In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to create a James Taylor inspired guitar composition. In addition to explaining how the chords are put together, I'll also show you how to use this percussive fingerstyle technique which adds both bass and rhythm to your chords. You can use this technique both while singing and playing guitar, or while simply playing solo guitar. … [Read more...]
Using Minor and Major Pentatonic Scales in the Blues – Blues Guitar Lesson EP368
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...]
Chord Embellishments – How to make basic chords sound better – EP367
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to take a simple chord progression with 3 chords, and make it sound more interesting by learning several must-know embellishments around those chord shapes. You can use these embellishments when jamming with others, or for when playing by yourself. … [Read more...]
Jimi Hendrix Blues Style Guitar Lesson – EP365
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a Jimi Hendrix style rhythm and lead over a stripped down jam track (just bass and drums). Incorporate some of these classic Hendrix licks into your playing when you improvise. … [Read more...]
Rhythm Fill Ideas for Guitar – Rhythm Guitar Lesson – EP364
In this week's guitar lesson, I'll give you some ideas for rhythm fills that you can incorporate into your rhythm playing. You'll be playing the chord changes over a slow and soulful jam track by adding bluesy fill licks. … [Read more...]
The Essential Triad Guitar Lesson – Using The Top 3 Strings Only – EP362
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how easy it is to play rhythm (and lead) by only concentrating on triads (simple 3 note chords). Everything in this lesson is played on the top 3 strings, making it easy to concentrate on learning (less variables). You'll learn the major, minor, dominant 7, 6 and 9 chord voicings in 3 positions on the neck. … [Read more...]
Funky Blues Rhythm and Lead Guitar Lesson – EP359
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a funky rhythm and lead over a minor key jam track. This is the same jam track that we used for the April 2020 Site Member Challenge - Check out the consolidated posts from site members and see how they approached it here: (Page 1, Page 2, and Page 3). Keep in mind, everyone that submitted recorded their own versions before I did, so you can see the many different ways that this jam track might be approached! Also, (as always) thanks to Don … [Read more...]
Acoustic Duet – Percussive Fingerstyle Rhythm and Slow Melodic Lead – Guitar Lesson – EP353
In this week's guitar lesson, you're getting two lessons in one. You'll learn both the rhythm (played fingerstyle) and the lead for this melodic acoustic duet. The jam tracks allow you and I to play this duet together and allow you to accompany me with either the rhythm or lead part. … [Read more...]
Rock Rhythm Guitar Lesson – Blues Fill Licks – Improve your Timing – EP347
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a rock blues rhythm along with all of the details for the strum pattern. This is really designed to help those of you that struggle with timing - knowing when to come in, and how to stay on the beat. … [Read more...]
How to USE the CAGED System to play a Country Blues Melody – EP346
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...]