I just finished a new finger style lesson I call the 'Double Stop Blues'. It's an interesting one, a minimalist approach to stating a chord progression … most are just a double stops (two notes played at once) plus a bass note. It's certainly not for complete beginners, but even though it looks and sounds quite tricky, because it's all mostly just two fingers at work at any time, it's quite easy.
18 Christmas Lessons
I guess you realize like I do that Christmas is almost upon us … don't forget all our Christmas Carol lessons. Don't leave it too late, start learning them now!
– It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
– God rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Easy
– God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Tricky
– Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
– Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring – part II
– Silent Night – accompaniment
– Silent Night – trickier version
– We Wish You a Merry Christmas
– We Wish You a Merry Christmas (accompaniment)
PlaneTalk – The Truly Totally Different Guitar Instruction Book/DVD
I had two very nice posts in the private PlaneTalkers' Forum today, from new customers. “SBM” said this:
Great system! I've got tons and tons of instructional material, but this one “clicked”. I've been playing professionally in some capacity for years, but was beginning to accept that “I'm a composer, just not an improviser”, because I couldn't get things to connect for me. Maybe it's the 5th on the bottom that firmly uprooted (pun intended) my stagnant approach to scales, but it's been nothing short of amazing for me. Thanks …
and “Mynorthstar” said this:
PT = Awesome. Greetings from Ontario Canada, I've been trolling through the message boards until my PT package arrived. After reading thru and watching the video, It was like talking to an old friend. Everything made perfect sense and all the things I have picked up here and there fit in the picture perfectly. Guitars are so different and very special. Kirk is a very special teacher. He has opened the steel vault door for his students. We all just need to walk through. Thank you Kirk…
Read more testimonials and Read all about it here.
Slide Guitar in standard/dropped D tuning
If you love slide but find all those open tunings too daunting to delve into, you're in luck: standard tuning is a great tuning for slide. I've been playing in standard, sometimes dropping that bass string to D, for the best part of 35 years now, and I've put together a DVD telling everything I know about the art. Read all about it here and listen to a bunch of examples.
My YouTube Channel
I'm coming up to three million views of my videos at YouTube. Amazing, eh? You gotta love YouTube. I recently uploaded a vid of me playing a beautiful Ralph Towner tune called Icarus. I shot all five guitars that I used and edited together a final video of all of them twanging away at once. Check it out here.