Learn to play guitar with weekly video lessons & print-friendly guides! Learn your favorite songs & techniques with step-by-step tutorials that actually explain how to get from here to there.
🎸 [New Lesson] Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire...
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LESSON #609 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 included in my free video lesson:
My hope is this will let you play & sing this song, no matter your skill level. My lesson is in the Key of C — which is a half-step down in pitch from Nat King Cole’s recording — but allows for more conventional chords. Over on my lesson webpage you can find all my additional content for this song. My practice guide, a melody deep-dive, some play-along videos, and several links to other teachers' tutorials should you be curious how others tackle this tricky song.
I've got a good batch of Christmas & holiday songs from previous years available over on my Song Notes website! Here's some of my favorites:
There's many others on my list to get to eventually, and don't hesitate to reply to this email if there are any specific tunes you'd like me to add. Thanks for reading – and I'll see you all in next week's lesson ✌️ David Browse all my lessons at songnotes.net
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Song Notes by David Pots
Learn to play guitar with weekly video lessons & print-friendly guides! Learn your favorite songs & techniques with step-by-step tutorials that actually explain how to get from here to there.
LESSON #614A Guitarist's Guide to Piano Man Click to watch free video lesson In today’s lesson I’ll teach you a guitar arrangement of Piano Man, the 1973 classic from Billy Joel. This song uses a singular chord progression for most of the song (intro, verse, chorus) — which I’ll walk you through step by step. I’ll also include a handful of practical ways to simplify some of the trickier chords, as translating piano chords to a guitar isn’t always straightforward. To the many of you who...
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...
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...