Jazz guitarist Matt Warnock’s blog has been really cooking lately. He’s been adding new lessons almost daily. Inspired by his recent post “Jim Hall Diminished Voicings” I sent the following lick to Matt:

I picked this up years ago from my teacher Tony Janflone, and Matt shared the concept on his blog today. Read the entire lesson here: Jim Hall Inspired Altered Dominant Chord Scale

This video demonstrates how I teach my students to master all 12 keys within any five-fret span on the guitar neck. Sheet music (including tablature) is available for download right here.

Download Music Here (PDF Format)

A while back I posted a solo guitar arrangement of Happy Birthday.

I’ve since received a few requests for an easier accompaniment part suitable for basic strumming so here’s the version I teach my beginning/intermediate students. It’s in D major, uses only first-position chords, features a basic bass/chord strumming pattern, and best of all – it sounds really good! The optional introduction simply places the final few bars of the melody atop the chords and will help you set up the tempo and key for the big sing-along. Please leave a comment below if you enjoy the arrangement.

Happy Birthday Accompaniment for Guitar PDF

Looking for a solo fingerstyle guitar arrangement?
Try Happy Birthday for Solo Fingerstyle Guitar!

Here’s a lick that works well over both the I VI ii V section of rhythm changes and the ii V leading to the IV chord in bars five and six of the progression. Theres are a lot of reasons why this works but it’s more fun to play it than it is to dissect and analyze it. I was kind of surprised to see the relationships between the two sections. I sure hadn’t thought about it before! Maybe this will open up some new approaches to playing over rhythm changes in the future. Enjoy and let me know if you have any thoughts about it.

Rhythm Changes PDF

Download audio file (RC_Lick.mp3)

Download MP3