ADVANCED TECHNIQUE & VOCABULARY

Our proven Practicing For Results™ system maximizes your technique & vocabulary simultaneously.

FLUENT, NATURAL, & EXPRESSIVE IMPROVISATION

Far from merely "playing whatever," musical improvisation is the ability to compose music spontaneously.

EXPERT SONGWRITING & AUDIO PRODUCTION SKILLS

Acquire the tools & skill you need to make your musical imaginings a tangible reality any time you want.

HARNESS >20 YEARS OF MUSIC INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

Get the know-how you need to systematically develop all the additional skills you need in place for people to take you & your music seriously.

I know that after every session, I'll pick up something new that I can immediately apply to my playing.

Jesse N

Student

I think the thing that sets Jason apart is that he genuinely cares about his students and their playing.

Ray L

Student

"After just a few months of lessons, honestly it's already made a difference in how I look at solo writing."

Bobby T

Student, Guitarist of Hypgnostic

It's vital that you know how to (and how NOT to) approach your overall musical development as an artist, and SO many aspiring musicians get this wrong from the start, and proceed to completely undermine their efforts at every step. This preliminary course will help you understand clearly how the puzzle pieces actually fit together.

Being sent on your way with some tablature and told to "go practice this" simply isn't enough. When you look at how many long-time guitarists never get beyond the beginner to early-intermediate level, clearly not everyone knows how to practice in a way that furthers your musical abilities. Since 2011, ShredMentor's Practicing For Results System has proven its value time and time again with hundreds of students making breakthroughs shortly after incorporating it into their practice routines.

What's even better than a collection of highly-effective practice routines? When those practice routines are flexible and can evolve with you as you progress. Covering more ground in every practice session has never been easier.

Over his many years of teaching, Jason has developed more than 45 different strategies for achieving specific results in various areas of your playing and overall musicianship. While these strategies are being released as a book in late 2024, the entire Total Artist Development System incorporates them at every turn - they're built-in so you're always making the maximum amount of progress at the fastest pace possible.

Say goodbye to wasted practice time and barely-detectable progress.

Published in 2019, The Top Secret Book of Practice Routines will transform your entire approach to practicing so that you instinctively know what works and what doesn't. This special eBook edition is included for free for you as a member of the Total Artist Development System.

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You can't expect to MASTER a technique if you aren't absolutely clear about (1) what sound it's supposed to achieve and (2) what your hands & fingers are really supposed to be doing to achieve it. And let's face it, that's not always evident from just watching someone else do it. This course will dive deep into every single guitar technique so you're absolutely clear about what's involved and you can make breakthroughs much faster, across the board.

If you can't PICK it, you can't PLAY it.

Aside from legato and tapping, just about every sound you make on the guitar requires absolute control of your pick. Pick the wrong string, or too many strings, or even just second-guess yourself for a split second about how to approach the picking, and it's an instant train-wreck.

Luckily, developing machine-like systematic picking technique is entirely achievable if you have the discipline, and it's all laid out for you right in this course.

If you've falled into the common trap of playing "scales" as your "guitar solos," this book will show you how to compose interesting, melodic, impressively complex, memorable and expressive solos (and riffs!) using the same basic tools that composers have used for centuries. Published in 2017, this special eBook edition of The Book of Sequences is included for FREE to members.

Taking the examples in The Book of Sequences light-years further, this in-depth companion video course walks you though each sequence, each offset, and demonstrates multiple diverse ways to apply and work with each sequence to constantly create refreshing and interesting new melodies again and again — while developing far greater playing technique overall.

For centuries, one of the main hallmarks of any virtuoso player of any instrument has been the ability to maintain control and expression at high speeds. And now in this age of technology, more than ever before, developing blistering speed while maintaining impeccably clean technique is something anyone with sufficient desire and discipline can achieve, especially with this powerful systematic course and with Guitar Practice Tools built-in.

It's not just what you play that connects with people, but how you play it. Whether you want to melt faces with blistering speed, or play slow soulful melodies, your phrasing is the power behind your voice on the instrument. In this course you'll develop every aspect of your phrasing and literally transform your playing.

