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Posts Tagged ‘Ritchie Blackmore’

Learning guitar solos by ear  is hard work.  I remember many years ago, a friend of mine managed to secure a copy of Ritchie Blackmore's guitar solo to Smoke On the  Water slowed down to half space.  Suddenly we could hear how clean his runs were and how many notes he was actually playing.

I still love playing that solo note for note because it was the first real guitar solo that I ever  learned and the great thing was that it taught me so much about phrasing, light and shade and what notes not to play.  And I have to say that without being able to listen to the guitar solo at half pace I would never have attempted to study it the way I did.

Fast forward a quarter of a century or so and learning guitar solos is still a challenging and time consuming process – but technology has zoomed way past whatever reel to reel tape system my friend accessed to get that solo slowed down.

A great piece of software on the market is the recently updated Riffmaster Pro.

Riffmaster Pro saves hours of time and frustration by instantly enabling you to

• Slow down music to a pace you can play Without changing the pitch
• slow down Mp3, slow down Wav,wma,Mp4 , Ogg Vorbis and AFF files directly from your computer
• play any Riff or phrase over and over
• Zoom right into the wave allowing  You to find the exact phrase you want to work on(down to the note)
•  Save your own user settings
• Slow down an entire song so you can play along at your pace.
• Change the key of a music file for convenience
• Rip audio directly off a cd and save as mp3 or wav.
• Save a slowed down loop for training purposes
• Transcribe music of any song (tab or transcribe what you hear)

The benefits of Riffmaster Pro are simply awesome.

• You can master ANY Guitar solo faster than ever before
• You can master Any Guitar Riff faster ever before
• You can master the Chords To Any Song faster than ever before
• You can build and maintain Amazing speed of Any solo or riff
• You can master difficult phrasing like never before
• You can master any guitar solo, lick or riff Note for Note.
• You can learn the lyrics to Any song quickly
• You will discover the Magic of “Playing By Ear”
• You will learn any song Fast
• You can transcribe music of any song FAST

Riffmaster Pro is the Perfect Speed & Ear Training tool for all musicians  -from raw beginners to advanced.  I have bought this for myself – simply as a teaching tool to help me quickly teach students their favorite riffs, solos and tunes.

This is the shortcut to playing good quality guitar solos – slow down guitar solos learn them and increase the speed to full tempo as you master the solo.

I highly recommend Riffmasterpro

Technorati Tags: Aff, Amp, Change The Key, Convenience, Exact Phrase, Frustration, Guitar Riff, Guitar Solo, Guitar Solos, learn guitar riff, learn guitar solo, Learning Guitar, Learning To Play Guitar, Light And Shade, Mp3 Wma, Nbsp, Pace, Phrasing, Pitch, Reel Tape, Riffmaster, Riffmaster Pro, Ritchie Blackmore, Slow Motion, Vorbis

Steve Morse is the only "shredder" on my list of influential guitar players and that's primarily because although Steve has an amazing picking technique that enables him to play faster than what I thought was humanly possible, he uses the technique sparingly and to great effect.

In the mid seventies Steve fronted the seminal fusion outfit the Dixie Dregs, and the band enjoyed tremendous critical acclaim, winning numerous Grammy awards and Steve personally forcing Guitar Player Magazine to change its reader's poll awards by inducting him in to their Hall of Fame after he won the player of the year five years running.

In the eighties Steve withdrew from the music industry, and became a Commercial airline pilot for several years but re-emerged with the Steve Morse band in the early nineties, a three piece outfit with a slightly harder edge than the dregs.  In 1994 Steve was approached by Deep Purple to replace Ritchie Blackmore on a permanent basis and after some initial misgivings about joining, Steve found that he fitted right in to a band that has always placed a high emphasis on improvisation and musicianship.

The resultant album Purpendicular saw a greatly refreshed Purple produce work comparable in quality to their classic material with Steve's classic guitar work on tracks like Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming  and Cascades establishing his identity with the band.  

Morse remains with Purple whilst continuing to perform with his own outfit.  His playing remains clear and distinctive and his style is instantly identifiable.

Several years ago I had the pleasure of attending a workshop conducted by Steve and his playing and knowledge were extraordinary.  Besides his obvious talent Steve appears to be completely unaffected by his status and is very humble.  His success with Deep Purple and his acceptance by the vast majority of fans as a replacement for Ritchie Blackmore has given him the opportunity to reach a far wider audience than what otherwise would have had teh pleasure of listening to this guitar virtuoso.

Technorati Tags: Classic Guitar, Classic Material, Commercial Airline Pilot, Critical Acclaim, Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs, Grammy Awards, Guitar Hero, Guitar Player Magazine, Guitar Players, Guitar Work, Hall Of Fame, Mid Seventies, Misgivings, Musicianship, Nineties, Piece Outfit, Ritchie Blackmore, S Poll, Steve Morse Band

Ronnie James Dio, front man for guitar greats Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi passed away today.
Ronnie was a great vocalist who used his voice as a foil to Blackmore’s guitar work in particular and his vocals on tracks like Kill The King, Tarot Woman, Stargazer and man on the Silver Mountain served to showcase Blackmore’s guitar work while packaging and presenting what essentially were guitar tracks into real marketable songs of substance.
Simply put, Dio while a virtual unknown prior to his involvement with Blackmore was a perfect partner in Rainbow and his contribution in those early years served to forge Rainbow’s reputation as a super group in the mid seventies.

When he left Rainbow, Dio recruited Vivian Campbell (later lead guitarist for Def Leppard ) to put together some fine solo albums under the name of Dio.

Shortly after he perhaps enjoyed his greatest commercial success with Black Sabbath.

While Dio was not a guitar player, he was an incredible influence upon me as a young wannabe rock musician.

I could not let his passing go unnoticed.

I cried today.  He will be sadly missed.

Technorati Tags: Black Sabbath, Commercial Success, Def Leppard, Dio, Front Man, Guitar Greats, Guitar Player, Guitar Tracks, Guitar Work, Man On The Silver Mountain, Marketable Songs, Mid Seventies, Perfect Partner, Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore, Rock Musician, Ronnie James Dio, Solo Albums, Stargazer, Tony Iommi, Vivian Campbell, Wannabe