Paul | Guitar Lessons and Performance - Paul Elwood

zoom or skype guitar lessons

Online zoom guitar lessons!

If you’re looking for online zoom or skype guitar lessons, I might be just the right teacher for you! I work with guitarists and ukulele players of all levels and abilities and I have students from all over!

zoom or skype online guitar or ukulele lessons

Online students from across the country!

To make sure I am a good fit for you, I offer a free initial online lesson. No matter what level you are playing at now, I’m willing to bet my own time that you’ll benefit from online lessons with me- and you’ll discover that yourself at your first FREE lesson!

Free lesson!

Simply schedule your free lesson for yourself here. The online scheduling tool is quite easy to use; simply choose “First Free Lesson” from the lesson choices and select the day and time you are interested in. If you see a time listed in the scheduler, that time is available for us to meet.

I’m looking forward to meeting you soon!

Paul

Paul2025-07-13T15:39:13-04:00

How to play “Your Song”

How to play “Your Song” Elton John – fingerstyle guitar. A beautiful song, and not too hard to get the melody right out of the chord shapes.

Paul2026-03-10T07:05:52-04:00

How to play “Yesterday”

download the pdf file with notation, chord charts, lyrics and tabs Yesterday-tabs

“Yesterday” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was first released on the album Help! in August 1965, except in the United States, where it was issued as a single in September. The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. It subsequently appeared on the UK EP Yesterday in March 1966 and made its US album debut on Yesterday and Today, in June 1966.

McCartney’s vocal and acoustic guitar, together with a string quartet, was essentially the band’s first solo performance. It remains popular today and, with 2,200 cover versions, is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. “Yesterday” was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year. In 1997, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) asserts that it was performed over seven million times in the 20th century.

“Music — what a powerful instrument, what a mighty weapon!” – Maria August von Trapp

Paul2026-05-02T10:51:41-04:00

How do I transpose a key for guitar?

Download the pdf: transpose-guitar

A bass player I worked with for a while showed me this neat trick. Thanks Lenny! First write down the notes in a row like this. I’m starting with C because that’s the key I want to transpose from. C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B Those half-steps also contain all the notes of the C major scale. C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B Now what key do you want to transpose to? How about E? If that’s the case, just grab that line of notes and rewrite them under the first line- with the E directly under the C. We’ll have to continue the half-step sequence to fill in the rest of the line.

So let’s say you want to transpose C, F and G (the 1, 3 and 5 notes which make a CM triad) to the key of E. What you’re saying is “if C is now E, then F=A and G=B. All you’re looking for when you transpose is the same relationships in a scale with a different root so 1/4/5 in C is C/F/G which relate to E/A/B in the target key. I hope this is helpful!

Don’t practice until you […]

Paul2026-03-12T09:22:38-04:00

How to play Donkey Riding

How to play “Donkey Riding” on ukulele. Download the tabs here
a simple two-part harmony on uke.

Donkey Riding had its origins with the sailors that left Glasgow and Liverpool on a regular basis to bring back lumber from Canada. It is not precisely a sea chanty, but more of a work song. The “Donkey” in the title is not the animal, it is the engine that was used in loading cargo in the ship’s deck. I’m recalling my days on the USS Richard L. Page – the bos’n mates maintained something called a donkey boiler or a donkey engine, so that makes sense, finally.
The melody is derived from the well known Scottish marching song, Highland Laddie.

A great old tune I remember my ma singing for me when I was little, she probably heard it from her da, who was a sailor.

This is not too hard to finger on uke right out of the chord shapes and it might be an opportunity to play familiar chords in a different spot on the neck.

Enjoy!

Paul2026-03-10T07:06:20-04:00

How to play “Something” part 1

something

How to play “Something” on guitar. Play the first part of this lovely Lennon/McCartney song for solo guitar. The chord changes are fairly easy and the melody can be picked right out of the chord shapes! The think I really like about it is that beautiful chromatic drop- CM, CM7, C7 to the F, so we’re dropping the notes from C to C to Bb to A. I find it’s a great way to introduce the CMm CM7 and C7 chords to new guitar players!

