Oh yeah!! This week TrueFire drops my latest guitar course, Guitar Lab: Blues Progressions! In this course, I dig deep into all things blues progressions, presenting 23 progressions in various keys and forms including a few eclectic 6-, 14- and 16-bar forms. So, just in terms of expanding your bag of progressions you’ll be way ahead of the game, but that’s just the start.

The real gold in this course is the six-string rocket science revealed within those 23 progressions. I step you through three choruses for each of the 23 progressions. The first chorus utilizes familiar 7th chords and “stock changes.” I then spice up the second chorus with tasty chord extensions and voicings to demonstrate how to expand the palette of colors you can draw on when comping the blues. In the third chorus, I take you to graduate school with next-level voicings, voice leading, riff-based approaches and a variety of other advanced concepts for freshening up your blues comps.

All of the progressions have accompanying lead sheet charts with pint-sized chord grids beneath the chord symbols for quick reference and fingerings. Below each one-chorus lead sheet, I chart out all of the chords, including any passing chords, in larger grids that display the chord tone designations so you’re on top of every last detail. All of the progressions are demonstrated with simple rhythmic figures, which are also notated in the accompanying charts, and all examples are played over killer practice rhythm tracks powered by live recordings with bassist extraordinaire Steve Jenkins.

Put your time in with Guitar Lab: Blues Progressions and you’ll hear dramatic sonic changes busting out of your new bag of progressions, forms and voicings. Pull a few of these out at the next jam to freshen things up and you’ll see heads turning and players rushing the stage to jump in!

Dig it: #6 instructional guitar course for TrueFire —Guitar Cubed — is out now! Here’s the scoop…

The art of orchestration and ensemble playing is a bit of a challenge for most guitar players, especially those that don’t play out all that much. We guitarists tend to either play too much, play conflicting parts, play in the same register, play the same exact voicing as the other guitarist, or play when we really shouldn’t be playing anything at all. We’ve all been there and that’s what Guitar Cubed is all about – a course of study focused solely on orchestrating multiple guitar parts in contemporary music.

I’ve pulled all the stops out on Guitar Cubed with over six hours of footage completely devoted to orchestrating multiple guitars with riffs, leads and rhythm guitar parts. Guitar Cubed is organized into a dozen lesson sets where each set features a different contemporary arrangement for bass, drums and three guitar parts. Lesson sets are comprised of eight in-depth video lessons examining every nuance of the three guitar parts, along with the why and how they work so well together.

As with every TrueFire course you’ll have the tab and notation (all in Power Tab), as well as the jam tracks at your disposal. Learn more.