Category: Guitar Tips

Here’s Twinkle Twinkle played with chords, in the key of G –

“She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” Spiritual Roots: (from ChatGPT) The song originated as a Christian spiritual called “When the Chariot Comes” during the late 1800s. It was sung by African American workers and spiritual communities in the South. In this version, the “she” referred to the chariot that would carry believers to heaven, symbolizing

“Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” appeared on Bob Dylan’s 1963 album “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”. This was his second studio album and the one that really got him noticed. It also included “Blowin’ in the Wind”. The song is based on the end of Dylan’s romantic relationship with Suze Rotolo. It captures the melancholy feelings

Adding Bass notes to your playing is one of the easiest ways to spruce it up. Typically you want to strike a bass note in the chord for the 1st and 3rd beat. For example, if you’re playing a D chord, play the open D string on the 1st beat, and perhaps the open A

From Wikipedia… “Rivers of Babylon” is a Rastafari song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians in 1970. The lyrics are adapted from the texts of Psalms 19 and 137 in the Hebrew Bible. The Melodians’ original version of the song appeared on the soundtrack album

Here’s another familiar Christmas song. This one, “Silent Night” is fairly easy, played in the key of G.

We are in the process of launching a new course called “Beyond Chords”. This is a “Level 2” course that focuses on combining chords and melodies, as well as embellishing your playing with note sequences, bass runs, and riffs. For more information see Beyond Chords.

In this video I introduce the idea of “Scales +”. If you want to get past just strumming chords along with songs, this is a good place to start. We begin by simply adding a chord strum (of the I Chord) to the beginning and end of a major scale. The next step will be

We’re currently working on a couple new downloadable courses. The first one called “Guitar Magic” is for brand new guitar players. It features a series of lessons that introduce some basic theory, critical chords for five common keys (G, C, D, E, A) and a whole bunch of easy playalong songs to get you going.

The “key” of a song is simply the root note of the scale the song is built on. So, for example, we say a song is in the key of D Major when the song is built on the D Major scale. D is the root note of the scale. Specific chords are associated with