apollohilado
Verified buyer
09/21/25
Excellent!
Great resource for guitarists.
Shred Ahead Blues-Rock
Learn harmonies and techniques for shredding blues rock guitar.
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About this course
Today's "shredders" are no longer relying solely on just break-neck speed and flashy pyrotechnical chops to express themselves musically. The new "shred" generation is highly focused on learning and applying melody, harmony, theory and developing solid improvisational skills. Shred-Ahead Blues Rock is the contemporary shredder's toolkit for accumulating the requisite knowledge and developing these essential skills.
"Shredding" is usually thought of as being limited to a very specific style of music but this is not the case with Shred-Ahead. The principles covered in this course can and should be applied over any style of musical expression. Rock, blues, jazz, classical, fusion and even country music are now all being influenced by "shred" techniques and the foundational aspects of form, color, character, chord tonality, and "outside the box" playing demonstrated here in Shred-Ahead. We've selected the Blues-Rock form to work with because it's a simple framework to learn and practice over (it's also fun to play!).
Your Shred-Ahead professor is Jeff Beasley; an exceptional player, prolific educator, top columnist and highly popular workshop and clinic instructor. Jeff has performed and taught with some of the biggest names in the shred biz and his debut CD, Tiebreaker, reached #2 on the shred guitar charts. Music for the World magazine calls Jeff "An American Virtuoso."
Shred-Ahead will strengthen your technical skills, dramatically expand your understanding of harmony and theory, and generally step up your performance, composition and improvisation game. You'll play your way through the course by working with a variety of practice rhythm tracks and arrangements designed to impart key learnings. Jeff also teaches you a wide variety of melodic and harmonic lines that are ideally structured for shredding, and which contain the theoretical navigations exemplified by many masters of the form.
You'll learn how to give "every note" a meaningful purpose and resolution. You'll work with sweep-picking, hybrid-picking, string-skipping, alternate picking, legato lines, hammer-ons and pull-offs, and diverse musical ideas including: modern bebop lines, augmented/diminished arpeggios, 11th and 13th arpeggios, thirds and sixths, the half-whole scale, Mixolydian ideas, and the pedal-point technique.
Shred-Ahead delivers all of the brain power and physical prowess that you'll need on your journey to become a better player, develop your own sound and stand out in the highly competitive field of "shred" guitar. Full shred ahead baby!
"Shredding" is usually thought of as being limited to a very specific style of music but this is not the case with Shred-Ahead. The principles covered in this course can and should be applied over any style of musical expression. Rock, blues, jazz, classical, fusion and even country music are now all being influenced by "shred" techniques and the foundational aspects of form, color, character, chord tonality, and "outside the box" playing demonstrated here in Shred-Ahead. We've selected the Blues-Rock form to work with because it's a simple framework to learn and practice over (it's also fun to play!).
Your Shred-Ahead professor is Jeff Beasley; an exceptional player, prolific educator, top columnist and highly popular workshop and clinic instructor. Jeff has performed and taught with some of the biggest names in the shred biz and his debut CD, Tiebreaker, reached #2 on the shred guitar charts. Music for the World magazine calls Jeff "An American Virtuoso."
Shred-Ahead will strengthen your technical skills, dramatically expand your understanding of harmony and theory, and generally step up your performance, composition and improvisation game. You'll play your way through the course by working with a variety of practice rhythm tracks and arrangements designed to impart key learnings. Jeff also teaches you a wide variety of melodic and harmonic lines that are ideally structured for shredding, and which contain the theoretical navigations exemplified by many masters of the form.
You'll learn how to give "every note" a meaningful purpose and resolution. You'll work with sweep-picking, hybrid-picking, string-skipping, alternate picking, legato lines, hammer-ons and pull-offs, and diverse musical ideas including: modern bebop lines, augmented/diminished arpeggios, 11th and 13th arpeggios, thirds and sixths, the half-whole scale, Mixolydian ideas, and the pedal-point technique.
Shred-Ahead delivers all of the brain power and physical prowess that you'll need on your journey to become a better player, develop your own sound and stand out in the highly competitive field of "shred" guitar. Full shred ahead baby!
