Electric Elevation By Paul Davids For Immediate Digital Download!

For intermediate guitarists who are ready to become “advanced”

Learn how to take your electric guitar playing to new heights with over 26 video lessons, downloadable backing tracks, PDFs with tabs, original songs, and more

Elevate Your Electric Guitar Playing

Learn to play by “feel,” develop your ear, and play more expressively than ever before

From the Studio of Paul Davids
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

I remember when things on the electric guitar really started to “click” for me.

At the time, I was already pretty comfortable with basics like chords and scales, I could play in a variety of different styles, and with practice I was able to nail some more challenging solos.

But even though I was having lots of fun, I still wasn’t able to play as fluently or as expressively as I wanted.

When I listened to more experienced players, there was still something “more” in their playing compared to my own, though I couldn’t really put my finger on exactly what I was missing.

However, eventually I discovered the missing pieces that transformed my playing.

From that time on, things started to come together in a way that made me see my guitar in a whole new light.

For example, the pentatonic scale was no longer just a simple scale to me, but it became a springboard for unlimited creativity.

I began to understand how things like tone, intonation, vibrato, phrasing, and articulation are just as important as playing the right notes.

And I finally saw how keys, chords, and scales relate to each other and could be brought together to add a new dimension to my playing – without giving it too much thought.

I began to feel at home, no matter where on the neck I was playing, and my playing became so much more natural – the notes weren’t guided by knowledge, but by “feel,” and by ear.

And I eventually experienced freedom and expression in my playing that I never knew I had in me.
 
But although I was ultimately able to reach this place in my playing, there were many times along the way when I wondered if I would ever get there.

At times I wondered, “what am I missing, that so many others seem to understand?”

And if you’ve been playing guitar for a while, you might have had this feeling too…

When Great Playing Feels Just Out of Reach

If you’re a guitarist with some experience under your belt, you already have a sense for what truly great playing is like.

You’ve heard it in the playing of John Mayer, David Gilmour, or Mark Knopfler, who can inspire us or move us to tears with what from the outside might look like just a simple scale or melody.

You know how their playing, along with so many singer-songwriters, draws us in because it tells a story – their tone and note choice conveys just the right feel, they create extraordinary solos from seemingly basic scales, and they know exactly how much or how little tension to add to each phrase.

But you also know how elusive that level of playing can feel at times. And instead of expressive freedom, the following might sound more familiar:

• You might be able to play through a famous solo and hit all of the notes and rhythms, but feel like something is still missing
• You might find that your mind is so concentrated on the technical aspects of playing, you’re not able to relax and lose yourself in the music as you’ve always dreamed of doing
• Or, you might feel stuck playing within a particular key or scale, and wish you could break free from limitations in order to express yourself more fluently through your music

These roadblocks are ones that every ambitious guitarist – including me – has encountered.

And at times they might make us wonder if another level of playing, guided by ear and feel, is actually feasible… and if we have what it takes to get there.

But the good news is that you might be closer to overcoming them than you think.

Because developing more freedom on the guitar is something every guitarist can do.

You just need to know how to approach it…

How to Make Your Playing “Click”

Many players believe that becoming a great guitarist involves purely technical development like playing with amazing speed, mastering ever more complicated solos, or learning exotic scales – and there was a time when I also shared this mindset.

But over the 15 years of my professional guitar career, I have realized that playing with confidence and freedom has nothing to do with having the fastest fingering or the fanciest picking.

Because the key to beautiful playing isn’t in your hands alone…

It’s in what you focus on, the decisions you make, and how you think about a song.

And there are two key skills that are particularly essential for becoming a more expressive guitar player.

When used together, these skills can allow you to understand exactly what a song needs in order to sound great, and to let your ear be your guide in bringing music from inside your head to the fretboard.

While these two skills might initially seem like opposites, in combination they are the key to getting one step closer to “great” playing:

1. Zoom out to see the big picture

Rather than just focusing on landing the right notes, the greatest players know how to zoom out and see the big picture of everything happening in a song.

You can begin to do this by asking yourself questions like:

• “What is the function of the guitar in this piece of music?”
• “What is the key of the song, and what notes and techniques can I use to tell a great story?”
• “What approach does this chord progression ask for?”

At first, it might not be easy to answer these questions for yourself – maybe you’ve never even asked these questions before – but with practice you will learn to get better at seeing a song as a whole.

By repeatedly stepping back to see the big picture, you’ll get better at making musical decisions with confidence, like knowing which notes create tension, which scales and arpeggios might sound the best, and how much space you should leave between notes and phrases.