In rock, and especially metal, it's absolutely essential to be rhythmically tight. If you want to be in lock-step with every sub-beat of the music, there are specific things you need to be able to do and that you need to know to listen for, the whole time you're playing. This mini-course will walk you through how to develop these essential skills.

It's not enough to just "know a scale" if all you can do is play it up and down; that's nothing more than reciting a list, and let's face it, nobody wants to listen to that. There's SO much more to scale knowledge than that, yet only a tiny percentage of guitarists ever figure it out on their own.

If music theory has been tripping you up, then this is the course you need.

Especially for shredders, it's easy to overlook just how important it is to have as rich a chord vocabulary as you possibly can. Not only is it important to be able to simply "play chords," it's far more important to understand the underlying harmonic structure and the "recipe" to make any chord you need on the spot. Not only that, but your vocabulary of chord changes will also greatly define your sound.

Far from the common connotation of just "playing whatever," musical improvising is really composing on the spot. You have to make all of the same careful decisions you would make when composing, but you have to additionally do it in a split-second while playing. The Spontaneous Composer Improvisation System will help you both strengthen your composition abilities as well as prepare you to do it on the spot, whenever you want.

Within the Spontaneous Composer Improvisation System is an effective, actionable series of benchmarks, in increasing levels of difficulty. Each one builds on the previous one, so mastering each step along the way is crucial to your success. Most of these levels of improvisation skill don't even occur to most musicians, which makes the Improv Mountain course an invaluable resource within the Total Artist Development System.

Not only do you have access to the full Guitar Practice Tools Suite as a member of the Total Artist Development System, but compenents of Guitar Practice Tools are built-in all over the place, with its broad library of backing tracks, drum beats, chord progressions, and single-note and chord type drones. This is all the more important when it comes to your improv skills, since you're improvising along to an accompaniment most of the time.

While every aspiring musician has an "idea" of what they'd like to do, truly successful acts dedicate time, thought, and effort into crafting a vision for their project, its brand, its sound, associated visuals, and what attitude and feeling they want to convey. This is a vital step that most musicians never even think to take, and in this course, I will guide you step-by-step how you can create your own roadmap for success.

Without a recording, your song doesn't really even exist yet. Songs in your head can't be streamed, purchased, or get airplay, and they definitely can't get stuck in anyone else's head.  That's why it's MANDATORY that you realize right now that

Songwriting = Recording

Of course, this requires you to tackle a whole new additional set of skills & knowledge, and I'll be there to walk you through what you need to know every step of the way in this course (as well as frequently in the live TADS Group Coaching Calls).

So much of what we need to do as musicians depends on using MIDI in some way. Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is an extremely versatile tool that most musicians have encountered but all too often never really learn how to harness its power. From changing amp/modeler presets in real-time, to controlling effects like volume, wah, and pitch shift, to programming realistic drums, to writing orchestral and/or synth parts to bring your songs to the next level (or even controlling the light show at your concerts!), you NEED to understand MIDI and how to use it. This course will tell you everything you need to know (and probably even more) about all things MIDI.

All too often I've watched musicians struggle for months at a time with a single song, trying to get it perfect, and every time, they were overthinking it.

Over a decade ago, out of necessity (due to a ridiculous 24-hour deadline for a project), I developed a way to write professional-level songs extremely quickly, without sacrificing quality, and that's what I'm going to pass on to you in this course.

One of the hallmarks of great Rock and Metal songs is killer riffs. But for many guitarists, coming up with a killer riff is hit-or-miss.

This isn't something anyone should leave to chance. There is a very straightforward way to come up with excellent, powerful, memorable riffs any time you want, if you know the way. In the Riff Works System, I will teach you exactly how to do this.

The Art of Soloing is really at the heart of why I started ShredMentor in the first place. Learning to not only play existing solos from your favorite bands, but also to analyze how they do it, and how to use those principles to write, play, improve & perfect your own solos is essential to becoming a great, or even renowned guitarist. I'll pass on more than 20 years of my own experience of soloing in this extensive course, along with solo walk-throughs from my own solos and guest solos I've performed for other bands.

