Acts of Discovery
Beautiful landscapes from fine arts photographer George Chambers. Solo acoustic guitar and video by David Luck. > George talks about his art.
COMING SOON
Click images and underlined blue text links to learn more.
Greene was a fingerstyle jazz guitarist, session musician and music educator who produced a lifetime’s worth of guitar study. No one has done more to establish the guitar as a serious instrument. Greene’s massive output is housed at his legacy site. I recommend a visit to peruse his Lesson Downloads. It will inspire your own creativity and instill a heavy dose of humility.
For generations, this book has been the bible of chords and its title a code among players that separated the 'men from the boys.' The brief musicology lessons at the beginning of each chapter are a great place to begin your guitar journey.
Free App
Look Up Chords / Look Up Scales / Reverse Chord Look-up
This is a great creative resource that I’ve been using over the past decade. The app does "reverse" chord lookup. You specify how the chord is played, and it’ll tell you what the chord is called. And will generate alternative chord forms.
It is handy for transposing keys and generating alternative octaves for song development. My favorite capability is entering custom guitar tunings and find related chord forms.
Learn from the Masters
Bert Jansch is one of the most innovative and influential world artists of the past century. Neil Young is quoted as saying: "As much of a great guitar player as Jimi [Hendrix] was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar... and my favorite." Fortunately his legacy is well documented and recordings lovingly preserved. Jansch may be even more influential today than he was during his life time.
John Fahey is considered by many to be America’s greatest finger style steel-string guitar player, and a master composer for the solo instrument. His legacy website offers a trove of song tabs. Alternative tunings are documented by song and recording.
Listening to his recordings is a must, of course. My personal favorite is Railroad; a powerhouse from the first to last note.
For inspiration, copy one of Fahey’s tunings and paste into the Guitarator custom guitar tuning field. You’ll get a glimpse into the potential for orchestrating a solo guitar.
No electricity required. Perfect for anytime you are stuck on deserted island in the South China Sea, your tuner battery goes dead and you don’t have perfect pitch.
Elderly Instruments does have tuning forks. They also carry a wide selection finger-style specific books and DVDs that teach a wide range of musical styles and genres.
Exclusive Tracks
Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Unreleased 6-String Guitar SoloHappy Birthday Parade
Unreleased 6-String Guitar Solo
“You can ‘shred’ a guitar. But you can’t eat it.” - DL
As quoted by Ernie Mansfield in his wonderful essay The Secret of Music Talent:
Is talent learned, or inherited? Mansfield is a master musician and teacher. Read
this and other essays by Ernie at Music Self Help. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” - Steven Chandler, personal growth guru
To misquote Oscar Wilde: "Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism."
“The hardest note to play is one” - DL
Artificial Intelligence is an oxymoron - DL