player
• I’ll never play fast
• I can’t write songs

And often, the cause of these thoughts is a belief in “natural talent”. Or more specifically, it’s the belief that:

I can’t do that, because I don’t have any natural talent

Today, we are going to take the idea of natural talent, and blast it into a million pieces.

Neoclassical guitar scales are really, really fun. By playing neoclassical scales on guitar, we can create some incredibly rich and interesting sounds in our playing an improvising. Lets take a look at some of these neoclassical scales and how we can use them in our guitar playing:

The Harmonic Minor Scale

The original king of neoclassical guitar scale, the harmonic minor scale has an unmistakable sound. The harmonic minor scale has the intervals:

The Hirajoshi scale has a very eastern sort of sound to it. It is a more exotic scale, and is not as common as say the minor pentatonic scale, or even the harmonic minor scale. But it does have a very cool sound. If you have listened to players like Marty Friedman then you have probably heard it before.

This is going to give you a complete guide to using it. I will cover not only the theory, but a practical guide on implementing the scale, so you can use it in your improvising and playing.

I recently wrote an article looking at why natural talent on guitar is a myth, and hopefully, debunked several ideas and theories that hold guitar players back. So I thought today, we could look at the other side of the coin, and look at what really determines your ability level on guitar:

1) Daily Time Invested into Practising

This is an important principle that affects nearly every human skill you can think of. It applies to learning to tie your shoe laces, learning a language, and learning how to play guitar:

In 2012, Carol Dweck published a book called “Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential”. In this book (which is a great read - especially if you are learning or looking to start learning guitar), she identified two types of mindset, the ‘fixed’ mindset, and the ‘growth’ mindset.

What is a Mindset?

Before we start to think about how the two approaches apply to learning to play guitar, let’s quickly look at what mindset is. It’s turned into a bit of a buzzword in recent years, but, it is a valid concept.

Quite often, as guitar players, we feel unsatisfied with our progress.

We feel like we are not learning fast enough, or that whatever we are working on is more difficult than other people find it to learn.

Nearly all my students have felt this way sometime or another. I know I’ve often felt this way, and I’m sure you have too.

This feeling is unpleasant, and quite often it is demotivating. It can lead to self doubt, and leave us wondering why we are even bothering to learn guitar, as we are learning it so slowly.

Heavy metal is a genre that has been going strong for nearly five decades, has seen numerous evolutions and continues to inspire generation after generation.

But where did it come from? Let’s take a look at the history behind the music, and how the genre of heavy metal first started out.

The Blues Before the Metal

There are a few theories on how heavy metal started. The heavy sound started with bands like Iron Butterfly and Blue Cheer.

The first Guitar Hero became a smash hit in the video games industry. It gave every human being the ability to do something that previously required selling your soul - the ability to play guitar like a badass without having to practice.

From known to the less known, these four guitar players have been foundational to bringing neoclassical guitar playing to the (almost) mainstream.

More than just shred, neoclassical players were strongly influenced by baroque composers such as Bach, Vivaldi and Paganini; bringing a wider variety of scales (notably the harmonic and melodic minor scales. their modes and other [neoclassical scales]({{ < ref “/blog/2021-03-09-neoclassical-guitar-scales” >}})) to a wider rock and metal audience.

France is famous for its wines, beautiful countryside. Over the years, France has also had some great metal bands rise up. Here are the 3 of the best French Heavy Metal bands for you to enjoy checking out:

Trust

A personal favourite of the metal queen Doro Pesch, Trust are an old school heavy metal band founded in 1977. They were pretty popular in Europe during the 80s.

As a fun fact: Nick McBrain from Iron Maiden played drums with Trust, before he quit to play with Iron Maiden.