Guitar Technique

[JoshMono]

Well, I feel like I'm cheating a little, but check out Justin Sandercoe's website.

http://www.justinguitar.com/

If you want to learn guitar, his site is extremely useful. There's just so much on there

But to give you guys one really cool tutorial, check out this one! In this video the great Tommy Emmanuel explains how to play a special kind of harmonics. It's a really cool effect I like to use every now and then, but I'm not really good at it. Yet

[JoshMono]

Indeed It's not really a technique I use often, but I like to use it at the end of songs sometimes Your video was really nice too. Economy picking is a really good technique to learn. I myself mostly alternate pick, even with an uneven number of strings, which can get a little tricky sometimes but it's certainly not impossible That's just because I like the percussive attack of alternate picking. For smoother sounding lines economy picking is the way to go!

Edit: Although the percussive nature can be dampened by striking the strings at a slightly different angle, too

[JoshMono]

Awesome playing going on there, man! Really cool arpeggiated chords in the background, too. I'm not much of a metal man myself, I'm more of the jazzy kind, but I'm still working on my technique to be a little cleaner That, and also getting a little more and more confortable on the fretboard and all that. Just practising every day

[JoshMono]

Ahh that's cool I first started out with classical guitar lessons, then did a bit of electric and then started just learning by myself, picking up techniques here and there. Now I'm focussing most on improving my flatpicking technique, but I occasionally will do some fingerpicking and some hybrid picking. That last thing is quite fun to do

A lot of people think jazz is for snobs who don't really make music but just know a lot of theory. While those musicians are definitely out there, pretty much the same goes for any other genre The truth is that learning jazz was probably the whopping biggest eye opener for me. It's a treasure chest of possibilities, if you will! In my opinion, anyway

EDIT: *notices his snob pony avatar* GAH!

[ChromaticChaosPony]

I actually just recently started messing around with harmonics on the electric guitar. However, I fail at natural harmonics (they sound dead when I try using them during metal riffs; I push down too hard and mute the string accidentally). They also don't stand out very well when I'm using distortion, they sound muddy. Any advice for technique or amp settings?

I'm actually getting good a pinch harmonics. My secret is using only the bridge pickup when playing riffs with harmonics. My 8 string guitar does pinch harmonics perfectly.

One other technique (which I learned from studying Tosin Abasi's playing style) is sweep picking on the clean channel for a jazz tone. Crazy, right? I learned how to play the song Point To Point by Animals As Leaders, which does this on the 8 string.

Speaking of the 8 string, one thing that I do is take advantage of the extended range. The bass tone on an 8 string is amazing.

[ChromaticChaosPony]

Yes, Tosin is from Animals As Leaders. He sucks at harmonics (or so he says during interviews), so I figure I'll get very good at them and use them a lot so that my style on the 8 string can be very distinctive from his (and everyone else's), even when I attemp a similar sound in my music. Besides, I just like the sound of pinch harmonics, especially when they are mixed into heavy rhythm riffs. I figure that adding harmonics to low rhythms keeps the listener from getting bored (especially during metalcore/deathcore breakdowns, because those can get boring and overused easily). Another rhythm trick (an obvious one) is using odd time signatures, like 11/8 or 13/16.