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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.
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.
In this video, Grant talks about what he’s going to be doing in Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In these lessons, Grant talks about the importance of rhythm, with lessons on alternate picking, syncopation, and more.
There are all sorts of different approaches to flatpicking, but having a good grasp of alternate (down-up) picking is essential. And having the regular grid of alternate picking is a great way to conceptualize rhythm and potentially solve problems you may be having. Grant starts with a metronome to look at how the basic "boom-chick" strumming pattern works, and how the down-up of alternate picking relates to a simple strum pattern. Then he moves on to thinking about whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes—all played with downstrokes—and then incorporating eighth notes: upstrokes played with the natural movement of your hand.
Grant uses the syncopated melody of the swing blues tune “Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid” (written by tenor saxophone giant Lester Young) as an alternate picking exercise so you can get a feel for playing upstrokes on the upbeats.
Grant goes through the chords to the 12-bar blues “Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid” that you learned last month and gives you rhythmic ideas for accompaniment (“comping”), including using upbeats and playing the “Charleston” rhythm.
