On The Beat with Totally Guitars

Labor Day weekend. Camp starts Thursday. Which means I’ve been doing what I always do before camp – brushing up on the flashier tunes I haven’t touched in a while. The ones that require your fingers to actually remember what they’re doing. This week that meant Pharaoh’s Rag by John Renbourn – from his 1976 […]

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Honest truth – I’m still not right. Trouble breathing. Trouble concentrating. Brain fog that makes playing feel like wading through something thick. Last week I told you about getting sick on the flight home from New York, and here we are a week later still fighting through it. But the guitar doesn’t really care about […]

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Well, I’m going to be honest with you – this week’s update almost didn’t happen. I’ve been sick. Really sick. The kind where brain fog sets in and even picking up the guitar feels like too much. We were in New York for a wedding – had a wonderful time – and somewhere over the […]

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August 7, 2026 Do You Know The Way To San Jose has just about run its course with me now that the lesson on my solo arrangement got finished this week. I hope some of you who like instrumentals will have a go at it. There are a couple of challenges, even for experienced fingerpickers, […]

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July 31, 2026 Jerry Garcia was on my mind when the camera got to rolling, so a few of his melodies started today’s Update. We got another Ella Langley lesson from Nesh–Be Her, to go along with Choosin’ Texas from a few weeks back. We are wrapping up the Learn To Read Challenge with TG […]

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July 24, 2026 A student recently wanted to learn Do You Know The Way To San Jose, which brought the song back into my orbit and…what a great piece of music by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. We now have a lesson on it that looks at three different ways of accompanying a vocalist, ranging […]

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July 17, 2027 Last week it was Simon & Garfunkel and this week it was The Eagles that were in heavy rotation around TG Central. A little bit of Desperado to start, some Jethro Tull to follow (We Used To Know), a hint of my latest project in there with Classical Gas as the finale. […]

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July 10, 2026 This week I revisited a bunch of Paul Simon’s songs, partly because a couple students were working on his songs. That inspired today’s opening improv, and a couple others later. You should hear parts of The Boxer, Duncan, America, and a little Jackson Browne along the way. Our latest challenge: Learn To […]

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July 3, 2026 Due to changing circumstances on the home front, I am moving and purging a lot of stuff. This means over 60 years of musical memories in books and instruments. In honor of July 4, we are encouraging people to learn, or improve their music reading skills. We will be starting a new […]

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June 26, 2026 This week I spent a little time revisiting some of my Gordon Lightfoot albums, which inspired a new lesson on Rainy Day People. The lesson includes a short solo, really chord solo, similar to what is heard in the recording, and also inspired a detour today into harmonizing a melody. You will […]

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June 19, 2026 A bit of my personal philosophy and thoughts on teaching technique and strategy was on the agenda today. The approach, sometimes referred to as The Hogan Guitar Method around here, is based on using songs to teach techniques and skills. Most people pick up the guitar because they want to play songs […]

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June 12, 2026 This week I had a couple students working with 3-string triads on the top strings (1st, 2nd & 3rd), and I thought to combine ideas on the three families (E, A & D), and how they can be used for progressions using chords I, IV & V. It turns out the key […]

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June 5, 2026 This week I planned to do more playing than talking but ran into an unforeseen obstacle when I picked up the guitar this morning to test out some Hot Tuna and Jorma Kaukonen tunes. After an extended warm up routine, a little physical therapy, and nail work I was about ready to […]

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