Live guitar lessons from my daily lesson studio! I’ve been making some live-streamed videos in a second location. “Studio B”, the spot where I teach in-person lessons. At the end of a long teaching day, it’s a great time to share random thoughts and ideas that are not planned for the channel. Occasional weeknights around 9-10PM EST. Come join me and say hi! Q-A is encouraged.
“Woodshed Wednesdays” Episode #1 A live Wednesday lesson talking about minor scales.
Live From The Lesson Studio, A Few Quick Ideas, Really Cool E Blues Concept With Open Strings!. This concept has been around for eons, and I thought it was pretty interesting how Clapton used this to create a song.  I should probably take the time and make a proper video on this concept, but I thought it was fun, and I had a moment in between students.  if you move these 6th shapes, up and down the neck, you get  different variations of E dominant chords, the same thing applies to A7 as well, the four chord and also B7, the five chord. Some of the notes are the triads or the fundamental seventh chords but some are the upper extensions. It’s what I call “Skeleton Chords” Much fun!
Live from the lesson studio #2,  easy, cool, E Major chord forms!  These chords so easy to play and they sound awesome!  I used these ideas on a piece called “A Bird’s Eye View”. It’s all part of the concept of “owning” a key of music. The more layers that you have at your disposal the more you can just riff in a tonality. Hopefully these are fun to play!
Live From The Lesson Studio, Let’s Play Jazz! How To Start Playing Over Changes. Playing jazz doesn’t need to be SO hard! You can start to play it TODAY. There are a few fundamental chords that you will need to learn, along with a scale and a few arpeggios. Of course, you can take these concepts and spend a lifetime expanding upon them. This video will talk about the chords that you will need, the scale, the arpeggios and how to start to swing. There will be a ton of lessons, on the official channel, coming soon showing all about how to study jazz guitar playing.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight, Let’s Play With The Phrygian Mode! Welcome to this instalment of “Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight”. In this lesson chat, I talk about what the Phrygian Mode is, where it comes from and how to apply it to the fretboard. I go over a basic rhythm, with open chords and show you how to play a few “Spanish” sounding riffs. I talk a bit about phrasing with the scale, show you how to play it in a few positions, show you a few techniques that will give you the “exotic” sound that you might be looking for. I also touch upon Phrygian Dominant as well and will go deeper into that in a future lesson. I play very simple and easy riffs to make everything fun to follow along with and hopefully easy to imitate. Please join me, weeknights, Monday through Thursday, the livestream happening somewhere between 9 and 10PM-ish depending on lesson flow for the day. Q and A is welcome and encouraged!
LIVE From The Lesson Studio Tonight, Rory Gallagher “Bad Penny” What a Killer song! I had never heard this one before tonight. A student asked me to show him how to play it and I went to work. This tune has lots of good stuff going on! The song is a gritty blues track in D minor, the Aeolian mode, to be exact. There is a strong hook, a few actually and it illustrates a few tried and true guitar patterns heard in countless other songs. In the lesson, I break down what’s going on, show you how to play the melodic and rhythmic hooks, verse/choruses and the bridge. I go into how to approach soloing over the changes to get the right sound and feel. I talk about adding Aeolian notes back into the pentatonic boxes. The lesson also goes into the right effects pedals and amp tones needed to get the vibe of the song right. Enjoy learning this really awesome blues track recorded by a legend! I am now a Rory Gallagher fan.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight, “How To Play Jazz Blues” Playing the blues is just fun. It’s also therapeutic, spiritual, relaxing, communal, the list goes on and on. Putting some jazz into your blues brings things to another level. It’s intellectual and interesting in addition to being moving and soulful. The be-bop guys got it right! The changes from tonight’s lesson are from “Billies Bounce” by Charlie Parker. I’ve transposed everything to the key of E because we are guitar players. The lesson will show you how the extra chord changes add a lot of substance to the standard chords of the blues. This is one of my favorite things to play when unwinding from a long day.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight, “Soloing, Storytelling and Phrasing”. Nothing makes for a great guitar solo more than telling a good story. Phrasing is the sentence structure within that short story. Both of these concepts work hand and hand. Much like creative writing, the story begins with an outline, has plot, a setting, a subject and characters etc… guitar solos can have a theme or multiple themes, an outline and development of the story. Learning to build and increase intensity to highlight the peak moments along with generally trying to keep the listener interested and hopefully moved is a craft to look into. I hope that you enjoy telling your own guitar solo stories.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight, Guitar Soloing On Pink Floyd Style Backing Track. (The DISSCUSION begins at 2:11) The lesson describes how to use different amounts of gain to build guitar solos in stages.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight, “BB King’s “Blues Man” Chord Changes and Soloing Approaches. BB King’s music is always great but this tune really grabbed me. I love the chord changes, Gospel changes. The song has a 32 bar format, like a Jazz Standard, A A B A, There is a really cool bridge, “middle 8” with a borrowed chord. You can play over the song with a simple approach, one scale or you can play through the changes using multiple pentatonic scales, melodic minor modes, harmonic minor modes over the dominant chords or simply hitting the chords as they happen. There is much to learn from this gem. Enjoy playing these changes!
