Does a lesson like this exist?

[Keith P]

Hello all. I am new to Active Melody and love the lessons. I am 50 and have been playing since I was 16, but I am an average player at best! I wish I had Brian’s lessons many years ago.

I really like how Brian explains the theory and relationship between scales and chords when he teaches and I have been trying to create some music of my own. I was watching another one of his videos (385 – Improvising around a melody) and it hit me on how beneficial it would be to actually watch Brian create a small piece.

We see the results of his creations every week, but is there a lesson where he demonstrates the actual creation of a piece as he creates it? I am not talking about the tabs or the PDFs that go with his lessons. I am just talking about him sitting down with a guitar, picking a key and some chords, creating some fills or lead pieces and then putting it all together.

Thank you all for any help and thank you Brian for the great lessons!

[Canada Moose]

Hi Keith, welcome to AM Forum.
I believe what you’re looking for does exist, but not in one lesson. It’s kind of sprinkled throughout all his lessons. I’d look back to some of the earlier lessons like LEG (Legacy) 020 and LEG 023 and EP (don’t know what that stands for) 022. There are other lessons too where Brian shows how to make cool music out of 2 or 3 or 4 notes. Then there are lessons on composition, how to play over chords, etc.
This is a gold mine of everything you’re looking for in your post, but you have to do the digging. In any given lesson you never know when you’re going to strike gold.
Explore and enjoy.

[JoLa]

Hi Keith,

Canada Moose is totally right, the thought process behind the lessons is somewhat included in most of them, especially in those from the recent years. Brian makes a point of explaining where everything comes from and why it works – as well as – showing everything note for note how to play it. As you go through the lessons you will discover more and more “golden nuggets” and it will start sinking in. Some examples: EP337, EP340, EP372, EP367 … etc

Welcome to the site and have fun exploring it 🙂

Btw, EP stands for “episode”, that’s just how Brian decided to number the lessons years ago 🙂

🎸JoLa

[JohnStrat]

Hi Keith,

I think that there is a lesson along the lines of what you are talking about. I feel there is something in the 200 area that covers most of what you are thinking about in one attempt ..But at the moment I cant put a number to it. What is said above is also undoubtedly right as many of the lesson have more or less of these ingredients.

EP184 covers this:-
“In this blues guitar lesson, you’ll learn how play along with a slow, minor key jam track that is missing any guitar tracks. The jam track consists of a piano, bass, and drums and it’ll be up to you to fill in both rhythm and lead parts. I’ll show you how to alternate back and […]”

Its a great lesson why not have a look and see it this helps. Maybe that EP197 is the Lesson that is in the back of my mind because Brian has a bonus video on “how to write songs like this”. Its Acoustic based.

If you are going to search beyond these then I would read through the descriptions to hopefully find what you are after. I have a feeling 150 -250 is the range best to look in first.

I hope those are a help.
JohnStrat

[John H]

Yes… check out this video on youtube. Also, refer to EP 372 where Brian talks about how to create a song and EP 376 specifically references how to ’embellish’ simple chords.

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