Moving chord shapes and basic open chords have been easy for my students to understand over the years, but some seem to get stuck around there. After the 1, 3, 4, and 5th degrees of a scale, they sometimes want to throw in the towel. 9th chords are a great way to step just a … Read more
A lot of guitar students spend time learning how to play individual chords and learn the chords of songs, but they often fail to understand why the songwriters chose the chords they did. As a music teacher and guitar player for many years, I’ve seen this lack of knowledge prove limiting to many of my … Read more
After over 15 years of teaching hundreds of students how to play guitar and also playing guitar as a hobby, I’ve learned a lot about what makes a guitar pedal great. Multi-effect pedals are my go-to tool for playing around with sound, and Boss has always made great ones. You don’t want to spend hundreds … Read more
When students approach me for lessons, they’ve often tried guitar at some point. Usually, they try to learn it on their own which results in frustration. They ask me for lessons on guitar, but at some point early on, they ask me some variation of this question: Guitar is too hard. Should I try to … Read more
As a guitar teacher, I always get asked questions about songwriting and the general idea of “putting it all together” by guitar players. Many guitars players’ ultimate goal is to be able to freely play and move around the guitar in whatever key they want. Part of achieving this goal is understanding all the different … Read more
Jazz can be a really daunting area for guitar players to move into. It seems on the surface like a vastly complex network of crazy chord changes and mind-bending, but believe it or not, you can start from an easier place. As a guitar teacher, I have helped many students get into jazz playing from … Read more
It doesn’t matter what genre of music you choose to follow, everything, at some point ties back into the blues. As a guitar teacher, I have shown this to many students over the years. It has always helped them trace the musical history and influence of their favorite performers. It doesn’t matter if you like … Read more
Once you get to grips with the basics of how chord progressions work and how you can start to build them in any key, you can start having some real fun. As a professional guitar teacher, I’ve always encouraged my students to learn how theory and various guitar concepts work from a practical standpoint. In … Read more
Over the last 10 years of teaching guitar, I have spoken to hundreds of students who face the same problems with writing chord progressions. Many simply don’t know where to start and others find themselves just aimlessly stringing chords together in the hope that something fits. I have come up with a simple way to … Read more
Introduction Since I started teaching guitar, I’ve worked with hundreds of students who are keen to be able to write their own songs, or just simply string together chord progressions to jam over. I find that many guitar players who cut their teeth playing rock, classic rock, and blues are all drawn to more minor … Read more