News in 2021
October 23rd 2021
HOW TO BUILD & NAME CHORDS / Ultimate Video Lesson
(Don't Panic - EASY TO LEARN!) Guitar-Nerdery 124
Every guitar player, every musician knows and plays chords, but when it comes to understand how they are built, what they are and to decipher them sometimes nerdy-like chord symbols, many get lost. Especially guitarists are somewhat hesitant when it comes to read music. We just want to play!
But! Understanding how chords are constructed and built, understanding the basic rules behind naming chords in general, independent from any style of music, will make things so much easier for you! Chord Symbols are not just names given, they tell you exactly which notes belong to that chord, which notes are played together and also tell about its relation to scales.
If you learn this, I promise, it will change your life as a musician in a tremendously beneficial way. And it is really so easy to learn! Lend yourself a few minutes that will open your eyes and spare yourself years of tearing your hair ;-)
September 26th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Extended TAPPING /
Adding A Second Finger Is NOT SO DIFFICULT!
The so called 8 finger tapping like Jennifer Batten, TJ Helmerich or Jeff Watson can play is absolutely impressive, but doesn't work for me at all. When trying and failing to do this I found out, that integrating a second finger turned out not being so difficult to do, and it broadens the range and possibilities in a great way. I recommend to check it out!
September 26th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Scale Tapping - Adapt Tapping To Scale Shapes You Know!
Most of the times when one starts to learn the tapping technique is by learning tapping licks and trying to integrate them somehow into one's playing. This not really connects with the very common way of learning to improvise - learning scale shapes which help to visualize all the notes that belong to a key. The solution to this is using scale shapes one already knows for tapping!
September 25th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Unlock Your Lead Guitar Rhythm - TRIPLETS vs 16ths TAPPING
When playing and practicing licks which number of notes is dividable by 3, we tend to play them as triplets. Nothing is wrong with that, but it makes them somewhat predictable, because that makes them repeating on the beat. Practising those licks also as 16ths notes gives them a completely different approach concerning dynamic and flow.
September 23rd 2021
New YouTube-Short: Darken and Fatten Your Riffs with INVERTED POWER CHORDS
In standard E tuning a power chord rock riff could be not dark or fat enough to your taste, when compared to the same riff played in E. Of course you can then tune the guitar down, but instead you also can use Inverted Power Chords. It means a power chord turned upside down, so that the perfect fifth is in the bass instead of the root. These chords sound really dark, darker than they actually are!
September 22nd 2021
New YouTube-Short: The Fat Sounding AC/DC POWER CHORD and more...
I'm going to show you four broad and fat sounding power chords. One of them I call the AC/DC Power Chord because it appears in a lot of their songs. Talking about the G Power Chord! Furthermore I'm gonna show you voicings for a D5, A5 and E5 Power Chord.
September 21st 2021
New YouTube-Short: Metal/Rock Riffing - Power Chords - Damping is Essential!
For beginners: Metal and Rock guitar comes most of the time with a great amount of distortion. But even when playing clean all them strings that are not used in a power chord voicing need to be damped, because it's unavoidable that these strings start to ring caused by self-resonance. This would result in a dirty, washy and unarticulated sound. The higher the distortion, the worse it gets. Try to learn it right, right from the start!
September 18th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Easy Tapping Start and How To Expand
Tapping Technique: If you like to learn tapping you should start with an easy lick on one string. In this short explanation I mainly want to make you aware of that this would just be the beginning of it. Once you've learned to master it the next step should be to learn to move that lick across strings. If you get it managed to play it on two strings you can get everywhere from there!
September 16th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Country Rock Blues Riff
This is one of my favorite country rock blues riffs. It is played with hybrid picking, with plectrum and fingers, to get that twangy sound. If you're not familiar with that picking technique this riff is also a good start-up. Once you get used to it, it can open up a whole new world of possibilities!
September 9th 2021
SHRED COLLAB / Chapter One - Benjamin Schippritt & Adrian Weiss (Official Trailer II)
September 4th 2021
SHRED COLLAB / Chapter One - Benjamin Schippritt & Adrian Weiss (Official Music Video)
I'm very happy to present this new finished project of mine. I teamed up with amazing guitar player and friend ADRIAN WEISS for a shreddy video production. The idea was born a few months ago, during another Covid lockdown. Adrian and me had a lot of online conversations throughout the whole pandemic, keeping each others mood up by talking about guitar, music and concepts. There was no other way that this would lead to the idea recording some music together. When I asked him if he would like to contribute his soloing skills to a track of mine, he's been all for it. His incredible solo works he then added to the song made me absolutely happy!
