News 2020
December 28, 2020: Blog: How to Practice: Understanding something and being able to do it are different things. Is there a shortcut? Yes, there is. This is it! Any other way will take longer!
December 21, 2020: Blog: Jam Tales: Wilbert Longmire: I can always spot guys like that by the way they watch me - I know 'cause I've been the wanna-be guitarist watching many times.
December 14, 2020: Blog: Texas Shuffle Applied to Jazz: How I merged two disparate styles of playing in an unpremeditated, organic way.
December 8, 2020: December Newsletter: Dominant Blues, Blog links, new product announcement and more!
November 30, 2020: Blog: Dorian 4th Clusters: FREE Guitar Lesson! Dorian Scale Tone 4th Clusters. This is one of the concepts I use for chord soloing.
November 23, 2020: Blog: Jam Tales: Funky-Ass White Boy: I believe it’s possible that old black Blues musician was sensing Jonathan Hinckle somewhere in my energetic bio-field. My cell-memory contains him, you know.
November 16, 2020: Blog: The Quick & Dirty Money Note: When improvising solos &/or constructing melodies, the third of the chord is the strongest, most definitive note of the chord, i.e. the "Money Note."
November 11, 2020: November Newsletter: Blues in Open G, Blog links and more!
November 2, 2020: Blog: 1972 Telecaster: I'm glad he said what he did, otherwise I wouldn't have kept it and therefore played it enough to figure out some things.
October 26, 2020: Blog: Jam Tales: Narada Michael Walden: That time I jammed with Narada Michael Walden.
October 18, 2020: Blog: Simple & Complex Music: In my opinion, when it comes to music, there is no good and bad, there is only what you like and don't like.
October 14, 2020: October Newsletter: Blues in Open D: Master Guitar School Monthly Newsletter includes a FREE LESSON! Blues in Open D: This lesson has fretboard diagrams, the 12-bar form in D, turnarounds in open D and a 4-minute video demonstrating all the above. Plus News, Blog Links and more!
October 4,2020: Blog: Tab Reliance Sabotages Knowledge! If you are relying on tab to learn stuff; tunes, scales, licks, etc. then you are playing by rote, like a trained monkey.
September 27, 2020: Blog: Back to Bach: I was a guitar player who was formed by the rock music of the mid-to-late sixties. I was trying to relate what I was learning in this music theory class to my guitar. I could find no correlation in the Bach style to my guitar playing.
September 20, 2020: Blog: 1979 Ibanez Artist: For $300 I had a guitar that I used for years and with which I made tens of thousands of dollars.
September 14, 2020: Blog: Common-Tone Voice Leading: When you move power chords and bar chords around (the typical way most guitarists play), most of the time you are in parallel mode. That's one reason why guitarists in general are fuzzy, or worse, when it comes to inversions.
September 8, 2020: September Newsletter: Blues in Open A. Continuing our beginner-level lessons on the Blues; The Blues in Open A is the easiest of any key/position because the I, IV and V chords all consist of open string shuffles. No big stretches.
August 31, 2020: Blog: Rut Busters! Double Your Vocabulary! Every lick, every pattern, every solo you've learned in A Minor moved 3 frets down becomes A Major. It sounds different, it's different theory-wise, it has a completely different emotional content...but it's fingered exactly the same! Just moved 3 frets down.
August 23, 2020: Blog: Ether-Shift: Live-Stream! When something paradigm-altering happens, those who actually come out on the other side better off than others are those who can let go of the old paradigm, adapt to the new reality and learn to take advantage of things that are now possible that weren't possible before.
August 17, 2020: Blog: What's Wrong With My Hand? Disordered Placement. When fingering a chord, most people put their fingers down in numerical order. Sometimes that's right; many times it's wrong.
August 10, 2020: August Newsletter: Free lesson on Blues Turnarounds in Open E, blog links, a free download and more!
August 3, 2020: Blog: Practice With Feeling! ...emotional gratification has to be inculcated into your daily practice because it's the feeling that actually creates motivation. So how do you do that?
July 27, 2020: Blog: FREE Lesson: Most people have issues when they first attempt bar chords. This lesson will not only introduce Major and Minor bar chords but will also give you some technique tips that I find greatly facilitate being able to play them - even for beginners.
July 19, 2020: Blog: Quick & Dirty Major 7 Arpeggios
July 14, 2020: July Newsletter: FREE lesson: Blues in Open E, blog links and more.
July 5th, 2020: Blog: I'm Looking For You!
June 29,2020: Blog: The Extinction of Guitar Method Books
June 22, 2020: Blog: Algorithmic Insanity
June 14, 2020: Blog: Quick & Dirty Major Triads
June 9, 2020: June Newsletter: FREE Lesson: 3 Blues Turnarounds, Blog links and other news.
June 1st, 2020: Blog: Porn & Bob Dylan
May 24, 2020: Blog: Skyping Guitar Lessons: Where's the SOUND?
May 15, 2020: Unique Voicings Prelaunch Content 3: 8 Chord Shapes - 71 Different Chords!
May 12, 2020: Unique Voicings Prelaunch Content 2: Add 9ths to Cowboy Chords
May 9, 2020: Unique Voicings Prelaunch Content 1: Same Old Tired Chords?
May 3, 2020: Blog: Unique Chord Voicings Will Launch Soon!
April 26, 2020: Blog: Unique Chord Voicings Are Coming!
April 20, 2020: Blog: Rut Busters! Pentatonic Purgatory (#2
April 20, 2020: Just received word this morning that Guitar Dock will not reopen. Hate to hear that. End of an era.
April 14, 2020: April Newsletter: FREE Lesson: The 12-Bar Blues, New Product announcements, Blog Links & more!
April 6, 2020: Blog: What's the Deal With Fender Picks? (Part 3)
April 4, 2020: I'm discontinuing physical book sales to all but my personal students. All books are now downloadable PDFs.
Go here for content and pricing information.
March 29, 2020: Blog: Can You Afford to be a Musician?
March 22, 2020: Blog/Email to students: Lockdown Guitar Lessons
March 16, 2020: Blog: The Big Scam: Rick Beato's YouTube Rant.
March 11, 2020: March Newsletter: FREE lesson - Shuffle for Beginners, New Product announcements, Blog Links & more!
March 1, 2020: Blog: What's the Deal With Fender Picks? (Part 2)
February 26, 2020: Blog: What's the Deal With Fender Picks?
February 17, 2020: Blog: Optimum Learning
February 11, 2020: January Newsletter: FREE lesson; Unique Voicings #32, blog links and more!
February 3, 2020: Blog: The Mistake-Reboot Loop
January 27, 2020: Blog: Dating My Gibson ES-175.
January 20, 2020: Blog: Quick & Dirty 3rds
January 14, 2020: January Newsletter: Unique Voicings Lesson 31, blog links and more!
January 5, 2020: Blog: Quick & Dirty: The Big Picture