Ultimately, you’ll be able to play with more freedom and expression, knowing your playing will make the song or track you are working sound even better.

2. Zoom in to add the magic

While it’s important to be able to see the big picture in a song, you also need to practice zooming in – which eventually will allow you to add the details that can transform your playing.

Because by fine-tuning the small stuff, we bring life and emotion to a song.

For example, you can make even a simple melody fascinating by adding the right amount of vibrato in just the right place, dialing in the perfect tone for the job, or using dynamics and phrasing to keep the listener tuned in.

To build this skill, it actually does help to practice some technique. However, it’s not about getting fancy; it’s about working toward mastering the core techniques every player – or pro – should know.

Things like fingerpicking, vibrato, bending, spread triads, intervals, embellishments, and percussive elements are just some of the core techniques that can add the “magic” to your music.

And as you become more comfortable with these techniques, you’ll be able to intuitively use them in your playing to add a little “spice” and make each note or phrase sound more meaningful and expressive.

For example, even when you play just a simple chord progression, there are so many little things that you can do to make everything sound much more captivating. You can play some embellishments with a lot of vibrato to make them stand out, or play some staccato notes with a few muted ghost notes in between, or decorate chords with a subtle grace note in front.

It’s all about finding the best choices that match the mood you’re trying to create.

As you try out different techniques to bring life to the song, you’ll begin to intuitively know what works, and you’ll be able to relax and play more and more by feel.

The better you get at “zooming in” and “zooming out,” the more consistently you’ll be able to bring an expressive sound to even the most basic chord progressions.

And you’ll be able to make every note you play more meaningful, knowing what each song needs in order to really shine.

But what’s the best way to practice this?

Cultivating Your Growth as a Guitarist

Even though you’ve probably used many helpful practice techniques over time, it will take something more than familiar habits, creative noodling, or learning some songs from tabs to move you toward this more advanced level of playing…

And unlike the past when you learned the fundamentals of guitar, you’ll want to move beyond focusing on purely technical exercises.

Instead, you’ll need a strategic approach where you get to practice playing by feel, building confidence in improvising, and developing your ear.

This means you will need guidance, not just about what to play, but about how and why to play it, so you can develop an intuitive sense for creating music that sounds amazing.

That’s why I decided to create a course to be this guide for you. It will help you cultivate the skills you need in order to play expressively by “feel” – and by ear – with more freedom and confidence than ever before.

In the course, I’ll show you how to zoom out and see songs as a whole so you can understand the big picture of whatever you’re playing.

And I’ll show you how to zoom in and dig into the details of a song, so you can bring it to life with the musical elements that turn simple scales into great music.

And along the way we’ll hone the techniques every guitar player should know – like fingerpicking, adding a beautiful vibrato, playing with the right tone, knowing different voicings on the entire neck, modern bending techniques, and more – so you can feel confident using them in songs as you develop your own voice on the guitar.

Following this guide, you’ll find that your playing has evolved into something “more” than it was before.

You’ll begin to feel more at home with your guitar, knowing intuitively how to navigate your way on the fretboard and transfer the ideas from your head to the guitar.

And you’ll be able to create something beautiful from even the simplest chords or melodies by combining the elements we practice in the course.

And eventually, you’ll find that your guitar playing begins to “click” in the same way it did for me so many years ago – so you can relax and let your music take on a life of its own.

Hi, I’m Paul Davids

I’ve got a music degree in guitar from Rotterdam Conservatory, and I’ve spent over a decade teaching private guitar lessons to students of all ages and styles.

These days, I share my love of guitar with people all over the world through my YouTube channel, with over 3 million subscribers.

Five years ago, I created my first online guitar course, and was blown away by the number of people who found it helpful. Since that time, I’ve created several other bestselling courses, including Next Level Playing and Acoustic Adventure.

With this newest course, I want to help intermediate players elevate their electric guitar playing and tap into a deeper level of musical expression than ever before.

My course for intermediate guitarists who are ready to become more advanced – designed to help you elevate your electric guitar playing so you can confidently play by feel, improvise more intuitively, and play more expressively than ever before.

Learn Through Playing

As you play your way through this course, you’ll learn how to turn even the most fundamental scales and chord progressions into beautiful music.

In each lesson, I’ll guide you through the process of creating beautiful music, from the “zoomed out” level where we consider the overall flow and feel of each original song in the course, down to the “zoomed in” space where the smallest technical details bring life to the music.

