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Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar

with Grant Gordy

 
 

About This Course

 
Former David Grisman Quintet guitarist Grant Gordy shows you his modern approach to flatpicking and how he combines a wide array of musical influences to create his unique style. With advice on theory and navigating the fingerboard and how to use that knowledge to create your own solos.
 
 
Try a Sample Lesson
 

In this lesson, Grant shows you how to come up with soloing ideas on “Long Journey Home” in a position up the neck from the fifth to the eighth frets using melodic and rhythmic variations and triad inversions.

 
 
 

Meet the Instructor

Grant Gordy
 
Grant Gordy
 
For many guitarists, landing a gig with bluegrass mandolinist David Grisman’s groundbreaking bluegrass/jazz quintet would be the culmination of a career in music. But for Grant Gordy, it was more of a beginning, an apprenticeship in combining bluegrass and jazz that served as a launchpad for his own music. The New York City–based guitarist and educator has emerged as a major voice on the American acoustic music scene and become one of the most highly regarded young instrumentalists of his generation, performing in various capacities all over North America, Europe, and even India. His music has been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts and he's received attention from numerous international music periodicals including Jazz Guitar Today and Acoustic Guitar, both of which featured Gordy as the cover story for their respective March/April 2023 issues. grantgordy.com
 
 
 

Peghead Play-Along Tracks

 
Peghead Nation is creating a library of accompaniment videos (and downloadable MP3s) for songs and tunes that are taught on the site, classics that you'll find at many jams and picking parties. As a subscriber, you have access to this library and can use the tracks to practice playing tunes and songs at a slow or medium tempo with guitar accompaniment. New songs will be added regularly.
 
 
The Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar Subscription Includes:
  • A thoughtful and analytical approach to the fundamentals of melody, harmony, and rhythm
  • Lessons on finding your way around the fingerboard by using triads and their inversions and relating them to scale patterns
  • Advice on using different harmonic relationships to guide your soloing
  • An exploration of rhythm and rhythmic variations and how rhythm relates to improvising
  • Contemporary arrangements of bluegrass classics, fiddle tunes, and newgrass favorites
  • New lessons added every month
  • High-quality video with multiple camera angles so you can see close-ups of both hands in action
  • Detailed notation for each lesson
  • Play-Along Track videos and audio downloads so you can play along with Grant
 
 
$20/Month For One Course
 
Additional courses only $10/month each!   •   Save 20% with an annual subscription
 
 
Get started now!
Use promo code grantland at checkout
and get your first month free or $20 off an annual subscription.
 
 

Former David Grisman Quintet guitarist Grant Gordy shows you his modern approach to flatpicking and how he combines a wide array of musical influences to create his unique style. With advice on theory and navigating the fingerboard and how to use that knowledge to create your own solos.

 
 
Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar Course Outline
 
Welcome to Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar
 

In this video, Grant talks about what he’s going to be doing in Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar.

 
Chords and Scales
 

In these first few lessons Grant talks about his approach to playing scales, arpeggios, and chords on the guitar, and how you can use this knowledge when you’re creating solos.

 
Intro to Triads - New Lesson

Grant takes a look at how major triads are built by moving up the major scale in thirds. Using this framework he “decodes” some of the common open-chord voicings on guitar. Although they have different left-hand shapes, he shows you how they contain the same elements. He also shows you the three different “voicings” of a major triad: root position, first inversion, and second inversion, and how to find them on different string sets.

 

Triad Study on “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”

In this lesson, you’ll learn an etude on “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” that features triads (as opposed to full chords) in different inversions. Grant’s arrangement retains the melody as the top note at all times.

 

Open Triads and “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” in D

In this lesson, Grant talks about “open triads,” in which the voices are spread more widely, and shows you a version of “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” in D that contains a little extra harmonic movement.

 

Intro to Scales

Grant talks about his relationship to playing scales on the guitar and how they relate to chords. He takes a look at the C major scale and how it connects to the different inversions of the I, IV, and V triads in the key of C up and down the neck.

 

Long Journey Home

In this lesson, you’ll learn a basic version of the classic bluegrass song “Long Journey Home.” Grant walks you through the melody, pointing out how it relates to the chords and which chord tones correspond to the melody notes.

 

“Long Journey Home” Soloing Ideas

In this lesson, Grant shows you how to come up with soloing ideas on “Long Journey Home” in a position up the neck from the fifth to the eighth frets using melodic and rhythmic variations and triad inversions.

 

 
New Lessons Added Every Month!
 
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spotify icon facebook icon instagram icon twitter icon youtube icon newsletter icon
    ● Courses
    ● Live Workshops
    ● Instructors
    ● Sample Lessons
    ● Notation Guide
    ● For Beginners
 
 
    ● Vintage Vault
    ● New Gear
    ● Fine Lutherie
 
 
    ● Workshops
    ● Advice
    ● Repertoire
 
 
    ● Recordings
    ● Events
    ● Breaking News
 
 
    ● In The Studio
    ● Live Onstage
    ● Backroom
 
 
    ● New Products
    ● Inside Look
    ● Performances
    ● Partner Pages
 
Peghead Nation logo
 
© Copyright 2024 PegheadNation.com