>>New Lessons Package - Neil Hogan Guitar Instrumentals 10 Pack of Lessons

What we have so far, new songs added weekly!
tgjameela
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Thu Jun 25, 2015 1:29 pm

Hi Everyone,

We just released a brand new 10-pack of lessons for Neil's very own Guitar Instrumentals!

Click here for more details

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This new lesson pack includes guitar instrumentals written by Neil Hogan himself.
Valued at over $72.95, we are currently offering this 10 pack of lessons for $47.95, which includes lifetime access.

All video lessons within this series are expertly taught by Neil Hogan.

I became fascinated with instrumental guitar pieces as a young teenager (who was not comfortable with singing) when I heard guitarists like John Renbourn, Mason Williams,
Jorma Kaukonen and John Fahey. I remember making up my own pieces very early, thinking anybody could come up with cool stuff.

As I studied music theory through college I really became interested in writing complex, but hopefully compelling pieces. I wrote some pieces I was pretty happy with around 1985,
and recorded some albums in the late 1980s and early 90s which included a few of these originals. I got a lot more serious and inspired in early 1999 after getting to know John
Renbourn. In anticipation of our first concert in May 1999 I put together a few new pieces. Afterwards I combined those with some of the 1985 pieces into my first album of
original compositions, On The Horizon. The creative juices continued to flow over the next few years and all of a sudden I had Cobble Creek and El Dorado done by 2002.

Many of my students put considerable time into learning some of them since then, and TotallyGuitars brought a new and much bigger audience interested in tackling some as well.
We now have our first 10-pack of these available, although one is my arrangement of a beautiful ragtime piano piece, that will present a big challenge to intermediate, and even
advanced guitar students. I hope you enjoy them!

Whodunit? is a ragtime instrumental I wrote in 2000. It started out as a somewhat bluesy piece and I was trying to write an intermediate level piece that some of my students could play.
Mission accomplished as far as the first eight measures, but then the tune took on a life of its own and a jazzy, walking bass section materialized. So it became an advanced instrumental
and a piece I opened many concerts with for a few years. If you take it in small doses, and allow much more time for the walking bass section, you will find yourself with a very fun piece
to play and perform. The Walking Bass Section of Whodunit? is what bumps this up to Level 8. There are only five unique measures here but they probably need to be taken one to two
beats at a time, very, very slowly, before gradually speeding them up. You might think of this similar to approaching barre chords after you started feeling pretty good about open
chords- patience and persistence required. After this lesson had been up for a bit I thought it might be a good idea to offer some alternatives to the Walking Bass section. Part 4
presents a very easy way and one that is somewhere in between., Variation II is the easy way and just has chords grabbed over the walk. Variation I is a bit more challenging and includes
a syncopated melody line. Aside from the AABA format of Section A, there are two variations on a different theme that make up Sections B and C. They both have a repeating bass
pattern just alternating from the root down to the fifth of an A Minor chord, the open A and E strings. Section B has four phrases harmonized in thirds on the second and third strings.
One very important technique to master is damping the E string while playing the A string. The harmonized thirds also use hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides. Section C is just a logical
extension of Section B, harmonized in parallel sixths rather than thirds. The sixths will not be on adjacent strings like thirds, but will be two strings apart (the first and third or second and fourth).
The last phrase gets very high on the fingerboard and is difficult without a cutaway, an alternate approach is covered.

On The Horizon is the title tune from my 1st album of original compositions. It consists of an arpeggio-type accompaniment which includes melody notes interspersed with the harmony, in
a manner similar to Led Zeppelin's Babe I'm Gonna Leave You or Because, by the Beatles. The three sections are pretty similar and make use of harp-like effects, letting open strings ring
over harmonic changes.

One of the pieces many of my students have worked on over the years, Quicksand is the opening tune from my album El Dorado. There are five parts to the song, most based on a fairly standard
chord progression but using a combination of picking patterns involving partially arpeggios and partially alternate picking to bring out the melody lines. The concluding part to Quicksand
includes a segment on the arrangement as well as a Split Screen video with the entire song.

Rosa May is a piece I wrote a after a trip to Bodie, a well-preserved ghost town in the Eastern Sierras. The inspiration was a single tombstone, outside the main cemetery, with the simple inscription
Rosa May. I tried to capture a lonely, mostly melancholy, wistful mood with a simple melody and chord progression. It uses an arpeggio accompaniment with the melody notes woven into the harmony.
The goal is to really bring out the melody and paint the picture. We start with the main theme, hoping the student will apply some of the principles discussed as work continues on the other three
sections, which I sometimes refer to as episodes or chapters.

Sleight Of Hand is another piece from El Dorado, and one of our most requested, intricate songs for a lesson. Each Section is presented with split-screen versions for maximum clarity, along with
detailed breakdowns of the techniques and moves involved.

