Learning and Lessons

October 23rd. One week from Halloween. And Mark Knopfler has completely taken over. It started with Brothers In Arms last week and somehow expanded into his solo catalog – Golden Heart, Get Lucky, Privateering, Sailing to Philadelphia. The more I listen the more I realize there is no shortage of fabulous tunes and fabulous guitar […]

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October 16th. And I’m still deep in Jackson Browne territory. Last week his birthday sent me back through his first five albums – For Every Man, Late For The Sky, The Pretender, Running on Empty, Hold Out. Those records really hold up. The melodies in particular are extraordinary – and not just because they sit […]

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October 9th. Jackson Browne’s birthday. And Sean Lennon’s too – still in his 50s, October 9th being what it is in music history. Jackson’s second album – For Every Man – really grabbed me when it came out. Particularly the way Take It Easy morphed into Our Lady of the Well as the opening medley. […]

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October 2nd. And I should have thought this out better. I started with Moonshadow – just because it was in my head – and realized pretty quickly I was winging it without a plan. That’s kind of how this week went. Cat Stevens on the brain, a fascinating chord voicing question from the Forum, and […]

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September 25th. October is knocking. And I got completely carried away with music theory this week. Fair warning – this one goes deep. But in the best possible way. It started with Summer in the City. SUMMER IN THE CITY LESSON HERE The Descending Bass Line – And Why It Shows Up Everywhere Summer in […]

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Back to the real world. Camp ended last weekend and I’ve been slowly re-entering normal life. But honestly? I’m still living in it a little. The late night jams. The song circles. The moment someone plays Like A Hurricane at 2am in a performance hall and the whole building feels different. That’s what International Guitar […]

The post Camp Is Over. Neil Young Is Still On The Brain. And White Rabbit Nearly Got Me. appeared first on 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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This particular David Gilmour lick from the song, “Time,” has a beautiful melodic sense made from some simple arpeggio patterns and a major scale played on one string.

I’ll walk you through the lick, but more importantly I’ll break this apart and show you how you could make this sound for yourself and use it in your own soloing. It’s super fun to noodle with!

For more David Gilmour check out How To Solo Like David Gilmour.

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you’re going to realize this is the worst kept secret ever…

But there’s something David Gilmour does a LOT in his solos that you’re probably not doing, and today I’ll show you how.

If you want more DG check out my How To Solo Like David Gilmour course.

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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David Gilmour’s tone is amazing, there’s no denying it…

There’s also no denying the total rabbit hole trying to copy his tone can be…

But in the process of making my How To Solo Like David Gilmour course, I discovered that his tone is quite achievable with “normal” stuff, if you know what you’re doing (and you will now.)

In today’s lesson we’ll hopefully overcome some of the intimidation that often accompanies trying to learn David Gilmour licks…

While he’s an amazing guitar player, and use a wide palette of sounds…

Many of his most famous and iconic licks still come from the same “moves” that we use in most any other blues-based soloing.

Dig today’s lesson, and if you want more, check out How To Solo Like David Gilmour:

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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