What you'll learn
- Convert major scale pedal patterns to Mixolydian by adding flat seven
- Resolve pedal point phrases to the third of the IV chord
- Recognize symmetrical patterns in pentatonic scales across positions
- Incorporate pedal point technique into improvised solos for added diversity
- Develop strict alternate picking without consecutive down or up strokes
Release date: 09/24/2008 • 1h 25m runtime
Sample lessons
Old School vs Modern
Performance
Old School vs Modern
Breakdown
Diminished Ideas
Part 1
Diminished Ideas
Part 1 Breakdown
What's included
41 lessons • 20 charts • 4 Jam Tracks
Shred-Ahead Blues Rock
Welcome to Shred Ahead: Blues and Rock with yours truly Jeff Beasley. This interactive lesson series will cover a gamut of techniques important to the modern day shredder. Alternate-picking, hybrid-picking, sweep-picking, legato-lines and string-skipping are just some of the ideas discussed and illustrated at length in these lessons from Truefire. The meat of this instructional series is building your improvisational skills as a shredder. You’ll learn to give every note a purpose, follow the form, and yet play at break-neck speed. We’ll cover 11th arpeggios, 13th arpeggios, augmented and diminished arpeggios, modern bebop scales and of course common pentatonic scales. You can use these more complex ideas and genuinely spice up your shred lines, taking you to the next level as a shredder and musician. The Shred Ahead series contains 20 very powerful lessons to give you the tools necessary to truly compete in the very competitive shred genre. Using “outside the box” ideas you’ll be able to elevate yourself above the typical pack of shred guitarists. I’ll give you note-for-note examples of how to move ahead in shred. You can copy them exactly or take the ideas and use them with your licks to create your own desired colors and flavors. Either way you’re going to gain exponential depth as a guitarist with this interactive series from TrueFire.
Old School vs Modern
Let's talk about old school versus the modern approach to the pentatonic scale. We'll use the old school approach when sequencing i.e. triplets, quadruplets, etc but the modern for all other purposes. The modern pentatonic includes the blue note or flat 5th scale degree.
Old School vs Modern
This inclusion creates more continuity in the scale as it decreases the distance between the 4th and 5th scale degrees. A basic rule of thumb in continuity is the shorter the distance between two points the more stability achieved.
Diminished Ideas
Being able to take a common idea like the pentatonic scale and embellishing it with an outside idea like the diminished arpeggio, greatly enhances the color of a typical rock lick. The diminished arpeggio is very dissonant which grabs the listener's attention. That being the case, the dissonance or instability of anything diminished requires a resolution to consonance or stability. To achieve this stability we resolve our arpeggio to a common tone in the scale i.e. the root, third or fifth of the underlying chord. Also, an intervallic approach requires a bit of technical ability from the player sharpening skills in both hands.
Diminished Ideas
The technical aspects of an intervallic approach include the careful alternation of the pick. To achieve comfort and relaxation this careful or strict picking alternation is paramount. It ensures gradual but consistent progress and requires steady concentration from the player. Practicing slowly and evenly, preferably with a metronome, expedites development in this vital area of technique.
Diminished Ideas
The fingering of this diminished arpeggio is a bit more player friendly. It launches on the flat five of the modern approach to the pentatonic scale which includes the flat five. Also, the flat five is the characteristic note of the diminished arpeggio. Anything diminished gets its name from this idea of decreasing the distance from, in this case the five to the root.
Diminished Ideas
The equidistant or equal distance quality of the diminished arpeggio lends itself to ease of movement linearly across the fret board. Repeating every minor third or every three frets increases by ascending, or decreases by descending the tension we build or release. Knowledge of the five positions of any type of scale we use enables us to resolve to stability at any point on the fret board.
+ 34 more lessons
Reviews
9 results
DanielDesfeux
Verified buyer
04/09/25
spice up your pentatonic sauce
This course has all the ingredients to spice up your pentatonic sauce. Enough to enrich your cooking. . . sorry, your guitar playing. Excellent and progressive.
Osokin
Verified buyer
07/03/22
Add Spice To Your Solos!
Jeff Beasley is a serious guitar player, and can certainly shred - but in addition he is a highly skilled teacher, and in this course he demonstrates and explains the use of different tools that will lift your solos above the mundane. In particular there are some great diminished ideas and licks, and some nice examples of how the augmented arpeggio can be applied. There is a lot more besides (20 lessons). A great wealth of ideas for spicing up your solos - and not just for shredders!
Jorge
10/28/21
Shredding Blues Rock guitar.
A lesson that reflects the mastery and diversity that Jeff Beasley has, a magnificent guitarist who has an impressive speed and technique, but retains a feeling and soul in his style to create guitar solos that are very enjoyable to listen to. The result is a fresh perspective where you can see how he adds innovation and creativity to Blues and Rock. A lesson with a content that is understandable, clear and fun, but that consists of a permanent dedication and perseverance to be able to master.
stratmon
Verified buyer
06/14/20
Cutting edge...very cool....loved it...not your Grandaddys blues
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