Born in Greece and bred to play music. “London Guitar Institute” graduate with over 10 years of professional experience in recording sessions, live performances, song writing and teaching. Playing at the moment in The Railway, Freaky Sheep, Toxic Twins and Scar Divine. Former guitarist of Innyrds Skynyrds, SSA, Headbangers, Rock Label, Insight, Blazing Torch, Adiexodo Band, Lakis Papadopoulos, Cavalar, Ayin Aleph and The Rocks. Also played with musicians like Sam Kelly, Emir Hot, Foivos Delivorias and many more.

This lick of the week focuses on the Lydian pentatonic. We are in the key of G Major scale and we are using the IV Mode starting from the 4th note of the G Major scale.

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Marty Friedman is undoubtedly a guitarist with a unique style and approach to guitar. Through the years he has collaborated with top musician in the industry such as Jason Becker (Cacophony), Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Ron Jarzombeck (Watch Tower) to name a few. Besides his band evolvement as a guitarist, he has also been releasing solo albums over the past 20 years. At the moment he is in the studio writing his new album and soon hitting the road. We got a chance to speak with him and ask him a few quick questions.

Michael Romeo is one of the most renowned shredders of the 21st Century. After putting out an instrumental EP called "The Dark Chapter" he formed the famous progressive metal band Symphony X in the States and started putting out albums and building up a huge fanbase. Michael has also done an instructional DVD with Young Guitar Magazine in Japan called "The Guitar Chapter". We caught up with him in London at the "La Scala" venue where Symphony X had an amazing show.

In this article we will explain some ways to create a melody and to make harmonies using different intervals and also gain a general understanding of how to use this knowledge. We will have to understand first of all what an interval is, how many there are and how they sound. We will then pick a scale, harmonize it and build the chords found in the scale (triads & 7th chords). Finally, we will write a chord progression and follow some simple steps in order to create a simple melody and then expand it into what we want it to sound like. The 1st part will focus on how the intervals sound against a chord progression. Let’s start.

Marcel Coenen is a Metal guitarist from the Netherlands. He has had a career of over 20 years as a teacher, songwriter and performer. He has collaborated with people like Bob Katsionis (Firewind/Outloud) Mistheria (Artension/Emir Hot/Mistheria) and many others. He also has under his belt nearly 10 studio albums with different bands, instructional DVD’s and signature guitar models. He is currently signed to Lion Music. We caught up with him to tell us some more information about his career.

Terence Hansen’s style is unique because he plays two guitars at the same time while singing. His album, Songs For Two Guitars, is a showcase of his songwriting and performance skills in this context. He performs using a tapping technique where the bass and rhythm guitar are played by the left hand and the lead guitar, piano, strings, organ, Rhodes etc. are tapped by the right hand guitar and layered with a guitar synthesizer. He has performed all over the U.S. and Europe with artists such as Human Rights, Robert Palmer, Jennifer Batten, Fates Warning, Jonathan Edwards, Keith Urban, Morgan Cryer, and Gary Hoey. Terence has also been a columnist for JAM Magazine, a songwriting coach for Singing For Success ‘03-‘04,  a mentor for Season for Non-Violence song camp ‘07, a musical director for Progressive Insights guided meditation/relaxation program, film scorer for the full-length feature film Nightfall and he has played on and produced scores of records, commercials, bands, and poets. He was recently the Music Director for Paul Green’s Rock School in SLC, and now is directing the year-round show band for the school. He has also presented product and educational clinics for: Lexicon, Digitech, Stephens Amps, Starsmith Music, Musicians Friend, Abel Axe Guitars, Singing For Success, Summer Jam, Music Garage, Vocal Boot Camp, and the Music Factory.

On the 2nd day we arrived early as we wanted to catch up with some people that we thought members of the L4G family should know about. We spoke with Yannis Anastasakis from Jam Pedals, Marcel Coenen who was there with Bo-El guitars, Terence Hansen who was performing at the main stage and demonstrating his 2 neck acoustic guitar at the Heeres guitars stand, Avid about the Eleven Rack interface/amp simulator, Rotosound , JPF Amplification and many more. Most of these are going to be discussed in separate reviews and interviews coming soon on the L4G blog. So let’s have a look at what else was happening on the 14th of November at Guitar Nation 2010 at the Olympia center.

Jam pedals are high end quality vintage style guitar pedals. With their unique design and sound approach they attracted artists like John Abercrombie, Greg Koch, David Hidalgo, Anthony Jackson, Jonny Lang, Benrie Marsden, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd to name a few, and it’s been a rapidly growing company around the world. The company was started in 2005 by Yannis Anastasakis, with whom I happen to be very good friends with since my early rocking teenage years playing guitar in the same town but in different bands. We caught up with him to see what Jam Pedals are all about.

Blackstar is a fairly new rapidly growing amplification company based in Northampton, UK, which makes series of valve pedals and amplifiers. The company consists largely of ex Marshall employees. On their artist roster they include Gus G. (Firewind, Ozzy Osbourne), Silenoz (Dimmu Borgir), Reb Beach (Winger, Whitesnake, ex- Dokken), Fredrik Akesson (Opeth) to name a few. We went to the Wembley Guitar Centre to have a look at the HT Blackfire Metal Valve distortion. The HT Blackfire is the Gus G. signature pedal. Let’s have a closer look.