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...
13 days 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,...
18 days 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...
26 days ago • 2 min read
LESSON #605Tons of Fun from 1971! Click to watch free video lesson Hey there, my friends – I'm happy to get this one in just before the clock ticks zero on October! Today's new lesson is for Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress), the 1971 classic from The Hollies. I've had tons of folks request this song over the years, and this past week I finally buckled down and learned it. My oh my, is this one fun! This song begins with one of the most fun guitar riffs I've learned in a long time, which is...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
LESSON #604Fingerpicking the "Dust in the Wind" Intro Click to watch free video lesson In this lesson I'll teach you to fingerpick the intro to Dust in the Wind by Kansas. This 16-measure sequence is an all-timer classic rock intro, and for the most part it's built around variations of two chord shapes: C major and A minor. My lesson walks you through the various chord voicings used, then show you how to tackle the fingerstyle step-by-step. This gets your foot in the door with this song's...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
LESSON #603"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together... Click to watch free video lesson My friends – new lesson today where I’ll teach you to play America by Simon and Garfunkel, from their 1968 album Bookends. This is an amazingly fun song to play, though it is quite a lot to chew on when it comes to the chord shapes & progressions needed. In my tutorial, I’ll walk you through everything — showing the easiest way to make your way through the song, along with several tips for...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey there, friends! Today I want to share what is possibly the single most helpful tip to help you change chords while strumming — and ensure your rhythmic groove stays smooth as butter 🧈 The secret: begin your chord changes while finishing your strum pattern. This means you will briefly be strumming open, unfretted strings... but this buys you valuable time, and it sounds just fine. Check out my new video lesson showing this up-close: LESSON #601Smooth Chord Changes while Strumming Click to...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi there, Reader — hard to believe it, but I've reached my 600th weekly guitar lesson! Thanks to all of you who've been along with me on the journey so far. New lesson below... along with a roundup of my favorite songs in 6/8 time! LESSON #600Melodic Beauty of Eddie Vedder's "Rise" Click to watch free video lesson In this lesson I'll teach you to play Eddie Vedder's 2007 song Rise from the Into The Wild soundtrack. This song has remained one of my favorite songs of the 2000s — and I'm excited...
3 months ago • 1 min read
LESSON #599Unlock the Fretboard with Diagonal Pentatonics Click to Watch Free Video Lesson In today's new lesson, I'm excited to tackle a much-asked-about topic that's been a game changer for my playing in the past year: diagonal pentatonics. This is an informal name I’m using for a particular way to play any pentatonic scale, which allows us to play multiple octaves in an incredibly smooth & fluid manner. Why this approach is worth learning, compared to memorizing the five "box" shapes...
3 months ago • 1 min read