So, here it is! An all guitar solo melodic rock instrumental tune featuring Adrian and me having tremendously joy about playing guitar and making music together! Enjoy!
August 28th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Dominant 7 Chord, Essential Notes
The dominant 7 chord is a tetrad, consisting of a root, major third, perfect fifth and a minor seventh. The most essential notes are the major third which is a leading note to the root of the tonic chord of the key and the minor seventh, which is a leading note to the major third of that tonic chord, if it is a major chord. So the third and the seventh give the major character to a dominant seven chord. I'm going to play a dominant Blues in G and using only the thirds and sevenths. You will see that the main function of the chord progression stays intact, even without playing the roots.
August 27th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Richie Kotzen, Essential Lick Idea
There is one essential guitar lick idea that appears in most of Richie Kotzen's solos. I'm not going to show you a specific lick, but the conceptional idea behind it.
August 24th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Emotional and Beautiful Chords 04 / C#m7/9
In this part four of emotional and beautiful chords for guitar, which get their excitement by integrated open strings and a dissonant minor second, I'm going to show you a marvelous shiny C#m7/9 or C#m9 voicing!
August 22nd 2021
New YouTube-Short: Emotional and Beautiful Chords 03 / Em7/9/11
August 21th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Emotional and Beautiful Chords 02 / Em7/9
August 20th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Emotional and Beautiful Chords 01 / Eadd11
August 19th 2021
New YouTube-Short: STRUGGLING with new GUITAR TECHNIQUES? Me too!
August 18th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Why I changed the plectrum from time to time!
August 17th 2021
New YouTube-Short: Why I like smaller plectrums!
August 15th 2021
Two more YouTube Shorts!
August 12th 2021
YouTube Shorts!
Every now and then I will add shorts to my longplay in-depth tutorials. They are supposed to be a nice addition where I talk about guitar/music topics and, yes, will keep it very short ;-)
Above is the link to the shorts playlist where you can find my first four short guitar/music talk videos!
July 28th 2021
LEARN TO PLAY HORIZONTALLY - The ultimate way to
CLEAR UP THE FRETBOARD JUNGLE
Master the guitar fretboard!
I guess all we guitarists are once confronted with the problem - having learned a vertical scale shape and have to stick to it, like playing in a box and do not see a way out of it. If you still struggle with this I'm going to help you out in this episode. I'm going to use scale shapes of the ionian system, diatonic scale shapes with the concept three notes per string. I'm going to divide these vertical positioned scale shapes that span all six strings into sub-patterns which only use two strings and consisting of six notes. Therefore I call them sixpacks. By learning only seven of them sixpacks and how they are chained together horizontally is the ultimate key of being able to play horizontally on your fretboard. You will see that there is a lot of repetition on your fretboard and it will clear up the jungle. A real eye opener!
June 29th 2021
Benjamin Schippritt - STILL NOT DEAD (Junk Farm) Guitar Playthrough
This is another guitar playthrough of one of my songs STILL NOT DEAD, which has been released on the JUNK FARM album DIDN'T COME TO DANCE. It's a straight forward hard rocking and groovy tune with a compact guitar solo, starting very bluesy and ending somewhat shreddy.
( Guitar tuning: Drop D )
June 25th 2021
Benjamin Schippritt - Didn't Come To Dance (Junk Farm) Guitar Playthrough
This is another guitar playthrough. I performed my song Didn't Come To Dance, which has been released as the title track of the third album of my former band Junk Farm.
( Guitar tuning: Drop D )
June 20th 2021
Benjamin Schippritt - Eurovision Song Incest (Junk Farm) Guitar Playthrough / Guitar Nerdery
This is a complete guitar playthrough of the song Eurovision Song-Incest. It has been published on the third album of my former band Junk Farm. ( Guitar tuning: Drop D )
June 18th 2021
Benjamin Schippritt - Little Greedy Girl (Junk Farm) Guitar Playthrough / Guitar Nerdery
This is a complete guitar playthrough of one of the first songs of my former band Junk Farm. Little Greedy Girl was released on our self-published album called Junk Farm in 2002. This tune had always been on our live setlist. Haven't played it for a very long time and had a lot of fun doing this playthrough. Brought back the feeling of them good ol' days!
