12 Bar Shuffle – 4 Variations for Blues Guitar

By: Simon Joseph James The classic 12 bar blues shuffle riff can be played either straight or with a swing feel. In addition to this,  it can be tremendous fun to play around with and to try out a few variations of your own. I first learned to play my own Blues riffs whilst trying [...]

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Major Scale Introduction

Overview   Even though it is not one of the most commonly used scales for guitarists, The Major Scale is the fundamental building block of western harmony for the past 800 years, which we will look at in this major scale introduction. Most of the chords you hear in music can be formed from this [...]

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Improvising Made Easy- Melody As Inspiration

By: Simon Joseph James When approaching a chord progression for the first time with a mind to improvise, I always encourage my students to learn the tune first and foremost, followed by the chord progression and other material second, as an “Improvising Made Easy” approach to the song. After all the melody is the tune, [...]

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Drop 2 Chords Lesson 10 – Combining the Techniques.

By: Joseph Alexander This is the 10th entry in my 10-part series on Drop 2 Chords. In order to consolidate the techniques in the proceeding chapters, it is important to combine the ideas that have been taught into one etude. I’m sure you will recognise the song, but it shall remain nameless for copyright reasons! [...]

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Expand Your Blues Guitar Playing With 3 Easy Shapes

By: Jamie Holroyd When learning to play the guitar there is a lot of shapes, scales, and chords that we need to get under our fingers to feel when soloing. Been able to play all over the fretboard is great but when it comes to blues guitar playing there’s three very common positions on the [...]

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