Soulful Blues Phrasing Ideas – Lead Blues Guitar Lesson – EP379
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn a soulful blues lead, full of dynamics and phrasing ideas, all played over a jam track in A minor. We’ll be looking at both the pentatonic scales and targeting chord tones.
Gospel blues rhythm using the CAGED System – Rhythm Guitar Lesson EP378
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a Gospel style blues rhythm with fill licks. This is a great working example of how the CAGED System works and is designed to help you visualize chords in different positions on the guitar neck. This is also a stand-alone composition that sounds great by […]
Visualize Chord Shapes To Create Melodic Leads – Guitar Lesson EP377
In this week’s guitar lesson, you will learn how to play a slow and easy, melodic lead by visualizing chord shapes in different neck positions. This is a different way of thinking about playing lead, that relies less on scales, instead focusing on the chords themselves.
Blues lead over a Texas shuffle rhythm – Blues guitar lesson EP376
In this week’s guitar lesson, we’re going back to the pentatonic scales! You’ll learn how to combine both major and minor pentatonic scales to create a blues lead that you can play over the included Texas shuffle rhythm jam track. This one is super fun to play!
How to Use Modes (Part 2 of 2) – Modes (The Ultimate Explanation) – Guitar Lesson EP375
This is Part 2 (of 2) of a lesson series on Modes. In this lesson, you’ll learn what the modes are, what they sound like, how to find them, and how to use them when you play lead guitar. This lesson includes to examples (one major and one minor) along with tablature and MP3 jam […]
How to Use Modes (Part 1 of 2) – The Major Scale in 5 CAGED Positions – Guitar Lesson EP374
This is Part 1 of a 2 Part lesson series on modes. You’ll not only learn what modes are, but you’ll learn how to find them and use them when you play lead to create different moods. In this first part, we’ll start with the major scale and how to find it in 5 positions […]
Laid-back, J.J. Cale style lead on electric guitar – Blues guitar lesson EP373
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a slow, laid-back lead in the style of the great J.J. Cale. I’ll show you how everything starts with the minor pentatonic scale and how you can add 2 notes, converting it to D dorian mode. This one is easy to play from a technical […]
How to create a singer-songwriter fingerstyle composition on guitar – Guitar Lesson EP372
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 […]
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 […]
Secondary Dominant Chords – What They Are And How To Use Them – Guitar Lesson EP370
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn what secondary dominant chords are and how they can be used when writing chord arrangements or when improvising lead. I’ll also show you how to easily identify them by connecting them to basic chord shapes that you already know.
Acoustic Blues Lead – Playing the Chord Changes – EP369
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a more melodic sounding blues lead by targeting notes within the chords… “playing the changes”. This jam track is just 2 guitars (rhythm and lead) and I’ll show you how to play both parts so you can play this with another guitarist.
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.
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.
Minor Key Fingerstyle Blues Guitar Lesson – EP366
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play a fingerstyle blues in a minor key. In addition to showing you how to play it note for note, I’ll also explain how it was put together so that you can use these concepts when you write and improvise.
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.
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.
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 […]
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 […]
Gospel Style Blues Guitar Lesson – How to Use Simple Phrasing – EP361
In this week’s guitar lesson, you’ll learn how to play (and improvise) a slow blues lead over a Gospel style jam track. Pay close attention to the simple phrasing used in this lesson, and the pauses (there are more of them than you realize)
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.