I’ll help you develop a thoughtful listening approach that will guide you toward a more fluent and natural playing style. And, we’ll hone in on key techniques you can use to make them rich and meaningful. You’ll also have a chance to experiment with applying the same techniques to your own improvisation over prepared backing tracks, so you can build skill and confidence in making your own musical choices.

You’ll come away with some really cool new songs you can enjoy playing, but even more importantly, you’ll develop a more trained ear – and the intuition for combining just the right musical elements to create your own expressive voice on the guitar.

Cultivating Your Elevated Skillset

While working through this self-paced course, you will:

• Learn how to effortlessly bring together technical and musical elements like scales, arpeggios, triads, vibrato, double stops, fingerpicking, and bends to set a mood and express yourself more freely through your guitar
• Stop overthinking about theory and discover the creative freedom within even the most commonly used chord progressions – and how good you can sound using just the pentatonic scale
• Discover how to create unlimited possibilities in your music using phrasing, articulation, tone, intonation, voicing, timing, and so much more
• Train your ear through learning to listen to the relationship between the scales and the chords you are playing
• Strengthen the intuition needed to become a versatile and mature guitarist, so you can craft your own solos, musical lines, and identity

Here’s What You’ll Learn Inside Electric Elevation

The lessons inside the course are centered around chord progressions and one single key per module, which we’ll explore in-depth together. For each progression, you’ll learn solos, rhythmic lines, rhythm and lead together, and techniques to add “spice” to your playing. And, you’ll work toward developing an intuitive sense of how to incorporate musical elements in order to sound better than ever before.

MODULE 1: E Major

In this module, you’ll learn…

• Three ways to spice up four basic chords, and understand how keys, scales, and chords work together
• How using your thumb to fret notes can open up chord options and add embellishments
• The differences between rhythm guitar and lead guitar, and how to improvise within each
• How to craft awesome licks by thinking “horizontally” and understanding where your playing is going
• How to use “Call and Response” to add depth, cohesion and beauty to solos, and make your playing stand out

MODULE 2: E Minor

In this module, you’ll explore…

• Tips and tricks for fingerpicking on the electric guitar – a free way to drastically change the sound of your guitar!
• How to spice up basic chords using different voicings, spread triads, and fingerpicking
• The difference between target notes and transition notes
• Understanding arpeggio shapes and positions all over the neck, and how to incorporate them into your playing
• The power of repetition in soloing

MODULE 3: A Minor

In this module, you’ll discover…

• How to make your chords sound more melodic, and a few little techniques that can make your rhythm playing sound extraordinary
• Combine rhythm and lead guitar through a 12-bar blues progression – with a small twist
• How to harmonize a melody using the 6th or 3rd intervals, and three ways to play a melody using different voicings
• Tips for mastering the slap and flick technique on the electric guitar, and how to sprinkle it into your playing
• How to decorate chord progressions by using seventh chords, diminished chords, and the harmonic minor scale

MODULE 4: Blues Key (E Major)

In this module, you’ll dive into…

• Three different ways to approach blues soloing
• How to mix major and minor when improvising over the blues
• Learning the blues fingerstyle essentials
• The Real Magic of the B.B. King Box and the power one note can have on your playing
• How to effortlessly switch up playing rhythm and lead

MODULE 5: G Major

In this module, you’ll learn…

• Three major pentatonic scale positions that, when linked to chord shapes and played together, unlock the entire neck, as well as two diagonal scales that can be used to connect them
• How to be free to improvise rhythm guitar on the entire neck using embellishments and voice leading
• Learning triads, spread triads, and inversions all over the neck – all while leveling up your technical skills
• How pentatonic scales can be used to embellish chords, blurring the line between rhythm and lead
• The power of silence and rests, and how to use them in your playing

What’s more, when you join Electric Elevation, you’ll also gain access to 4 elevating bonuses

Bonus #1: Video Guide: How to Dial in Your Tone
Getting the right tone can be a challenge, particularly if you’re trying to find the perfect sound for a song, or match a sound you’ve heard from someone else’s music.

In this video guide, I’ll show you my process for dialing in tone using three different pieces from the course. After getting some practice with this process, you’ll have a practical approach you can use for finding the right tone for the job, regardless of what song you’re playing and the gear you’re using.

Bonus #2: Video Masterclass: Decoding the Circle of Fifths
The circle of fifths is something every guitarist should understand at a basic level – whether you read standard notation or not. Back when I was getting the hang of music theory, it helped me connect the dots between keys, chords, and scales. In this video tutorial, I’ll walk you through each part of the visual schematic and show you the coolest ways to use it to better understand whatever you’re playing!

Electric Elevation By Paul Davids, What Is It Included (Content Proof: Watch Here!)