Hello, my friends! In today’s new lesson I’ll walk you through the fingerpicking waters of the 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy) by Simon & Garfunkel (1966). Musically, this song may seem simple at first glance — it’s just four chords played over a repeating two measure sequence. But from a fingerpicking standpoint, there’s a whole lotta subtle complexity at play. I’ll walk you through things step-by-step, demonstrating a few easy-to-play strum & fingerstyle options before settling...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Happy Friday, my friends! I hope your week is wrapping up nicely. I’ve been working hard on overdue organization tasks on my Song Notes website — and here's two quick updates from this week's work. Blackbird — Chord & Practice Guide [FIXED] Back in 2019, I posted a First Steps with Blackbird lesson… and made my worst-ever mistake of writing up a chord blatantly incorrect in the on-screen tabs. YouTube is forever, apparently! You literally can't re-upload stuff if you make a mistake. Live and...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Hey there, friends! Over the years I've had lots of folks request Duane Eddy’s 1958 classic Rebel Rouser — and I'm happy to finally have made a proper lesson for it! This is a song I listened to on repeat back in the 1900s (as my kids would say), when it was featured on the Forrest Gump soundtrack. Thirty years later, here I am finally learning it on guitar. Life is like a box of chocolates, indeed! This one is quite fun to learn. Relatively few parts to worry about, but just when you get...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Hey there, Reader — I've been busy organizing all my lead guitar lessons, and wanted to kick this email off sharing one of my favorites on that subject. This one is from a few years back, but it's absolutely worth watching in case you missed it back then: In this video, I show my process of building a solo from scratch — and walk through the process, step-by-step, of settling into a melodic groove atop the repeating 4 chord progression. One technique I use is playing double-stops — which are...
27 days ago • 2 min read
Reader — Labor Day weekend is upon us! As we say farewell to summer, I’ve got a brand new song lesson for you to sink into. Today we’re looking at Linger by The Cranberries — which I’ve gotten a ton of requests for over the years after briefly teaching the intro riff back in 2018. This song is a blast, and up there with my favorites from the 1990s. It surprised me to learn the entire song uses a single four-chord progression (D-A-C-G)… but there’s so much good stuff to be found just below the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader – brand new batch of lessons I want to let you know about today, all on the subject of using a capo. I've tackled this topic a few times in the past, but wanted to answer a bunch of recent questions on the topic. So here we go — everything nicely organized in one place over on my Song Notes website. First, here's the video lessons in this series — 6 of which are brand new: If you want to jump directly to a specific lesson, here's the list of everything on this topic: Capos,...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hey there, Reader — hard to believe it, but summer vacation has just about wrapped up here in Austin! Before the kids return to school & kick off their fall soccer season, I have a brand new song lesson for you. Today we're looking at Spin You Around by Morgan Wallen — specifically, the “1/24” version he reissued in early 2024. The main focus of my lesson is the acoustic riff heard during the intro (and after each chorus)… which is incredibly fun to play, but quite tricky to get the hang of....
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader — monthly digest email here, with one brand new song tutorial I want to let you know about! First up, I return to the third song I ever taught on my YouTube channel back in 2013! It's for the 1926 classic Tonight You Belong To Me — which is song I learned about through the ukulele covers by Eddie Vedder (2011) and Steve Martin (1979, which he plays in The Jerk). My 2013 video (watch it here) hasn't aged too well, which is true for many of my earliest videos. Poor lighting, bad sound...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey there, Reader! In today's lesson I'll guide you through strumming in 6/8 time — and teach eight different strumming patterns to help you out in that time signature. Most songs in popular music are in 4/4 time (4 beats per measure) — but the second most common time signature is 6/8 time, which has a slightly different rhythmic feel. In my lesson I’ll start with some basic strums (focusing on the strong beats), explain how to add filler strums, and end with a few ways you can embrace the...
2 months ago • 1 min read