Guitar Tips: 101-150

niwel-tsumbu

Push Your Limits. Sharpen Your Technique

Raise Your Game

50 New Drills to Keep You Evolving

Every guitarist knows the trap: you practice the same patterns, repeat the same phrases, and hit the same limits. Guitar Tips 101–150 is your next push past those limits. This course continues where the first volume left off, delivering fifty new, tightly focused exercises crafted to challenge your technique, deepen your understanding of counterpoint, and expand your rhythmic and harmonic vocabulary.

Niwel Tsumbu shares the same concise, high-impact drills he uses to keep his playing sharp on international stages and Grammy-winning projects. Each tip slots seamlessly into your practice routine, no wasted time, no chat, only direct gains in control, speed, and expression.

Across five progressive modules, you’ll tackle advanced finger independence, hybrid picking, African ornamentation, intervallic movement, and polyrhythmic phrasing. The result is a toolkit you can apply to any style, whether you’re refining solo runs, tightening groove lines, or composing more intricate melodic ideas.

Commit to this next round of practice and you’ll emerge with a cleaner technique, a sharper ear, and a more confident voice on the instrument. Get ready to break through the next plateau and beyond.


Key Learning Outcomes

Strengthen Technical Mastery

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Improve finger independence with contrary motion and mirror exercises.
  • Develop fluid hybrid picking techniques for smooth transitions.
  • Enhance right-hand precision through focused workouts and speed drills.

Expand Harmonic & Melodic Understanding

  • Apply intervallic exercises using 3rds, 5ths, 6ths, 9ths, and 10ths to broaden your harmonic palette.
  • Integrate African ornamentation and phrasing for a more expressive sound.
  • Use counterpoint exercises to enrich single-line and layered playing.

Refine Rhythmic Control & Phrasing

  • Execute polyrhythmic and syncopated patterns with greater accuracy.
  • Maintain groove and timing while navigating complex subdivisions.
  • Adapt rhythmic motifs across genres for more compelling improvisation and composition.

Meet Your Tutor: Niwel Tsumbu

Niwel Tsumbu’s journey began in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he crafted his first guitars using fishing line and bicycle cables. From those early days, he developed into one of the most sought-after and versatile guitarists of his generation, blending his deep roots in Congolese music with jazz, classical, and global influences.

His career has taken him across the world, performing with artists such as Buena Vista Social Club, Baaba Maal, and Natty Wailer, and collaborating with Sinéad O’Connor, Nigel Kennedy, and Michael O’Suilleabháin. More recently, Niwel played on Rhiannon Giddens’ Grammy-winning album and has toured extensively with her and Taj Mahal across the US and Canada. His latest album, Milimo, showcases his ability to bridge African tradition with contemporary expression, further cementing his reputation as a truly innovative musician.

Despite his genre-spanning career, Niwel remains deeply connected to his roots in Sebene, Soukous, and Rumba. In this course, he brings decades of experience back to where it all started—teaching the fundamental rhythms, phrasing, and techniques that define Congolese guitar.

Course Content

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Course Includes

  • 5 Modules
  • 55 Lessons
  • Lifetime Access
  • Student Support Group

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