Acoustic Instrument Lessons - Roots Music School | Peghead Nation

String School

Gear, News, Performances

Sign In

Sponsored By

Play-along Tracks

String School Courses

Choose any course below to view an intro video and free Sample Lesson, see descriptions of existing lessons, and learn about the course instructors. Join us today!

Just $20 per month!

Browse By Instrument

Guitar Courses

Beginning Guitar

Learn to play guitar from scratch and sing some of your favorite songs with simple but powerful chords and strum patterns. Includes 24 great songs to play, with chord and lyric sheets.

Roots and Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar

Learn the essential techniques of roots and bluegrass rhythm guitar by playing classic and contemporary songs, with flatpicking technique tips and strums, bass runs, and fills.

Intermediate Flatpicking Guitar

Learn to play fiddle tunes and other bluegrass and roots melodies, with an emphasis on alternate picking, simple scales, and developing good picking- and fretting-hand technique. Designed for guitarists just starting to play melodies as well as intermediate players who want to work on their flatpicking technique.

Fingerstyle Guitar

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn to play fingerstyle guitar, from traditional Travis-picking tunes to arrangements of contemporary fingerstyle tunes, song accompaniment and more, with acclaimed performer, teacher, and entertainer Stevie Coyle.

Orville Johnson

Intermediate / Advanced

Become a complete blues player through these lessons in country blues fingerpicking, blues lead guitar, and bottleneck slide, with great technique lessons and blues songs from Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, and more.

Advanced Flatpicking Guitar

Learn the essential techniques of bluegrass flatpicking guitar through classic and lesser-known songs and tunes, from bluegrass blues to old-time fiddle tunes to country swing sounds.

Fingerstyle Blues Guitar

Orville Johnson

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn to play fingerstyle blues, with a bottleneck slide and without, through songs from blues legends Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightnin' Hopkins, Tampa Red, Blind Willie Johnson, and more.

Roots of Jazz Guitar

• Monthly Updates

Learn to play the 1920s and ’30s chord melody and rhythm guitar styles of Eddie Lang, Nick Lucas, Freddie Green, Carl Kress, and other early jazz greats. With chord melody solos to popular swing melodies, advanced rhythm guitar techniques, and acoustic jazz picking techniques.

Irish Backup Guitar

• Monthly Updates

Learn to accompany jigs and reels and other traditional Irish dance tunes in the style pioneered by Irish guitar greats Paul Brady, Mícheál Ó Dhomhnaill, and Dáithí Sproule and used at Irish seisiúns. With chord voicings, rhythm patterns, and practice tracks.

Clawhammer Guitar

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn how to use the traditional clawhammer style of old-time banjo on the guitar to play traditional dance tunes with a powerful groove or sweet, contemplative melodies. With clawhammer technique exercises and 12 great tunes to play.

Learn to play reels, jigs, airs, and other traditional forms, both fingerstyle and with a flatpick. Celtic guitar master Tony McManus walks you through melodies and shows you how to bring tunes to life with the ornamentation that defines Irish and Scottish traditional music.

Advanced Fingerstyle Workshop

Meet 15 of the best players in the international fingerstyle guitar community, as they demonstrate their techniques, playing styles, and signature tunes.

Weekly Guitar Workout

This series of exercises will help guitarists learn the fingerboard and expand their knowledge of chord and scale theory, with handy tips on picking and fretting techniques that will improve their sound. Includes 100 workouts.

Guitar Chord Theory

Mark Goldenberg

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn guitar chord theory in-depth with Mark Goldenberg, a respected touring and session guitarist and a student of the legendary Ted Greene. You'll explore basic major and minor chord inversions all over the neck and on all string sets, as well as wide-triad voicings; harmonized major scales; major, minor, and dominant seventh-chord voicings; and more.

Swing Guitar Soloing

Intermediate / Advanced

Study classic swing solos from Charlie Christian, Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, and Lester Young, and learn key guitar techniques that will help you create a voice of your own.

Alternate Tunings Fingerstyle Guitar

Beginner / Intermediate

• Monthly Updates

Alternate tunings can create beautiful guitar sounds that are impossible in standard tuning, and make some things easier to play. You’ll learn to play fingerstyle melodies in a variety of popular alternate tunings, including favorites like dropped D, DADGAD, and open G, as well as more unusual tunings.

Mandolin Courses

Beginning Mandolin

Sharon Gilchrist

Get started off right on the mandolin, with basic techniques, scales and chords, and simple and popular bluegrass and old-time tunes to play. Includes downloadable Play-Along audio practice tracks for rhythm and melody on all tunes, advice on embellishing melodies and playing tremolo, and more.

Theory for Mandolin and Fiddle

Beginner / Intermediate

Learn the basics of music theory as it relates to four-string instruments tuned in fifths. Chad’s practical approach will deepen your knowledge of chords, scales, and arpeggios, and help you integrate them into your playing.