June 10th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #122: AURAL SCALE COMPARISON
Aeolian, HM1, Melodic Minor, Ionian, Harmonic Major
When analyzing and comparing different scales, in the end the most important thing is to personally experience their difference in sound by ear. This episode is supposed to be the first one of a couple of videos, where I'm just going to play a choice of scales for comparison. This time I chose the Ionian Scale (Major Scale), the initial scale of the Ionian System with its seven modes and it's parallel Minor Scale Aeolian (Natural Minor), the sixth mode. I compare them with their modifications Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor and Harmonic Major which are themselves foundations and name givers of modal systems with seven modes each. When demonstrating I mainly stick to one scale shape for each scale to make comparison easier. These scale shapes are also displayed on the screen, so you can learn and check them out by yourself. Have fun!
June 1st 2021
MULTI BACKING TRACK in ALL 12 MAJOR KEYS
you can play ALL MAJOR SCALES to this!
This is the appropriate BACKING TRACK to the former one in ALL 12 MINOR KEYS!
May 28th 2021
MULTI BACKING TRACK in ALL 12 MINOR KEYS
you can play ALL MINOR SCALES to this!
About this BACKING TRACK:
When it comes to practicing rhythm it is essential to use a metronome frequently. When exercising licks or scales the use of Backing Tracks / Jam Tracks comes in very handy. They provide the opportunity to do this also in a harmonical context. The trade-off is that the harmonical context is very much defined in most cases. Playing to a MIXOLYDIAN MODE track for example gives not much freedom aside from, yeah playing MIXOLYDIAN. To train another mode / scale another track is needed. When it comes to checking out the sound of rarer scales like MIXOLYDIAN #11, DORIAN b9 etc. fitting Backing Tracks are hardly to find. Therefore a long time ago I've produced Root Backing Tracks with only drums and a bass guitar playing only root notes, for personal training and for using them in my lessons. With the bass playing only roots all scales / modes are possible, because every scale has a root and nothing else can interfere with them other notes you're playing. Compared to practicing with a metronome one gets also the feedback of the interaction of all musical intervals with the root, but compared to fully arranged Backing Tracks here the trade-off is boringness.
I had an idea for something that sits somewhere between this. This time I've put some extensive work into two Multi Backing Tracks. One in all 12 Minor Keys and another one in all 12 Major Keys with ca. 3 minutes each key. Drums with bass guitar and guitar playing only roots and 3rds. No 5ths are played! To the minor track you can play all Minor Scales and to the other one all Major Scales in all keys! That extra minor or major third provides the additional information of minor and major. All notes that you are going to play will now interact not only with the root, but also with the 3rd. I was surprised by myself how this, compared to them Root Backing Tracks, reveals the actually strong dissonance of some intervals like the b9, b5, b13 and maj7. If you play fast runs it's not a point that much, but when playing slow you're note choice becomes tremendously important! I find this having great value!
I've made an effort to keep them tracks vital, keeping a bit of the feeling of playing together with real people, like on a jam session. No copy and paste of the bass and guitar parts, so both tracks are me really playing bass and guitar for more than an hour. That was quite a challenge playing only roots and 3rds. On an instrument with not even 4 octaves and the highest one not suitable for that purpose I got actually only 6 notes to make something out of it. For someone who's often told to play lesser notes this was pretty hard I tell ya LOL!
This is the MULTI BACKING TRACK with all 12 Minor Keys from A to G#. I hope you like it and that it will serve your training progress! Have fun!
Cheers, Benjamin
May 18th 2021
HARMONIC MINOR - Complete Fretboard Coverage
with 3 NOTES PER STRING PATTERNS
This episode is all about the Harmonic Minor Scale. While historically in Classical music Harmonic Minor came into existence as a means to an end, because it was needed to play over an artificial dominant major chord in a minor cadence, in Jazz harmonics this scale stands on its own feet. Harmonic Minor sounds marvelous and it's worth the effort to learn to play it everywhere on the guitar fretboard. Fueled with rich demonstrations I'm going to show you, that learning all possible 3 NOTES PER STRING PATTERNS will enable you to do this, without any gaps!
May 13th 2021
NEW BACKING TRACK in G HARMONIC MINOR - Fat Grooving and Rocking!
G Harmonic Minor backing track - The Harmonic Minor Scale came into existens hundreds of years ago, when classical composers made the V chord in a minor cadence an artificial major chord. Therefore the minor 7th of the Natural Minor Scale (Aeolian) had to be raised to the major 7th while playing over the dominant chord. While in the classical world this was a means to an end, in jazz harmonics Harmonic Minor is a discrete scale. This way we get a complete new scale/mode system, the Harmonic Minor system.
