August 19, 2022

Lately I have been playing and practicing a lot of pieces I might call ‘war horses’, basically instrumentals I consider advanced and complex. There are some reasons and excuses offered up in today’s Update, as well as some examples.

This obsession led to a couple new packs of lessons, Advanced Fingerpicking Solos Volume 2, which features mostly songs from some of my Progressive Rock heroes, and Advanced Solos Volume 3, with a couple Scott Joplin Rags, and a handful of extremely challenging tunes.

We also added another lesson to the Celtic Connection set of solos with Doug Young’s DADGAD arrangement of The Water Is Wide.

A great comment came up on the Forum this week mentioning John Denver’s Sunshine On My Shoulder, which I did a mini lesson on in this video. I will definitely consider a more detailed lessons but many of you should be able to figure it out by ear. I recommend listening to the live version I added to the original thread.

Today’s tip was about an easy way to learn the alphabet in fifths and fourths, using some Guitar Geometry and applying it to the Circle Of Fifths to help remember key signatures. Please leave comments as to whether or not you could follow this short excursion.

Next week I will be traveling so it will probably be two weeks until the next Update.

See you then,

Neil