{ Lick That Riff! }

You all know that famous Star Wars phrase that Jedi Master Obi Wan says to Luke Skywalker don’t you? “Use the force, Luke”? I’ll assume that you all know it. But in reality, how can this geeky sci-fi phrase help us become better guitarists? It’s all about feeling.

Clean Those Lugholes!

One thing that we can take from Obi Wans famous quote is that as guitarists and musicians, we must train our ears to hear different notes, tunings, chords and, from our own experience, a bum note. This is essential as a guitar player! It can improve your playing profoundly. If you practice and train your ear it helps you to be able to tune a guitar, play better with others and be able to play songs just from listening to them a few times. Here are some ways you can train your ear:

Listen: This may sound a little obvious but this is very important. Listen to your favourite songs and then try and work out what notes, chords, timing and rhythm is being played. Then go to the tab or musical notation and check if you were right. This will help you improve your ear for different notes and it will also give you a confidence boost everytime you get one right.

Tuning: Another great way to train your ear is to tune a guitar without any tuning aides. Once you have the bottom E tuned, pley the fifth fret of that E and then tune the open A to the fifth E. Do this with every string until you get to the G string, instead tune the B to the 4th fret of the G. Once you have mastered tuning from ear

Timing: You can also train your ear to improve your timing. The best that you can do this is to get a metronome. Playing along with a metronome will rapidly increase your timing and rhythm and will eventually help if you are ever in a band.

I Can Play That With My Eyes Closed!

Can you remember when you first started playing, and how much concentration went into looking at what position your fingers were in on the fretboard and then what your picking hand was doing. I suspect now it is probably much better. You can probably play whilst only looking at your guitar a few times, maybe you don’t look at it at all. How well can you play guitar without looking? Or, to let me rephrase, how well do you know your guitar or fretboard? Think about the best guitarists you know. Most of the time with the likes of Hendrix, Slash, Vai, the guitar just looks like it is an extension of their own body. It looks a part of them. I’m not saying you have to go and blindfold yourself like Skywalker did in Star Wars (that would be ridiculous) I just want you to think more about the notes you are playing and where they are, because the better you know your fretboard, the better you will be at guitaring and fluidity.

Just For The Record

This brings me on to my next point. Have you ever recorded yourself? This sort of brings about all of the previous points. You should record your progress regularly. It is not only a great motivator, but a great way to see how far you’ve come. Try recording yourself with a metronome and check your timing. Test how good your guitar playing gets without even looking or thinking much about it.

So, back to Obi Wan. Do you think that Slash really thinks about the things that he is playing? Those classic riffs? Those amazing solos? I wouldn’t think so these days. But he feels them. He has developed a sort of sixth sense with guitar. He uses the ‘force.’ But all of that came with training. Training his timing, his ear and his knowledge of the fretboard. So get out there and ‘use the force!’

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