Country

Caleb Meyer - Gillian Wlech

5/17/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

First, the strumming on the D is okay. Try not to let that get to you. Second, try to make the pinky and ring fingers get to the G chord, and force yourself to get through the progression. Finally, try to sing it! Wake up the neighbors, and feel free to blame it all on me...

Sweet Virginia - The Rolling Stones

5/16/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

Excellent work on Last Kiss by Pearl Jam. Very good stuff. I could be more of a pest about it, but play along with the song! It's nice, plus you would be playing along to pearl jam (which would be sweet, right?). We also started to go over Sweet Virginia. I'll need for the chords to be more solid before I teach you some of the subtleties of the pattern. Next time...

Old Crow Medicine Show - Country Strumming

5/15/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

Tap your foot! It gets the gold medal!!! Anyhow, there isn't much else to this song, but let's play it next week. Also, we can work on some strumming stuff, as requested.

Hickory Wind - Gram Parsons

5/15/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

Think difference: shapes and keys. If you can remember that distinction, you'll totally understand why you can play two co platelet different sets of chords when a capo is involved. People do this because it's easier to play certain chords. Gram is doing this, to make those runs between the chords really come together easily. We can definitely go over more of this stuff next time, and finish off the song too.

Caleb Meyer - Gillian Welch

5/10/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

Okay, doing this in a deliberate way, practicing in a deliberate way, is not really meant to be enjoyed; it's meant to get results. That's why five minutes is a good amount. No need to go crazy. If I were in your shoes, I'd put a good hard five minutes into learning that new strumming pattern and practicing it. For the flow part of playing guitar, the enjoyable part in other words, play Elvis Presley Blues, and sing loud. I think the 80/20 approach is appropriate: 20% practicing (your five minutes of hard practice) and 80% plain simple enjoyment of the fruits of your labors.

Country Strumming

5/3/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

To get the point across with the strumming pattern, we used Elvis Presley Blues. The same chords can be used (of course), but all you'll need to do is start strumming and then singing. That will get you one step closer to playing Caleb Meyer. Sweet.

Strumming, and Hurt (Johnny Cash Version)

4/19/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

Excellent work today. We got through a couple more patterns (the hard ones), and I went over how to play Johnny Cash's version of Hurt. Pretty easy to play. Onward with the strumming, next week.

Country Strumming Patterns

4/18/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

The strumming patterns we went over today are largely seen throughout country music. The big thing to remember is that the tapping of the foot only happens on the "trampoline" pick. That's an important thing. We will go over some Johnny Cash next week, for the hell of it.

Caleb Meyer - Gillian Welch

4/5/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

Okay, strumming pattern for this ones down. The G chord in the song needs to be approached in a different way, like with the ring and pinky fingers first. That way, you can keep on closing to the gap on playing that chord in one shot.

Caleb Meyer - Gillian Welch

3/28/12

Leave a comment
A Summary of Your Guitar Lesson: 

This song is not bad. It's actually kind of a nice song to play after doing Elvis Presley Blues. Which, BTW, Elvis Presley Blues just sounds awesome. You have to be proud of that. And only one thing to keep in mind about that spongin particular: you don't need to play louder than you sing, unless you want to and it is best for you, of course!