Acoustic Guitar Player

It’s pretty hard to have an acoustic guitar site or blog without mentioning Tommy Emmanuel at some point.  Over the years I’ve seen him play many times in different settings, both acoustic and electric.  Although I’ve never been fortunate enough to play guitar with him , I did have him play one of my guitars one day in a shop when I was buying a Polytone Amp, he played some George Benson on my Gold Top Les Paul.

I find that solo acoustic guitar is on of the best ways to really hear a player, so I’ve posted this youtube blog article with Tommy playing solo guitar, the reason I chose Amazing Grace is because it’s a very common turn that most peple would know.  When you hear a player play a common tune it’s a great way to hear own personal musical voice.  Enjoy it.

Pierre Bensusan was that good as a guitar player in the mid nineteen eighties that the great (late) Michael Hedges recorded a song in dedication to him on the Aerial Boundaries album, the song was called Bensusan.  After Michael Hedges died, Pierre Bensusan recorded a song in dedication to him called So Long Michael.  Both these players have left an incredible mark on the development of acoustic guitar playing.  Bensusan had some very good early albums, Musiques and Solilai.  My favourite is the Intuite album.

This youtube video features Bensusan doing the traditional tune ‘Merrily Kissed the Quaker’.   Bensusan plays predominantly in DADGAD.  In this video he is playing a Lowden Guitar. Fortunately I’ve been enjoying his playing since the mid eighties and is the player that inspired me to play DADGAD tuning back then.

This guy is so darn good it’s scary.

Andy McKee is definitely one of the most interesting guitar players I’ve heard since Michael Hedges.  There have been quite a few guitar players that have attempted to do the Hedges style of open tuning/ percussive /hammer-on pull off approach but what I like about Andy is his ability to keep it musical.  A good test of music is to close your eyes and see what it sounds like.  There are many flashy guitar players out there but Andy’s guitar playing stands up by itself unaccompanied. 

Hats off to the man. acousticguitarist.wordpress.com

There are also other interesting resources, articles and videos at my other guitar blog that specilaises in acoustic guitar. acousticguitar.wordpress.com

Although technology can sometimes get in our way and make some very simple things complex, example you make a phone call and end up speaking to a robot that doesn’t recognise your dialect when you answer a simple ‘yes/no’ question, it can at times surprise you when you least expect it.  And I don’t mean the money machine in the wall that supplies money when you put that little plastic card into it suddenly makes an error in your favour with lots of zeros on the end. 

I’ve had a habit of every now and then recording pieces of music and then forgetting about them.  As I work with computers a lot, like every single day of my life, I’ve got this habit of backing up data.  Now data comes in all shapes and sizes. And when I back up, I find things.

Late last year I had an emergency situation where I needed to get a newacoustic guitar with a reasonable pickup system to record direct to a recorder instead of using microphones.   Of course I had to test it out, whilst testing the guitar out I recorded a solo guitar piece of music with the guitar tuned to C G C G C F, pretty mad tuning really but I studied Indian music and it’s similar to what I used to use with a great Sarod player Ashok Roy.

 Well, I listened to it and it’s pretty beautiful, and beautiful things are to be shared. I haven’t edited it at all.

I named it after the poem by the great Persian poet Rumi, someone dear to me used to carry that poem with her always

 “Come, Come, who ever your are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
it doesn’t matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times it doesn’t matter
Come, yet again, come”

To download it

 click here acoustic guitar mp3 By Tony Hogan

I’ve uploaded this free DADGAD guitar notation and tab scale for you to download.  For anyone that’s new here DADGAD is another way of tuning the guitar.  It’s been popular for a number of guitar players for about 30 years or so.  This scale is interesting to play because of the fingering.  And a little tip about playing scales, THE END RESULT IS TO MAKE GOOD MUSIC and not to be a great scale player.  Scales are simply something to get your fingers moving, to create flexibility and familiarity with the fingerboard.

Enjoy the DADGAD scale, keep it musical. DADGAD Scale D Major in PDF format

Recently I’ve been working on recording some guitar projects for clients.  And am currently developing some very unique guitar educational material.

