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…

Fingerstyle training – Descending Arpeggio

This pattern is a great-sounding Travis picking pattern which you can integrate with other patterns to produce really nice arrangements. The right hand fingers are written in for you. Walk through each chord first individually if you have not played this pattern before.

Once you have done this, try applying this pattern to other chord…

Improvisation Training

This session will allow you to sound more musical, feel more confident, and truly have the ability to improvise and respond the musical setting you’re in. Improvising is a composite skill, and the reason it is hard to work on by yourself is that it’s hard to develop in the different skill areas evenly. You…

St James Infirmary Chord Melody

In this training we will be working on creating effective arrangements from melodies.

It feels and sounds great to be able to sit down and play a complete instrumental arrangement with nothing but one instrument.

This is not the same as accompanying yourself singing, although that is fun and valuable too. Chord melody is when…

Rhythm guitar techniques: bass note picking

This lesson covers a very effective way of playing chords where you split the sound between the lower and higher notes in each chord. This creates a sense of two types of sound combining, and it has a different character to playing all of the strings at once. You can create very propulsive and driving,…

Chordal picking

This material will develop your right hand technique so that you have some expressive ways of playing chords that showcase the resonant sound of the guitar. When you have worked in this area, you’ll be able to devise your own great-sounding ways of picking chord progressions, and you’ll find it easier to play songs that…