“The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest.” – Erik Satie

Paul2026-05-02T13:27:04-04:00

Jingle Bell Rock

How to play jinglebell rock on guitar fingerstyle for solo guitar. What a great holiday song to get under your hands… and not too hard to do. “Jingle Bell Rock” is an American Christmas song first released by Bobby Helms in 1957. It, alongside various cover versions, have received frequent airplay in the United States during every Christmas season since then, and is generally considered Helms’s signature song. “Jingle Bell Rock” was composed by Joseph Carleton Beal and James Ross Boothe, although both Helms and session guitarist on the song Hank Garland disputed this (see Authorship controversy section below). Beal was a Massachusetts-born public relations professional and longtime resident of South Ocean Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Boothe was an American writer in the advertising business.

“Discipline will only teach the techniques – a great teacher gives discipline, motivation and love” -Maury Massler

Paul2026-03-16T14:32:07-04:00

How to play “Country Roads” fingerstyle on guitar

How to play country roads fingerstyle on guitar This is a great John Denver tune – beloved around the world and not too hard to get under your hand. “Country Roads” is a terrific introduction to finger-style guitar playing because the changes are easy and the melody is so identifiable. And if you’re just getting started with reading tabs you can learn the melody line pretty quickly. Here’s a sheet with chords, tabs and notation for “Take me home, country roads” for guitar in the key of C.

This pdf has chord shapes with finger positions for the chords. country roads chords

Don’t concern about what you’ve played, concern yourself about what you’re playing

Paul2026-03-13T15:27:14-04:00

How to play “La Vie en Rose” fingerstyle on ukulele.

Download tabs and notation pdf

How to play “La Vie en Rose” fingerstyle on ukulele.

“La Vie en rose“ (French for ‘Life in pink’; pronounced [la vi ɑ̃ ʁoz]) is the signature song of French singer Édith Piaf, written in 1945, popularized in 1946, and released as a single in 1947. The song became popular in the United States in 1950, when seven versions reached the Billboard charts. These recordings were made by Tony Martin, Paul Weston, Bing Crosby (recorded 22 June 1950), Ralph Flanagan, Victor Young, Dean Martin, and Louis Armstrong.

A version in 1977 by Grace Jones was also an international hit.

Background and release

The song’s title can be translated as “Life in happy hues”, “Life seen through rose-coloured glasses”, or “Life in rosy hues”; its literal meaning is “Life in Pink.”

The lyrics of the song were written by Piaf, with music composed by Louiguy, and is registered with SACEM. It was probably Robert Chauvigny who completed the music. When Piaf suggested to Marguerite Monnot that she sing the piece, the latter rejected “that foolishness.” It was eventually Louiguy who accepted authorship of the music. The song was broadcast live before […]

Paul2026-03-31T21:12:10-04:00

First 10 things I should learn on the guitar?

Here are the first thing that comes to mind, if you’re interested in starting to play guitar:

1: C Major scale, first position. Everything you need is right there and it’s easy to spell.

2: C Major scale on the the A string, ditto- and you can start to see how the neck works (incidentally you’ve just played “Joy to the World” backward so that’s a bonus).

3: Hand-friendly C chord which is the 1 chord for C. You’ve heard of 1, 4 and 5 chords; a ton of folk, rock, country and bluegrass tunes use these chords, and the C is a great place to start.

4: Hand-friendly F chord which is the 4 chord for C. F is tricky but you can play it in a bunch of ways right at the top of the neck so no worries if you can’t make a barre chord yet, you can get away with a three-finger F chord by playing F, A and C notes. Keep at it.

5: Hand-friendly G chord, which is the 5 for C so a ton of folk, rock, country tunes- pick your poison.

6: D chord, using the open D string. You can ignore the 5 and 6 strings and make a triangle on the 1,2 and 3 strings just to get started. Open string is a freebie!

7: E […]

Paul2026-05-03T13:43:04-04:00

About Paul

Online zoom guitar lessons!

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Background and release

Here are the first thing that comes to mind, if you’re interested in starting to play guitar: