we wish you a merry christmas
“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” tab, chord and lyrics for ukulele and guitar
We Wish You a Merry Ukulele
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How to play “8 days a week”
Here’s a great Beatles tune with pretty simple, hand-friendly changes. You can certainly play this just by strumming the changes but you can also pick individual notes out of them- and even better, the melody notes are not difficult to get out of the chord shapes at all. Give it a listen and reach out to me if you’re interested in more information about how to play “8 days a week” solo finger style on acoustic guitar.
Building chords from the 5 string
Find any major chord easily and quickly from the 5 string!
We know the C scale has no flats or sharps and also that we can play Major chords (triads) with the 1, 3 and 5 scale notes. We can figure that combination out from any note on the 5th string! For instance a C Major is made of a C, and E and a G (1,3 and 5): C D E F G A B C
We know that the “two strings up and two frets back” rule can give us the same note but an octave up. We can do that from the 6 string and the 5 string. Let’s concentrate on the 5 string first. So C on the 5 string is at the 3rd fret and consequently, on the 5th fret of the G string. That gives us our one note in two places!
Starting with C on the 3rd fret of the A string, we can see D on the open D string, E on the 2nd fret, F on the 3rd and G on the 5th. The G on the 5th fret is important to us! Now we have 1 and 5, we just need 3!
How to play “Pennsylvania 6-5000”
How to play “Pennsylvania 6-5000” A fun tune and not too hard to get under your hand.
Pennsylvania 65000 chord chart- iReal Pro
Pennsylvania 6-5000 chord lyrics
The song became a jazz and big band standard also recorded by the Andrews Sisters, Judy Garland and Martha Raye in a duet, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Jimmy Mundy and His Orchestra (1959), Louise Gold, Kathy Miller, Martin Brushane Big Band, the Blue Moon Big Band (1999), in a 1976 Carol Burnett Show episode in a tribute to Glenn Miller, Syd Lawrence, Michael Maxwell and His Orchestra, Richard Hunt and Jerry Nelson (Bobby Benson and the Baby Band) in The Muppet Show (1979, Episode 319), Fud Candrix and His Orchestra, Jerry Gray, Mina, Lou Haskins, Jack Livingston, Raquel Rastenni (1941) in Copenhagen, Starlight Orchestra, Klaus Wunderlich, New 101 Strings Orchestra, Heptet, Meco, Tex Beneke, The Modernaires, Jack Million Band, Al Pierson Big Band, BBC Big Band Orchestra, SWR Big Band, and by Captain Cook und seine singenden Saxophone in 2012.
Fats Waller’s arrangement of the song for piano was published in the UK songbook Francis & Day’s Album of Fats Waller: Musical Rhythms in the 1940s. looking for online guitar lessons? First one is free!
How to play Yankee Doodle fingerstyle on guitar
how to play Yankee doodle on solo guitar, left-hand, finger-style illustration. This technique is actually simpler than you might think! It involves alternating the thumb and first finger on adjacent strings and like any technique, the way to get it under your hand is verrrrrrry slooooooowly.
How to play “Take me out to the ballgame”
Take me out to the ballgame! Chord shapes, lyrics and ideas about strumming patterns or guitar and ukulele
chord, tab, notation and lyric sheet here
The tab for the video is in the above pdf, along with guitar chord shapes and standard notation. Looking for online guitar or ukulele lessons? First one is free!
How to play funk lead on a classical guitar
There’s nothing quite like jamming out over the top of funk changes and you don’t even need to be plugged in to do that! Once you understand the blues scale- even in one spot on the neck- well, you can either look at it like it’s easier to play reasonably decent lines, or harder to make mistakes. Or both, I guess!
This tune is in C#m, so that’s the 1 chord. Since its a minor chord, the 3rd of the chord is flattened. That tells us what notes are going to work correctly when we play them over the top of the chord. To get started we can play C# (root note) E (flat 3rd) F#(4th) G#(5) and B (flat 7) and if you want to call these guys by their fancy-pants name, that would be “C# minor pentatonic”.
How I generally start with something like this is by remembering that if I’m on the the 1 chord, I need to keep coming back to the 1 note! It might sound crazy to just play one note over the chord but think about it – just concentrating on that single note lets you focus on making making interesting rhythmic patterns rather than worrying about where to put your fingers and scales and modes and all that other stuff. So try this: listen for the 1 chord first. […]
How to play “Deal” on guitar
This is a great Grateful Dead tune with some interesting changes and not too hard to play. The above video breaks down how to play the chord changes and below is an example of how you might play over the top of those changes. The distinctive part of this tune- the thing that says “Jerry” to me is the D following the B7. Playing this tune in A, normally I’d think to resolve to the 5 there, which in this case would be E7. I’m no expert at this stuff but I’d say the D makes an interesting, almost a “signature” tension here. Jerry Garcia fan? I bet you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Typically when I want to work out a tune like this, I’ll get the chord changes under my hand well enough to play them rhymically in time, then put them on a loop (if you don’t have a looper and you’re interested in playing extemporaneously or just practicing lead lines, I highly recommend you get one).
Once the loop is set up, you can get as granular as you want with your playing. I generally stop working hard at it once I understand the way the song moves and I can anticipate the next change pretty much all the way through. I start to be able to play it through completely without […]
Distance guitar coaching FAQs
Wouldn’t it be great if you could stop a guitar video at certain points and asks the guitarist “what exactly exactly are you doing there” or “what did you mean when you said that?”
Well now you can. Here are some FAQs that might be helpful:
- How do we get started?
First is a video chat, just to get acquainted. Based on our conversation, I produce a video lesson specifically tailored to you! - How does it work exactly?
If you said you were interested in playing a particular song, I make a custom video lesson just for that! I break it down into manageable sections you can play as often as you want at various speeds. During the actual lesson I’ll help you figure out any parts you’re having trouble with. Split screen video show both hands and my face, so you can hear and see just what I’m doing. - How much does it cost?
Distance lessons are $25 per session and the first session is free. Pay for the next session any time before it is scheduled. - Do I need to own a guitar?
Before we start, yes.If you want to use the initial video chat to talk about what kind of instrument you should get, that’s fine! I can show you any of the guitars or ukes in my studio; you can hear them played, and we can […]