Archive for: April 2008

Public access TV is a corner of the universe where people share genuinely valuable knowledge about subjects that interest them. A shining example of this art form is Tom’s Guitar Show, a video guitar lesson program hosted by multi-instrumentalist Tom Nothnagle, has informative video presentations about every genre of guitar playing. “It’s about an hour. It’s about guitars. Welcome to the online extension of Tom Nothnagle’s decade-long running weekly live cablecast from Iowa City, Iowa where you’ll find video, audio, photos and resources devoted to all things guitaristic.
It’s about guitar players and guitar playing. Flamenco-bomba, sure! Slack key, why not? Baroque, bottleneck, bossa nova… just name it! He’s called Guitar Tom because he plays guitars, he plays them well, and he plays them a lot in just about any style on just about anything with frets (and some without).”
Tom’s Guitar Show

Technorati Tags: video guitar lesson, guitar playing, Guitar Tom

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Blues solos are made up of licks strung together. Sometimes it is a bit daunting for guitar students to try make up their own blues solos. Today’s post introduces a video of a guitarist breaking up a solo into its components. The video is from Riffeo Video Music Lessons and Jam Tracks Community “. . . the world’s first music lesson file sharing site” where you can upload your favorite lessons, licks, songs, riffs, jam tracks, whatever you can contribute to help others learn and have fun with their instrument!” Well! The video is called Blues solo in A

Technorati Tags: Blues solos

After the Second World War youthful artists like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley were wrapping the blues in a new envelope called “rock’n'roll” and the players of the electric blues guitar like B.B. King were heralding the arrival of the lead guitar, soon to be a great attraction for both musicians and audiences. Throughout the evolution of the blues the electric guitar had always been used for solos in jazz bands but now it competed with the singer for the awareness of the listeners.
The blues can be played in any key that takes your heart desires and comes in three central forms: eight bars, for example “Heartbreak Hotel”, sixteen bars like “Saint James Infirmary” and twelve bars like “St. Louis Blues”. For some reason the twelve bar blues form is way more singer-friendly and popular with audiences than the other two, and it is the base of many great songs beyond the blues idiom.
If you go searching the internet you will find that the blues scales are just your common major and minor scales except that the third, fifth and seventh notes are played flat. However, you may be astonished to learn that blues players managed for centuries lacking knowledge about European musical theory. They learnt to sing and play from their families and friends just as many of the fresh white blues players of the nineteen sixties learnt from imitating the artists they heard on records.
And this is where the blues takes another course. After years of imitating their idols something odd happened to the white blues guitar players in Britain and the USA. They developed their own authentic, earliest styles. The elder blues players even began using the new arrangements of classic songs and adopting some of the unbluesy musical innovations introduced by young white guitarists like Eric Clapton. So the beat goes on. An alien culture influences American popular music and in turn gets fresh input from a new generation of guitar players from all over the world.
The Blues Guitar’s Influence On Music

. . . and here is a YouTube guitar video
Play Blues Guitar Like T Bone Walker
Michael Williams explains how to spice up your rhythm guitar playing and get that T Bone Walker sound by adding chromatic approaches to the chords in your favorite blues guitar progressions.

Technorati Tags: YouTube guitar video