MARTY FRIEDMAN's 'The Art Of Soloing' Masterclass Series Coming From TRUEFIRE

TrueFire, which includes 50,000 video lessons taught by industry-leading teachers, Grammy Award-winning artists and world-class touring musicians, is offering a groundbreaking three-volume masterclass series, "The Art Of Soloing", from former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman.

"The Art Of Soloing" immerses guitarists in a revolutionary learning experience focused intensely on cultivating their unique originality and own artistic identity. It is a lexicon of information not available anywhere else.

Marty's pedigree among the highest tier of guitar soloists in the world is indisputable, but it is the singularity and immediate identifiability of his musical voice that truly distinguishes his artistry, making him ideal to mentor your own creative development with "The Art Of Soloing".

Friedman says: "This is by far the deepest analysis of the things that are unique only to my playing. This is a lexicon of my thought processes, and you will discover many, many concepts you have never been exposed to before."

"The Art Of Soloing" series will be exclusively available on December 5 for those who choose to pre-order at TrueFire.com. The content will be released to the public and available to All Access Students who do not pre-order on January 4. Pre-order now and get access to this content a full month before anyone else.

"What I'm teaching in this video series is how to learn how to be an artist, and make creative decisions on the fly, intentionally and subliminally, and that's the only way to have an identity as an artist," Marty told Music Radar. "Anyone can learn any techniques, practice them and perfect them, and perform anything that has already been done in music. But just say you have all the ability you ever wanted, then what? What are you gonna do? You really have to decide. when are you going to be yourself? Who are you as an artist? What is your absolute musical taste? What do you want people to hear when they hear your name?"

One of the most influential and respected players in the world, Friedman's impactful and game-changing contributions to heavy metal and guitar, in general, continue to inspire generations of musicians and music fans to this day.

Friedman defined modern guitar playing with Jason Becker in CACOPHONY, was a key element in the wildly successful rise of thrash pioneers MEGADETH, and with his "Marty-esque" improvisations and exotic fusion of Eastern and Western music, has achieved global success with his 13 solo albums.

Since also embracing Japanese music and eventually relocating to Japan, Friedman has cemented his image as a unique and unpredictable solo artist while further solidifying his celebrity rock star status. He has earned several top 10 spots on the Japanese charts and has performed in Japan's largest venues — from the Tokyo Dome to Budokan. He has also guested on over 700 television programs, acted in four motion pictures, and appeared in several commercials and TV ad campaigns. On November 4, 2016, the Japanese government named Friedman an "Ambassador Of Japanese Heritage".

In a recent interview with Sweetwater's Nick Bowcott, Friedman spoke about the importance of establishing your own creative voice when playing guitar. He said in part: "That's the way to have an identity, really. It's one thing to practice, and practice, obviously, is extremely important. But at the same time, thinking of your own, 'Why am I doing this? What am I making music for? What do I have to say? What do I wanna say? What is my expression gonna be?' And it doesn't have to be all figured out at once. You learn it as you go. It changes as you go. But I think a lot of young people would benefit to know that you don't have to be as technically accurate as the latest TikTok guy who's just unbelievable. What you have to be is exactly yourself, what you want to represent yourself as. And I think a lot of people see the guy who practiced with the metronome for months and years and plays these flawless 16th notes at 200 beats per minute, and they say, 'That's what I wanna do.' And if that's your goal, that's absolutely fine, but you're not gonna get really good advice from me from that because it's very simple to do that — very, very simple to do that: take anything and practice it. What you and I are talking about today is how to somewhat develop your own voice over the same chords everybody has. Everybody has A, everybody has F, everybody has E and all these chords. And how do you do that? You just try a lot of different things, and you have to decide for yourself, 'I like this.'"

He added: "There's only one of you. Every single person is an individual. Every single person has something inside of them that's different from the next person. You think a lot of these guitar players, they sound the same. Well, it's because they're learning the same way. They're just learning these theories, and they're learning from lazy guitar teachers, and they're learning these techniques and tricks and sweep picking and tapping and all this. It's the same shit everybody's learning. So, at some point, you have to decide in very small detail which of these things that you really wanna represent yourself with. And I think I probably said that a thousand times."

Friedman played his first U.S. show in four years on March 3 at The Plaza Live in Orlando, Florida as support act for QUEENSRŸCHE. Marty performed on more than two dozen dates with QUEENSRŸCHE, running through April 16, where the tour wrapped up in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Marty's "Tokyo Jukebox 3" album received a North American release in April 2021 via The Players Club/Mascot Label Group. The record, which was made available in Japan in October 2020, was the third in a series that began with "Tokyo Jukebox" in 2009, and then "Tokyo Jukebox 2" following in 2011. The trilogy presents Friedman's inspired performances to Japanese repertoire he's chosen to cover.