I've produced and arranged the chords of this rocking Backing Track in a way, that you can play the G Harmonic Minor scale over it all the time! I hope you like the sound and enjoy playing to it like I do!
April 30st 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #120:
TAPPING GUITAR - PRACTICAL TIPS to AVOID MISTAKES right from the start!
The tapping technique on the guitar is fascinating! It makes it easily possible to play great intervals at incredible speed, but first of all its smooth legato sound is an awesome extension of the guitar player's sound library. In this episode I'm going to cover some major mistakes that are made very often when learning guitar tapping and result in a bad sound. In detail I will give you 5 important tips and exercises how to avoid making them, like using the right damping technique and the importance of a good timing etc.
April 21st 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #119:
SUPER MELODIC! A practical approach of PLAYING SIXTHS INTERVALS
The sixth is the complementary interval to the third and equally melodic. There is a very common way of how to play sixths intervals on the guitar with very common fingerings. There's nothing wrong with them, but their learning curve is somewhat higher. For starters it's not easy to get them connected to scale shapes. I'm going to show you an additional very easy approach of how to play sixths on the guitar, by using 3-Notes-Per-String scale shapes.
April 18th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #118:
CHARACTERFUL & Emotionally BEAUTIFUL! A practical approach of PLAYING 2nds
Hello and welcome to my new Guitar-Nerdery video! Today I'd like to talk about the musical interval second. We have two of them, a minor and a major second. On the one hand they are very dissonant, but on the other hand tremendously characterful, emotional and therefore beautiful. In this episode I'm going to show you a very easy approach how you can integrate them into your playing, using 3 NOTES PER STRING scale shapes!
April 15th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #117:
Use OCTAVE SHAPES to find and identify notes and intervals! FRETBOARD DECODING
In my former video I showed you some easy to learn and memorizable interval shapes on the guitar fretboard. These will help you in future to analyze or to identify notes and intervals on the guitar and to learn to think with your guitar. Today I'd like to show you a few more interval shapes, talking about OCTAVE SHAPES, that will make it possible for you to extend - to bridge your knowledge on the whole fretboard. Together with the interval shapes of the episode before (Guitar-Nerdery 116) it will enable you to analyze complete chords and scales in an instant!
April 8th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #116:
Memorizing Intervals on the guitar - the key to understand chords & scales
Music theory is not boring at all! Especially the topic MUSICAL INTERVALS. They are the key to understand chords and scales. Why do chords and scales sound like they sound? Because of all the intervals they are consisting of. While this episode is dealing with a theoretical topic, I want to keep it actually very practical. I mainly want you to learn to see intervals on the guitar, so that you later on are capable of recognizing intervals in scales and then also chords. I find it very important as a guitar player that you learn to see theoretical things on the guitar fretboard. It's the only way actually to get access to it. If I'm asked 'what is the perfect 5th of G?', then I can immediately answer D. It is not because I'm thinking in notes and clefs - I'm thinking in GUITAR FRETBOARD! I'm going to show you an easy way how you can memorize and learn to see intervals on the fretboard.
April 2nd 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #115:
Enrich Your CHORD PLAYING by learning to see the SCALES AROUND CHORDS / PART3
Hello and welcome to my new Guitar-Nerdery video! This is one more episode about learning to see how chord shapes are embedded in scales. I got one more scale shape for you. One more guitar pattern of a modal scale which makes use of having all notes in one fret covered, so that we can use the index finger as a capo. I'm talking about the second mode of the ionian system, a minor mode and it's called dorian. If you're not familiar with the topic 'scales around chords' at all I recommend to watch my episode 113 first!
March 30th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #114:
Enrich Your CHORD PLAYING by learning to see the SCALES AROUND CHORDS / PART2
This video is a follow-up of my former episode Guitar-Nerdery #113! If you're absolutely new to this topic I recommend to watch 113 first. This time I'm dealing with another scale shape in another key and mode, to further broaden the fretboard knowledge and possibilities. I'm taking a simple voicing for a C# major triad and interpret it as a part of the C#-Mixolydian scale (or Db-Mixolydian scale). Comprehensive demonstrations and an on-screen fretboard diagram are again featured in this tutorial.
March 27th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #113:
Enrich Your CHORD PLAYING by learning to see the SCALES AROUND CHORDS
Chords and scales are not so different. In fact they are the same. A whole scale could be a chord, an extended chord. For example the C major scale is a C-major7(9/11/13) chord, when all its notes are played together. But mostly chords are a part of a scale and this is what today's episode is about. If you learn to see how your chord, your voicing that you play is embedded within or surrounded by the scale that it is part of, it will enhance your possibilities and your chord playing tremendously! As example I'm using a standard D-minor triad and interpret it as a part of the D-Aeolian scale. Loads of demonstrations supported by an on-screen fretboard diagram are meant to inspire you in this in-depth guitar tutorial.
