In this ragtime blues guitar lesson, you'll benefit in two ways. 1) You'll learn a fun composition that requires no accompaniment, a composition that you can play on your own at whatever tempo you want which works on acoustic or electric guitar. 2) I'll explain how to play the chord changes and where all of the notes come from so that you can start to improvise in this style and even write your own compositions like this. Lots of takeaways! … [Read more...]
Eric Clapton’s Guitar – Gibson Byrdland Custom
I recently added a lesson video showing you how to play a blues rhythm and lead along with a tempo change, here's a link to that lesson if you missed it. After posting that lesson video, I received lots of comments and emails from you asking about the guitar that was used. The reason I didn't mention it is because it's such a special guitar that I figure it needs to have it's own video created to explain the origin. Here's that video: … [Read more...]
Solo 12 Bar Blues Guitar Lesson – EP159
In this guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a 12 bar blues shuffle with some interesting fill licks to spice things up. This composition is played solo guitar (meaning no accompaniment is required) and you can play this on electric or acoustic guitar. I'll provide all of the theory behind the notes so that you can improvise and make this your own. I'll also show you how to easily transpose this to any key. … [Read more...]
Dominant 7th Arpeggio – How To Use In Blues – EP150
This lesson was designed both to explain what the arpeggio is and how you can use it when playing lead. The arpeggio can be an extremely powerful tool and can give your leads a more sophisticated sound by mirroring what the chords changes. In this lesson, you'll see that arpeggios can be created out of any chord voicing, so if you already know how to play a chord, you can easily convert that chord into an arpeggio, which you can use when playing lead. I'll demonstrate with 2 chord shape … [Read more...]
Solo Jazz Guitar Lesson – Create a Melody With Chords – EP139
In this guitar lesson, you'll learn how to play a jazz chord composition that creates a melody. This is played with no accompaniment and sounds great on it's own. You'll learn about the II V I jazz progression and how to create melodies out of chords. If you'd like to learn more about the chord numbering system (as mentioned in this video), be sure to check out last week's guitar lesson where I cover it starting at 3:00 in the Part 1 video. … [Read more...]
Solo Blues Guitar Lesson in A – Standard 12 Bar Blues – EP127
In this lesson we’re going back to basics regarding the blues. I realized it’s been a while since I’ve created a standard 12 bar blues (I, IV, V progression). I wanted to create a solo guitar composition so that you can play this one completely on your own, no jam track required. These no accompaniment pieces are great for both practice and playing for others. When practicing, try to take the licks that I’ve given you and expand upon this piece by adding some licks of your own. You’ll … [Read more...]
Simple (Very Basic) Blues Rhythm Guitar Lesson
Hey folks, normally I would put out a very thorough 45 min - 1 hour lesson (as I do every Friday), but due to the launch of the new ActiveMelody website, I was just too swamped to get the lesson complete in time. However, I didn't want to leave you with nothing at all! So I put together a really simple little video that shows you how to play a fun little blues rhythm that can easily be transposed to any key. There are no open strings in this one! I get emails from people all of the time … [Read more...]
Driving Electric Blues Rhythm in E: EP021
This guitar lesson was created to demonstrate a driving electric rhythm in the key of E. Even though I demonstrate this on electric guitar, this could easily be played on an acoustic as well. This rhythm has elements of something you might hear John Lee Hooker and Lightin' Hopkins play. I realized after watching the final version of this video that the intro was played much faster than the version I play when I break it down, but I figured that it was good to leave it as is, so that you can … [Read more...]
EP004: Jazz Guitar Lesson – Lead Part 1
I've had lots of requests lately for more jazz guitar lessons and so the result is this 3 part jazz mini-series in-which I'll show you how to play the lead parts as well as the rhythm guitar part. I'll be honest and say that I've always been intimidated by true jazz musicians and must state (for the record) that I'm not a true jazz musician by any means, however I've learned little pieces over the years that I'd love to share with you and can hopefully help you develop a feel for how to play … [Read more...]
Acoustic Blues Guitar Lesson – LEG005
After getting lots of positive feedback from the delta blues guitar lesson that I recently did, I decided to do another acoustic blues lesson - this time played with a pick as opposed to fingerstyle. This is really geared towards intermediate to advanced players mainly because of the speed of it. I like to keep most of my lessons simple and easy to follow, and hopefully this one is at least easy to follow. If you ARE a beginner though and would like to do this, you can - just play it at a … [Read more...]
