Martin Simpson Acoustic Guitar Instrumentals Volume 1 – Arrangements In Alternate Tunings. Learn Martin Simpson’s most compelling arrangements, along with the guitar techniques that give his playing great distinction and popularity. Martin has pioneered the use of altered tunings to bring out the widest possible harmonic range of the guitar, and each of the songs on this DVD features that special sound. You’ll learn three Scottish airs in dropped-D tuning: Rosie Anderson, The Shearing’s Not for You and Bogie’s Bonnie Belle. Then, on to an altered G tuning for two traditional American tunes, the evocative Pretty Saro and the...

Basic Arranging That Every Guitarist Should Know #2. The learning continues as Happy Traum takes you, step-by-step, through three more classic American songs, building each one from its simplest chord-and-strum accompaniment (a perfect jumping-off point for the beginning player) to a fully realized performance piece complete with melody notes, bass lines, chord substitutions, harmonies, picking techniques and improvisations. Drawing on his nearly 50 years of teaching experience, Happy systematically introduces elements to each song that will help give you a better command of the fretboard. At the same time you’ll be adding wonderful material to your repertoire, building your...

Memphis has long been a landing place for musicians from the surrounding rural areas in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, and in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a wide open town with plenty of opportunities for musicians to perform their music and make a living. As a result of Memphis’ hub status, it developed a strong blues scene in the 1920s and 1930s, with a host of outstanding singers and players. Many of these musicians had successful careers as recording artists, but a surprisingly large number of similarly gifted musicians went unrecorded or only got the opportunity to record...

Aaron Gilmartin Easy Steps to Bossa Nova Guitar DVD. The distinctive sound of Brazilian bossa nova guitar has permeated the musical landscape for fifty years, influencing singers, instrumentalists and songwriters throughout the world. Based on a melding of jazz voicings and samba rhythms, this gently swinging fingerpicking-based style will bring new colors and rhythms to all your guitar accompaniments and solos. Aaron Gilmartin builds your bossa nova guitar technique step-by-step, providing chordal exercises, melodic passages and syncopated picking along with invaluable guitar advice and musical knowledge. He opens the lesson with his original song, Hold the Place, based around...

Basic Arranging That Every Guitarist Should Know #1. Here’s the first in a two-DVD lesson series that will be deeply satisfying for any acoustic guitarist who wants to move beyond simple chords and easy strums. Beginning and intermediate players will quickly gain an understanding of guitar basics through the process of building compelling arrangements of well-known, much-loved traditional songs. In an instructional tour de force, Happy details each step, starting with a simple version of each song and then slowly adding chord substitutions, bass lines, harmonies, fill-in licks, fingerpicking patterns and other techniques that eventually create a fully-formed performance...

When you hear someone say “Texas Blues Guitar,” you may immediately think of Steve Ray and Jimmie Vaughn or maybe Freddie King. The invisible presence, buried deep in everyone of their guitar riffs, is the true king of Texas blues, Lightnin’ Hopkins. Lightnin’, who knew Blind Lemon Jefferson as a child, is Jimmie Vaughn’s favorite guitarist. Offered here are all the basics, many of the secrets and tricks of Lightnin’s deeply accomplished, deceptively simple acoustic Texas boogie guitar style. This lesson features rare video footage from the 1950’s and 1960’s of Lightnin’ playing five tunes. Lightnin’ plays the tune...

Get ready to give your left hand a workout! Pete Huttlinger has created a “video chord library” that’s a must-have for every serious guitarist. This crash course is designed to show you all the important chords and fingerings you’ll need, from the easiest shapes to some challenging finger-twisters. Pete has developed a unique and effective study technique he calls “Say It and Play It”. This is an powerful way to memorize root notes by playing chromatic scales and applying chords to the root location. It’s like your personal GPS system on the fingerboard, helping you lock in exactly where...

Keb Mo expertly accompanies his distinctively soulful songs with folk/blues fingerpicking, swampy slide licks, contemporary pop chords and a touch of jazz. The seven arrangements he teaches on this DVD are simple enough for early intermediate guitarists, but provide enough twists and turns to interest advanced musicians as well. With his easy-going humor and deep musical knowledge, Keb Mo makes it a joy to play along with this lesson. You ll learn unusual chord shapes, a variety of tunings, bottleneck/slide technique, picking patterns and seven beautiful songs from his award-winning repertoire: Your Love, Life is Beautiful, I’ll Be Your...

Drawing on four decades of teaching experience, Happy Traum has devised this nearly foolproof method to help you get off to a great start. He trains you to “rewire your brain” so that playing in this style becomes second nature. Happy also imparts invaluable information about finger picks, string damping, Travis style picking and other important topics. DVD 1 starts you from scratch. The simple children’s song “Skip to My Lou” helps you learn the basic concepts before you move on to fingerpicking standards such as “Spike Driver’s Blues,” “Green, Green Rocky Road,” “Staggerlee,” “Nine Pound Hammer” and “Hobo’s...

Music of Louis Armstrong Arranged for Fingerstyle Guitar. This lesson is over 2 hours and forty minutes. The arrangements are for the intermediate to advanced players. They are multi-section compositions with lots of fingerpicking challenges. But all your hard work will be very worthwhile as these tunes are some of the greatest in the early jazz repertoire. Ernie teaches phrase by phrase and then uses the split-screen so you can carefully study what each hand is doing. A detailed tab/music booklet is included as a PDF file on the DVD. This DVD lesson could be titled The Music of...