Recent Posts
the acoustic guitar blog
Return To Blog Listing
An intelligent guitar resource blog site made by a very good guitar player with almost 40 years experience playing guitar. It will develop into something that will cover all aspects of music, including chord substition, harmony, improvisation, equip
Recent Posts Tagged With 'guitar'
Acoustic Guitar Youtube Jacques Stotzem playing Hendrix
It’s always good to see great guitar players interpreting other players work. This video youtube of Jacques Stotzem plaing the Jimi Hendrix tune Purple Haze is a perfect example of when it works. Keep in mind the original by Hendrix was o...
Laurence Juber Youtube Video While My Guitar
Laurence Juber playing playing an acoustic guitar arrangement of While my Guitar Gently Weeps is a great lesson in itself. Watch his technique and see how much control he has in his bends and his ability to be natural and relaxed throughout this vid...
How Guitar Chords are Made - Part 4 of 6
These Chords are based around the Key of A. The Key of A has 3 sharps (#) C sharp, F sharp and G Sharp. As before in the last article, if you look at the music stave above, you’ll notice that I have numbered each note and also given it a...
Tommy Emmanuel youTube Video - Classical Gas
Tommy Emmanuel, the brilliant Australian guitar player playing Classical Gas on his Maton acoustic Guitar, quite a good combination. A couple of days ago I posted about Tommy Emmanuel’s youtube version of Amazing Grace. This youtube of ...
Tommy Emmanuel Youtube - Acoustic Guitar
It’s pretty hard to have an acoustic guitar site or blog without mentioning Tommy Emmanuel at some point. Over the years I’ve seen him play many times in different settings, both acoustic and electric. Although I’ve never been f...
How Guitar Chords are Made - Part 3
Here is the 3rd article in the series of How Guitar Chords are Made, in this one I am covering D chords. Note how in the first article C Chords, the Key of C has no sharps (#)or Flats (b) , wheras the G scale has one sharp. The key of D, you may...
Guitar Chords
In my previous article I wrote about guitar chords consisting of a 1st , a 3rd, and a 5th. I thought I’d write a short article to reinforce the learning. The key of C consists of the notes: C D E F G A B and for those that live in Europe, the B...
Guitar Chords - How They Are Made
This is part 1 of a 6 Part series on Chord Construction for guitar. How chords are made is not that difficult to understand. You will require a tiny bit of patience and the ability to count up to 13 and also know the alphabet from A to G. Having ...
John Butler Trio Youtube 12 string
The John Butler acoustic twelve string version of Message in a Bottle, what an interesting combination. Two things that really appeal to me as a musician are: 1) Restraint and understatement 2) Interpretation of other peoples tunes The ability to n...
Milton Nascimento Gilberto Gil youTube
Milton Nascimento and Gilberto Gil are both legends in Brazil, I think it’s important to hear the great players from other cultures and not get locked into one style. I became aware of Milton in the mid seventies when he appeared on a Wayne...
Pentatonic Major Scale for Guitar in D - Part 5 of 6
This Pentatonic Major Scale in D is very useful on acoustic guitar. Note how I’ve used the open E string to create a bit of time to jump up the fretboard to the 7th fret. This scale is very suitable for improvising over a D chord, it doesn...
Joe Satriani youTube Acoustic Guitar
It’s always good to hear great electric guitar players on acoustic guitar, it enables the listener to put their music into some sort of manageble, understandable picture where we don’t have to try and decipher what is going on behind the...
Pierre Bensusan youTube
Pierre Bensusan is was that good as a guitar player in the mid nineteen eighties that the great (late) Michael Hedges recorded a song in dedication to him on the Aerial Boundaries album, the song was called Bensusan. After Michael Hedges died, Pie...
Stevie Ray Vaughan youTube Acoustic Blues Guitar
If you love acoustic guitar and also Blues, the chances are you’d like Stevie Ray Vaughan playing acoustic blues. I saw Stevie Ray play years ago with his trio, sensational. But I never saw him play acoustic guitar, unfortunate. I did get...
Pentatonic Major Scale in A - Part 4 of 6
This is the fourth pentatonic Scale in my six part series of Pentatonic scales. When I write the fingering for these scales I often think about what is suitable for the acoustic guitar. I’m writing them in a manner that will get you out of ...
John Mayer youTube
John Mayer is still very young but in a few short years he’s been able to gain the respect of guitar players across the world. This youtube video on acoustic guitar is called Heart of Life; he manages to to mantain a a solid vocal part while ...
Jack Johnson and Ben Harper youTube
Jack Johnson, the man that has redifined the word ‘relax’ and Ben Harper, a player that has always managed to player with a maturity way beyond his age. To have them together is quite a treat. For quite a few years during the eighties...
Pentatonic Major Scale in E - Part 3 of 6
This is the 3rd article about guitar scales, this is pentatonic major scale in the Key of E. It’s very useful for improvising in the Key of E, it’s reasonably ’safe sounding’ and difficult to go wrong with it if you are solo...
Ani diFranco youTube
Ani diFranco doing I’m not Angry anymore on youTube was the song that made me stand up and notice how good she was. This recording is the pinnacle of acoustic music, not because of its complexity, more for its ability to state what needs to be ...
John Mayer and Eric Clapton youTube
John Mayer and Eric Clapton, a nice combination. It’s always great to see some of the older musicians playing with much younger ones. It’s a reasonably simple song, John Mayer takes a short guitar break, he has a very nice sensde of...
Guitar Scales - Pentatonic Major Part 2 of 6
The Pentatonic Major scale is pretty common amongst rock players. I’ve written it here in the key of G. It consists of 5 notes, G A B D E. If someone were to turn those notes into a chord it would be a G6 add9 , some might call it a G6 su...
Guitar Scales Pentatonic Minor - Part 1 of 6
Are you feeling a little stuck and having difficulty organizing your practice? Well, I’ve decided to do a six part series on scales to get the old fingers going, READ ON This is the first of a six part series on guitar scales. I’ve...
Paul Gilbert youTube
Paul Gilbert on acoustic guitar, you may remember him from Racer X and Mr Big. In this youtube video he’s on a nylon string guitar. He is quite clear about his abilities at playing something that resembles Flamenco. It’s worth watch...
Ali Farka Toure Boubacar Traore youTube
This Ali Farka Toure youTube also has Boubacar Traore. The musicians from Mali in Africa have a sound that to some of us sounds like the roots of the blues. Listening and being inspired by musicians of other cultures is a very healthy thing to do....
Kenny Rankin Youtube Peaceful
The Kenny Rankin youtube video is from the seventies. While many other players were playing steel strings in the 70’s Kenny Rankin preferred to play nylon string instead, and realistically it suited his style and complemented his voice. THe...
Paco de Lucia youTube Flamenco Guitar
Flamenco Guitar and Paco de Lucia for most of us are one and the same. Paco and his guitar have been on the world stage for some years now. His no nonsense approach has set the benchmark for other players to work towards. Many people became aware...
Norman Blake youTube Flatpicking Guitar
This site is about Guitar Education, if you don’t know Norman Blake, his playing is worth exploring, that’s why I’ve posted about him. Norman Blake is a Bluegrass Folk Country legend. He is highly respected amongst guitar player...
Joni Mitchell Youtube Big Yellow Taxi
I’ve always l;oved Joni Mitchells guitar playing. And as you may know she went on to play with some of the worlds great musicians, such as the late Jaco Pastorias, Pat Metheny and others. This song Big Yellow Taxi, although simple in struc...
Cat Stevens Youtube - I love My Dog
I love my Dog was one of the early songs by Cat Stevens. It’s great every now and then to not be so serious about music and play simple tunes. So here’s a song for all the dog loving guitar players. It made me laugh when I first ...
Learning the Acoustic Guitar
Learning Acoustic Guitar can be a little easier than you think. I have writiten an article at my other Acoustic Guitar Blog Site. The article includes a couple of simple things that you vcan do to get yourself started. If you are new to this s...