CLICK the link to download DADGAD Scale D Major in PDF format

 If you’re not at the stage of plasying open tunings yet, check out the lessons below.

Download the free TAB and music notation of a simple country blues scale in DADGAD open tuning.

This is what I refer to as a country blues scale.   It is basically a B minor Blues scale but  is very useable over a common chord pattern pattern in D suc as D , G A7  etc.

I have put a few musical twists in it instead of just having an ascending then descending to make it more musical to play

Click on the link:
DADGAD country blues scale free tab and music notation in pdf

Country Blues Guitar in Open Tunings Taught by Stefan Grossman. For Guitar (Fingerpicking). Solos. Grossman-Gtr Workshop. Blues. DVD. Duration 101 minutes. Published by Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. (GW969DVD) Level: Intermediate. See more info…

FOR MORE DADGAD - Check out Laurence Juber’s and Artie Traum’s DVD’s  or the Acoustic Master Class series below 

Exploring DADGAD Guitar New Sounds, Textures and Repertoire. By Laurence Juber. Homespun Tapes (Instructional). DVD . With notes and tablature. Published by Homespun. (641722) See more info…

Essential DADGAD for Beginners 3-DVD Set. By Artie Traum. Homespun Tapes (Instructional). DVD . Published by Homespun Video. (641614) See more info…

Acoustic Masterclass Series: DADGAD Guitar Solos For Guitar. Guitar DVD. Acoustic Masterclass. Acoustic. DVD. Published by Alfred Publishing. (908113) See more info…

Here’s a nice simple Blues that I wrote this afternoon in DADGAD.  If you download the pdf and like it please let me know.

 Click on the link DADGAD Blues free download TAB in pdf

The Guitar TAB and Music Score software that I’m using is very very powerful. Click on the image below to find out more, it’s also a learning tool, plays midi, exports pdf, allows you to write in any tuning. It will save you hours of messing around.

Here’s a DADGAD D blues scale more of a rock style fingering

NOTE: you’ll se that I have named this as Minor Blues, it is still usable over a normal blues D, G A seventh chords.  Over the D and the G chords try using the F# note as well

 Download the free acrobat reader printable version by clicking on the link DADGAD D Blues scale for acoustic guitar in pdf

If you really are interested in developing as a guitar player, you need good resources, I’ve been playing almost 40 years and am still willing to learn. For a good range of blues sheet music go to my other site thebluesguitar

411,000 sheet music titles - Shop Now! 101 Must-Know Blues Licks Blues Rock Guitar Soloing… Me and Mr. Johnson

DADGAD Acoustic fingerstyle arrangement for guitar in TAB and music notation. e.g. music dots

I arranged this old folk song the Gypsy Rover in DADGAD tuning. It’s a free download in acrobat reader format .pf file.  Click on the link DADGAD Gypsy Rover Acoustic Guitar to download

This is a simple arrangement that could easily be built upon.

I use Guitar Pro software to write my tabs and notation, see the link below. The beauty of this software is that you can write it in TAB anb it will automatically write the dots.  If you are not a strong music reader it will help you develop music notation skills.  I’ve played guitar for almost 40 years and wish that it had existed years ago.  Check it out, it will change your musical life.

DADGAD arrangement of Amazing Grace.  I decided to arrange this song with a bluesy feel to it in 4/4 time. To write the notation the exact way I play it would take far too much time to write and probably very hard to read, this is a rough estimate.  Think Blues when you play it. This is a fingerstyle arrangement, could esily be modified for plectrum guitar

 Download the acrobat reader version. Click on the link

 DADGAD arrangement Amazing Grace .pdf for acoustic guitar

If you feel you are not quite ready for learning DADGAD and want to sort out the basics of playing guitar and fill in the musical gaps check out the Acoustic Guitar Lessons link

Celtic Instrumentals for Fingerstyle Guitar (DVD I: DADGAD Tuning) Taught by Al Petteway. Instructional video: DVD for guitar. Series: Homespun Tapes. Published by Homespun Video. (HL.641740) See more info…

DADGAD Jazz Blues is a variation of the last Blues.  I’ve still got the Blues so I thought I’d keep uploading these blues as a free download.

