Campfire Guitar Lessons

This is a special ninja trick that will help with all your chords.

Don't give up! Guitar chords especially, can seem especially daunting. Every great guitar player had issues with playing at first. It's all about practice!

In this video, you will learn the nine essential guitar chords that you cannot live without. Learning these guitar chords will allow you to play in millions of songs!

How to play guitar chords and the nine chords you CAN’T live without

This video is one of the most important videos for beginning guitar players or any guitarist that is having an issue switching from one chord to another. This is a technique I call transitions or transitioning. It's a simple technique and method. However, if you don't follow it, it will make playing from one chord to another seem frustrating.

In this lesson, I will show you how to establish great habits when transitioning chords. Here we will learn what fingers should move and which ones should not when moving from one chord to another.

In this video, you will learn the names and durations of the basic note rhythms that we will be using throughout the course.

In this video, you will learn the basics strumming technique. I've also provided several exercises in the attachment. Follow this method and master any strum pattern.

Learn some "tricks of the trade" in regards to guitar picks or plectrums. The gauge or thickness of the pick that you are using might be hindering you. Does your pick want to pull out of your hand? Watch this video and learn why and how to remedy it.

This is a ninja strum technique that I developed for my students that were having an issue with strumming.

Now that you know what you want to do with the guitar and you have your goals defined, how and what should you practice to get you closer to your goals?

In this video, I will introduce you to the "big strum". Basically, this is an exaggerated strum that keeps you true to the downbeats/downstrums and upbeats/upstrums. Use the method whenever you are having strumming issues. These big strums will keep you from strumming incorrectly. Remember to slow the strum down too if you are having issues.

In this lesson, I show you how to use your thumb to clean up your chords by muting the low E and sometimes even the A string. ALSO, we will learn how we might use this similar technique to actually assist in playing chords.

***PLEASE DON'T ATTEMPT ANY OF THIS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE NINE ESSENTIAL CHORDS FEELING VERY COMFORTABLE UNDER YOUR FINGERS***

This technique is great once you can understand this concept apart from playing chords using our beginner chord technique demonstrated earlier.

Watch this video and learn some things that you may not have known that will increase the life of your guitar.

In this video you will learn about inversions, also known as "slash" chords. The attachment for the video is the "open chords" PDF that you most likely downloaded from before. You will find 6 inversions on the last page.

In this video, I show you the most commonly used guitar chord inversions. The third page of the attached document has the illustrations for these commonly used inversions.

This video is an introduction to understanding shuffle rhythms.

The chord chart is a powerful method of musical notation which takes the basic blueprint of the song and condenses it to one page, illustrating the chords, sections of the song, and other specifics.

Capos are very useful tools for changing keys easily. They can also help to lower the action when practicing chords, specifically bar chords. Even if you have never considered using one, having an understanding of them will help you a LOT should you need to use one.

Not all capos are created equally. Let's take a look at the different types, their pros/cons and see if there is a best one for YOU!

In this video, I show you a couple of the most important techniques for dominating any goal on the guitar. It takes some practice, but once you get it, the sky is the limit!

n this video I show you the two methods that I use for EVERY and ANY new and/or difficult task on the guitar. This is an EXTREMELY important philosophy that you MUST practice in order to NOT be stopped and to continue to get better at guitar. Embrace this one!

Fingerpicking or fingerstyle is the art of playing the guitar strings with your fingers instead of using a guitar pick. This video is an introduction to that technique.