 |
|||
|
|
||
|
|||
|
|
||
| GUITAR: CHOP SHOP LESSONS | |||
| WorkshopLive's Chop Shop is a survival kit for guitar players, the collective wisdom of Matt Smith's experiences as a performer and guitarist. His guitar lessons cover several styles and guitar techniques that will prepare you for different playing situations. Shop at the Chop Shop and discover the chord-tone approach, learn the major and minor pentatonic scales that you can apply to Blues and Shuffle; learn new chord voicings and the concept of voice leading to expand your rhythm guitar playing. Matt explains different types of tuning, including open tuning and DADGAD, often used in Country and Folk music, but also in Hawaiian music, and demonstrates their use for Slide guitar and Sitar. The sonic possibilities are explored in the lessons about harmonics and natural harmonics, and the course concludes with 'Words to Live By.' |
|||
|
Return to Course Catalog List |
Printable PDF Version |
||
| COURSE | LESSON | TEACHER | DESCRIPTION |
| Chop Shop | Getting the Most Out of Daily Practice | Matt Smith | Over the years I have found myself playing a wide range of instruments, at numerous gigs and sessions, with a wide variety of musicians. I've found that the ability to be calm and to make the best of stressful situations has made what in some cases could have been disasters into fun, fulfilling gigs. The key to this is preparation, and the key to preparation is practice. In this lesson, we'll look at how to break down your daily practice routine to achieve maximum improvement and to make you prepared. |
| Chop Shop | Mastering the Fretboard | Matt Smith | Every guitar solo in any style you have ever heard uses one or some combination of the following five concepts: - major and minor pentatonic scales - modes of the major scale - double stops - chord-tone approach - altered scales In this lesson, we'll discover how incredibly simple it is to master the major and minor pentatonic scales all across the fretboard. |
| Chop Shop | The Chord-Tone Approach | Matt Smith | You know, when you first start playing lead guitar they should give you a book that says "As long as you land on one of the notes in the chord you're playing, you'll always sound great." In this lesson we're going to look at a non-scalar way to play over chord changes, known as the chord-tone approach. Instead of using scales, we'll find a number of different ways to resolve to the notes of the chord being played. This is a great approach to improvising because it doesn't sound 'scaly', and because it sounds a little 'outside' the key, it adds color to your playing. |
| Chop Shop | Rhythms and Grooves | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll take a look at some basic strumming patterns that are essential for creating an authentic blues groove. We'll also look eighth-note shuffles and swing feel patterns, as well as sixteenth-note strumming grooves using syncopations and accents. We're going to check out the upstroke shuffle, the downstroke shuffle, the Bo'Diddley feel, and so much more. Let's get started |
| Chop Shop | Moving One Note in a Chord | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll take a look at moving one note in a chord. It's amazing what you can come up with by simply moving a single note within a chord one half-step up, one half-step down. This technique has been used countless times in everything from classical symphonies to jazz and rock tunes. It's a great way to get more movement within a chord progression. |
| Chop Shop | Funky Rhythm Fills | Matt Smith | Playing rhythm guitar can get a little stagnant if you're just laying down one chord for ten minutes. In this lesson we'll explore how to spice up your groove by using chords as fills. A fill is a group of chords used to add motion and interest to a rhythm part. We will be using chords built on the first three strings, with the root on the first string. I find these voicings to be the most usable. Let's get started. |
| Chop Shop | Creating Chord Fills over a Minor Chord | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll look at a simple method for creating chord fills over an extended, minor, single chord groove. Once again, we'll be using chord forms in the top three strings and we'll work on some chord fills over an A minor seventh and E minor seventh groove. Let's get this party started! |
| Chop Shop | Open D Tuning | Matt Smith | When's the last time you heard a truly original blues lick? Most music has 'been played' in standard tuning, but altered tuning is a vast field largely unexplored by guitarists. And, altered tuning is any tuning other than the standard E-A-D-G-B-E tuning. Some altered tunings are open tunings - that is, tunings that create a chord, such as G major or D major, when you strum the open strings. This lesson will look at open D tuning, sometimes called Vestpol, and we'll see how this altered tuning can facilitate a whole new world on the guitar. |
| Chop Shop | Travis Picking in Open D Tuning | Matt Smith | One of the building blocks of fingerstyle guitar is Travis Picking, named for the great guitarist Merle Travis, who was obviously a great guitarist because he had a picking named after him. This pattern has an alternating bass and the thumb alternates with the fingers. Many great songs have been written in this style and it has been used by such guitar greats as Chet Atkins. This lesson focuses on the use of Travis Picking in open D tuning. You ready? Let's get started... |
