WHO IS

ANDRE NIERI?
André Nieri is a brazilian electric and acoustic
guitarist and composer. He graduated from the

Conservatório de Tatuí/SP in 2008 and since then

has been developing his unique style,

blending his influences and backgrounds in

blues/rock with a fingerstyle approach from
Brazilian

Music/Jazz acoustic guitar.

He is the winner of various international guitar

contests, with special mention of the 2014
edition

of the GUITAR IDOL contest, held in

London, where he was awarded 1st
place having played

an original composition. Currently he

is a teacher at the prestigious Musi-
cians Institute in Los

Angeles, California. André also

constantly tours the world as a
renowned clinician with his

instrumental trio, as well as

guitarist for legendary virtuoso
drummer Virgil Donati (PlanetX,

Steve Vai).

André Nieri is a tireless musician

that fears no boundaries in his
constant quest for new
musical

horizons, always moving

forward in search of evolv-
ing new sounds to comple-
ment his already

incredible personality and musical

styles.
 INTRO
Over the past few years, I’ve been getting a lot of
feedback from many of my students, be it from
my intensive course, students that take private
lessons, and even ones from Musicians Institute
in Los Angeles, the music college where I teach.

In all of these feedbacks, the students would bear

one thing in common: “all of them underestimat-
ed the basics and only during the lesson they
would come to realize that they had knowledge
gaps, and that it was holding them back from
further evolving on the guitar”.

There’s no point in wanting to become a better

musician if you don’t have a solid foundation.
Learning is like building a house: the more solid
the base, the easier it will be for you to achieve
your objectives, and that’s the reason why I
wanted to make this ebook for you.

Have you really mastered the basics?

Have you ever thought that you might be stuck

on the guitar simply because you’ve neglected
to work on some basic but essential concepts,
which are “OK” in your mind when they actually
aren’t?

Well, this might be happening to you, and it is

through this Ebook that we’ll get an intensive
look into the fundamentals every guitarist needs
to know and give you a new, refreshing look on
things.

What do you say we go on this journey together?

 INTERVALS

It’s essential that we start with intervals,

because they’re the backbone of all of
the scales, arpeggios and chords.

From my experience as a teacher and

as an active professional guitar player, if
you have an incredible knowledge on in-
tervals, the rest will be easier and simpler
to understand.

For example:

- Let’s assume that you want to find out

how to name a specific chord. If you can
identify which intervals are in that chord,
you will obviously be able to name it
faster and properly.

- When composing, playing or tran-

scribing what you hear in your head will
become natural.

- Learning new scales and modes be-

comes a lot less complicated, because
we emphasize the focus on intervals, and
only alter the necessary intervals accord-
ing to the scale/mode you want to play.

And ALL of these things will be possible

because they have as their most primitive
foundation the use of INTERVALS.

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POSITIONING OF THE INTERVALS ON THE NECK

It’s a priority that we start this chapter by

learning the ‘geographical’ location of the
intervals on the neck. As I’ve mentioned in
the beginning of this Ebook, you might have
underestimated it, and thought of it as a
waste of time, but it’s not: it’s helped me a
lot throughout my learning, and anyone can
and should focus on this subject, no matter
what their level is.

I like to start learning by analyzing the major

scale and its intervals, so we’re gonna use
the key of G Major in its basic form as a
starting point:

G A B C D E F#
(T 2 3 4 5 6 7)

As we already know, the major scale for-
mula is: root (1), major second (2), major
third (3), perfect fourth (4), perfect fifth (5),
major sixth (6) and major seventh (7).
\With that as a reference, we can begin to
visualize the intervals along the neck in a
‘geographical’ manner, relying on a refer-
ence note (usually the root, in a low octave).
No matter where you apply these intervallic
shapes on the neck, they will always corre-
spond to the same intervals. That will surely
provide you with a new take on decoding
intervals along the neck!

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PHOTOS OF ALL OF THE MAJOR SCALE INTERVALS

Major
Major 2nd/9th Perfect 5th

Major 5th Major 7th

Perfect 4th/11th Octave

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FINDING DIFFERENT INTERVALS ON THE FRETBOARD

How do we identify the various intervals? All you must do is adapt them to
the pre-existing shapes. For example: how can we find a minor 3rd?

Demonstration: Playing the minor 3th interval

3a Minor

What about the sharp 4th?

