Fingerstyle training: Outside In

This pattern sounds great in its own right and prepares your hands for other patterns.

You’ll see that the pattern uses all eighth notes, and that the second half of the bar is an exact repeat of the first half of the bar. It’s called outside in because your right hand is using the thumb,…

Essential Grooves Part 2

You can never have too much rhythmic confidence and range! You don’t want to be stuck with the same three strumming patterns for all situations, whether you want arrange your own songs or join in jam sessions.

When you’ve explored this material, you will be equipped to play at different speeds confidently. You will…

Essential Grooves Part 1

When it comes to developing rhythm skills, working to broaden the number of strumming patterns, grooves and feels we are comfortable with helps us in a variety of ways:

It means there are more rhythms that are available to you in your own composition and accompaniment choices.It becomes easier to hear and transcribe rhythms present in…

Style Part 4

Congratulations on learning a lot more about the elements of style in vocal performances!

You now possess an understanding some of the technical aspects that affect the vocal sound produced, and you have a breakdown of how to develop your style in the direction you want. Your ability to make adjustments is only ever as refined…

Triads with a root on string 3

We can move around shapes with a root on string 1. We can also move around shapes with a root on string 2. And we have one more small moveable chord form – which has a root on string 3. With these three shapes, you can unlock a considerable portion of the fretboard. You can…

Fingerstyle Training: Pinch pattern

This is a very frequently used variation where the thumb and middle finger pick at the same time on beat 1. It introduces a new rhythm. Instead of all the notes being the same length, the first is double length: quarter note followed by eighth notes.

We can also play a variation where the last…

How To Understand Rhythm For Guitar part 1

Part one looks at the difference between the pulse (the regular beat that goes through the music) and the rhythm (which is organised around the pulse, but isn’t always the same thing). We look at some easy ways to train your ability to identify the pulse and to start training your right arm to synchronise…

2020 Song list

Listen through to all the songs on the playlist. There may be some you don’t know or haven’t heard recently that you’d really enjoy learning. Think about the guitar techniques needed, and what types of guitar sound you can hear. There may be some sessions where we look at sections from one of the songs…