Hammer-ons and pull-offs give you another way to shape scale notes instead of picking every note with the same attack. These techniques connect notes more smoothly and can add contrast inside riffs, melodies, and improvised phrases. In this lesson, we’ll learn both techniques, clean up the most common problems, then apply them inside the A … Read more
I started sketching this song a few years back. It stayed with me ever since, shifting a little each year, until it finally felt like time to share it. Here’s “In Due Time.” It’s in D major, 6/8, fingerstyle. A little jazzy, a little folky, built around a sweet melody and a gentle rhythm that … Read more
Scale shapes are useful because they give you clear fretboard positions to practice. But if you always stay inside one shape, it can be difficult to move smoothly into another part of the neck while you’re playing. The 3-notes-per-string system gives you another way to organize Major scale notes across the fretboard. Its consistent finger … Read more
Gymnopédie No. 1 is a dreamlike piece originally written for piano and composed by French composer Erik Satie in 1888. It’s one of the most recognized classical melodies in the world, known for its slow, floating quality and beautiful simplicity. This lesson covers the sheet music for a guitar arrangement including tabs. Grab your guitar … Read more
Do you ever feel like your guitar playing is “caged”? Most guitarists spend years locked in the first three frets. You know your open chords (aka open C, A minor, G, E minor, D) and maybe a few barre chords, but the rest of the neck feels like foreign territory. You have no idea how … Read more
Study in E minor (Estudio en Mi menor) by Francisco Tárrega is an approachable piece that builds fingerstyle control and tone by outlining the melody over steady, repeating arpeggios It encourages you to slow down, refine your right-hand technique, and develop expressive playing without complex theory or flashy runs, making it well suited for intermediate … Read more
Jesus Is the Sweetest Name I Know is a timeless hymn written by Lela B. Long, known for its gentle melody and heartfelt lyrics. This lesson features a fingerstyle jazz guitar arrangement that blends smooth chord voicings based on a simple melody line with tabs to help you follow along. Grab your guitar, and let’s … Read more
Prelude 1, Opus 46 is a beautiful guitar piece written by Emilia Giuliani-Guglielmi, a 19th-century Italian guitarist and composer known for her lyrical and expressive style (and the daughter of renowned guitarist Mauro Giuliani). This post focuses on a finger-style guitar arrangement of the piece, complete with sheet music and tabs, so you can learn … Read more
In this lesson, we’re covering how to play the G blues scale on guitar by learning the 5 essential scale shapes and the underlying music theory. Although the blues scale is often used in blues music, this versatile scale can also be used in different genres to create soulful and melodic ideas. If you missed the … Read more
Most guitar players start out strumming with a basic up-and-down pattern. It works, but it often sounds stiff or flat. With just a few small tweaks, you can make even the simplest chords sound much more musical. In this lesson, I’ll show you three simple ways to bring your strumming to life using accents, spacing, … Read more