Free Guitar Video Lessons

Latest Guitar Lesson: Simple Blues Chords - Dyads

(August 15, 16) See also the free Lick of the Week on my other site - Master Guitar Academy

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Free Blues Guitar Video Lessons - I have put together a section with guitar video lessons and guitar riffs ideas on this site. I'm doing this out of my passion for guitar playing, hoping that the few things I know about guitar playing could be useful to someone out there.

The lessons are available as video clips in Flash, Windows Media (WMV) and Quicktime format. You can download some of the guitar videos in Quicktime (mov) format so that you don't have to watch them on my website every time (unless you want to!). The older video clips are recorded with a SONY DCR TRV-33 Digital Camcorder. and for a while, I used a Canon Vixia HG-20. From March 2011, all my videos are recorded with a Panasonic HVX200.

I am not providing everything in tab or notational format - I am more of a "play by ear" kind of guy. There are not many tabs for the videos - but there are some, and I am working on more tabs.

My hope is that you will learn something from these guitar lessons and guitar licks or riffs. If it seems very difficult to play one the examples, try spending more time listening - sometimes all you need is to really listen to the same thing over and over, as well as play it over and over, and the pieces will start to fall into place.

Here is a tool I recommend for slowing down music, so you can easier figure out what is being played. It's called Song Surgeon, and it's got some nice features. Check it out.

General Advice For Playing Guitar Better

Most important advice - listen over and over again to good players, including horn and piano players. Variety of influences is a good thing. Start transcribing music - use software to slow down the song if you have to (Windows Media Player - SHIFT+CTRL+S) and find the notes and the way the musical phrase is played in time. SHIFT+CTRL+N for playing in normal speed with Windows Media Player.

Blues and Improvisation. There are endless ways of playing the blues. Probably the most important thing to consider is phrasing, or they way the notes are expressed over time. For example, go listen to Albert King. He was one of the best blues guitar players there ever was. He plays really tasteful phrases, and even though you hear similar ideas more than once, they are still expressed in different ways. This is the essence of great blues guitar.

Further to this, try to copy a simple lick from your favourite blues player. Learn the notes, and learn the chord progression behind the lick. The next step is to try and play this lick with different phrasing. Try using the lick in a totally different song; try make it sound like you! You can try starting the lick at different time than in the original context - for example in the third bar instead of the first, and so on. Another thing to practice is to play this lick in different keys. You should at least be able to play your favourite licks in the keys of A, C, D, E, G, but why stop there - all twelve keys should be the goal.

Memorizing or internalizing is another important concept. I try to learn phrases and licks and then make them into my own thing, and I play these things over and over until I don't have to think about how to play them. These phrases become part of your vocabulary on the guitar. Play these newly learned ideas every day until you can play them without thinking.

HEY! Have fun playing guitar!

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