In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn a very slow and simple minor key blues composition that you can play by yourself (no jam track needed). It's slow and easy (chord wise) so that you can work on dynamics and nuances that give color to your notes. I'll give you several examples of ones that I use in a blues to make the phrases sound better. … [Read more...]
How triads can change the way you play guitar – EP399
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how useful triads can be when playing rhythm, lead, or harmonized leads (harmonized 3rds and 6ths). You might consider reviewing the Part 1 video from EP362 (here's a link) before viewing this lesson. … [Read more...]
Using the Major Scale to Improvise – Improvise Using Happy Birthday Melody – Guitar Lesson EP390
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play the major scale in all 5 positions up the neck by connecting it to the 5 chord shapes used in the CAGED System. You'll also learn how to take a basic melody (Happy Birthday) and learn how to first play the melody straight, and then learn how to improvise by adding fill licks to that melody. … [Read more...]
Improvising Rhythm In a Minor Key – Useful Tips Guitar Lesson – EP384
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to improvise rhythm while in a minor key by playing through the minor chord progression triads and using notes from the minor pentatonic scale as fill licks. … [Read more...]
Jazz up your blues rhythm and lead by using 2-5-1 turnarounds – Guitar Lesson EP371
In this week's guitar lesson, we'll continue our look at Secondary Dominant Chords (from last week, EP370), and add the minor 2 chord, so that we can now play a 2-5-1 chord combination for any of the chords in the chord family of the key we're in. You'll learn how all of this applies to a 12 bar blues in this lesson. … [Read more...]
How To Harmonize Using 3rd and 6th Intervals – Harmonized Lead Guitar Lesson – EP363
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play both the major scale and a bluesy version of the major scale (mixolydian mode) by using harmonized 3rd and harmonized 6th intervals. You'll be able to not only understand where these harmonies come from, but how to connect them back to familiar chord shapes that you already know so that you can start using them when you improvise. … [Read more...]
How to write a simple stand-alone composition on guitar – Guitar Lesson EP360
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a simple melody and chord composition while also learning how to create your own stand-alone compositions like this on guitar. I happened to record the genesis of this composition, explaining my thought process as I began to create it and share that in the video. … [Read more...]
Using Dynamics to Create a Rock, Blues Lead – Guitar Lesson EP335
In this week's guitar lesson, you'll use the 5 notes of the minor pentatonic scale to create a dynamic lead, starting low and building to a crescendo. This approach is about saving the high notes and keeping them in reserve for a dramatic build. … [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...]
Blues Phrasing Mini-Series (1 of 3) Easy 4 note box – EP311
This is Part 1 (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 a very simple 4 note box that can be played in both minor and major pentatonic scale to give you a lot of variety from just a few easy to play notes. … [Read more...]
