Part of my job as a guitar teacher is curating songs that my students might like to play. While some students know exactly what they want to learn and enthusiastically pursue every item on their ever-growing “to-learn” list, others just …
5 Beginner Electric Blues Licks
When I have a student interested in learning blues solos on electric guitar, these are the five lick-building blocks I give them. Each exercise is only two or three notes, but they can be linked in endless combinations to create …
3 Easy (But Powerful) Alternate Picking Exercises
Alternate picking between strings is tricky. On a single string, even a beginner can economize picking motion and nail tunes like “Miserlou” and “Thunderstruck” after just a few weeks of intensive practice. Pumping the pick at that speed through different …
8 Ways to Practice Guitar Scales
Know some guitar scales? With each new scale position you learn, here are eight simple ways to practice it into perfection.
Intro to Chord-Tone Soloing
Ever wonder why certain notes in a guitar solo sound so good? Learn how to nail those satisfying notes every time in this video lesson, made for one of my Seattle students, Chris.
Bluesy Chromatic Notes
Here’s a tutorial on augmenting your standard minor pentatonic approach to include a few extra spicy notes. Made for one of my Skype students, Todd.
The “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” Riff
I made a video for a student out sick last week. I explain how to play the tricky riff on Taylor Swift’s new song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Here are the four chords used, notated with fret …
A Beautiful Muse Chord Progression
I heard the track “Explorers” from the new Muse album last week. They used a really pretty chord progression on the outro that caught my ear. Here’s a quick lesson on it! Here are all the chords I used in …
How to Embellish Guitar Chords
Have you ever heard a guitarist take a song with otherwise plain vanilla open chords and squeeze new life out of them with subtle embellishments? In this article (and video series), I’ll show you how to spice up the same …
4 Fingerings for the Open A Chord
If you’re busy learning your open chords, it’s likely that you’ve harbored ill feelings toward the A chord at some point. The conventional fingering is tricky because you need to cram three fingers into the space of one fret on …
- Page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2