It will be one semitone (a fret) above the perfect 4th, being simultaneously
the b5. So it’s the same thing, anywhere that you perform the example below,
you will have a #4, or a b5.

Demonstration: Playing the #4/b5 interval

4aum/5dim

Ultimately, do this with whatever kind of interval you want to work on

and you shall have every interval at your fingertips!

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 INTERVAL IDENTIFICATION
An excellent exercise for you to get better at
identifying the intervals is singing the notes of
a scale.
This technique resulted in a major transforma-
tion for me, and that’s why it’s very important
that I share this exercise with you.
Let’s take the major scale as a reference once
again, where we have: R 2 3 4 5 6 7.
Grab your guitar, choose a key, play it, let it ring
and sing the intervals of the scale you’ve chosen,
naming the intervals as you go along.
Ex. 01: Interval Identification
Do it in many keys, always visualizing the
interval in your mind.
When you sing a note, you must mentalize the
interval you’re singing.
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FUNDAMENTALS
While singing a perfect 4th, for example, you
must truly conceptualize that you’re singing a
perfect 4th interval. This is what will help you
internalize how the intervals sound, and, as
time goes by, identifying the intervals by ear
will become natural for you. The more you
do it, the better your mind will be trained to
recognize how all of the intervals sound like.
All set! Now that you have all the tools you
need, from now on, you should sing all the
intervals in different keys, and do it also with
arpeggios.
For example, sing the Bb Mixolydian scale, that
has the following notes: Bb C D E F G Ab (1 2 3
4 5 6 b7). In this case, the only different note,
compared to the Bb Major scale, is the minor
7th (Ab).
Bb Major Bb Mixolydian
Bb C D E F G A Bb C D E F G Ab
(1 2 3 4 5 6 7) (1 2 3 4 5 6 b7)
The goal here is to train your brain to assimi-
late the intervals and how they sound. Singing
the intervals will make learning them much
easier and effective.
You’ll see how this helps you in ways you
can’t even imagine!
08 ANDRE
NIERI
 SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS

My approach on these two

subjects is pretty much the
same. I find it useful to learn
their basic shapes, but as
soon as you do it’s imper-
ative that you develop the
ability to find the notes in
each string, across the neck.
This will help you master
the guitar, and you’ll start
seeing the fretboard as a
whole.

Along with that, getting used

to identifying scales and ar-
peggios from their sounds
makes it easier for you to do
virtually everything: learn
songs by ear, compose, play
with a band, work as a side-
man or a studio musician
and so on and so forth.

To begin this process, I

suggest that you start by
learning the CAGED system,
where you divide the neck
of the guitar into 5 different
shapes.

If we take the G Major scale

as a reference and use the
CAGED system to play it,
we will have the five shapes
below:

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 SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS

Now thinking about arpeggios, let’s play the 5 shapes of the GMaj7
arpeggio using the CAGED system.

G 7ª Major (Position 1, E Shape)

R

G 7ª Major (Position 2, D Shape)

G 7ª Major (Position 3, C Shape)

G 7ª Major (Position 4, A Shape)

G 7ª Major (Position 5, G Shape)

R

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 SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS

Even when only playing the shape of a scale or an arpeggio, you should pay attention
to it’s intervals, in order to study them in a musical way. You can watch the video below,
where I show in detail how to better understand this concept.

Ex. 02: Scales and Arpeggios

In the video above, I played all of the 5 shapes of the G Major scale and its arpeggios in
a musical way. That’s what you gotta look for when you’re practicing! You should also try
to emphasize a specific interval, as I’m doing in the videos below.

Ex. 03: Emphasing the 3rd Ex. 04: Emphasizing the 2nd (9th)

In the examples above I showed you a mu-
sical way to study the different shapes of
scales and arpeggios, and not only practice
them going up and down, which sounds
very ‘exercise-y’.
Once you’ve studied lots of scales and
arpeggios in different keys, the next step
you should take is to start to play them all
in each string, horizontally. When you mix
this approach with the shape approach,
you’ll have a better understanding of the
guitar and will play more effectively and
confidently.

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 SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS

Check out the videos below on how some scales can be played horizontally on each
string.

