Hey all,

I had a long, hard day today and went into my studio to unwind. I dialed up All Alone from Time Machine, turned down the lights and cranked my JBL LSR28P's. Man...what a great tune. If you haven't listened to that one in a while, dig it out and give it a spin. Just beautiful. The guitar tone is very well engineered. Sounds like a bit of re-amping to get two simultaneous amps ala Stevie Ray or maybe he's got a touch of the Fulltone Ultimate Octave switched in. Dunno. And of course Joe's phrasing is spot on. Just sharing. Peace.

Best Regards,

I just receaved the awesome Joe poster from the FanFare site. I have noticed something odd on my particular poster. Joe's signature is actually on it. I assumed that it was on all the posters and clearly wasn't written by Joe himself. As I look closely at the signature, it looks very real. It looks as if a marker has been used. This is not shown in the picture on the FanFare site.

What could this mean? Does Joe sign the posters?

If you have this poster, tell me about yours and if it has a signature.

OH GEEMINIES!!!

lucysorets,,,thanks for the mail....yu have one too.....peace,,, yur khasi has picked up...way to go!!!!! cheers...

tracie...yu have mail too...regards to chris...

ovation1 - Okay...I had a chance to listen. I really like Forty Deuce. I'm familiar with Richie Kotzen's guitar work, but this is the first time I've heard him sing. Man...I really like his voice. Are you familiar with Sammy Hagar's post-Van Halen solo work? These songs really remind me of Sammy's songwriting/structure. It's very good...

I looked at the DramaGods page...so this is the band that used to be Population 1? Why did they change the name? Did Nuno get some new band members, or...? I remember seeing them on television a few months back...they're also very good.

Keep me in the loop...let me know when their websites are up and running. Thanks. :-)

For the past few tours, Joe has been selling autographed items at the merchandise booth (I think it started with the G3 2003 tour). The posters FanFire is selling are most likely leftovers from the ITLIS? tour.

Grrr!!!!! I just put new strigns on all my guitars, and whilst I was teaching with my SA the top E kept going proper flat - so of course I kept trying to tune it, but it was only getting worse. Then, the bloody ball-end pinged off!!!!! How gay is that???!!! Not suposed to happen, me thinks...

In ther news, I HAV EBON JOVI TICKETS!!!! WEMBLEY STADIUM!!!!!! Nickleback are supporting, but I can overlook that minor setback... lol

Clarky - Yeah, possibly man. What's the venue?

Austin, haha, yeah a light-hearted outlook on things can always help too......not liking Rush is an obvious failing, a major flaw, it would never have worked! haha

I usually give people a 5-part practice routine. I have a 6-part routine for myself, but the etra part in the middle is theory-based stuff which you won't need, and would be best looked at seperately.

The routine is laid out to have you starting off with warmups that will get all your fingers working and get the synchronisation and coordination going with your picking hand.

Practice one-octave major and one-octave minor scales in different keys. This invloves taking the movebale pattern and playing it in different positions up the neck. I personally do this in all 12 keys going up and back down again, but as long as you do it for at least five minutes it should be ok.

Practice Pentatonic (minor) position 1 in at least 5 different keys. Note that as you progress and get more accomplished you'll need to add the other Penatonic scale positions into this part of your routine, one at a time. Mine involves playing all 5 Pentatonic scale positions in at least 4 keys.

At this time this is probably all you'll need for the scales section. Again, as you progress you'll want to add bits into it, like modal scales and stuff. But for now, that first section should have taken 10 or 15 minutes.

Use the set of exercises that I sent you! Spend a minimum of five minutes on them 'cause they will help your independence and dexterity with your fretting hand massively.

I find ten minutes is better, and it's not a bad idea to try them in different positions as well, as they're more stretchy at the lower frets, and all squashed up at the higher frets.

This is also the part of the routine where you can put picking exercises and any technical exercises that are meant purely for improving technique, regardless of whether or not they sound tuneful. Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai and John Petrucci are all responsible for their own "signature" picking exercises and they're worth finding.

It's really important to work on chord types and to keep learning new chords by name. I find the best way to learn new chords is to put them in a practice sequence.

The first and simplist I always start with is Amin Emin Emaj Amin. It seems I always use a four-part sequence two, but it just makes sense and is easy to follow! It's a great way to learn complex chords. Dmin7 Cmaj Dmin9 Cmaj7 is a nice one.

All you need is a chord book......make up 4-chord sequences of your own but always make sure you put in at least one chord you know well.....it's easiest to learn new chords a few at a time.

Part 4: Structured Song Practice

This means taking a song you want to learn and properly learning it. Get tab if you can and start going through it. The structured song practice should be about working on a song that you have to concentrate on.....if it's a song you could play in your sleep then it's not going to help.

For my own routine this section also involves working on new transcriptions - ie. tabbing out someone elses' song myself. Just recently I've been doing Hill Groove and a couple of Andy Timmons songs.

And it doesn't have to be a hugely complex song....I have some of my students working on simple stuff like "Beverly Hills" by Weezer - it's really easy but it's good to play and learn for a beginner - while I have others working on some of Joe's tunes. Whatever, just don't feel you have to be working on something really really hard and full of notes!

You should aim to spend at least 15 minutes working on songs as they demand proper attention.

