Forum

Neil,

I find your lesson style to be the best one out there and have learned to play quite a number of fun songs from you. Thanks. Among those have been a number of finger picking songs from the old Blues masters.

What I (and from what I can tell many others) am/are seeking now is to just “sit and play” (particularly blues) with the ability to noodle (improvise) around a song. Your doing this with Death Dont have No Mercy during this week’s update was fantastic. I want to be able to do something like this some day. I know you have some Basic Blues, Scales and theory lessons already. I have utilized them all. But I haven’t, given my intermediate state of playing, been able to put all the pieces together to be able to do anything even remotely approaching what you are doing on this week’s update. I am not expecting to get to that level any time soon but would like to aim in that direction.

I have looked around the internet to see if this is available elsewhere. There are a few options that purport to do what I am seeking, but none that I have been able to use as well as I have used your lessons to learn individual songs.

Have you ever thought about creating a series of lessons that integrate what you have already and then take us on a journey from being able to duplicate what you teach on a song by song basis, to being able to “sit and play”, at least a little bit?

I know this would not fit perfectly well with your business model. Maybe you create a separate “pack” that could be purchased separately. Or maybe (my preference) you create one lesson each month that eventually becomes a pack and helps us make progress toward what I am suggesting while we also learn a separate individual song or two . I dont know how others would react but this would keep me engaged for the long term.

This might be crazy, but I thought I would ask. Thanks for considering.

Hey,

Thanks for the message, compliments, and suggestion. My first thoughts on this are that it would be a long process but I could certainly give some direction on getting there. A lesson I am working on right now, solo arrangement of It Was A Very Good Year, has got me entertaining the idea of not just tabbing out an arrangement but walking through how I do it. I did this a bit with the lesson on Unforgettable. I think The Star Of The County Down might do something similar as well.

A couple of important starting points would be to understand the chord progression and know how to play multiple voicings of each chord. Then play through the progression adding embellishments and non-harmonic notes, sometimes letting go of the chords and throwing in licks from the scale.

Maybe I'll elaborate on this week's Update.

Neil