Ex. 05: E Major Scale Horizontally E Ionian

R R

R R

Bb Doric
Ex. 06: Bb Dorian Scale Horizontally
R

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 SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS
Faça o mesmo com arpejos, por exemplo:

You can do the same to arpeggios, for example

Ex. 07: A7M Arpeggio Horizontally A7M Arpeggio

R

R R

Fm7 Arpeggio
Ex. 08: Fm7 Arpeggio Horizontally R

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 SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS

It’s imperative that you can visualize all C Ionian

these intervals from scales and arpeggios R

using the tips from the previous lesson, R

therefore, you will be able to change scales R
seamlessly and efficiently.
R

Let’s take two scales that have common R

tones, like the Ionian (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) and the R

Mixolydian (1 2 3 4 5 6 b7) scales. We know

that the only difference between these C Mixolydian
two scales is the 7th - the Ionian mode has R

a major 7th (7) and the Mixolydian mode R

has a flat 7 (b7). This way, according to the R

concept we’re studying, which is to force the R

visualization of these intervals, now it’s a lot R

easier to change scales between these two R
modes since you can quickly identify where
these two important intervals reside on the
neck. Ex. 09: Ionian and Mixolydian Modes
See below how easy it becomes to switch
between Ionian and Mixolydian when we
know every interval we’re playing. This way
all you have to do is find the 7th and alter it.

Ex. 10: Improvising on only string

It sounds cool, right?

Now, let’s have fun impro-

vising on only one string
applying what we’ve
learned so far.

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 VIBRATO

The vibrato is one of the most important Ex. 11: Slow vibrato (Slight)
building blocks for my style, and I confess
that when I listen to a guitar player with a bad
vibrato, I immediately lose my interest in him,
because, for me, if he can’t properly execute
a simple vibrato he will still be a beginner,
even if he’s able to play a thousand notes per
second.
Ex. 12: Slow Vibrato (Wide)
A good vibrato is a must, because it’s what
gives the note a leg to stand on and embellish-
es them, giving the phrase stylistic direction.

There are many different ways to play a vi-

brato, and how you dominate it makes all the
difference!

Check out some examples I’ve made for you: Ex. 13: Circular Vibrato

Ex. 14: Fast Vibrato (Slight)

Ex. 15: Fast Vibrato (Wide)

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PICKING TECHNIQUES: ALTERNATE PICKING

What I generally use is a technique known
as economy picking, that combines both
alternate and sweep picking.
Many times when I’m alternate picking I
also tend to repeat the up or downstrokes
to compensate for my inside picking,
which isn’t as good.
You don’t know what inside picking is? Let
me explain that to you!
Suppose you need to play two notes in
different strings, let’s say B and E. If you
downstroke the B and upstroke the E,
you’ll notice the pick will end up between
the strings after the notes are played.
That’s why it’s called inside picking.
Playing using this technique is one of my
biggest challenges.
Check out the video below for an example.

Ex.Ex.
16:16:
Inside Picking
Inside Picking

Ex. 17: Outside Picking

When you use the opposite

motion, playing the strings
from outside-in, you’re
outside picking. It’s easier
for me to play this way.

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 SWEEP PICKING

The best tip I can give you on how to improve your sweep picking technique is to mute a
note right after you play it, slightly before you play the next one. When you do that, you
play cleaner and your licks sound better. See the example below:

Ex. 18: Sweep Picking Properly Ex. 19: Sweep Picking

(THE WRONG WAY TO DO IT)

Be careful to avoid letting the notes ring together, as in the video above.

As you can see in the video, it sounds way better when you properly mute the notes.

The muting is almost entirely done with the left hand, where you need to release the
note in order for it to stop ringing as you move on to the next one.

It’s not something easy to do, especially when you have to use bar-chord shapes, but it’s
essential for a clean, quality sweep.

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 BENDING STRINGS

Bending is one of the most important major scale (F G A Bb C D E) entirely with

and most underestimated techniques for bends.
a guitar player. Usually guitarists focus
on playing as fast as possible, instead of
learning how to bend in tune with perfect Ex. 20: Playing the F Major Scale with
intonation, but, by doing this, a funda- Bends
mental technique is skipped and when it’s
absence is noticed further down the road,
it won’t be an easy fix.

Bends and vibratos are usually associated.