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! The CAGED System, Up The Neck, Applied to Brown Eyed Girl. The CAGED System is a fantastic chordal layout on the guitar neck. The system is logical, practical, functional and dare I say, magical in it’s existence. Magical because of it’s multi directional functionality, it’s an amazing tool. The system ties into learning scales and arpeggios as well. In this live discussion, I am illustrating the value of applying the system to “Brown Eyed Girl”, or any song for that matter. Aside from strumming open chords, which is valuable in a solo artist setting and others, playing through CAGED allows you to fit in with larger ensembles better. The system allows you to create guitar parts for songs and, maybe most importantly, it keeps things fresh and fun as you explore the guitar and grow. Make sure to look for the CAGED System playlist on this channel. The lessons will walk you through a thorough explanation of the system, learning the system with octaves, learning the minor chords, learning it with string groupings and more.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! #11 Learn Jazz Soloing Over Misty Plus Chord Analysis. Learning to play ballads is one way to start to play jazz more quickly. Ballads are slower and the chord changes come at you more slowly, this makes things easier to manage. “Misty” is an all time classic and is a good one to get familiar with. In this discussion, I go over the structure of the tune, I analyze the chord progression and talk about strategies to start to improvise over the changes.
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! Go To Blues Licks. In this video, I’m live from the lesson studio tonight. In this lesson, we’re going to go over blues licks. Blues licks are a great way to add depth and complexity to your playing. There are certain licks that just work over the blues. These concepts find their way into so many songs hooks and solos that they need to become part of your lick vocabulary. This lesson features a few of these riffs, played over a Dominant 7th blues in A. In addition to these ideas, I also go over some other concepts for navigating the blues. Get out your favorite axe and play the blues. If you’re looking to develop your blues skills, be sure to check out this lesson! The techniques we’ll be covering in this lesson will help you sounding like a blues master in no time!
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! Easy Funk Guitar Lesson. Jamming with an easy funky rhythms is really fun! One of the first things that I started doing on the guitar, really early on, was to “Jam”. What is “Jamming”? Jamming is the creation of something improvised, spontaneous but with a declared set of guide lines. I like to call them “Ingredients”, the stuff that the jam consists of. This jam contains 9th chords, 7#9 chords, the E blues scale, the E Mixolydian scale and a number of funk rhythm techniques that you should know. By combining these elements and learning to keep time while playing them, we can start to jam! The jams can become the foundations for songs and so on. I will be doing a number of these “Jam” live lessons. Have fun!
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! Which Pickups To Use? Pick Ups and Tones. Painting With Tones! The guitar is a tonal wonderland, electric guitar in particular. While a piano is just soft or loud (the word piano means soft) the guitar is a world of tonal variance. The entire guitar industry is designed around this reality. At the heart of utilizing the tonal possibilities, of the electric guitar, are the pickups. These electromagnets enhance and incorporate the inherent guitar characteristics. Learning to utilize pickups, to choose the right sound, at the right time, is the topic of discussion with this livestream. There is a science and a practice in place that works. That being said, you can go against the logic and norms for effect. You will learn what a humbucker means vs. a single coil, what to use for soloing, what to use for different rhythm parts and sensibilities, what guitar choice might be best for you to utilize the possibilities, especially in a live setting. We will look at clean guitar tones, chunky rhythm tones, heavier distorted rhythms and lead sounds. Before considering which amp to use, what pedal, your use of pickups come first.
Major Scales Soloing & Melodic Phrasing – Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! The Major scale is the primary melodic device of western music, it’s been that way for hundreds of years. When it comes to soloing, it’s really important to own and really fun! As a guitar student, you should learn to navigate the scale freely, learn it across the entire fretboard. This live discussion/demonstration will show you some ideas with how to create melodic phrases, how to switch gears when creating intensity and how to tell a story with your playing. There are a number of lessons on this channel to help to develop these concepts, be sure to look for the playlists associated with improvisation, soloing and scales etc. Below is a link for a lesson to learn the 7 Major scale patterns along with three backing tracks that you can wail away over! Have fun!
