In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to actually USE the CAGED system (in a practical sense) to play a country blues composition that requires no accompaniment. You'll be killing 2 birds with one stone by playing a really fun song, while learning the CAGED chord positions. All played using triads. This will be a break-through lesson for a lot of you. … [Read more...]
Slow and Easy Country Blues Lead Guitar Lesson – EP333
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a slow and easy country blues lead that works on electric or acoustic guitar. This one is full of classic Western Swing, 6 chord ideas (like the ones Don Helms would play in those original Hank Williams recordings). … [Read more...]
Soulful, Gospel Style Rhythm and Lead Guitar Lesson – EP330
This week's guitar lesson is a good example of the CAGED system in action. You'll learn how to play chords in multiple positions on the neck and how to connect them to the pentatonic scales so that you can easily create fill licks. This lesson is full of "takeaways". … [Read more...]
Blues Phrasing Mini-Series (3 of 3) Playing The Chord Changes – EP313
This is Part 3 (of 3) of a blues phrasing mini-series for guitar. If you've ever struggled with not knowing what to do with all of the scales and information that you've learned for guitar, this mini-series will be perfect for you. It's designed to give you some essential tools to get you improvising right away. This lesson builds on the information that you've learned in the first 2 parts of this mini-series (EP311 and EP312) by adding "playing the chord changes", which is when you change … [Read more...]
Blues Phrasing Mini-Series (2 of 3) Mixing the Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales – EP312
This is Part 2 (of 3) of a blues phrasing mini-series for guitar. If you've ever struggled with not knowing what to do with all of the scales and information that you've learned for guitar, this mini-series will be perfect for you. It's designed to give you some essential tools to get you improvising right away. This lesson focuses on combining the major and minor pentatonic scales so that they can be played in the same area, as opposed to 2 separate areas on the neck like we learned in the … [Read more...]
Fingerstyle Ragtime Blues Guitar Lesson – Play By Yourself – EP296
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a ragtime blues composition that's played fingerstyle. You can do this one by yourself, no accompaniment is required. In addition to learning how to play the song, you'll learn the 2 main thumb patterns used in fingerstyle compositions, and how they relate to the chords. … [Read more...]
Soulful Blues Lead Guitar Lesson – Using a Major Chord and it’s Relative Minor – EP290
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a soulful blues lead over a C chord and it's relative minor (A minor). I'll explain how you can play the exact same pentatonic notes and they'll work over both of those chords, making it very easy to solo. You'll also learn how to easily integrate chord shapes into the lead to create a more melodic sounding solo. … [Read more...]
Learn to play the chord changes in this Western Swing guitar lesson – EP287
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a Western Swing style lead by playing the chord changes (changing scales to match the chords). This is designed to teach you how to play more melodic and interesting sounding leads when improvising. … [Read more...]
Rock, Blues Guitar Lead – Mixing the Major & Minor Pentatonic Scales – EP276
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a rock, blues lead in the key of C by mixing both major and minor pentatonic scales. I'll explain the theory behind each of the licks so that you can use them going forward when you improvise (in any key). … [Read more...]
CAGED System for Minor Chords – How to play minor chords all over the guitar – EP275
This week's guitar lesson is a follow-up to the previous CAGED lesson that I did a few weeks ago (EP273), here's a link to that guitar lesson. That lesson was so popular that I thought it was necessary to create a 2nd part and show how to play the minor chords in various positions using the same methodology. We will be using the A minor, E minor and D minor shapes that you learn in first position to play all over the neck. Like the previous CAGED lesson, this one comes with a composition that … [Read more...]