Tears On The Moon is a slack key guitar piece I wrote shortly after my wife's s grandmother passed away unexpectedly. We were in Hawaii at the time and I was playing a few songs in C Wahine
Tuning (C G D G B E). This is a tuning commonly used by Keola Beamer, sometimes referred to as Keola's s grandmother passed away unexpectedly. We were in Hawaii at the time and I was playing
a few songs in C Wahine Tuning (C G D G B E). This is a tuning commonly used by Keola Beamer, sometimes referred to as Keola's C. It is a short piece consisting of a couple of 8-measure phrases
arranged in an A-A-B-A form, with a 4-measure intro and outro. There are a few subtle, but difficult techniques as well as some big stretches required to turn these easy notes into music and it is
very challenging, in spite of the fact that it is played pretty slowly.

Wai'uli is a short piece inspired by an ocean front sunrise in Hilo, on The Big Island of Hawai'i. The song is really just two 8-measure sections arranged AABABA with an outro tacked on. The last A
Section is just a stripped down version of the main theme, and as such, it is where I start this lesson. The idea is to take a simple melody and chord progression, and dress it up with a few filler notes
to thicken up the texture. After you have the hang of the stripped down Section A (hopefully), we are ready to embellish it a bit. Part 4 really just adds some harmonic fills, other chord tones, in spaces
between melody notes. Most of these need to be played softly to stay behind the melody and not step on it. The B Section to Wai'uli has the bass line change directions and ascend from E through the
D scale, then leaves us on chord V (A), opening the door to return to the A Section. It is really important that each bass note rings until the next. We finish the lesson on Wai'uli with the Outro and a
little summary with suggestions. The Outro was written a few months after the two main sections and extends the chromatic descent theme to be the entire scale.

Following up on my own personal Ragtime Revival, I wrote a Classic Ragtime piece that is not too difficult to play, The Good Life (A Ragtime Excursion). It consists of four sections, with each one getting
a little more difficult. I have tried to incorporate many of the important techniques and characteristics typically found in rags without the pyrotechnics required to transcribe ones written for the piano
to the guitar. Section A is in the key of E Major and uses normal chords and shapes that you should already be familiar with. One of the biggest keys to proper Ragtime is the syncopating many of the
melody notes, accenting ones before a strong beat in the measure that are then carried over onto the beat. This is the main focus of Section A. Section B continues with ideas from Section A, along
with a similar chord progression. The last phrase is similar as well, with a busier, more syncopated melody, adding a bit to the difficulty level. It also brings in a moving bass line rather than the alternating
bass used up to that point. In many classic rags Section C modulates to a different key, typically the sub-dominant, or fourth step of the original key, and takes on a lighter quality. It is frequently referred
to as the "trio". One of my intents with The Good Life was to use common, almost cliche ideas. It starts with sustained thirds, outlining the chords, and finishes with a cascading, or rolling line, like the
earlier sections. I mentioned earlier that my main goal with The Good Life was to put together a reasonably easy-to-play ragtime piece. As I worked through successive sections, my definition of reasonable
fluctuated a bit and each part added a slightly more difficult element. By the time I was into the last section I let the momentum carry me into a cascading flurry of descending thirds, followed by a couple
stretchy pull-offs. I think a couple sections of this tune can make a nice project, without all four parts being under control, but in the interest of letting the challenge continue and escalate, you should
consider putting some time into Section D.

And Winter Glows is a short instrumental that was written just before New Year's 2015 and is almost more of an accompaniment to a vocal melody, just without lyrics. It uses a light percussive technique,
with the right hand tapping the strings on beats 2 and 4 in many measures. The harmony is a bit unusual, centered in the key of A Major but slipping into A Minor by using F and G naturals at the
conclusion of many phrases. The piece does not have to be played note-for-note with the score, it is mostly a matter of combining the chords and melody into anything that might feel right for you.

Heliotrope Bouquet composed by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin is a piece that has captivated me since I first heard a guitar arrangement of it on the Kicking Mule album The Entertainer. I really enjoyed
many of the tunes on the album, done by different guitar players, and was quick to order the accompanying tab booklet to set about learning them. As I listened more to the original piano arrangements
I found many of the guitar versions lacking much of what I heard on the piano. As I started to tackle those parts from the piano music I quickly found out why, and understood why the guitarists had simplified
things considerably in the interest of just making certain passages possible and close enough. I recently decided to revisit my reworkings and shoot for something more accurate, figuring that I was probably
a better guitar player now, 40 years later. This arrangement is one of the results of that mission. After a few requests from the TG Community I figured I would go ahead with a lesson on it. Section A starts
with some jazzy chords and a pensive melody. This and Section B were the parts written by Louis Chauvin. In Section B the mood picks up a bit and is less pensive and introspective. It kicks off with a diminished
chord leading into a bouncing, lilting melody, broken up with slight pauses and sixteenth note rolls into each next thought. It is very important here to get the chord down that you are rolling into early, before
starting the roll. Section C is where Scott Joplin's contribution to Heliotrope Bouquet started. There is definitely a change in style, although he quotes a bit of Chauvin's opening strain in the midst of this typical
"Joplinesque" sound. This section includes a difficult passage where the guitar needs to play a doubled eighth note run that is much easier on the piano. The last section is a little easier than Section C, although
there are more hinge-like moves where one finger covers two strings at the same fret for a beat. There also are some of the piano moves that are unusual on the guitar, namely playing eighth note parallel octaves.