GUEST COLUMNIST:

RICKY GARCIA

Attack is EVERYTHING Pt.1


Many times you hear people say "This guy has a GREAT tone" or something like "Wow he plays 5 notes and sounds better then the guy who played 1000!!".

For myself I somehow understood what is meant by that. There are different techniques you can use to get a killer sound out of 5 note patterns or groupings. In order to be able to do so it is very important to fine tune standard things like the way you pick the string (soft/ hard), muting, hammering, pitch harmonics & vibrato.

The following exercise requires work in these different areas.

Itīs a combination of 3 16th notes muted by your palm on the bridge and a hammer-on to the following 16th note. That note you should play unmuted and and as a pitch harmonic if you can by using your thumb from the picking hand.

Example 1:
 

fast slow
Example 2:

Letīs bring this a step forward by including 2 strings now. Work on the string skip.

fast slow
Now we can make a full lick out of this by using basically a b minor pentatonic. Try to give it as much of a strong attack as you can and make it ROCKIN!!. The pitch harmonic at the end is so important like electricity to power your amp. DO IT!!! :-)
fast slow
Good luck and drop me an email if you have questions...

Ricky Garcia
Ricky Garciaīs Website
MP3 page



the following bio material from RickyGarcia.com
Ricky was born in Cologne, Germany. He was in contact with music all his life, mostly because his father is a producer and guitarist, and studied guitar and piano at the classical conservatory in Cologne. His father specializes in Latin music, which brought Ricky early in contact with styles like Salsa, Merengue and Brazilian music and he also got a lot into Flamenco as well. After a while Ricky also discovered his passion for instrumental rock music in the style of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. He began playing in local bands mostly focusing on writing original music. His high school band “Living Spirit” gathered some local attention and recorded some tunes which you can find on his CDs.

After finishing high school, he wasn’t directly into being a professional musician. He started studying computer programming for one semester, but then decided to focus only on his musical career. So he began studying music at the university of Cologne and worked as a producer, recording a lot of bands and started working on his own material. Because of all the different styles Ricky was involved in the years, he tried to cover a variety of them. He also gained a lot of experience being on tour with different project bands, playing concerts in restaurants or for all sorts of festivals booked by companys, banks or television stations, clothing companies like “Hugo Boss“ and all kinds of gala events. He also was hired as a tour manager for dance goups like “Bellini“ and “Lou Bega“, which brought him a brighter view in the business aspect of the music industry.

After a while he wanted to perfect his guitar playing as much as possible. Because of this Ricky was planning to start studying in the USA. When looking for a good school, Berklee was always in his mind. So he went to one of their world scholarship auditions with the hope of being accepted. The result was Ricky gained admission to the school with a scholarship after he played one of his own tunes in front of various faculty members. Since then he has been expanding his knowledge everyday. Also he is getting classes with great teachers and recording artitsts like Joe Stump and Jon Finn. Since he is recording his own music, it is always his intention to sell it as good as possible. Ricky also has had some success on the internet, because all his songs are available on MP3.com for free download. Four of his songs (“Just a  fine Day”, "Just a Fake", "Break Up" & "Chief" ) were actually number #1 hits in their official charts. 32.000 plays so far.