Guitar Noise

Just when you thought we were done with walking bass lines, along comes another song where they play an important musical role! Plus, we’ll take a look at getting started on barre chords (and also look at making substitutions for them to cut us some slack!) and learn a cool little guitar riff.

If you’ve read Part 1 of this tutorial, you’re probably amazed at how easy basic finger style guitar can be. Now, by simply changing one small thing that we learned last time out, even beginners will be able to find themselves playing a little Dust in the Wind…

There’s a little bit of everything in this lesson, from easy arpeggios and strumming to some basic Travis style finger picking patterns. As always, David picks the song apart into small pieces that even many beginners can get with some concerted practice. Have fun learning this Harry Chapin classic!

Finger style guitar is easier than you think! In this lesson we’ll start with the very basics and get you going on some very cool (and very simple) finger picking patterns. Plus, we’ll toss in Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind as an incentive to help you practice more!

This is more of a mini-lesson, taking a song you know with fairly easy chords and coming up with an arrangement that will work for the single guitar. And with a simple strumming pattern and the strategic use of a capo, even beginners can have some fun with it.

This is another Easy Songs lesson that is geared to the close to absolute beginner. We’ll take basic chords that we already can play, add a very simple strumming / picking pattern and before you can say lunatic you’ll be playing a very cool song.

It’s been ages it seems since we’ve had an intermediate song lesson. It also seems like it’s been ages since we’ve done something with an alternate tuning. And when was the last time we did a Neil Young song? And don’t let the intermediate label put you off – even beginners (with some practice, of course!) can make this song sound sweet…

We’ll be spending a lot of 2008 looking at song arrangements, so it’s best to start off with a discussion on strumming patterns and the trap that you can get into by letting a strumming (or picking) pattern be your major concern.

Here’s another Easy Song for Beginners’ Lesson, using our continued study of walking bass lines to help us create an arrangement where the bass line also helps us move the song along by shadowing the melody. Once the basics are in place, you can make the rest of the arrangement as simple or as complicated as you’d like.

Our arrangement for this moody piece uses many of the ideas from our O Tannenbaum! lesson. You’ll find yourself having a lot of fun even though you’re supposed to be blue!

Here’s a simple chord melody arrangement of this holiday classic. And, as a bonus, it’s a great exercise for practicing your chord changes in a timely manner.

We continue our study of walking bass lines, looking specifically at how the timing and distance become our guideposts, helping us to map out our journey from one target note to the next. Examples from many songs, including a little of Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Going Nowhere and Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day will serve as demonstrations in our lesson.

Here’s an interesting twist – we’re going to use a walking bass line as a way to help us get faster and cleaner chord changes, specifically between the G and C chords. Sound implausible? Well, come along and join in the fun.

Walking bass lines are an easy way to spice up your playing and also learn a little about music in the process. In this lesson we’ll look at a very basic walking bass line, how to put it together and how to recognize when we can use it in other songs. Plus, to illustrate the point of the lesson, we get a teeny little bit of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb thrown in.

Also known as Are You Sleeping Brother John, this has to be one of the best known children’s songs in the world. Doug brings up a fun and thoughtful arrangement of this favorite song.

Doug has come up with a lesson featuring two children’s favorites: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and London Bridge. Enjoy sharing these with people of all ages!

There are seemingly limitless ways of playing any one song, so why should someone ever say I can’t play a song? Or worse, I’m waiting for someone to show me how to play a song… In this lesson, we’ll start out with a simple strumming arrangement, spice things up a bit with arpeggios, and then wind up with an arrangement that’s close to chord melody.

David returns to the pages of Guitar Noise with another Easy Song for Beginners lesson. Work on your chord changes and strumming with not one, but two great country classics.

Here’s a wonderful simple and sparse arrangement of this traditional song from the Outer Hebrides. It’s a beautiful song and, like Doug, you’ll be thrilled to add it to your holiday repertoire.

Doug brings us another beautiful Christmas carol, arranged in standard tuning. This one is quite catchy and Doug also gives us a fascinating bit of history concerning the history of Christmas carols in Britain.