| Chop Shop | Five Open Tunings for the Price of One | Matt Smith | The wonderful thing about open tunings: when you learn one of them, you get five! Open tunings are kind of like bar chords. While bar chords move up and down the neck, tunings move across the neck. So, eveything we've learned in D tuning will work in E tuning, G tuning, A tuning and C tuning. You ready? Let me show you how. |
| Chop Shop | The Secret Country Blues Diagram | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll take a look at how to build swampy licks in the style of the great Ry Cooder in open tuning using the Secret Country Blues diagram. This concept will work in the other four open tunings; just shift the diagram over one or two strings, depending on the tuning. Here we go... |
| Chop Shop | DADGAD Tuning | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll take a look at a new tuning know as DADGAD. DADGAD tuning is a great tuning because it does not imply either a major or a minor chord. It is also called D suspended; the 3rd of the D Major scale (F-sharp) in D tuning is replaced by the 4th note (G) in this tuning. Since this scale tuning has no 3rd, it is very versatile. We can use it with major, minor or exotic scales. It is a favorite of many great fingerstyle guitarists such as Pierre Bensusan, Ed Gerhard, Martin Simpson and Jimmy Page. Let's take a look. |
| Chop Shop | DADGAD Tuning In Celtic Music | Matt Smith | In the previous lesson, we looked at an altered tuning known as DADGAD. In this lesson, we'll look at ways to use this new tuning in the context of the "Celtic DADGAD." The term "Celtic" in this case refers to the lovely music of Ireland and Scotland. DADGAD has been used extensively for arranging this music on the guitar. We will not explore traditional tunes in this section, but explore some chords and embellishments that emulate this beautiful style. This will give you just a taste of how well suited DADGAD is to the style. |
| Chop Shop | Indian DADGAD | Matt Smith | One of the primary instruments of Indian classical music is the sitar. The sitar has between 7 and 20 strings, including 7 main playing strings. The others ring sympathetically in reaction to the vibrations of the main strings. The main strings on a sitar are tuned to C-sharps and G-sharps, a mere half step away from the D's and A's of DADGAD, the altered tuning we looked at in the past two lessons. This makes it quite easy to emulate the sound of sitar tuning. |
| Chop Shop | Slide Guitar Techniques | Matt Smith | Slide guitar is one of my great loves; I've been playing it ever since I picked up a guitar. There's nothing more vocal you can do with a guitar. Slide guitar is a great tradition upheld by a growing legion of enthusiastic devotees, and it reaches to the very core of my soul. Playing slide in standard tuning is actually a little harder than playing in altered tunings, so for this lesson, we'll look at playing slide in open D tuning. You ready? Let's get started. |
| Chop Shop | Hawaiian Slide Guitar I | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll begin to take a look at the basics of Hawaiian slide guitar. Hawaiian slide guitar dates back to before the turn of the 20th century. Primarily played lap style with a solid bar and a high nut, this style is renowned for both its lush, beautiful chords and vibrato and wild up-tempo romps! There are many great practitioners of this amazing style, but my hero is Jerry Byrd. Jerry was the master of touch and tone. To me, he is to lap steel what Segovia was to classical guitar as Hendrix was to rock. The Absolute Master. |
| Chop Shop | Hawaiian Slide Guitar II | Matt Smith | In this lesson, we'll look at three special techniques in the Hawaiian Slide guitar style: the slide harmonic, the behind-the-slide harmonic, and palm harmonics. You should already be familiar with Hawaiian slide guitar tunings, especially the D6 tuning. If you aren't, be sure to check out the last lesson where we covered the most common tunings. Let's get started. |
| Chop Shop | Harp Scales | Matt Smith | One of my very favorite tools is to use harp scales. Harp scales are scales arranged across the strings in such a way as to allow many of the notes to ring over each other. This gives the guitar a beautiful ringing sound, much like a piano with the sustain pedal depressed or a harp, hence the name. There are certain keys and tunings that work well with these scales, particularly those with open strings in the key. In this lesson, we will explore harp scales in standard and D tuning. Eventually, you should try to arrange licks you often play normally in the harp scale format. This lesson is video only - there are no animated exercises |
| Chop Shop | Creative Guitar Harmonics | Matt Smith | Another way guitar players can expand their vocabulary is by integrating natural harmonics, that is, harmonics occurring naturally on the open strings, into their rhythm playing and improvisation. Every string on your instrument is loaded with natural harmonics, some easy to play, some tougher. In this lesson we'll look at ways use natural harmonics to build chords and scale in standard tuning. |
| Chop Shop | Words To Live By | Matt Smith | One of the great things about music is that it is an aspect of a musician's life that gets better with age. Your music gains depth and your chops hone to a smooth edge as you mature. I think one can never learn all there is traveling through a single lifetime,but the journey is so very sweet. I would like to leave you with a few words to live by. |
|
Return to Course Cataolg List |
|||