To download the pdf acrobat reader file click the link DADGAD Jazz Blues for Acoustic Guitar

I still had the blues this evening. so I wrote another simple blues, play it slow. It’s got some great little twists at the end of bars 9 and 10.  Enjoy it and build on it.

Download the free pdf version of FINGERSTYLE DADGAD blues it’s free no strings attached but if you record it please let me and my solictor know. 

It’s standard twelve bar pattern.

Enjoy

Essential DADGAD for Beginners By Artie Traum. Homespun Tapes (Instructional). Dadgad. DVD . Published by Homespun. (641608) See more info…

When I woke up this morning I had the blues, literally.  So I thought the best thing to do is do something to change my mood.  The best way I know of is to do something for other people.  So I wrote a simple blues pattern in DADGAD. 

It’s got a couple of interesting little stretches. There are a million ways of extending this blues and turning into a useable piece of music.

Here is the printable PDF to download DADGAD BLUES TAB and NOTATION in the key of D

I use Guitar Pro software to write my tabs and notation, see the link below.

DADGAD tuning.  Eastern Mode

Today I bought some software to help me create TAB and music dots and I’m pretty excited because I’ve been able to throw together a simple scale in TAB and music dots in about five minutes in both image and PDF (Acrobat Reader) format.  This is the beginning of a long line of uploads. 

 So the scale below is for those of you that play in DADGAD tuning, a very sweet and popular tuning around since Davey Graham came back from Morooco some years ago and has been popular with guitarists that open tune their guitar ever since. 

 It has an Eastern texture, if you play it with that feeling it will, it’s the flat 2nd, the E flat that automatically takes you East. The Major 7th , the C sharp is a very nice note to relax on, a bit of sustained vibrato here is very useful.  For those of you that are familiar with the Oud, you’ll probably understand this mode / scale a little more. 

These type of scales don’t need a lot of chords moving behind it getting in the way.  In Indian music only the 1st and 5th are used as harmony.

I use fingers 1 and 2 to play the first 2 notes and  finger 4 to play the 5th fret.  From then on I just relax my hand back in and fret normally until I hit the top string, the high D ( formerly known as the top E).   Take your time and really get ‘inside’ this mode. Download the PDF version of the DADGAD EASTERN SCALE

Don’t underestimate the amount of music in this scale

The Guitar TAB and Music Score software that I’m using is very very powerful.  Click on the image below to find out more, it’s also a learning tool, plays midi, exports pdf, allows you to write in any tuning. I’ll do a full review in a few weeks.

Guitar Tip number 1:

Playing guitar for many years has enabled me to discover a lot of a little things that will help guitar players learn the guitar.

One thing that I do, it’s only something that I’ve started recently, and a number of 12 string guitar players do this as well, is to tune the guitar down a semi-tone.  NOTE: a semi-tone lower means one step lower .

If you were to use a guitar tuner, the notes would be E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, B flat and E flat.

The positive side of this is it will take some of the tension out of holding down the strings. Yes, in time you can develop a stronger technique, but in the initial stages just get some music coming out.  You may also find in some cases that it may suit your voice better than the standard tuning, but this in itself is a long conversation that I won’t get into now.

Guitar Tip number 2 and a half:

 If you want to develop a good right hand for fingerstyle guitar, get hold of some simple classical guitar right hand exercises.  10 minutes everyday of this will help you gradually develop a good strong fingerstyle technique.

The secret to practicing is to do it with joy, don’t make it hard work. If you make it hard work you’ll always be struggling to get a reward for your hard work, as if it owes you something.  If you start getting stressful about practice, stop and do something else, but at the same time you will benefit from have a steady routine of simple exercises to work through.  I’ve tried lots of different ways of learning the guitar, some leave you dry and empty if you’re not careful.  You’ve got to ask yourself regularly, ‘Am I enjoying this?’, if not, find another way of practicing.

Not everything that you read or see by another more experienced, or even less experienced guitarist will be useful, but carefully consider what different players tell you in books, articles and web sites, take what you find useful and learn as many things as possible.

For guitar lessons click on the Acoustic Guitar Lessons link