For all the work and passion that goes into writing and recording great songs, it can all go down the toilet in an instant if your choice of guitar tones isn't reinforcing what the part calls for. Massively heavy parts sound weak; virtuosic guitar solos sound shrill or get buried altogether; all your clean parts start to sound exactly the same. These are common problems, but I'm going to show you how to overcome them, and boost your creativity & mixing skills, in the Crafting Guitar Tones mini-course. 

Nothing kills the enjoyment of a song faster than drums that sound obviously fake. Even now that programmed drumming is becoming more and more widespread and accepted, people still want to hear drum PARTS that sound like a drummer actually played them. And there's a lot to it that just doesn't occur to most musicians. In this course I'll teach you how to avoid the common embarrassing mistakes so many songwriters make in their drum programming and teach you how to think like a drummer.

It's a common misconception for many guitarists that simply recording a video of their great playing will make them seem professional. The fact is, if your audio quality is anything less than studio quality audio, it screams "amateur!" 

In this mini-course, I'll walk you through the different ways to achieve a studio-quality sound on video, and all the different ways you should absolutely AVOID, and why, so that your videos have the impact they need for you to be taken seriously immediately.

As guitarists, it's all too easy to write instrumental songs, and then struggle to "fit" lyrics into them after the fact.

While songwriting IS definitely easier if you know what you want to SAY before you start writing, in this course we'll delve into lyrics, writing them, how to evolve them throughout the song, and how to make them flow naturally.

We'll also go into how your lyric structure can drastically affect the flow of your song, and how "transition" parts sometimes need to be added to facilitate lyrics that won't play nice with your existing structure.

The listener should get a clear, consistent "snapshot" of who you are, what you stand for, and how your music should make them feel RIGHT AWAY. This generally doesn't happen by accident, but rather through careful planning. Major artists know having their brand well-defined from the outset is vital to their success, and it's just as vital for yours. In this course I'll walk you through the ins and outs of artist branding so you can get crystal-clear about every aspect of how you come off to your prospective fans, and through your brand, how they identify with you and your music.

Having great music isn't worth much without fans to enjoy it, listen to it, and buy it (and your merch and concert tickets).

In this course we'll cover everything you need to know about consistently building, growing, and nurturing your fanbase into loyal superfans.

When it comes to the stage, there is yet another whole world to be uncovered in terms of skills, knowledge & business savvy street smarts you need to have in place.

From preparing for shows, to planning your setlist and performance, to your live sound rig, to when/how/why to use backing track accompaniment (and how to mix them for live playback), to selling merch, to booking, and much, much more. 

This course is your bible for all things live performance.

Very few musicians enter the music industry without a ton of misconceptions about how things work. Unprepared, they walk into countless pitfalls, costing themselves ridiculous amounts of time, frustration, and money, and sometimes even long-lasting trauma and a black mark on their reputation.

In this course, I'm going to dispel a great deal of the common misconceptions I've encountered, and go into detail about how the most commonly-misunderstood aspects of the music industry actually work, so that you know what you're talking about when you show up to do business.

In our quest for recognition and validation as musicians, all too often this makes us extremely vulnerable to exploitation by the less savory characters in the music industry.

We live in an age where scams are everywhere, and being able to spot them is crucial for your well being. You're entering an industry with its own unique set of common scams and abusive deals and they're increasingly common, so I want to make sure you know how to spot them and avoid them if/when you encounter them.

99% of the time, the album/track art is THE thing that gets someone to check out your music. That's why your album art should not be the last thing you consider, yet all too often, that's exactly what happens.

In this mini-course, I'll walk you through designing it yourself vs hiring an artist vs using various AI options, and as a graphic artist and logo designer, I'll share some of my own graphic design knowledge and techniques I use in my own designs for my albums and for clients.

Since 1981 (well, even earlier, but officially 1981 with the advent of MTV), music alone is not enough. Accompanying your music with pleasing and complimentary visuals simply takes the experience to a whole new level.

