In a new article published by Music Aficionado, guitarist Paul Gilbert (Racer X, Mr. Big) talks about five mistakes he often finds his students making in his Rock Guitar School course. Following is an excerpt from his rundown.

Don't Ignore The Basics

Gilbert: "Initially, I try to just get everybody strumming. It's amazing how a lot of the metal guys have never strummed! And it's not that challenging, but it really opens up a lot of doors in ways they might not have imagined. Some of the things you learn from strumming a D chord, they actually improve your single note lines because of the muting techniques. It's the same thing with chords.

There are two things about chords that were part of my early guitar evolution. One was discovering that they even existed—which I didn't know! I played single notes for two years because I never really knew what a chord was. But man, when I learned a chord it was so exciting. Because you could arpeggiate it and play the intro to something like 'More Than a Feeling', and it sounded just like the record! But it takes some work to be able to do that. So I work with students on playing chords, and also on how to arpeggiate chords. To some people, the word 'arpeggiated' sounds complicated. But you just hold the chord down and play the notes one by one. You can also mute the notes and do something like 'Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love', which is a legendary riff. And it's much more demanding of the right hand than the left. There's an art to being able to do that stuff."

There's More To Life Than Shredding

Gilbert: "Yes, there are some people who come in to my course and just want to shred. And that's understandable—I'm the teacher! I'm sort of marketed as a shred person, even though hopefully I have other things I can do. But of course some people say, 'I'm gonna go and learn shred from Paul Gilbert!' But then they get here and they're like, 'What? I'm gonna strum a chord? What's up with that?' But I really am flexible. If they want to shred then I'll do that. I just want to make sure they shred and also sound good doing it. I want to know I've really given them something valuable."

Click here for the complete article.

During a recent interview with Guitar Interactive, Gilbert showed off some "glorious shred" with a 3-string guitar with all strings tuned to E. Check out the video below starting at the 12:00 minute mark.