March 24th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #112:
Easy to learn - Get that JAZZY SOUND with QUARTAL CHORDS / CHORDS IN FOURTHS
Quartal Chords are very popular in modern Jazz music. Technically speaking it means, when we compare them to regular chords which are a stacking up of thirds, here we stack up fourths. Quartal Chords sound very open and exactly this makes them very interesting in use. In this episode I'm gonna show you how you can easily play them on the guitar. Besides showing you and explaining everything in detail, I'm gonna put a fretboard diagramm with these CHORDS IN FOURTHS on the screen for you to look it up, at the very end of this video. Just pause the video then. Enjoy!
March 20th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #111:
Amazing CHROMATIC SHREDDING LICK - EASY for the Hands, IMPRESSIVE for the Ears
In this episode I'm going to show you a very fast shredding lick, a chromatic shredding lick, but instead of using different fingerings and wide stretches and so on, I thought about something that is easy for the hands and impressive for the ears. The lick I came up with is consisting of very fast sixtuplets, using only one fingering with no pinky involved! As a guide or a sort of frame I'm using pentatonic scale shapes. Just filling them up with chromatic runs.
Besides explaining the lick in detail at a very slow tempo - At the very end of the video I have put the tabs on the screen, so there you can pause the video to look it up!
March 13th 2021
Guitar-Nerdery #110:
Fast and SUPER MELODIC LICK in E Minor & left hand legato + string skipping
Today's challenge: Left hand legato meets string skipping meets hybrid picking! In this episode I'm going to show a super fast legato lick in E-Aeolian minor, descending across the whole fretboard. At the same time it's also beautifully melodic, because the lick pattern emphasizes chord tones and makes it more sound like arpeggios of extended chords. I'm going to talk also about the concept of this lick idea. Memorizing string skipping patterns is somewhat harder and a better understanding of the concept helps a lot.
February 24th 2021
Benjamin Schippritt - OCTOBER / melodic guitar rock instrumental
Official Music Video & REMIX 2021
OCTOBER is a very personal and emotional instrumental song I wrote and recorded in 2007, but never produced a serious video for. Autumn 2007 was one of those troubling periods I'd rather like to forget, or write a song about, just like this. Still now, 14 years later I'm somewhat proud of it and consider it to be one of my best compositions. A few years back I remixed OCTOBER for the first time. To be able to post it on YouTube I made a provisional video out of moody sunset and moon scenes. Recently my thoughts again turned back on that song and first I got the idea to do a complete new recording. But I soon realized, that these original recordings were just perfect, because they originated during this dark period back then. It's not easy to reproduce this and there is a great chance, that it doesn't make sense at all.
I then decided to produce a video with me playing the song, so that you get a more entertaining visual when listening to OCTOBER. For this I also decided to do another even better sounding remix. For performing the song and for meticulously authentic movements I had to relearn everything, which took me a couple of hours. It's always challenging to reproduce improvised solos. I also had to grab my good ol' ESP Horizon instead of my Telecasters, because the song needs 24 frets. I'm satisfied with the result and hope you'll enjoy listening and watching OCTOBER!
January 19th 2021
I wish you all a happy and healthy new year!
Gosh, what an annoying year lies behind and 2021 didn't start as we all had wished for. I wish sometime this year we'll be able to meet again, looking back and saying 'Yes, we did it!'
My true YouTube followers maybe wonder, when I will start again posting videos. Be asured, Guitar-Nerdery and new Music/Videos will be coming soon! It's just that living in a temporarily locked-down world for quite some time now and this pretty bad grey weather season started to have an impact on my creativity. After having posted tremendously lots of all-self-produced tutorials and music videos I really needed a break.
But let's talk about sunshine now - I'm currently working on a new song which I will also produce a performance video for. I'm actually very excited about it, because I'm experimenting with a more rough sounding and playing approach. More in the spirit of old fashioned rock 'n' and sqeezing lot's of twang out of my Telecasters. The music is already recorded and now I'm thinking about some decent lyrics, what I always find the hardest part when writing a song. In the end I'm a guitar player first. And of course I've got new ideas for new Guitar-Nerdery topics!
Stay tuned and till soon my friends!
Cheers, Benjamin