Now, that's not to say you NEED a music video (eventually you should though), but in the age of YouTube and social media, you DO NEED some form of video to accompany your music. Not only that, but as an artist, you need to know how to edit video and create VFX for much the same reason that you need to know how to mix/master your music well. 

In this course, I'm going to walk you through ALL of this.

Just reading through all the included courses within the Total Artist Development System, by now you're probably realizing just HOW MUCH there is for you to do.

That's why it's SO imperative that you do things in such a way that you "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" at every possible opportunity.

Not only will it save you time and energy, but it's actually also a fun creative exercise to see how many different tasks you can achieve through one set of actions.

In this mini-course I'll show you some of the ways you can do this, so you can spot opportunities to come up with your own methods too!

On the road, whether a band sells merch or not makes the difference in whether they'll be able to afford to get to their next show or not.

Even if you're not touring, something as simple as having T-shirts for your project is an absolute must. And with some very basic graphic design steps that anyone can do, even with free software, it's a no-brainer, since there's a range of free options for print-on-demand products.

Merch gives your fans additional layers of how to appreciate & identify with your music, and with merch that they can wear, it also makes them a walking billboard for your band.

Whether you're looking to actually make a living from music, or just doing it as a hobby or a bucket list item for yourself, you're going to incur costs.

Music is NOT a low-cost hobby, and as a career, it's even more expensive.

This comprehensive course (also a ShredMentor book by the same name) will not only teach you ways to recoup at least some of the costs of music, but will go into great detail about dozens of ways to make money, or even a living, from music.

There's no "right" way to conduct yourself in the music industry, but there are a LOT of WRONG ways.

Originally a 300+ page ShredMentor book by the same name, Music Industry Street Smarts will instill in you the perspective and know-how to navigate the minefield that is the music industry.

Every Thursday* at 8pm Eastern Time, all members are invited to meet for a 1-hour Group Coaching Call over Zoom, where we'll cover a high-impact topic and I'll answer your questions to help keep you and your project and/or progress moving forward. All calls are recorded and added to the members-only playlist.

Our 1-on-1 coaching calls are where I'll help you in the most direct, personalized way for a 1-hour session, using the personal strategy I create for you when you join the Total Artist Development System.

You'll have my undivided attention, along with action steps to take away until your next session, and I'll also add the recording of the session to your very own dedicated private playlist so you can access past lessons any time you want.

With 3 packages available, you can meet for 1, 2, or 4 private 1-on-1 coaching sessions per month. 

Launched in 2013, Guitar Practice Tools is THE most comprehensive set of practice tools and resources on the internet, and will shape you into the musician you want to be in record time.

In fact, it consists of the tools that *I* was already using before I built it, and ever since then, I have personally switched to using Guitar Practice Tools for ALL of my guitar technique, speed training, and improvisation practice. And so should you!

You'll not only get the full Guitar Practice Tools Suite, but components of it are built-in throughout the various modules of the overall Total Artist Development System, especially in Pillar #1 and #2.

Imagine having your own "Netflix," "Hulu," or "Prime" video streaming site with nothing but guitar lesson videos.

That's exactly what ShredMentor TV is.

Hundreds of videos on a wide range of musical topics, arranged by category, so you can find something in the vein of whatever mood you're in right now.

Outside of ShredMentor, there are a number of other services I offer to make a living (many of which I teach about in Pillars #3 and #4), including mixing, mastering, logo design, graphic design, video editing, 3D animation, motion graphics, guest guitar solos, and more.

As a member of the Total Artist Development System, I offer huge discounts on each of these services so that if you need to delegate to get your project out the door with maximum professionalism, I can help you accomplish that.

One of the most important facets of being a musician is working and interacting with other musicians.

Whether you join a band, jam with friends, attend an open mic or jam session, etc, interacting with other musicians opens your mind up to how other people think and how you need to be able to adapt.

In general, this is something that's lacking when it comes to online training. But not for long, as the ShredMentor Rock Jam Room is coming soon!