LESSONS AVAILABLE GENRES / CONCENTRATIONS

AMERICAN SONGBOOK

A one-on-one course customized to your interests and level of guitar play. We will start where you are, choose songs you like, and learn how to play them.

The American Songbook is a list that includes American popular songs and jazz standards that have stood the test of time -- popular and enduring tunes created for Broadway, vaudeville, musical theatre, and Hollywood film. For example:

Composers: Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, Hoagy Carmichael, Fats Waller, Stephen Sondheim, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

Songs: Ain’t Misbehavin, Accentuate the Positive, All of Me, Blue Moon, Blue Skies, Climb Every Mountain, Don’t Fence Me In, Dream a Little Dream of Me, Etc. etc. etc.

MOTOWN AND RHYTHM AND BLUES

A one-on-one course customized to your interests and level of guitar play. We will start where you are, choose songs you like, and learn how to arrange and play them.

For example: Be My Baby, Dock Of the Bay, Heat Wave, I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch), I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Just One Look, Knock on Wood, Land of 1,000 Dances, My Guy, Where Did Our Love Go, You Keep Me Hangin On

BEATLES

A one-on-one course customized to your interests and level of guitar play. We will start where you are, choose songs you like, and learn how to play them, whether it is melody, strumming, alternating bass, Travis-style accompaniment, or chord melody.

FOLK MUSIC

A one-on-one course customized to your interests and level of guitar play. We will start where you are, choose songs you like, and learn how to play them, whether it is melody, strumming, alternating bass, Travis-style accompaniment, or chord melody.

Singers like: Taj Mahal, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Leonard Cohen, Leadbelly, Gordon Lightfoot, Kris Kristofferson, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Jim Croce, John Prine, Neil Young, Donovan, Lovin Spoonful, Mamas & Papas, Ian & Sylvia, Maria Muldaur, Jim Kweskin

CAMPFIRE SONGS

A one-on-one course customized to your interests and level of guitar play. We will start where you are, choose songs you like, and learn how to play them, whether it is melody, strumming, alternating bass, Travis-style accompaniment, or chord melody.

Songs like: Blowin' in the Wind, Clementine, Down by the Riverside, Five Hundred Miles, Home on the Range, If I Had a Hammer, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Oh Shenandoah, One hundred Bottles of Beer, Puff the Magic Dragon, On Top of Spaghetti

SONGS ABOUT FOOD

A great list for dinner parties, farmers markets, or other novelty events. A one-on-one course customized to your interests and level of guitar play. We will start where you are, choose songs you like, and learn how to play them, whether it is melody, strumming, alternating bass, Travis-style accompaniment, or chord melody.

Songs like: A Cup Of Coffee, A Sandwich And You, Cooking Breakfast for The One I Love, Digging My Potatoes, Everybody Eats When They Come to My House, Hey Good Lookin, What Ya Got Cookin?, Jambalaya, Red Red Wine, Watermelon Man, Yes, We Have No Bananas

MUSIC THEORY

A course for guitar players or piano players who can read music and know a lot of chords. The six units provide a solid foundation for understanding and playing any genre of American music from folk to blues to jazz. Over the 6 units, we will study 85 songs, drawn from every genre of American music.

The 6 units are:

  1. Scales, Triads, Chords

  2. Harmonic Structure

  3. Song Structure

  4. Minor Key Play

  5. Jazz Chords

  6. Harmonic Analysis

BLUES

A course for guitar players who can read music and know some chords. Over the six units we will study 61 songs that you MUST KNOW if you want to play in a band or a jam session with other musicians. For instance:

Artists: Muddy Waters, BB King, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Reed, Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Koko Taylor, Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, LaVern Baker, Big Mama Thornton, Dr. John, Brownie McGhee, Taj Mahal

Songs: Baby, Please Don’t Go, Big Boss Man, Boom Boom, Bright Lights Big City, Crossroads, Dust My Broom, Funny How Time Slips Away, Got My Mojo Working, It Hurts Me Too, Key to the Highway, Little Red Rooster, Rock Me, Baby, San Francisco Bay Blues, Stealin, Summertime, Thrill is Gone, Walking the Dog, Wang Dang Doodle, You Shook Me

The 6 units are:

  1. Structure of the Blues

  2. Genres, Rhythms, Licks, Fills

  3. Pop, R&B Blues Songs

  4. Minor Keys

  5. Soloing Major & Minor

  6. Fingerstyle Ragtime

QUESTIONS