Guitar MX Blog

The now sober Eddie Van Halen told told Spinner.com that sobriety has made it more difficult to play the guitar.

It takes me a good hour to loosen up my fingers… after two and a half, three hours, you kind of get into a zone that I’m kind of relearning because I’m not drinking anymore. When I used to drink, it would get me there quicker. It’s kind of the zone where you’re not thinking

Maybe that explains this horrible performance a year and a half ago in Las Vegas. He wasn’t loose enough!

Shortly after that performance, Van Halen had to cancel several tour dates so Eddie could check back into rehab. I think it’s safe to say that Eddie is a better player sober.

Chickenfoot has arrived. The Supergroup performed last night on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Here’s a video from the performance; Chickenfoot playing “Oh Yeah”.

The appearance coincided with the release of their self-titled album, which can be bought now at Amazon.com for just $3.99!

In this video guitar lesson, JamPlay.com instructor Mary Flowers shows how to use Drop D tuning. She also shares some great musical knowledge.

You can find more lessons like this one at JamPlay.com.

First, sorry for neglecting this blog lately. I have been busy with other things, but really want to get back to having new posts at least a few times a week.

MusicRadar is one of my favorite music sites, and they recently put together a compilation of 10 instructional guitar videos for absolute beginners. I thought the lessons were well done and would be a great help to anyone who is getting started with the guitar. So here are the lessons. Links go directly to the videos.

• Guitar basics: String bending
• Guitar basics: Tapping
• Guitar basics: Natural Harmonics
• Guitar basics: Hammer-ons
• Guitar basics: Pull-offs
• Guitar basics: Combining hammer-ons and pull-offs
• Guitar basics: How to use your amp
• Guitar basics: Fretting tips
• Guitar basics: Perfect open chords
• Guitar basics: Pinch harmonics
• Guitar basics: The minor pentatonic scale

You can find more beginners lessons here.

A while back, Guitar MX brought you the story of Yuto Miyazaw, an 8 year-old guitar prodigy from Japan. Yuto, now 9, recently made an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres show and playe Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. Here’s a video of his performance.

The guitarist even got to meet Ozzy, his idol, on the show. Who know’s, maybe he will be playing for Ozzy some day.

You may remember the story of Joe Satriani suing Coldplay for copyright infringement with their song “Viva La Vida”. The song bears a striking resemblance to Joe’s tune “If I Could Fly”. Well, someone else is claiming that Viva La Vida is their work. This time, it’s Cat Stevens, who now goes by the name Yusuf Islam. He is claiming that the song bears an uncanny resemblance to his song Foreigner Suite, which also predates the Satriani song. Stevens has not taken legal action yet.

So is there copying going on, and if so, who’s copying who? You can listen to the songs yourself and judge. The Coldplay part starts at 5:18, which a poster at MusicRadar mercifully pointed out.

You can hear the Coldplay song here, and the Satriani song here.

Moe Chickenfoot news. It seems the band has sold out nine concerts that had scheduled for May. These intimate venues sold out in record time, and it seems there will be high demand for their debut album to be released on June 9, 2009, which can be pre-ordered here.

The band released this video on their YouTube channel, announcing their spring tour.

You can find more Chickenfoot news here.

I recently saw this guitar featured in MusicRadar’s “14 more outrageous guitars from the internet” article. It is the Video Guitar. It’s a regular guitar, but with an LCD screen on the body of the guitar. The sounds triggers cool video images, and can play any video, as can be seen in this demo.

The Video Guitar is made by Visionary Instruments. You can read more about the guitar here.

Here’s a video guitar lesson by JamPlay.com instructor David MacKenzie, covering the basics of finger tapping, and then demonstrates a tapping exercise.

You can find this complete lesson, and other video lessons like this one at JamPlay.com. Be sure to also check out this Fretboard Tapping lesson for more information.