Shred Guitar Lessons

If for some reason you’ve never joined a live masterclass on School of McRock then fear not because we’ve edited this one down for you! The theme of this masterclass was all about solos, shred and how to construct your solos and improvised playing.

During this masterclass I break down my entire approach to shredding, walking you through what goes on in my head from the moment I hear a backing track through to improvising a complete solo. Along the way, I pause to take questions from members about various topics and answer them live. If you’re new to shred, this class will help you get started on your journey – if you’re more experienced, it’s packed full of valuable tips and insights you can use to improve your playing. Let’s do it!

The ‘box shape’ pentatonic scale is one of the first things many guitarists will learn and in this lesson I’m going to teach you how you can use this familiar pattern as a starting point to break out into more interesting sounds and expand your musical vocabulary.

I’m also going to explain my approach to pentatonics by showing you some of my favourite patterns and breaking down a pentatonic lick that uses the 3 note per string method which is fantastic for blazing across the fretboard in high-speed bursts. If you’ve been underestimating the power of pentatonic scales – this lesson will change that!

Did you know that by adding a couple of extra details to your playing, you can take 4 or 5 notes and transform them boring, vanilla licks into something truly memorable and impressive sounding?

I’m going to show you how to do precisely that, and help you take a giant leap toward becoming a killer shredder! This lesson is also packed full of inspiration, including some of my best tips on how to avoid trapping yourself into playing the same notes over and over so that you can improvise freely and unlock your creativity.

While it’s often possible to play very fast sequences purely with alternate picking, in this lesson I’m going to show you a simple hack that I use which makes it much easier to play an incredibly fast and impressive flurry of notes more easily and using far less energy.

The cool thing about this technique is you can apply it to any note combination on any strings you like, which gives you a powerful shortcut to be able to come up with blazing fast licks of your own.

We don’t have as much time to play the guitar as much as we’d like to, which is why I’ve put together some of my favourite exercises to create this killer workout!

This 5-minute guitar workout is perfect for those days where you’re really limited on time and just want to make some progression from your playing, or you can use it as the ultimate warmup to get your blood flowing before you start tracking and recording.

In this lesson, we’re gonna dive into a couple of big-time shred licks which both use very specific approaches that you’ll need to learn if you want to deliver them at speed.

If you go ahead and start trying to approach these licks without the right preparation you’re going to have a very bad time. The good news is I’m going to break down everything you need to know, including how to translate these techniques to other solos and melodies to add more variation and speed to your shred arsenal!

Have you ever struggled with phrasing and note choice when writing solos? If so, this is a great lesson for you to check out. Follow along as I break down a solo from my track SUDO which contains some quirky phrasing and explosive lead lines.

In addition to breaking this solo down I’m also gonna show you how I wrote and constructed it – including how I almost trashed the song entirely (twice) because I just couldn’t come up with lines that I felt worked in the track. You don’t want to miss this one!

In this lesson, I’ll be teaching you three distinctive licks. The first uses outside notes, which are so easy to implement into your playing and can completely transform your sound. Next up, I’ll be teaching a repeating pattern-based riff that’s not only a lot of fun to play but also great for developing dexterity in your left hand. We’ll also be diving into a shred-based lick that uses hammer-ons out of nowhere to really work on your left-hand strength, and it’s so cool to play.

But wait, there’s more! We’ll finish off with some shred that uses three different types of sounds in one lick. I struggled with this lick myself, but I figured out what the problem was and identified how to fix it. So not only will you learn some killer licks today, but you’ll also see firsthand how to troubleshoot and overcome obstacles in your playing.

In this lesson, I’m going to break down the full track from the Polychrome DSP launch video, which is an absolute banger! This song had a lot of fireworks and exciting parts to showcase the plugin to the best of its ability.

Throughout the lesson, I’ll focus on a couple of phrases that are less about technique and more about delivery, with simpler note choices that are more based on emotion, feelings, and expression. There are a couple of solos and certain parts of the song that really dive into that style of playing in a big way. Don’t worry, I’ll break everything down nice and slowly, so you’ll be fine. I have every confidence in you, so grab the backing track that’s included with this lesson, and let’s go!

Do you want to gain speed, power and momentum on the fretboard? In this lesson, I’m going to teach you two metal-inspired licks that will build up your chops in no time.

These licks feature some sinister note choices – perfect for the genre – and are a lot of fun to play. I’ll take you through them step-by-step as I break everything down so get your gain cranked and let’s go!