When I was first learning guitar, a friend of mine wrote a song that had this cool passing note (an F#) in between the G chord and the Em chord. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and practically forced him to teach it to me.

I’ve since discovered this is about as common as sliced bread, but I still use it frequently anyways, because it sounds cool.

The cool thing is, is that for a beginner it is very easy to learn how to throw these notes into your playing, and you get the satisfaction of hearing your playing sound like something more than the usual strum-strum. =)

(It’s been 15 years, but I still remember some of the early victories learning guitar!! =)

Anyways, here is the lesson. Don’t forget to tell me if you loved it or hated it! You can leave a comment just below the video. Enjoy…

It’s probably due to the incessant commercializing of Christmas, but over the years I’ve developed a slightly involuntary cringe whenever I hear a Christmas carol. Nothing against Christmas – nothing at all – but seriously, do the stores have to all buy the same CD, and play only that one CD endlessly for 2 solid months?

Now that I’m on the subject – I was once in a store buying some shoes around Christmas time, and I heard the same song repeated six times! Can you believe it?

So – because Christmas music can still be fun – here’s a short list of great albums that put a bit of a different spin on the traditional carols most of us are used to. Why did I pick 8? Why not? 10 is so over-rated…

There are of course countless Christmas albums out there (seems that nearly any band that’s been around more than about 4 years has a Christmas album) so here I’ve decided to focus mostly on Christmas albums that are guitar or blues/rock based. I mean, what guitar player wouldn’t find it cool to have a guitar-driven version of Deck the Halls roaring out of the stereo?

Just as a side note – if you click through to Amazon you can actually listen to samples of each song on each album.

Thus without further ado, I present you 8 Cool Guitar Christmas Albums.

1. Merry Axemas: A Guitar Christmas

2. Merry Axemas, Vol 2: More Guitars for Christmas

3.

Christmas Spirit

(Los Lonely Boys)

4. Genuine Houserockin Christmas

5. The Venture’s Christmas Album

(A bit older – but talk about sweet guitar work!)

6. The Ho! Ho! Hoey! The Complete Collection

7. A Classic Rock Christmas

8. Santamental

(Steve Lukather)

PS – These would make great stocking stuffers or gifts for any guitar player!!

Do you have a favorite Christmas album you’d like to see added to this list? Leave a comment and tell me about it below!

A lot of you beginners have mentioned to me that you’re at the stage where you’re working on chords, so I thought that today I would bring you a handy little video which very simply focuses on open chords, how you play them and what they sound like.

I’ve included a chord chart beside each one I teach right inside the video.

The major chords that are covered in here are: A, B, C, D, E, F, G

The minor chords that are covered in here are: Am, Bm, Cm, Dm, Em

I fully realize there are a LOT more chords out there, but with the handful I’ve just listed you can play probably 90% of the songs that are out there. Cm doesn’t even need to be in that list, I kind of threw it in because it is just like Bm, but moved up 1 fret.

If this lesson is about the right speed for you, you might consider checking out Jamorama. Their entire course is chock full of these types of examples, though done much more professionally than I’ve done here! =)

Questions or Comments? Leave one below!

The diatonic minor scale is very similar to the pentatonic scale that you’re probably familiar with by now. The only difference is that you’re adding the two notes the pentatonic scale leaves out. In the Am example in the video, these two notes -- the ‘color’ notes -- are B and F. In the scale pattern, that’s the II and the VI notes.

If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about with the II and VI, you might want to checkout my latest lesson on I, IV and V. It’s quite a fundamental one in my opinion, and really helps open up the guitar.

But onward and upward! Today we’re talking about the diatonic scale. Please add this one to your practice routine -- its a very important scale -- more so than the major scale, as the guitar favors the minor. Piano teachers (and most guitar teachers) always start you off with the major scales (most commonly C major), but that’s because piano is geared for that. Guitar isn’t. Guitar is an extremely minor-friendly instrument.

Besides, A minor is the first scale that was ever invented. Not C major.

How do I know that?

Simple. When you start counting your marbles, do you start at 3? Nope, you start at 1.

So, the first scale was simple -- A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

NOT C, D, E, F, G, A, B -- that just wouldn’t make sense, would it?

Anyways, there’s your guitar scale trivia for the day -- here’s the lesson!

Comments or Questions? Leave one at the bottom of the page!