Simple Gospel to Improve Phrasing

For publisher-quality tabs & backing tracks of this lesson:

My Truefire "Guitar Zen" Courses:

Sound Tools Used in This Vid:

[zachkaeser]

Thanks for always championing a low stress and kind way of learning music Eric. We all need to be kinder to ourselves. Just spent some time audiating some of these old melodies and I felt my neurons making connections!

[marchallaert]

Eric’s a wonderful teacher. His style is friendly and inviting. The examples he plays are so very musical and the tutorials easy to understand. Thank you Eric for sharing your knowledge and insight with those of us that want to learn to play guitar 🎸

[zachkaeser]

Another old melody I love is O Holy Night. The B section when "fall on your knees" comes in is so moving.

[TomMarvan]

3:22 B-A-E progression doing the rounds once again 😊 (Sister Golden Hair and my favorite, So Far Away by Dire Straits). I was fortunate that my father, starting when I was very young, sang to me so many Czech folk songs and lullabies before bed that I derive the greatest joy in working them out by ear on the guitar when the mood strikes. He was a superb musician, even though he couldn’t play an instrument, other than his voice of course. Eric - Perfect tempo in teaching, perfect tone in playing. Thank you for another wonderful lesson.

[createlovehappy]

Love the music stuff. That room though... Beautiful hopeful morning light. Seems perfect for this song. Down to the River... Thank you. I'm filled with ideas to try . Now all I need is a guitar and an amp.

[Joseph]

There’s a great technique that’s, for me, worth this whole video, and that’s the walk down with the pinky finger from the 3rd of E maj., hit the B note and slide up a whole step, then end on the final chord.

[johnbell]

Love it man. I've heard Derek Trucks talk for a long time about singing through the instrument and really playing what you hear. Have spent years trying to pick out basic melodies. Haven't seen that many lessons that actually go through how this can work and methods for doing it. Really solid, helpful stuff man. I tried to smart my way around it for a long time with theory, but eventually you get to a place you gotta be able to hear. Thanks.

[lateonthebrakes-zd]

Such an important lesson. I'm not particularly flash or technical, but I find that nuanced phrasing makes up for a lot of perceived deficiencies.

[jd]

Thank You! You have the beautiful gift of teaching.

[brucejackson]

I had just challenged myself just this last week to learn Apache - the Shadows for a single guitar. This dove tails right into this. 😊

[DeGroove]

Great to see Eric is still handing out life lessons ❤

[donindri]

I have found that singing the Major and minor pentatonic scales when playing guitar until I can sing them without playing to be really helpful for my ear, forgot about all the kids songs. Same principle I think. Thanks for posting

[blues]

"Mary had a little lamb. Piece of cheese. Slice of ham." 🙂 I've been spending more time of late recognizing the triads and their inversions within each CAGED shape. That effort really helped me follow this lesson. Been using that skill to develop little solo breaks for some of the songs in my repertoire by using the triad as a landing point and then using scale notes to connect to the next triad. Just like you're doing in this lesson. My thinking is the triads will give my audience "trail markers" during my solo. Good stuff! Happy Friday. Homemade pizza was eaten.

[HD-rsfi]

Thank You Eric Find your lessons extremely helpful ... and your playing so smooth and enjoyable to listen to . Your down by the River playing is beautiful

[FabrizioCalderara]

So nice to see your "office" in the very first seconds of this video!

[smartgadgets]

Please teach us more about christian song.. im learning to play at church.. your lesson are useful for me..thank you

[han_wang]

Thank you for this lesson - I feel like a whole world just opened up. I bought the transcription too, which was super helpful because I was having trouble figuring out where the melody starts and then I saw there's a pick up. :)

[cameronfoy]

This lesson connected two songs together for me. Rock & Roll by Kingfish and John Mayer’s Slow Dancing. I could hear the latter inside the former but I wondered why. Of course the simple answer is the chord progression, but I wanted to know why both artists ended up with the songs. I think the answer now is Gospel music. It’s no secret how influential gospel music was on the blues. I don’t know the entire history of either - maybe they influence one another - but I do know my old blues teacher mentioning Gospel a lot and how important it was to Blues. I believe the artists of those two songs I mentioned knowingly started with a Gospel melody and developed their ideas from there.

[markramos]

Such a great lesson, this is something I’ve figured out fairly recently. Just chillin with the acoustic on the couch and picking out nursery rhymes

[scottkidwell]

Thank you, Eric

I stumbled across figuring out "Amazing Grace" a few months ago while playing. A happy little accident.
I appreciate the lesson.

Be good to you 🙏🏻🤍
Hope your Friday was awesome ✌️🍕