Active Melody

Learn to play blues guitar.

Chord embellishments – Make your 1st position chords sound better – EP407

Description

In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to add fill licks and embellishments to basic 1st position (cowboy chords) to make them sound much better.

Part 1 - Free Guitar Lesson

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Slow Walkthrough

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Video Tablature Breakdown

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Comments

  4. jgreen says

    Hi Brian – in the spirit of Easter Eggs…

    Any chance you could share the tab for the acoustic Clapton piece from earlier this week. Loved it and would really help with learning it.

    Thanks for considering,
    .
    Happy Easter
    Jim

  6. Tremelow says

    Great lesson, Brian. Cowboy chords, ie chords in the first position are probably what every beginner learns first. To me the most natural path to advance from that point is learning such embellishments and transitions between chords. I wouldn’t mind seeing more such lessons.

  8. Dana C says

    Nice! And a good contrast with EP401, in that THIS lesson does not include a click-track. For some reason Brian can’t hear it in 401, even though I sent hime the track, as he asked. He just ignored me. So in THAT case I have to learn to play rhythm and create my own backing track without the annoying click-track. Anyway, this should be a great piece to learn.

  18. George O says

    “Cowboy chords” is a little misleading and, let’s be honest, a bit demeaning.

    And it is incorrect to associate open chords with guitar beginners. It’s not particularly challenging to play barre chords or half-diminished chords–what is challenging is to make music on an instrument that allows such a wide range of expression (as Brian’s weekly compositions amply demonstrate).

    These open chords, with added (and different) embellishments, are also blues chords, folk chords, “Americana” chords, and true country chords: great singer-songwriters from Chris Stapleton to Guy Clark to Willie Nelson to Gillian Welch have built careers combining these simple chords with poignant lyrics. Take a listen to John Prine’s final record, “Tree of Forgiveness”–there’s not a song that isn’t both brilliant and simple.

    I play jazz standards and enjoy learning obscure voicings as much as the next person, but at the end of the day it’s sitting on the front porch in sunny New Mexico picking out a three-chord song by Johnny Cash or one of the other masters of “less is more” guitar playing that is the most rewarding.

    • Brian says

      I didn’t come up with the term “Cowboy chord” – that’s what a lot of people refer to them as. You have to remember that I have to call this stuff by the way people are going to search for it, otherwise they never find it. Just look in analytics for the number of searches for “cowboy chords” over “open chords”. I’d be reaching 1/20th of the searchers if I’d used “open chords”.

      Also, how is it demeaning? Who is it demeaning to? The cowboy? or the chord?

      • Ralph P. says

        Cowboys should be proud to have chords named after them. I’ve heard them called “Cowboy Chords” for 50 years, and I never attached any negative connotations to the name. The term always made me think of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Can’t get any more American than Roy and Gene.
        I wonder if Hendrix is offended by the term “The Hendrix Chord”?
        Ralph

  24. San Luis Rey says

    Hey Brian, I had to comment again after going through the whole lesson. I love the way you make it sound a bit bluegrass with some country twang around the E min and then do a great little blues run. I was always amazed at the players that did these embellishments and now ,after 58 years , I can play them too! Thanks you!
    Mike

  25. George M says

    Great lesson Brian! I just wanted to say that it would be great if you could do a lesson on chord composition – I am finding my playing is at a good standard but having a lack of music theory knowledge means I don’t know how to structure songs in an interesting way like you do. I find the way you teach clicks in my head so it would be very useful to have you go through it! Thanks for the great lessons!

  27. Steven B says

    As always every lesson is a gem. It’s helpful to me to spend time down this end of the neck. I have trouble with the nut forming part of the scale instead of my index finger, somehow throws my small brain off (doesn’t take much). So thanks for every thing you do somehow you deliver exactly we need to advance.

  28. Malcolm D says

    Thank you Brain for a great lesson yet again happy days. I’m sure the Cowboy’s would love it to and would agree with us all that it not demeaning 🙂 I would be proud to have chords named after myself 🙂

  35. Tom D says

    Hi Brian,

    For me this was not as easy as I first thought, but once I cot the timing right it all fell into place. I have also learnt another Lonnie Johnson exercise EP140. I found it was a good easy tune and a joy to play.

  38. Baldev S says

    Always wanted to learn how to do fills between chords but thought it was something only advanced players could do, you made it possible for me to play them too. The rythm structure is what sets it apart .

