In this week's guitar lesson, I'll explain how to easily find the minor and major pentatonic scales, and how to connect those scales to basic chord shapes. You'll then learn a stand-alone blues composition that uses both of these scales so you can understand how they relate to the blues. … [Read more...]
Combine the Pentatonic Scales with the CAGED System to play blues – Guitar Lesson EP356
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to combine the major and minor pentatonic scales with chord shapes from the CAGED System. You'll learn how to easily jump from the major to the minor pentatonic scale in three main neck positions AND how to play the 1, 4, 5 chords in those various positions. This lesson comes with 3 diagram PDFs, tablature, and the MP3 jam track so that you can practice everything that you learn. … [Read more...]
B.B. King Inspired Lead Guitar Lesson with a Key Change – EP339
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a slow and easy, B.B. King style lead by using the major pentatonic scale. I'll show you my trick for finding the major pentatonic scale triangle so that you can easily translate these licks to any key. The jam track for this lesson has a key change as well. … [Read more...]
Slow, Rock Blues Guitar Lead That You Can Play By Yourself – Blues Guitar Lesson – EP334
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a slow blues rhythm and lead that alternates between a major chord, and it's relative minor (E and C#m). You can use the same pentatonic scale to play over both of these chords, making it fun and relatively easy to improvise in this style. … [Read more...]
Country Blues Lead and Rhythm Guitar Composition You Can Play By Yourself – EP317
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn a country rhythm and lead (with several classic blues licks thrown in) that you can play by yourself on acoustic or electric guitar. This lesson demonstrates how to play lead over chord changes using the major pentatonic scale. … [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...]
Just 2 Chords – Play The Chord Changes Using Just 2 Chords (Rhythm and Lead) – EP309
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play the chord changes using just 2 chords. This is a great technique to use when improvising because it creates a much more melodic sounding lead. This lesson includes the rhythm breakdown as an added bonus. … [Read more...]
Ragtime Blues Lead on Acoustic Guitar – Acoustic Blues Guitar Lesson – EP295
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play lead on acoustic guitar over a ragtime piano rhythm backing track. Even though the backing track has lots of chords, I'll show you an easy way to improvise a lead over it. … [Read more...]
Country Lead Guitar Lesson – Learn how to play the chord changes – EP278
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a fun, country lead by playing the chord changes. That means you switch scales every time the chord changes. This is a different way of thinking about playing lead in which you connect licks to chord shapes as opposed to focusing on scales. The MP3 jam track for this lesson is available in 2 tempos (normal speed and slow). … [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...]
