Happy Monday, my friends! To those of you impacted by the winter storm across the USA, I hope you're holding up okay. Here in Austin, we had a blanket of ice descend across our yard & street. The kids enjoyed a snow day off school, and my routine has been a bit up-ended... but we're in good spirits! Today I want to showcase some helpful practice tips from my lesson library, in addition to some new Q&A videos I posted in the Song Notes members forum. Let's dive on in! IN CASE YOU MISSED...
10 days ago • 2 min read
LESSON #612Melodic Fingerstyle Fun with "Piano Man" Click to watch free video lesson In this lesson I’ll teach you to play a melodic fingerstyle arrangement inspired by Piano Man by Billy Joel. Specifically, I show how we can play the main melody of the song (heard in the verse and chorus) and play it along with a few other notes from each chord that’s used. The result is melodic, but also harmonically rich — and is a blast to play! In addition to my main video (above), don't miss the "Part...
20 days ago • 1 min read
My friends! A new year is upon us, and before my next lesson I want to share a summary of all the lessons I made in 2025. For your convenience, I've grouped them all by category. Each lesson is linked below... enjoy! AT LONG LAST!Guitar 101 In Spring 2025, I finally released a much-requested series on videos on guitar fundamentals. These are aimed at folks who are getting started or otherwise looking for some guidance along their guitar-playing journey. While there are more videos I plan on...
27 days ago • 2 min read
LESSON #610Fairytale of New York Click to watch free video lesson My friends! In today’s new lesson I’m excited to teach you how to play Fairytale of New York, the classic Christmas duet by The Pogues, featuring Kirsty MacColl. This isn’t a song I grew up listening to here in the USA, and indeed only learned of it in the past few years via several Song Notes members. In that time it’s become one of my all-time favorites… and in this lesson I’ll teach you everything needed to play it on...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
LESSON #609Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire... Click to view free video lesson In today’s lesson I’m excited to teach you to play The Christmas Song, which you may know as “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…“ My lesson aims to simplify what Nat King Cole’s backing orchestra is playing, while still capturing the recognizable essence of this song. I’ll teach you two ways to play it: my jazzy take on a “full” version and a simplified version (which avoids barre chords entirely). Here's what's...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
LESSON #608If I Needed You Fingerstyle, Step-by-Step! Click to watch free video lesson After many many requests for this song, the time has come! Happy to share this new lesson, where I break down this Townes Van Zandt classic and teach it in the style of Emmylou Harris & Don Williams, as played in their their 1981 duet. I include a few strumming tips, should you want to play a campfire version — but otherwise I dive into the Travis-style fingerpicking, showing four levels that slowly build...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Reader — I wanted to let you know my Black Friday promotion is now live! If you've been meaning to take your guitar playing to the next level and save some $$$, you don't want to miss this. Save 25% on your first month (or year) of Song Notes Premium with coupon code CHEER25 Join Today 🎸 What's Included with Song Notes Premium? Here's a video tour showing what's included with Premium membership on my Song Notes website: ✅ Access all my Premium courses ✅ Access all my instructional PDFs...
2 months ago • 1 min read
LESSON #607Acoustic Fun with "Hey Joe" Click to watch free video lesson In today’s lesson I’m excited to return to Hey Joe, one of the first songs I ever learned on guitar! More than 20 years later, it’s been a blast to return to this song and put together this step-by-step guitar lesson. I always assumed this song was a Jimi Hendrix original, but a recent request from a Song Notes member turned me on to this 1962 acoustic version from Billy Roberts. Hendrix released his own version in 1966,...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Happy Sunday, my friends! As I finish up putting together next week's song lesson (my first Jimi Hendrix tune), I wanted to share some brand new cheat sheets filling out some gaps in my PDF library. I've gotten several recent member questions about musical key – and started working on a small batch of lessons to tackle these topics. Today, I'm excited to share these 3 new cheat sheets... download them all on my lesson webpage » Check out the video above for a quick tour of these new cheat...
3 months ago • 2 min read