This bit is really important. Free practice means you put away all the books and sheets of paper and tab and just play. Play anything you like, do some investigative doodling and just generally disconnect yourself from reading stuff.

This is important because it's quite rewarding and knowing that you have this to look forward to is a good incentive to work through the whole routine. If you started off with free practice you'd probably never make it as far as the technical exercises!

It's also really important because it helps reduce the risk of you becoming dependant on having something to read. If you spend all your time playing from tabs you'll never learn to improvise, and you'll never learn to work stuff out for yourself, so free practice is an ideal way to finish a practice routine.

I suggest printing this routine or writing it out for yourself in a more bullet-point form so it's easy to follow when you're playing. If any of those parts don't make sense just tell me why they don't make sense and I'll try and clarify it!

I know I said I was omitting theory from your routine, but it's good to make sure you're happy with some basic guitar theory...

You should know what the strings are tuned to and you should know what the note is at every fret from the open position up to and including the 12th fret on the E strings. You don't need to learn all 6 strings, but learning the E string notes will help with Part 1!

962 dude that was some cool points out there! ive set the routine adding another part of course classical notations! Thanks for all this man!!1

i have a few problems though ->

1.) "This is important because it's quite rewarding and knowing that you have this to look forward to is a good incentive to work through the whole routine. "{If you started off with free practice you'd probably never make it as far as the technical exercises!}"?????? pls clarify this statement!!!

2.) Let me know about the 3 octave scale (over the fretboeard ie 1st fret to about 15th fret) ure talking about! send me the tabs!

3.) i worked on some originals and i wanna know how u put them on the net! unfortunately they lack in drums ie only 2 guitars and a bass! ive written them in Guitar pro also but how do i upload them????

Mikey, thanks for the myspace link for Nuno's band. He still looks great, and Megaton is a pretty cool tune.

Now, why am I awake? *head hits keyboard*

stevee t - I don't mind busy... but things lately have been a bit too much....

everything more urgent than everything else..
everyone screaming for stuff...

so I did the right thing...
I gnored them all.. lmao..

music theory offers a means to understand and describe that which has already been created....
it is therefore simply a system to enable a greater understanding of our art in technical terms...
this means that it offers terminologies and principles such that we can all communicate those ideas via a consistant language....

theory does not create music, you creativity does...

the set does not contain any of my music...
this is The David Cross Band so it's all his stuff..
I just happen to be the guy that makes guitary noises for him..
David is a former King Crimson member so we are playing 3 KC songs..
- Exiles
- Starless and Bible Black [which is a really fabulous song]
21st Century Schizoid Man [which I re-wrote / re-arranged to make a sort of DC Band version]
our version is much heavier than the original...

the rest of the set are songs from DC albums

Milton Keynes is Mon 20 March
London is Wed 22 March

I'll shout closer to gig time so that anyone in here that is interested can come see us...

and for me.. gig or no gig, it's alway really nice to meet up with T2Jers in the flesh...

finally I may be able to hook up with you...
I've missed you and Matt at least twice now.. lol...

and it's always nice to meet a 'homey' too - what with me living out in the styx in darkest Berks.. lol..

personally, I'd warm up.. do 5 - 10 minutes on scales..
and then pick one of those topics and look at it closely...
so over the course of a week you get through them all..
if you have time to repeat a topic, then repeat the "learning a song" topic...

and always warm down with 15 minutes of free-style / goofing around / fun stuff

also you have one major topic missing....

write music... be creative... at first maybe write a riff, a lick or a chord progression...
develop this into wtiting solos and songs....

never lose sight of the fact that music is a creative art..
the only way to develop creativity is to practice it..

so.. the second topic to double up on in a week if you can is writing / experimentation

anyways.. I have gigs coming up so I cobbled together a rack out of some old kit laying around in my lil' studio...
a SansAmp PSA-1 for the preamp and an old Roland GP16 to handle the digital FX..
this is all controlled via MIDI with an ART X15 controller...

and guess what... it really kicks ass... lmao....

blew me away.. lmao....

Judas Priest

Do The Stu: Kuul man, I'm glad you like it, lol, this is going to be an amazing year for music!.... On FD, I see what your saying about the correlation to Sammy's post /-//\LE/\/ work, and the rest of the album is killer also!.... You know, I've been a fan of Kotzen for a very long time; and I think I posted this here before, but here it goes.... Kotzen singing Dont Wanna Lie (off the album Slow).... The video is a little cheesey, lol, but this song really showcases his songwriting and especially his singing abilities!!.... My daughters love this song, and I can almost sing it the same way.... ;-)

On DramaGods.... Yes sir, they are the same members of Population 1, and I dont know the reason for the name change, but to me, the original name didnt make sense.... BTW, I'll be the first to tell you when their sites are up and running!! :-)

962: Wow man, that was scary, lol, what a monster Eric was at that age too, man!!.... Thanks for sharing that!....

michelle: lol girl, Nuno is back!! :-)

Clarky: It revolves around our schedule, but if I can get to Iwakuni on our a/c, then I'll be on a bullet train next bro, lol!!.... BTW, on your rig..that old stuff never dies, lol, stay kuul man....

tokyo jack: LMAO bro, if I am Joe, I need to practice my legato some more!! ;-)

t2jcd news .. it will be released within 28 days.. more details as they come along