Bluegrass Mandolin Fingerboard Method

Sharon Gilchrist

• Monthly Updates

Learn to play solos to any bluegrass song in any key with Sharon's intermediate-level method for learning the fingerboard, based on arpeggios, chop-chord shapes, and double stops.

Bluegrass Mandolin Jam Favorites

• Monthly Updates

Learn the essential instrumental tunes you’ll encounter at bluegrass jam sessions everywhere. Designed for intermediate level mandolinists, with tunes, techniques, and solos from mandolin greats.

Intermediate Bluegrass Mandolin

Sharon Gilchrist

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn to play solos on classic bluegrass songs and instrumentals using bluegrass mandolin techniques like tremolo, double stops, two-string melodies, and more.

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn traditional Irish mandolin, with an emphasis on playing the dance music of Ireland with an authentic Irish feel and rhythm.

Monroe-Style Mandolin

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn traditional bluegrass-style mandolin as exemplified by the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, with original transcribed solos and tips on reproducing Monroe’s sound, rhythm, and feel.

Melodic Mandolin Tunes

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn great traditional and original tunes in a variety of styles—old-time, bluegrass, Latin, jazz, and more—from a modern mandolin master.

The Advancing Mandolinist

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Explore all the modern mandolin techniques, from tremolo, chords and double stops, and soloing and improvisation tips, with plenty of bluegrass, old-time and swing tunes to keep you moving forward.

Chord Melody Mandolin

Aaron Weinstein

• Monthly Updates

Learn how to combine chords and melody to play jazz standards in the style pioneered by jazz mandolinist Jethro Burns and guitarists like Joe Pass and Bucky Pizzarelli.

Melodic Embellishment

Sharon Gilchrist

In this workshop, Sharon will use common bluegrass and old-time tunes like “Old Joe Clark,” “Whiskey Before Breakfast,” “June Apple,” “Angeline the Baker,” and more to demonstrate her method for teaching students how to embellish and vary melodies as a way to begin to improvise.

Octave Mandolin

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn to transfer what you know on the mandolin to its bigger cousin and how to exploit the octave mandolin’s potential for more complex, guitar-oriented accompaniment styles. For intermediate mandolin, fiddle, or guitar players with a basic knowledge of their instrument.

Improvising for Mandolin and Fiddle

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn to improvise on fiddle tunes, create new melodies over chord changes, practice the arpeggios and scales you need to play jazz tunes, and more. Joe lays out his approach to improvising and practicing improvising, with exercises and solos that illustrate his unique, widely acclaimed, freewheeling style.

Swing Mandolin: Rhythm and Chord Solos

Aaron Weinstein

If you’re playing mandolin in a swing or jazz band, most of the time you won’t be playing solos, you’ll be a part of the rhythm section, accompanying soloists or vocalists. In this eight-session workshop you’ll learn to play rhythm mandolin (and how to create rhythmic chord solos) with one of the world’s greatest swing mandolinists, Aaron Weinstein.

Banjo Courses

Beginning Banjo

Beginner / Intermediate

The driving sound of the banjo is at the heart of many styles of roots music. Get started with basic chords, strums, and fingerings, along with simple bluegrass rolls, accompaniment patterns, clawhammer style, and more.

Bluegrass Banjo

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn to make your banjo drive the band or play sweet melodies, with solos to well-known songs and tunes, backup techniques, and more.

Clawhammer Banjo

Beginner / Intermediate

Learn old-time clawhammer banjo from the beginning, with basic clawhammer technique exercises and lots of great old-time and traditional songs to play.

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn the tunes and techniques of some of the legends of old-time banjo, taught by one of the icons of contemporary old-time music.

The Banjo According to Danny Barnes

Intermediate / Advanced

Roots music iconoclast Danny Barnes reveals his systematic approach to the banjo, with one-of-a-kind insights on improvisation, reading music, getting a good sound out of the banjo, rhythm and timing, and more.

Contemporary Bluegrass Banjo

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn the style of contemporary three-finger banjo used by Béla Fleck, Noam Pikelny, Ron Block, and others. With lessons on single-string and melodic style, fingerboard theory, improvisation, and more. For intermediate to advanced players.

Earl Scruggs: A Player's Guide

Intermediate / Advanced

Earl Scruggs: A Player’s Guide picks up where Earl’s renowned instruction book Earl Scruggs and the Five-String Banjo leaves off, teaching tunes and techniques that will help each student become a more complete Scruggs-style player.

Fiddle Courses

Beginning/Intermediate Fiddle

Beginner / Intermediate

Learn basic fiddle techniques by learning popular traditional tunes, with lots of technique tips and advice on how to get that fiddley sound.

Old-Time Fiddle

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Get deep into the roots of Southern Appalachian old-time fiddling. Bruce breaks down the melody, bowing patterns, rhythms, and embellishments of each tune he teaches so you can really learn to play like Bruce and the old masters he learned from.