How To Play Through Chord Changes With Multiple Pentatonic Scales! I love this approach, using multiple scales to hit the chord changes. This lesson will show you how to overlap pentatonic scales to navigate unusual or challenging chord progressions. I start with playing only G minor (Bb Major) pentatonic first, for the whole progression, then I try Bb Major next. After that , the lesson jumps into combining 2 then 3 then 4 pentatonic scales, overlapping these through the positions. I also talk a bit about pentatonic substitution, another topic that I love. I explain how to use these varying approaches to build harmonic intensity as part of your storytelling concepts. Have fun getting these concepts under your belt!
Analysis And Guitar Lesson. I love this tune, one of my favorites. In the lesson I go over the song analyzing the chord progressions, structure, key changes and the special compositional techniques that make it so great. You will learn all about rhythm changes, modulation, guide tones, the circle of 5ths and the circle of 4ths. I will show you how these are laid out on the fretboard. You will learn how to begin to improvise over the changes, learning some universal shortcuts to jazz improvisation. I talk about 7th chords, tritone substation etc. If you are a bit of a guitar nerd, you might enjoy this. I also tell some stories as well. I hope that you’ll spend some time with me discussing and learning to play “All The Things You Are”
Phrasing is the way with which we present our melodic ideas in a pleasing and logical fashion. You could think of it as speaking or singing with your instrument. Much like speech, there are rules in place to improve our ability to communicate. Music is, among a great number of things, a language at its core. This lesson will show you a number of the fundamental rules, suggestions, to make your guitar sing. While the lesson doesn’t cover everything, there is a lot in here. These ideas are the very things that your favorite guitar players, musicians in general, do to create musical and compelling licks, riffs and lines. Have fun exploring the basic and beyond rules of phrasing.
Your First Blues Lesson! Live From The Lesson Studio. So you want to play the blues! The blues is a fantastic way to get started with playing the guitar. The basic blues chords and riffs are really easy and can be accomplished pretty quickly. Of course, you can continue to learn and improve for a lifetime. This lesson will show you where to begin, the simple and easy version of the blues. We will go through a step by step process to learning the chords for a basic blues, as well as how it works theoretically. There is a song structure to the blues, standard chord changes, we will go over these. The lesson will introduce variations of these chord changes, starting with the most basic. Next you will learn the “chug” blues riff and play that through the changes. We will go over the turnaround, variations of the turnaround, we will discuss swing and variations of the “chug riff”. You will learn to play the rhythm further up the neck and then we will take a look at learning how to start to play solos. This lesson is pretty comprehensive and will help t give you a basic blues foundation. Enjoy your blues playing journey!
This tune is an all time favorite blues standard that you will need to know. From coast to coast, you can walk into any blues jam session and wait a few minutes and likely you’ll hear it. The song was made more famous by the Allman Brothers live record “Live at Fillmore East 1971” and I’ve gone over that version of it. This T-Bone Walker classic “”Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)” commonly known as “Stormy Monday” is an interesting and unique tune. The lesson will go over how to play the chords, will analyze the song and then come up with some strategies to improvise over it. Stormy Monday has a lot of stuff in it to dig into!
How To Play The Pentatonic Scale (With Modal Enhancements) The minor pentatonic scale is a tried and true melodic device used by most guitar players. While it is a must to have under your belt, adding notes to the scale can make it so much better! There are a lot of notes that you can add and many lessons on this channel about them but this lesson will focus on adding the Aeolian notes back into the pentatonic scale. By doing this, you can create VERY melodic lines. This is a better formula than just running up and down the scale. Be sure to jam along by utilizing the backing tracks that I’ve made. The tracks are just below in the description.
How To Play “I’d Love To Change The World” Soloing Tips (Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight!) I have always loved this song. This tune presents a lot of great manageable challenges to a beginner guitar student. While the chords are relatively easy to play, the notes are picked in an eighth note pattern over the chorus. This is in the “Goldilocks Zone” not to hard, not to easy. When teaching privately, I always look for material that presents just the right amount of difficulty for the student so that they can grow and move forward. Not to easy, not to hard. This might be one of the best examples of this for beginner players. The strumming for the verse is also in this zone. The lesson goes into how to begin to solo over the song as well. Enjoy playing this AWESOME tune!
Simple Major Pentatonic Ideas. How To Easily Add Second Guitar Parts. The Major pentatonic scale is wonderful, some of my all time favorite guitar parts have been created using this melodic scale. This video will show you a very simple way to apply the scale by adding a second guitar part to play, when someone else is strumming a song. Creating supplemental guitar parts is a pretty important thing to learn and something that I will be exploring more with, in future lessons. Today’s lesson will also talk about how to “click and drag” other notes to create the Major pentatonic sounds the Jimi and many others have created. You will love the sounds that this style of playing the Major pentatonic creates.
