Learning and Lessons

September 5, 2025 A little look back on some very old standards that I used to play. You might recognize Ain’t She Sweet, Five Foot Two and Sweet Georgia Brown, if you are of a certain age. There was also a bit of a more recent tune I would call a standard of our generation […]

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August 29, 2025 This week I was inspired to look back at some original pieces that have been neglected for too long. At the top of today’s Update I played A Little Jolt and Paprika– a little bit of rust on both of them still to polish up. We added Blossom by James Taylor to […]

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August 22, 2025 Last Saturday we had a fun time with our James Taylor TG Live focused on intros to songs from Sweet Baby James. The videos has been added to the TG Library as well as the Essential James Taylor Pack. This week I had quite a few students working on their listening skills […]

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August 15, 2025 Once again James Taylor is high on the bandwidth meter here at Totally Guitars. We released two new lessons on songs of his: Steamroller and Anywhere Like Heaven. These will be part of our TG Live event tomorrow, Saturday August 16 at 11:00 Pacific time. I will be going over intros and […]

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August 8, 2025 A lot of loose ends got wrapped up for me this week, well, at least a couple. The biggest was finishing up a lesson on the solo version of Itchycoo Park. The next was the plans for our next TG Live. It is coming along nicely now and I have a plan […]

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August 1, 2025 This week quite a variety of things crossed my path, so the Weekly Update is a bit scattered and disjointed, not that that is unusual. I started with some thoughts about The Doobie Brothers because of a message I got recently from Jim Page, the author of The Ivory Salamander (Busted Down […]

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July 25, 2025 This week I was bitten by a bug from the past. In an earlier life I spent a lot of time playing Renaissance and Baroque music, on the guitar at first. But a couple years into that obsession I decided to get a lute and play John Dowland’s music on the instrument […]

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July 18, 2025, My interest, obsession and admiration for Elton John tunes continued this week with three new lessons from his catalog – Tiny Dancer, Crocodile Rock and I’m Still Standing. This brings our TG Library up to 11 tunes from the desks of Elton and lyricist Bernie Taupin, although in the interest of accuracy […]

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July 11, 2025, Recently I have been having a good time revisiting songs by Elton John, partially inspired by a couple students working on old songs of his (i.e. ones that came out when I was in high school). Today’s Update started with some improvising on Love Song, written by Leslie Duncan and appearing on […]

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June 27, 2025, Today’s Update started with some improvising in the key of D. This led me to talking about chord progressions that use secondary dominant chords, which related to the progression I started with. It was a string of sub-dominant chords. Each chord was followed by its sub-dominant (IVmaj7) chord. It got a bit […]

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June 20, 2025 This was the week that was supposed to be the Hogan Ohana return to the real world after the family trip to Nani’s ancestral home. Last week I mentioned how the trip started with a 17-hour flight delay, getting us into Oahu in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The next eight […]

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June 13, 2025 Welcome to the Hogan Ohana Aloha Trip. Nani and I planned a trip for the whole family to Hawaii, which is why there was no update last week (17-hour delay on the first flight). We spent a few days on the North Shore of Oahu then to Waikoloa on the Big Island […]

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Yup, I’m a huge BB King fan, he was probably my first blues guitar hero, aside from SRV (and followed closely by Albert and Freddie.)

Some folks might think these “tricks” sound campy or hokey, but they work, and you really should not dismiss them. After all, they worked for “The King Of The Blues,” so they can work for you too.

And if you want to really dive into BB King’s classic blues playing (it ain’t what you think!) then check out How To Solo Like BB King at: https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/get-how-to-solo-like-bb-king/