I have had a lot of hits on the Alexi Laiho video lessons that I posted a while back and I came across a few more that I thought might be helpful for those aspiring shredders. I like these videos because Alexi shows off some of his best riffs. I really am amazed by his ability to write really unique sounding songs.

In this video there are 5 examples played at both normal speed and slow speed for learning. I have also included a Guitar Pro 5 tab file below that includes all of the riffs demonstrated. Here are the riffs that Alexi teaches us in this video:

• Ex-1 is the riff that starts at 1:03 on Are You Dead Yet’s first track Living Dead Beat.
• Ex-2 shows the intro riff that starts at 0:48 from that same song.
• Ex-3 shows the intro and chorus from Downfall.
• Ex-4 shows the intro to Are You Dead Yet?
• Ex-5 shows the riff that starts at 0:42 in the song In Your Face.

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Jimmy Page is seriously the shit. I know there are haters out there, but as far as I’m concerned he is the Godfather of Rock guitar. The Jimmy Page was doing things with music in the 60’s and 70’s that were revolutionary then. Now, they are common place. My favorite all time Page contribution has got to be the rock ballad. Stairway to Heaven is the most popular one, but he had many others including Ramble On and Over the Hills and Far Away. When I talk about a rock ballad I’m talking about a song that has a soft intro and a soft verses possibly played on acoustic guitar but then busts full out into a distorted rock chorus. Obviously like I said Stairway is the best example of this.

Some people criticize Page for being a sloppy player. The solo from Heartbreaker is an example of exactly what I’m talking about. To the untrained ear yes, it just sounds like a barrage of random notes with no reason. However, in all that chaos I hear a great solo. (more…)

I used to listen to Eric Johnson a bit a few years ago but I had forgotten all about him until I came across this video on one of my Guitar World CDs. This guy is a crazy guitar player, sort of the same style as Yngwie Malmsteen, but he plays jazz/rock not neo-classical metal.

Not only is he an excellent guitarist but this song is an example of some amazing song writing abilities.

Here is a Guitar Pro file for Cliffs of Dover for those of you who would like to try to learn it. Get your copy of Guitar Pro 5 here so that you can use this file.

Tabs are really great for learning how to play guitar. They show you exactly how to play a song note for note and you don’t have to know very much about playing a guitar to understand them. However, a major problem with tabs is they do not represent tempo or timing accurately. This can be a real problem when you are trying to figure out the rhythm of a riff. Unlike sheet music, a tab will tell you everything about what to do with your fretting hand, but very little about how to strum.

I found this program called Guitar Pro a few years ago. Basically what it does is it takes a tab file and it plays it back to you in the form of a MIDI. If you aren’t familiar with the sound of a MIDI, it’s similar to the sound of a polyphonic cell phone ring. Now although you wouldn’t want to jam with a cell phone, it does the trick for helping you learn a song because you can see the tab being played as you hear the notes. Also, the program gives you the ability to slow down the tempo so you can hear and see it played slowly. This feature alone is what makes it an amazing tool. Guitar Pro isn’t a simple program either, it interprets all different forms of guitar technique including slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs bends, muting, harmonics, tapping, tremolo and much more.
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