80’s Rock Rhythms Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! The 70’s and 80’s was the BEST period for the guitar’s role in music. While the guitar solos defined the genres, this domination is especially apparent with the rhythm playing of the classic rock and hair metal periods. There was a commanding style that emerged, probably from Motown rhythms, that became the earmark of day. The rhythm playing consisted of a lot of palm muting, power chords, open low strings, power riffs, arpeggiated chords a lots of distortion. This lesson will show you how to learn to play these techniques and stylings, site examples, and show you how to create your own rhythms!
Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone With The Pentatonic Scale. Guitar players have been relying upon the Pentatonic Scale forever. Countless songs, song hooks and popular solos include this scale for the melodies and musical ideas. Guitarists, people in general, like to stay in our “Comfort Zones”. With the guitar, the pentatonic scale specifically, the comfort zone is the first and maybe the second positions. With this discussion and playing examples, I am challenging you to go beyond and get comfortable with the third, fourth and fifth positions of the scale.
Musicianship And Phrasing! Learning to play with feel is a big part of a guitarist’s development. What does feel mean? Simply put, it’s making the music come alive, be exciting and dynamic. Musicianship is making the music technically proper and musically sound. Phrasing is making the music organic and natural. These concepts are among the hardest to teach and to achieve. This lesson will use a very simple phrase to explore some of these concepts and give you guidance on your quest to play musically and with feel.
How To Play “Georgia On My Mind” On Guitar. This lesson was originally recorded live on the “Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight” and I decided to put it out on the regular lesson channel. This is one of my favorite all time tunes. In this lesson/performance, I will analyze the song, looking into the structure and chord progressions used by Hoagy Carmicheal to write this masterpiece. I will then play through the tune, both the chords and then some improvisation. I will give suggestions for young and new students of jazz guitar on how to approach learning and studying the craft. Sit back, relax and enjoy taking a closer look at this incredible piece of music.
Ideas For Moving CAGED Through A Simple Chord Progression, Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! The CAGED System is amazing! If you don’t know it yet, there are a number of lessons, on this channel, to help you master it! This lesson will show you how to take four simple chords, a simple chord progression, and move it up the neck to give you better choices for creating and or playing songs.
Drop D! Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight. Rocking out in “Drop D” is really kick a** fun! This tuning is behind some of the best heavy guitar songs in history and many songs that are not hard rock as well. Country tunes frequently utilize “Drop D’ as well. Drop D tuning is a great way for guitar students to start moving into alternate guitar tunings. In this lesson, I go over a myriad of ideas that you can try, the D natural minor scale (aeolian mode) and it’s harmonized scale, D harmonic minor and it’s harmonized scale, along with a dozen other musical concepts and multiple techniques that are great for this tuning. Grab your favorite axe and join me on the “Drop D” fun!
Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight. New Chord Progression And Pentatonic Modal Enhancement. I often create chord progressions to jam on, this one is especially neat. In the lesson I will go over the theory behind the chords and show you how you can create it yourself. I also talk about enhancing the minor pentatonic scale with additional modal notes. This concept is super helpful and a staple in my sound. Keep an eye out for a backing track/jam made from the same progression.
Improvise With The Major And Major Pentatonic Scales Combined Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! The Major scale is the foundation to everything with western music. Students should learn the scale, across the neck, in all keys. Learning the pentatonic scales is equally important and the same applies. (Lesson links below for these scales) Once you have this under your belt, combining these when soloing is awesome! This lesson will show you some ideas of how to do just that.
Dave Matthews Band #41 Chords and Improvisation. DMB is great and this tune is one of the best! In this session of “Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight”, I go over the chords that Dave is playing, I talk a bit about the supplemental parts and also give some advice on how to solo over the changes.
“Big 80’s Rock Box” Let’s Create Some 80’s Riffs. Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight. The hair metal decade produced some of the best guitar riffs in history. Powerful distorted guitar tones and squealing pinch harmonics were everywhere! With all of that in mind, the concepts were actually a carry over from the 70’s stadium rock bands, they were just played a bit faster and with more flare. Eddie Van Halen was the king of these licks, his influence is still felt today. In this lesson I am using some basic concepts to create 80’s style riffs. Once you learn how this works, you can do it for yourself! Have fun rocking out.
Easy Major Pentatonic Jamming Concept, Live From The Lesson Studio Tonight! Playing with the Major Pentatonic Scale is one of the most expressive things that you can do on the guitar. This scale is happy by its nature, (Major Third) but has a quality all it’s own. The scale is great to use with as a single note melodic concept or as a vehicle for playing with double stops and chord clusters. SRV, John Mayer, myself, countless players have recorded tunes that are based on this scale. This lesson will show you how to combine easy chords, from the key of E with the scale, either as a backing track or just one guitar doing it all. The lesson will also walk you through using the CAGED System to improve your ability to take your jam to new levels!