Jon MacLennan

Let's learn how to play "Bell Bottom Blues" as recorded by Derek & The Dominoes featuring Eric Clapton on vocals and guitar. One really cool thing to note with this song is that parts of it have an almost identical chord progression to “Something” by the Beatles.

"Bell Bottom Blues" opens up with an arpeggiated guitar part that moves through the verse chord progression in the key of C. Then in the next section, the song changes keys to the key of A. This specific chord progression and key change is a songwriting move that George Harrison would use all the time. You can hear an example of this type of key change in songs like “Something” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

In today’s video I’ll break down each part of this classic song, and I’ll show you how to put it all together.

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Let's break down how to play this brand new song from Justin Bieber. I am going to show you a main rhythm guitar part that goes through the entire song. This guitar part would be great to accompany your voice or another singer. I am going to break down each section of the song, and show you how to put it all together.

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Let's break down how to play "I'm A Man" as recorded by Bo Diddley on guitar.

This is a must-know blues riff, and I'm going to show you two different ways of playing it in the key of G.

First I'll show you how you can play the basic riff and how to add a bass note to it with your thumb on your fretting hand. Then I'll show you how you can add hybrid picking in to the mix for a more advanced approach. This riff was used by a ton of famous blues musicians like Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, George Thorogood and more.

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In this lesson we are going to explore some guitar warm ups that use hammer-on and pull-off techniques. The goal with this type of exercise is to help you develop speed, dexterity, and strength.

As you all know I don't spend a lot of time doing exercises. In my own playing and here on the channel as well. Instead I like to focus on songs. I'll typically take songs and create exercises out of them. Then when I am done working on the exercise I get to make music with it. However, with that said I do have a few stretching exercises and some short things like this exercise today that I like to do to keep my chops up and keep improving.

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How To Play You Never Give Me Your Money | Beatles Guitar Lesson + Tutorial Part 2

This lesson picks up where we left off in the first part video which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Hf2CXHH34

This lesson begins with a meandering sounding chord progression that moves in minor 3rds. Then we move chromatically up to a blues rhythm pattern, and then finally we'll end with some arpeggio picking. I'll break it all down for you in today's lesson.

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Today is song #9 in the Abbey Road Series and it's how to play "You Never Give Me Your Money" on guitar by the Beatles!

If this is the first video you have seen in this series, I am posting a brand new song lesson each week on how to play every single song from the Beatles album Abbey Road!

In this lesson I have taken that classic piano intro and arranged the chords for guitar so this would be a great accompaniment part to play behind a singer.

In the second section of this song, we incorporate a walking blues style bass line . Bass lines can be great to mix in to your rhythm guitar playing to add some variety. Now there are quite a few sections and different chord progressions to cover so stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow, but today's lesson is going to cover the first half of the song.

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Let's learn how to play "Summertime" as recorded by Willie Nelson on guitar. This song is a must-know standard. Now there are so many versions of this song but this version as done by Willie Nelson is a nice easy lesson to get someone started playing jazzier repertoire. I'll break the whole song down for you in today's guitar lesson using open position chords.

Here is the original Willie Nelson video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5xafQXg1yI&list=PLdgtgX6KRHwRnv6EMfP8p3lVF_QjkzaMk&index=31

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Let's learn how to play "Start Me Up" as recorded by the Rolling Stones on guitar. This incredible guitar part is in Keith Richards' most common electric guitar tuning, open G.

To play this song Keith would remove the 6th string of his guitar and tune the remaining strings from the 5th string down GDGBD, which is the same tuning as banjo players.

The shapes used in this song are a perfect example of what I call the Keith Richards rhythm style. This style has influenced generations of rock guitar players and can be heard in clubs, arenas, and recording studios every day around the world. Let's break it down!

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Let's break down how to play "I Can't Explain" by the Who on guitar. This is fun rock song that uses some standard rock rhythm guitar chords. I'll show you how to play it just like the recording and also an easier way by just using power chords instead of bar chords to meet each player at different levels for rock guitar.

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Let's learn how to play the melody to the T-Bone Shuffle by T-Bone Walker on guitar. I posted the rhythm guitar parts lesson here a few days back here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_x9-DeBfDo

After I posted this video a lot of you were sending me requests and commenting asking me to cover the melody part to this song, so here it is just for you. I would recommend working through both of these lessons and adding this song to your blues guitar repertoire. It's a classic from an original pillar of blues guitar. 

The main melody to this song is just a short phrase that gets edited to fit the chords of our standard blues progression. I'll break it down for you note-for-note so you can understand the theory behind why this works and then go and play it right along with the original T-Bone Walker recording. Let's break it down!