Michael Angelo Batio talks about how he learned to sweep pick, and demonstrates what he developed in a video lesson from Guitar World.

Pretty cool to watch. Listening to Michael teach is almost hypnotic.

Now, if you're a beginner when it comes to sweep picking, I do NOT recommend learning Michael's lesson just yet. I would search for 3 string sweep picking shapes first.

CLICK HERE for an older lesson I did on 3 string sweep picking shapes.

If you can already do smaller sweeping shapes, like 3 string ones, then you'll be better prepared to tackle the 5 string shapes shown, by Mr. Batio, in this video:

CLICK HERE for the tabs accompanying this lesson.

Troy Grady taught me that I do two way pick slanting. I had no clue, after nearly 20 years of playing, that I did this technique.

I have never even HEARD of this technique.

I also did not know that fast scale runs, just straight up and down 3 notes per string patterns, was something a lot of people struggled with.

The two way pick slanting allows fast alternate picking and keeps you from having your pick get stuck in between any two strings. When we pick, we actually tend to have either an upward pick slant, or downward pick slant. (watch the video to see what that is)

So, if you are one of those people who struggle with playing fast scale runs with 3 notes per string, you may find this video helpful.

Now, the video is 30 minutes long, but it's very entertaining. If you want to skip ahead to the big revelation of two way pick slanting, where Troy Grady found this technique being implemented by Michael Angelo Batio in Speed Kills, it starts at about 12:30.

PLENTY of guitar players use the finger-tapping technique to create rapid, fast sounding notes in their solos. RARELY do you ever see or hear someone using more than one finger on their tapping hand.

Joel Hoekstra did a lesson with Guitar World that shows some examples on how to use 2 and 3 fingers on your tapping hand to create some cool sounding patterns.

Joel does a damn good job of muting the strings not being played to get a very clean performance.

​Here's the video lesson:

Guitar World was kind enough to provide tablature, and more video, for each of the examples here: ​http://www.guitarworld.com/columns-rock/your-guide-fretboard-tapping-using-mulitple-fingers/29448

Just watched a pretty entertaining lesson on bends and vibrato by Marty Friedman. Made me laugh a few times!

Marty demonstrates a few ways on how you can make a basic lead line into something more "expressive". 

Check it out!

After the lesson I put out on vibrato, a YouTube viewer shared a B. B. King lesson he watched that helped with vibrato.

I really liked how BB said he's "telling a story" with his playing. 

The following video is that lesson. I found it very enjoyable!

A well placed vibrato can really make your notes sing and stand out in a song. They can sometimes make or break a solo.

​The following video demonstrates how I approach vibrato, and how you can practice them:

You can help get more lessons like this one made more often. CLICK HERE to see how!

A not so common thing to do on guitar is combining finger tapping with bending strings. It can create a really cool sound and add some unique flavor to your solos.

​Check out the following video to see some examples of how to do this:

Here are the tabbed examples shown in the video:

Want to help get more free lessons get released faster? CLICK HERE to see what you can do.

Playing with a lot of distortion can sound very messy. It's important to know how to mute your strings to allow you to hear what you want, and block out any unwanted noise. Check out the following video for info on how to mute your strings to help you sound better:

​Want to help get even more lessons released? CLICK HERE!

It's very easy to get a lot of unwanted noise when bending strings on the guitar. You must be able to mute out adjacent strings to the one you're bending.

Some things that can help is to always use your picking hand to mute out all strings lower than the one you're bending. That means if you're bending the G string, your hand should be aiming to mute the E, A, and D strings.

If you're bending the high E string then you'll be trying to mute out the E, A, D, G, and B strings.

Having at least one finger on the fret hand muting the adjacent strings helps too. Let's take your index finger for example, and you're bending the B string. Your index finger needs to be barely touching the G string AND the high E string.

​These ideas will make a lot more sense after you watch this video: