Over the last 15 months Master Guitar School has been giving a lesson series away via the monthly newsletter called, “Cowboy Chords: A Deep Dive into 1st Position Fingerings and Application.” The lessons are hosted on the “Free Lessons” page of the “Members Only” area of MasterGuitarSchool.com (you must be a Site Member and logged in to view them).
Now, with the completion of the series, I'm making the entire lesson series available as a single PDF download.
“Cowboy Chords” are otherwise known as “First-Position Chords” and usually contain open strings. The term, “first-position” indicates they occur within the first 4 frets. These are the typical chords (G, C, D etc) that most guitarists first learn.
You can find them being taught all over the internet and in method books everywhere. The very first method book I had – it came with my first guitar purchase at age 11 (1966) - was a Mel Bay book of first-position chords. That's where I learned them.
Why then, is a guy like me, a pro player who has tons of advanced teaching content, interested in teaching beginner-level first-position chords that can be found with a simple search?
Because I don't see them being taught the way I teach them. Furthermore, while some might say, “cowboy chords” and the phrase, “deep dive” of my subtitle is oxymoronic, such an attitude indicates that person does not really understand music &/or the possibilities contained in the guitar.
These lessons, though detailed, are not exhaustive. They merely present the most commonly used chords. Nevertheless, while this lesson series is aimed at beginner and lower-intermediate students, there are elements that will appeal to students beyond that categorization.
For one thing, I talk about technique issues which are commonly missing; positioning, optimum finger placement order, minimum force and so on. None of these technique issues were dealt with in the Mel Bay book I mentioned.
If you are more advanced, it never hurts to revisit the basics! You never know; you just might come across something you missed the last time around. That's happened to me plenty of times.
Cowboy Chords is one of the things I do with beginner students right off the bat. It provides a lot of gratification because entire songs can be played with just 3 or 4 chords. Heck, I can think of several hit songs that have one single chord!
The PDF contains:
15 lessons in 41 pages
8 links to other related free lessons
197 fretboard diagrams and other graphics
15 video links
Chord progressions are given in the PDF &/or the videos for these songs:
Refugee - Tom Petty
Born on the Bayou - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Proud Mary - Creedence Clearwater Revival
What I Like About you - the Romantics
Toes - Zack Brown Band
Another Saturday Night - Sam Cooke
With a Little Help From My Friends - the Beatles
Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry
Stand by Me - Ben E. King
Silhouette - the Four Seasons
Dream - the Everly Brothers
Every Breath You Take - the Police
Take a quick look at the PDF:
December 4th will begin a week of what I call, "Pre-Launch Content."
The first lesson of the PDF will be given away for free, I'll talk about the PDF, answer questions and comments about Cowboy Chords and give info on the launch itself.
The actual launch will be open for 5 days, December 11-15, 2023.
The launch will be to Site Members only!
So if you have any interest in Cowboy Chords sign up now and I will see you Monday, December 4th for the beginning of the Pre-Launch Content!
Jay
Questions? jay@masterguitarschool.com