Bluegrass Fiddle

Intermediate / Advanced

• Monthly Updates

Learn fiddle in the styles of Kenny Baker, Stuart Duncan, Vassar Clements, Bobby Hicks, and other bluegrass greats by learning classic tunes, with improvisation exercises and advanced techniques.

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn traditional Irish fiddle, with an emphasis on playing the dance music of Ireland, including jigs, reels, polkas, slip jigs, hornpipes, and more, with an Irish feel and ornamentation.

Fiddle Styles Workshop

Meet some of the best fiddlers on the planet in these intimate workshops that get to the root of a host of individual fiddle styles. Includes 24 complete tunes and transcriptions.

Theory for Mandolin and Fiddle

Beginner / Intermediate

Learn the basics of music theory as it relates to four-string instruments tuned in fifths. Chad’s practical approach will deepen your knowledge of chords, scales, and arpeggios, and help you integrate them into your playing.

Old-Time Fiddle Styles

Learn a variety of old-time fiddle tunes in different regional styles from great players of the past. If you can play a few simple old-time fiddle tunes, or if you’re an experienced player, this workshop series will be useful and fun! Bruce will take a variety of classic tunes apart to understand what makes them unique and compelling, with advice about bowing, double stops, ornamentation, and ideas for more listening and learning.

Dobro Courses

Beginning Dobro

Beginner / Intermediate

Learn the basics of the lap-style resophonic slide guitar, with essential tips on right- and left-hand technique as well as arrangements of classic tunes and songs.

Intermediate / Advanced

Explore a variety of dobro styles, from bluegrass and fiddle tunes to blues and contemporary sounds, and get insights on technique that will help you clean up your playing, while learning the techniques of Jerry Douglas, Josh Graves, and other dobro greats.

Ukulele Courses

Beginner / Intermediate

Start playing easy versions of your favorite songs on the ukulele today. You’ll learn the basics, like strumming, first-position chords, and keeping solid time, all while playing a variety of songs that sound great on the lovable little “dancing flea.” Then move on to more intermediate-level techniques with more fun songs to play. Includes Play-Along Tracks so you can play along with Marcy.

Bass Courses

Beginner / Intermediate

• Monthly Updates

Learn to play upright bass from scratch with advice on right- and left-hand technique and in-depth lessons on playing bass patterns, scales, and melodies in most common keys. With bass lines from great roots music songs so you can play along.

Live Workshops

Old-Time Fiddle Styles

Learn a variety of old-time fiddle tunes in different regional styles from great players of the past. If you can play a few simple old-time fiddle tunes, or if you’re an experienced player, this workshop series will be useful and fun! Bruce will take a variety of classic tunes apart to understand what makes them unique and compelling, with advice about bowing, double stops, ornamentation, and ideas for more listening and learning.

Improvising for Mandolin and Fiddle

Intermediate / Advanced

Learn to improvise on fiddle tunes, create new melodies over chord changes, practice the arpeggios and scales you need to play jazz tunes, and more. Joe lays out his approach to improvising and practicing improvising, with exercises and solos that illustrate his unique, widely acclaimed, freewheeling style.

Swing Mandolin: Rhythm and Chord Solos

Aaron Weinstein

If you’re playing mandolin in a swing or jazz band, most of the time you won’t be playing solos, you’ll be a part of the rhythm section, accompanying soloists or vocalists. In this eight-session workshop you’ll learn to play rhythm mandolin (and how to create rhythmic chord solos) with one of the world’s greatest swing mandolinists, Aaron Weinstein.

Sponsored By

Peghead Partners

Ellis F-5 Special | Ellis Mandolins

Jake Workman plays a F-style Ellis mandolin at Carter Vintage Guitars.

Follow Us:

About Us Shop Support Contact Us Email Sign up Advertise Sitemap FAQ Privacy Terms

Subscribe

Sign In

● Courses

● Live Workshops

● Instructors

● Sample Lessons

● Play-along Tracks

● Notation Guide

● For Beginners

● Workshops

● Advice

● Repertoire

Instruments & Gear

● Instrument Demos

● Vintage Vault

● New Gear

● Fine Lutherie

● Recordings

● Events

● Breaking News

Featured Videos

● In The Studio

● Live Onstage

● Backroom

● New Products

● Inside Look

● Performances

● Partner Pages

© Copyright 2020 PegheadNation.com

Subscribe
Sign In

● Courses

● Live Workshops

● Instructors

● Sample Lessons

● Play-along Tracks

● Notation Guide

● For Beginners

Instruments & Gear

● Instrument Demos

● Vintage Vault

● New Gear

● Fine Lutherie

● Workshops

● Advice

● Repertoire

● Recordings

● Events

● Breaking News

Featured Videos

● In The Studio

● Live Onstage

● Backroom

● New Products

● Inside Look

● Performances

● Partner Pages

© Copyright 2020 PegheadNation.com