guitar lessons with audio

This is our fingerstyle / chord melody take on I’ll Be Home for Christmas, a song from the 1940′s that’s been sung by almost everyone.

David looks at how to go beyond the chords on a typical Internet tab sheet in order to get more of the flavor of the original of this great Mark Knopfler song.

Creating chord melody arrangements can be addictive! And you can start out as easy or as complicated as you’d like. Brandon Carrasco takes us step by step through his first time out, turning this timeless lullaby into a wonderful single guitar piece.

Here is Hank’s second Guitar Noise lesson, an accompaniment to “What a Wonderful World” as performed by Louis Armstrong. He draws on some of the ideas used in his first arrangement, “Smile”, and provides some nice movement in the bass line. Since this is an accompaniment arrangement designed to support vocals, most of the chord voicings will incorporate the melody note on the upper strings.

Here is my very first arrangement, a finger style chord melody of the beautiful Charlie Chaplin tune “Smile.” Walking through the process step by step, you’ll see how an initial “busy” arrangement consisting mainly of eighth notes and arpeggios was pared down to make it easier to play and to allow room for some nice movement in the bass line.

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about how to turn a song into a single guitar arrangement and the first part of the answer is that you have to learn the song! In this lesson we break down this White Stripes’ song into its component parts – bass, rhythm and lead (learning them on the electric guitar) – so that we can later create a single acoustic guitar arrangement of this song.

Our arrangement of this Bob Dylan favorite from Nashville Skyline can be played very easily with the use of a capo, plus a very simple picking pattern.

Here is a rather faithful arrangement of the closing song from Bob Dylan’s immortal album, Blood on the Tracks. Excellent practice for finger picking technique.

In our latest lesson in this series, we look at a basic rock progression and examine the choices we can make in terms of scales for soloing. Plus we get a look at the Mixolydian mode as well as discovering a new use for the Dorian.

Peter Simms has written a little ditty that shows us how to make your single guitar sound like a small combo band. We’re going to focus on fingerstyle with a melody, bassline and chords.

Here’s a song arrangement that no one has to sing! Take aspects of “chord melody” arranging and mix them in with fingerstyle playing and you’ve got yourself a version of one of George Harrison’s terrific songs to perform. It’s not all that hard to learn and you can easily adapt it with your own embellishments and style.

If you’re going to play an emotionally charged song, you can’t hide behind a single strumming pattern. Comfortably Numb is one of the highlight songs from Pink Floyd’s The Wall and we have arranged it for a single guitar, using many strumming and crosspicking techniques we’ve gone over in our Guitar Noise Podcast series.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a Celtic arrangement of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “All I Can Do Is Write About It” done in DADGAD tuning. A wonderful way to remember your home, whether home is in Alabama or Caledonia.

Before moving onward with modes, it’s important to grasp the concept of “target” notes as well as to understand that a target note doesn’t have to be a part of the chord in a chord progression. Here we’ll look at how single notes can used to create far more interesting solos than simply using “safe” notes.

This is an easy, yet slightly challenging take on a familiar strumming/picking pattern featuring a Rolling Stones song that you’ll be playing well in no time at all.

Here’s a catchy little number written for you especially by Peter Simms, integrating a funky rhythm with some tasty blues lines. Enjoy!

This is another one of those songs that could easily have gotten onto the “Easy Songs for Beginners” page, especially if you’ve already worked on the two Guitar Noise Lessons on Travis style finger picking. While you’ll have to work at this one a bit, it’s not beyond the grasp of a beginner who’s ready to practice!

Don’t be put off by the “Intermediate” tag as beginners should have little problems putting this classic Who song into their repertoires. This is a great lesson on why playing strictly “by the record” can tie you up in knots and how important it is to simply have a good feel for the overall flavor of the song.

In this this lesson we’ll learn a Drop D tuning arrangement of the perennial New Year’s Eve standard, Auld Lang Syne.

Here’s a very easy chord melody arrangement of the popular Christmas carol Joy to the World in double drop D tuning. Enjoy this familiar tune in a new way.