In this 12 bar blues there is an eighth note lead/melody line against a steady quarter note bass line. It also has a traditional blues intro/turnaround and some walking bass lines. As always, play slow at first until you are comfortable with the individual bass and melody line. Then you can gradually pick up speed. PDF link and video below.
Author: johnbearmilkbuyer
“I Feel Fine” Intro – For Acoustic –
The original intro to the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” uses bar chords with some finger stretches. That can be tough for some players and on some guitars. This is that intro reworked using open chords. It’s perfect for acoustic players or just for smaller hands. There is no compromise on the notes played either, it’s just easier on the fretting hand. This can be played with pick, fingers, or pick and fingers.
Download the PDF and take a look at the video.
Dr. Eric Berg on music…
I listen to Dr. Berg often and this popped on YouTube a few weeks back. It’s certainly no mystery that music has a positive effect on us but it’s good to hear the specifics spelled out on occasion.
Simple Acoustic Blues Solo #3 Bass and Melody
This 12 bar blues solo will have a very basic separate bass and melody line. It’s just a straight quarter note bass line (sometimes referred to as “dead thumb”) with a two note, repetitious, quarter note lead line. The purpose of this solo is to get a feel for for playing independent lines with thumb and fingers. This might be too easy for some folks and challenging for others. Download the PDF below and follow the notation and/or tab slowly. Check out the video for a little extra insight.
Simple Acoustic Blues Solo #2
This is another acoustic blues post showing how to make some music when it’s just you and your guitar. This is a lot like the first one with some added concepts. The first one we followed the 12 bar blues progression, played a chord and answered with a riff. This is the same idea only instead of using only the E minor pentatonic scale I’ve made use of the chord tones for each chord. There is also a basic blues intro and the ending is a little fancier. PDF link and video below. Enjoy!
Simple Acoustic Solo Blues Guitar
One of the joys of playing guitar is to just be able to sit down by yourself and be a one man band. This is for the beginner to intermediate player who might happen to enjoy blues. This can be played with pick or fingers. This is a traditional 12 bar blues in the key of E. Look below for PDF link and video.
You just need to know three chords –
and this scale below (though just using top 3 strings for this) –
The Irish Washerwoman Flat Picked Chord Melody
The last post and video was a finger style version of this old Irish melody. Some people are just not interested in using their fingers, so this is for you. This is in the key of G and is fairly simple. The melody uses the open strings quite a bit and the chord shapes are very undemanding. Download the PDF and have a look at the video.
Happy St. Paddy’s! Click for the PDF
The Irish Washerwoman Finger Style Solo
It’s about one week before St. Paddy’s Day so it seems right to do a finger style lesson using this old Irish favorite. I worked this out in the key of G. It’s fairly simple with a melody that uses the chord tones mostly. As always, go slow and gradually take it up to speed. Click below for the PDF and take a look at the video. Thanks!
Cascading Double Stops
These cascading descending double stops make use of hybrid picking ( pick and fingers). These are phrases or riffs that can be used to play over the V to the I chord. These also make use of the open 1st string E as a pedal point or drone note. This style is used a lot in country style guitar or chicken picking but does not need to be limited to just that. Three different keys are used here - C major, G major and F major. So these phrases can be played over two measures of G7 to C, D7 to G and C7 to F. Lotsa fun and sounds pretty slick once you get it down. So click on the links to check out the PDF's and the video.
Wonderful Tonight Intro ( a lesson in precise string bending)
The Wonderful Tonight intro is a great snippet of music to go over some string bending fundamentals. There is a video showing a few ways to play this intro with tips on bending accurately. There are 2 PDF’s you can download. One is in 8th position and starts on the 2nd string. The other shows how to play the intro in 12th position starting on the 3rd string. The latter also shows two alternate ways to play the end of the intro.