Hi, fellow guitar picker. It's been a while since our last newsletter. I hope all is well and that the twangin' is good, but before I get into it all, remember that you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time by logging into
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/ and going to your UserCP > Edit Options and unticking the 'Receive Email from Administrators' check box or by simply replying to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject field.
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Kirk's Weekly Lessons
The latest one is a sort of bluesy jazzy feel I called Daydream Blues. It's not really a beginners lesson, but if you've had even just a bit of playing experience, I recommend you give it a whirl. It's a good finger-stretcher piece and rarely uses more than two at the same time. I just finished that one and you can find it here:
Daydream Blues
This lesson is free, but for a small outlay you can download the high-resolution movie version (which includes the animated virtual fretboard and half speed movie) and you also get the midi files, the mp3, the Guitar-Pro file, tab and notation, all in a very user friendly PDF format. You'll also be helping to keep the site afloat. With over 67,000 members now, and about 110 joining every day, our hosting/bandwidth bill just gets bigger and bigger. (The two latest downloadable lessons include a movie with a new 'bird's eye' camera angle that's pretty much the same thing that you see looking down at the fretboard as you play. Makes it very easy to follow what's going on.)
I also found a long-lost
slide lesson a while back on my computer while cleaning things up a bit. For some reason, it never got added to the new GfB&B site. It's a good one too, in dropped D tuning, pretty straight forward all things considered, but not for beginners. It's got a couple of very scary sounding intervals in it. You'll see that it's in the old 'one-camera-low-bandwidth' format, but it's a good one. Check it out here:
Line 'em up - 3 - Dropped D slide lesson
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You can also now buy all my finger style lessons on CD (not including these latest), all in the nice PDF format. It's cheaper and of course you don't need to download and have files scattered all over your hard drive. You will also be supporting the site and making it easier for me to continue putting these lessons together for you. Check it out here:
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/fo...p?pg=cdlessons
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800,300 views of my guitar related movies at YouTube! Going up the rate of 3,000 or so per day. Check 'em all out at
YouTube - planetalk's Channel
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PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book >
PlaneTalk - The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book
What do you do to get to the next level? Simple, you order my book PlaneTalk. There seems to be so much to remember where it comes to playing guitar, especially when you start looking into all those scales and modes. How on earth do you keep track of them all? You don't.
I've been chastised by many players over the years for saying this, but once they've read PlaneTalk, they understand what I mean. While it is good to know what they are and where they come from, you don't really ever need to play or practice all of that stuff to make good strong melody. I know I don't, not even the Blues Scale or the Pentatonics. I do, of course, wind up playing through their notes, but I'm not thinking them. I'm thinking something much MUCH simpler and accommodating, something that never lets you down no matter how complex the chord progression.
Here is a demo:
YouTube - Jazzy Improvisation - Nylon string guitar
This is not really my style of music, but the fact is that ALL music the same if you're thinking the PlaneTalk mindset. Not once in this improvised piece did I ever think 'scale' or 'mode'. Here's another, more my thing:
YouTube - Red Strat Blues - 12 bar guitar improvisation ... again, I'm not thinking scales, I'm thinking melody a la PlaneTalk.
Enough said, read some of the many testimonials here:
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/fo...-testimonials/
Once you buy the book/DVD, you can also join the private forum where we discuss the simple technique on a daily basis and where any questions you may have are quickly answered and cleared up. I'm there every day, so are many others.
Order it here:
PlaneTalk - Non-Australian Order page ... you won't regret it.
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Slide Guitar in Standard and Dropped D tunings
I recently added a new slide video to my YouTube pages, I call it 'Scratch my Itch'. Check it out here:
YouTube - Scratch my Itch - Slide Guitar improvisation There are a whole lot more at
Slide Guitar Web Ring - Bottleneck Guitar , all played in standard and dropped D tunings. I did spend a few years in open tunings -- the traditional way of playing slide -- but found it impossible NOT to sound like everyone else and so went back to standard tuning. What I found was a very rich environment for playing slide, a tuning that is in fact a bunch of mini open tunings all living side by side. All chord flavors are there for the twanging ... all you need is to know here to find them. I show you everything I know about the art in my 70 minute DVD, so there's no need for you to spend the years it took me to refine it all.
Visit
Slide Guitar Web Ring - Bottleneck Guitar for more info and to order. You can also buy one of my beautiful custom brass slides.
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Donations
If you're wondering why some members have stars next to their name, it's because they've made a donation. It's so easy to do, just go to this page
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/forum/billspaypal.php and enter the amount you decide. We have no official sponsors and we do rely on your generosity to keep this site up and going. If you don't want to buy the tangible products, like the lesson CDs or the Chord Slide Rule, then perhaps you don't mind parting with a few bucks that go will toward the rather large bills that need to be paid every month to keep the site online.
And, as always, thanks to all our starred members!
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That's it for this week, enjoy the lessons, enjoy the site!
Kirk Lorange