    Thank you so much Brian

  41. Phil K says

    Thanks again Brian for a wonderful lesson and your patient way of teaching. Some of us older ones might be a bit slower to grab hold but we don’t give up. I am speaking for myself of course. I’ll be the big 70 next month, took up guitar at 63, but getting better all the time. I also enjoy your earlier finger picking lessons. Keep up the great work!

  43. jhwoods says

    Lessons like this are one of the MANY reasons Active Melody is the premier guitar site online. While it’s relatively easy to learn, a lesson like this is a springboard for more improvisation, because Brian never fails to explain the theory behind the music. Simple utility licks always make sense when explained as triads or part of the CAGED method, etc. Virtually every week Brian provides a “lightbulb” moment where we get to feel like we are starting to master our understanding of this amazing instrument. I’m 74 years old and I look forward to going to “school” every week on Active Melody. Bravo, Brian! – James Woods

  44. Colin C says

    Thanks Brian – I’ve only just discovered how very useful the tablature slow down and repeat is. Well, that’s me, slow… am I unusual in that it takes me ages, far longer that a week or even a couple, to get through part of a lesson? I have to leave time for other music and even performing, let alone tennis, biking, cooking, Netflix, family, garden, volunteering, domestic stuff,… thank heavens I don’t work! What a shame my brain and hands slow down as I age, but what a bonus to have all this music!

  45. Mike S says

    Brian, have you ever considered releasing an album? I always find myself wishing your songs never ended. I would listen to an album of your compositions on repeat!

    -Mike

  46. Cliff Carbaugh says

    Hi Brian, In order to save me weeks and weeks of frustration,
    could you just vocalize the first couple of bars of the rhythym
    – much like a vocal metronome? eg “Öne and Two ee and uh Three
    and Four ee and uh, … ” Jerry’s Guitar Bar does this and I find it VERY
    helpful when I am starting and trying to figure-out the rhythym count.

    Thank you,

    Cliff Carbaugh

  47. Jarold B says

    Hi Brian. Recent addition to the premium membership. I have only been playing for 6 months or so and I was hitting a wall. In the beginning I focused on learning a lot of chords but I wasn’t feeling “musical”. I knew from watching other lessons, you would help me get better, but I usually felt they were still beyond my skill level. After watching this one, I’ve finally started adding steps between my chords. So happy I chose your program to learn from.

  48. Tim B says

    I know this is an old lesson, but I’m an old feller, and felt it deserved my review.

    My story is that I’ve been playing on and off for almost 40 years, both acoustic and electric. As a young man, I wanted to become a finger-style virtuoso and admired Leo Kottke, Michael Hedges, John Fahey, and Bert Jansch. There was no Internet back then, but each of these artists (except perhaps Hedges?) and more published amazing books with many of their songs tabbed out, explained, and charted down to the finest detail. In my prime, I could nail 2-3 songs from any of these artists, and to the untrained ear, I sounded like a “master guitarist” capable of amazing feats. I also studied classical guitar for 3 years, and again, and I learned many great “songs” from master artists.

    Learning my cowboy chords was the very first step, but it was a means to an end.

    The problem with my approach is that the second I stopped practicing for hours a day, I would forget parts of these songs, and stumble all over the place unless I had those tabs in front of me. Despite all of my dedicated practice, I never learned to play the guitar at all; I learned how to mimic other very good guitarists.

    Over the years I learned a lot of theory, played a lot of electric guitar trying to master call/response stuff, and most importantly, I bought a digital piano that taught me that despite 10-years of childhood piano lessons (again, learning more “songs” from the masters) that I could create and improvise freely over any chord progression in an immensely satisfying way that I had long since given up on when it came to acoustic guitar.

    All of this is to say that this specific lesson unblocked something in me that has been in place for decades.

    I believe I finally I understand the path to playing acoustic guitar in the same satisfying way that I’m able to improvise over chords on a piano. My advice to newer players looking at this lesson would be to master it verbatim in terms of timing, tone, and chord changes. If you master even the first 14 measures, you will sound better than 99% of players at Guitar Center and be set up for great things ahead even if this isn’t the exact style of music you are after.

    From there do your best to realize this isn’t a “song” to master so that you can move on to another song, but rather some basic techniques and principles that will take you a very long way. Soon you will be writing your own progressions, and improvising your own fills for hours as you grow old on the old front porch.

    Anyhow thanks for the lesson; it inspired me to buy a new Taylor and a yearly membership to see what else I can learn.

    .

  49. Rick S says

    Nice comment Tim. I was a “strummer” for 30 years. This should be the first lesson that strummers should see to help get a feel for tab-reading and fingering. Love the lesson. Thanks Brian.

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