Country Roads-- Guitar Tutorial-- Fingerstyle Guitar Class

Video-- Fingerpicking Strum Pattern-- with Country Roads

  This is a fingerpicking strum pattern-- using alternating bass notes, then a finger note, down hand strum, and backwards up strum with finger. 

  Shown using John Denver's "Country Roads", we use the chords G--Em--D--C--G. Hope all of you can follow along and we can learn this together.

Thanks to my friend Dennis who videoed this short lesson.

Video-- Fingerpicking Pattern

For My Students : This is a basic fingerpicking pattern. 

 Hope you all can grasp this, play along with me, and we all can learn the technique together.

Thanks to my friend Dennis who videoed this short lesson.

Video Guitar Lessons

COMING SOON!

Beginning Guitar Video Lessons

I recently filmed some guitar teaching videos, and will begin to post them on this site soon.  The GuiTarHeel site will also be remodeled a bit, with easier-to-navigate tools.

My new videos will include Guitar Lessons on topics like :

• How to Hold &  Play the Guitar

• Learning the Strings of the Guitar

• Learning our First Guitar Chords

• Fingerboard Exercises : The "Spider" Scale

• Strumming Patterns & Techniques

    
   These videos are designed to be used as follow-up lessons for my Guitar Class students.  They may eventually be utilized as a separate Guitar Teaching Video, or website.

  The videos will be downloaded and posted to the GuiTarHeel website, and will probably also be posted on YouTube.  Hopefully, after posting these first few videos are posted, then more will be added soon.  Eventually, I hope to start posting new videos every week.

Your First Guitar Chords (video)

YOUR FIRST GUITAR CHORDS

(12 mins)

This basic video shows your first three chords (G, C & D7) 

in great detail, with both explanation and demonstration.

Learn these three basic guitar chords, and

you can play hundreds of popular songs.

The Spider Exercise (video)

THE SPIDER EXERCISE

(11 mins)

A short video explaining and demonstrating 

The Spider Exercise, 

which is basically a chromatic six-string warm-up exercise

 which helps to stretch the fingers and develop 

dexterity and discipline in note playing.

Guitar Boogie

  The song "Guitar Boogie" was written by Arthur Smith, a country/bluegrass favorite in the Carolinas area.  This song is a simple three-chord 12-bar blues song, with a basic scale-type melody progression that incorporates a series of four or five notes, which are ascended and descended, and then moved up to the next string.

  It starts with the "G" chord shape, and with this note progression--G--> B --> D--> E--> F
which specifically includes G (6th string--3rd fret);  B (5th string-- 2nd fret); and then the D-E-F progression (4th string-- open, 2nd and 3rd frets).  Next, this melody is descended (it moves back down the same notes). 

The first part of "Guitar Boogie"

  
   The melody repeats itself, and then moves to the "C" chord shape, which is actually the SAME progression, only on different strings.  The G moves to a C (5th string--3rd fret); the B to an E (4th string--2nd fret) and then the G-A-Bb progression (3rd string-- open, 2nd and 3rd frets).   After this, the song repeats the "G" section once again.

         G (6th/3rd fr.) --> B (5th/2nd) --> D (4th/open) --> E (4th/2nd) --> F (4th/3rd)

then descend (E--> D --> B)

         C (5th/3rd fr) -->  E (4th/2nd) --> G (3rd/open) --> A (3rd/2nd) --> Bb (3rd/3rd)

then descend (A--> G --> E)

  Look at this a couple times, and if you don't already, you will see that this is the SAME progression, and the second part (in C) simply moves up a string, but it is the SAME form or progression.  This may sound complicated to you as a beginning guitar player.  It actually is incredibly simple.

  Then, for the LAST part of the song, it moves up to the "D" string.  This one is a bit different, because it is the conclusion of the song, but once you learn the first two parts, this last part should fall right into place for you.