When bending, I rarely do it without add-
ing a vibrato, which is a beautiful embel-
lishment that you can use in many styles
and in different parts of your solos.
One of the key elements to a bend is
support. The more support you use while
bending, the easier you lift the string and
the less you strain your hand.
I usually bend using the 3rd finger, using
the 1st and 2nd fingers along with my
wrist to help the bend come out properly.
The benefits of studying this is that you’ll
always spot your mistakes and will be able
to fix them quickly.
If you wanna practice 1-and-a-1/2 step
bends, a great exercise you might wanna
try is bending to the minor 3rd intervals of
the pentatonic scale.

Sometimes you’ll also have to bend with

the 2nd or even 1st finger, depending on
the phrase you’re playing. In these cases,
naturally you’ll have to put more strength
into your hand and wrist. Be sure to study
this properly to avoid missing the note,
independent of what finger you’re using.

One of the most efficient exercises you can

do is practice bending to the notes of a
scale: that way you’ll also practice with the
correct sound in mind and it’ll be easier to
know when you’re in tune. Let’s play the F

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 BENDING STRINGS

Watch the video below where I demon-

strate that.

Ex. 21: Playing the F Major Pentatonic

Scale with Bends

After doing these exercises in different

keys, you should also learn solos from
the masters that use bending extensive-
ly. In my case, I was highly influenced
by Steve Ray Vaughan, Steve Lukather,
Steve Morse, Eric Johnson, Eric Clapton,
Joe Bonamassa, etc. that are players that
use a lot of bends.

After that, you should improvise freely

utilizing scales, because that way you’ll
be exercising your musicality along with
the technical part of bending, and musi-
cality is the most important part!

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 LEGATO
This is one of the techniques I use the
most, because since I use a lot of Fin-
gerpicking, I tend to resort many times
to hammer-ons and pull-offs. This ends
up sounding prettier on distorted guitar
than using my fingers to pick every string,
especially when we have many notes per
string.
The way I think about legato is really
simple. You’ve got two options:
- either you hammer-on the note
Ex. 22: Hammer-On and Pull-Offs
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FUNDAMENTALS
- or you can ‘connect’ it with a pull-off
Let’s choose three notes on the B string: A,
B and C#.
I can play these notes both by hammer-
ing-them-on individually with the press of
a finger, or connect them with the ringing
of previous note by pulling down (a pull-
off).
Watch the video below to check how I play
it using these two techniques.
20 ANDRE
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 LEGATO
Notice that when you hammer-on the
notes individually, they sound softer and
with more controllable dynamics. When
you use a pull-off, the notes sound more
“in your face”, more aggressive and more
compressed. With that, you should choose
one to use at any given moment.
It’s a personal choice, and it depends on
the kind of sound you want to achieve.
Which one will sound better depends on
the musical context, so choose wisely.
Ex. 23: Hammering-ons the notes
As you can see, the sound with hammering
is softer and more dynamic.
This way of playing is extremely common
in jazz and in fusion because they are very
dynamic styles and require the musician to
reflect that “feel”.
Ex. 24: My approaching on hammer-ons
and pull-offs
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FUNDAMENTALS
When we play with pull-offs, the notes
sound less dynamic and more com-
pressed, or “in your face”. This style of
playing is more common in rock/metal,
because it really does sound more aggres-
sive.
One of the biggest tips I can give you for
working on this material is to pay attention
to what you’re doing, and to be wary of
going into “autopilot” and doing everything
in a rush. If that happens, we tend to
distance ourselves from the music and
play more than we mean to.
The trick is to play slowly, feeling the notes
and gradually increase the speed. Feel the
notes increasing in speed, apply the tech-
nique properly, and remain in touch with
the musicality you desire.
21 ANDRE
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 BONUS

STOP BEING A SHAPE PLAYER!

THE CHECKLIST TO SOUNDING MUSICAL

Use more interval jumps

Do it in all the scale positions

Repeat the process in each string

Begin developing melodies on 1 string, then add

another, then another after that, memorizing the
notes of the scale horizontally and vertically.

Use techniques like: bends, slides and vibratos

Did that with a scale? Choose another one
and repeat.
Did it with different scales? Now do the
same with arpeggios.
I guarantee that a SOLID FOUNDATION
of the basics is the ideal scenario for you
to evolve in a constant and exponential
manner on the instrument.

Assuming you master that and do it with A

SCALE A MONTH (which is a lot of time), do
you have ANY idea on how your phrasing
will sound like after a whole year?

That’s the spirit! Now put all of this into

action and let’s officially get moving on the
instrument!

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 /andre_nieri

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